Graduate student Joshua Finkelstein says that his lab has grown very close, and he hopes their spirit of cooperation will spread to the entire department.

Finkelstein says there are now lots of people in the department who have time to sing in choruses or be on sports teams. Students who get involved in such extra-curricular activities now know their fellow students value such activity.

"I consider myself to be moderately social, but it's really good to have a tight department, because issues that grad students face are very different from situations you have ever faced before," he says.

Professors in the department claim they are equally concerned about students' welfare. They say that the department was not inhumane before the incident in Corey's lab--several say The New York Times story, for instance, blew problems in the department out of proportion--but there has definitely been a change since.

"The major thing that has changed is that everyone recognizes the importance of paying really close attention to each other. If someone seems distraught, we no longer accept that as a 'normal' thing that happens in everyone's scientific career," Verdine says.

If You Can't Take the Heat...

Though graduate students say they have been are markedly affected by the changes that have taken place in the department in the past three years, they admit the nature of being a graduate student has not changed.

Students complete their Ph.D. work in the laboratory of professors and assistant professors who themselves are anxious to have their lab groups succeed.