Student leaders in both the School of Medicine and the overall graduate and professional school community are searching together for ways to bridge a long-standing systemic divide between two student governing bodies.
Michael Bernstein, a medical student and Graduate and Professional School Council representative, said the conflict that emerges for active medical students is whether to look for a leadership in the Davison Council--the medical school's student body--with more immediate effect on medical student issues, or in GPSC, which takes a necessarily broader approach to graduate and professional students concerns in general.
"Anyone with such a strong passion to become involved will run for Davison Council, not GPSC," said Bernstein. "This is what creates the so-called division."
He added that because many second-year medical students are involved with clinical rotations, they become less involved with medical student governance issues and so third-year students often lack the experience to run for leadership positions within either council, especially in GPSC.
Bill Wood, another medical school representative to GPSC and former president of the Davison Council, still believes a good relationship exists between the two. "After serving on both, I know we worked real well with everyone," said Wood, who was named one of three finalists, but not selected, in the contest to select a graduate and professional student young trustee last winter.
Audrey Beck, GPSC vice president, concurred with Wood. "We've done a great job integrating the schools. It's very social and we all have friends in the various programs here," she said. "We just like to maintain friendly relations."
Bernstein said that although GPSC is useful to medical students for finding professional contacts and developing relationships with other graduate students, many issues that GPSC considers--such as tuition, campus parking, stipends, teacher assistant positions and research funding--have no relevance to medical students.
"[Furthermore,] what Davison does is of no help to the majority of the graduate students," he added. "I have no doubt that GPSC would handle an issue of ours if necessary, but there are very few that are of their concern."
Wood pointed to the co-sponsorship of a new undergraduate mentoring program, designed to provide informal advising to undergraduates interested in graduate or professional study. "It's rare that we are working together on a program of this magnitude, especially one that is academic," he said.
"Normally, we just provide [representatives] from our council like the business or law schools."
Bernstein added that among his goals as a GPSC representative this year also include implementing informal social and service events together.
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