But Novielli said that the inclusion of the note “was not in any way a statement about Bollinger versus Summers.”
Novielli said the SGA appealed directly to Summers after “we realized we weren’t getting the support we needed from our own [GSE] administration.”
“We’ve been kept out of the loop—even at our own school,” he said.
But GSE spokesperson Greer Bautz said the school has reached out to students on the issue, including a presentation to the SGA at which administrators “asked for recommendations for how to gather input more widely from the student body.”
A GSE faculty committee met several times to develop a set of principles guiding the Allston relocation, according to committee member Robert B. Schwarz, director of GSE’s Administration, Planning and Social Policy Program.
Schwarz said the committee released its report last month and promptly disbanded.
“Given the space squeeze [facing GSE], there’s a broad enthusiasm for the move,” Schwarz said.
While no students served on the committee, Schwarz said that its chair, Gutman Library Director John W. Collins III, solicited student opinion through a series of focus group meetings.
Collins could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Novielli conceded that master’s students, who attend GSE for only nine months, would have difficulty participating in the multi-year planning. But he said that doctoral candidates at the GSE—many of whom have an academic background in community development—could make substantial contributions to the planning.
Monday’s resolution requests that any potential GSE representative on the task forces come from the SGA. But the SGA currently includes no doctoral candidates among its 20 officers, McCarthy said.
“We’re hoping to have from now on—added to the student government structure—a doctoral student representative,” she said.
Although student leaders at both GSE and the College faced the same challenge—gaining representation on Allston task forces—Novielli and Undergradute Council President Matthew W. Mahan ’05 both said they have done little to coordinate their efforts.
“I was surprised that [GSE students] hadn’t organized to get a representative on one of the Allston committees earlier,” Mahan said. “I haven’t heard from them at all.”
“In the future, collaboration between our two councils would be helpful,”Novielli said.
—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.