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The Harvard Graduate Council recognized several council members and named Bobby Constantino their “Person of the Year” at the group’s inaugural awards dinner Monday evening.
Constantino has served as the pro-bono attorney for the HGC’s legal aid program, which provides free legal consulting services to graduate students and has served 33 students over the past year.
In a short speech accepting his award, Constantino called the need for the legal aid program “really urgent, very serious.”
“The same systems that are out there that are racist or that are predatory or that exploit students,” Constantino added, “follow our students right through the gates.”
Constantino pointed to the story of an international student who arrived at Harvard GSAS to complete her Ph.D.
“There’s a company holding her belongings like letters from her grandparents that are handwritten and cannot be replaced. Original photographs, not like the digital ones, of family members from overseas. Cannot be replaced. She has been fighting with this company to get her things back since August of 2023. This completely exploitive, non-responsive company still has her things in a warehouse. It is demanding that she pay essentially a ransom to get them back,” Constantino said.
At the dinner, the HGC presented several “President’s Circle” awards —meant to honor members of various graduate schools on campus — as well as representative awards for HGC representatives at each of Harvard’s graduate schools and executive awards for the HGC executive leadership board.
Marshall Page, the associate director of student engagement at Harvard’s Office of the Provost and one of the HGC advisors, was also recognized and gifted a squash racket.
During the dinner, two HGC executive board members also presented impact data from the past year. For the first time in recent history, the HGC passed over 20 bills within the span of a single school year.
The HGC also invited Bill Stackman, the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean of Students, to speak at the dinner. Stackman discussed the life experiences that inspired him to pursue a career in education and encouraged the students in attendance to continue to serve Harvard’s graduate student body.
Stackman also encouraged students to stay active members of student groups, citing research that said students who are active in their student bodies often report higher levels of happiness.
“They are more connected. They have a stronger sense of belonging because they are engaged,” Stackman said.
Stackman concluded by thanking students for their work within the HGC, and encouraging them to continue their efforts to unify Harvard’s graduate schools.
“You’re about unity. You’re about connecting about a shared purpose, shared mission. And I think that is very important and I respect that and I think about my experience that I can visualize, and I think Harvard is a decentralized canvas,” Stackman said.
—Staff writer Angelina J. Parker can be reached at angelina.parker@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @angelinajparker.
