"At this point we really feel like we've delved into the issues that were salient in the petition," said Connie Bond, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Human Development and a member of The Concerned Grad Coalition, which was formed last spring to make "Teachers College a better place for students."

The original group, which numbered about 40 students, has changed over time as members have graduated, but their concerns are the same. The petition gathered more than 400 signatures during the spring semester before it was presented to the Administration.

Bond added that the coalition of students worked closely with President Levine and some members of the senior staff for several months and by November 2000 the "President said he wanted to present all of what we talked about in the petition to the rest of the senior staff and faculty to discuss who was going to do what."

"We haven't had students running up to us saying there's a whole new area we feel that needs to be discussed," said Bond. "The chief concerns remain, which are-information flow, student aid, building community, standards and policies across academic departments, and interdepartmental collaboration."

"All these discussions," Bond commented, "have been steps in the right direction. Clearly, student list servs have been put together-for better communication-but we don't think it's being used as it should." Bond believes that e-mail information is too sporadic. Nevertheless, she said, "the fact that it now exists is a step in the right direction."

President Levine and the members of the senior staff have been devoting time during their weekly meetings to discuss how the College could best improve conditions for students on campus and have assigned responsibility to individual members of the senior staff to push the student agenda forward.

Published Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2001