Harvard Law School Student Government

Just a reminder that the Financial Services Committee is always eager to hear feedback from students regarding their concerns for the financial aid office. If you have any issues regarding financial aid/loans policy, you can email the members of the committee, contact info below.

Michael Aktipis (3L): maktipis@law.harvard.edu

Pablo Ros (2L): pros@jd11.law.harvard.edu

Sean Hill (1L): shill@jd12.law.harvard.edu

A quick look at our recent accomplishments:

• Student Government Pub Nights: very popular weekly happy hours for students, with free beer and wine (starting this year on Thursday, Oct. 1!)
• Faculty-Student Lunch Program: every year, we arrange for students to have free lunches with distinguished HLS professors.
• Organize and distribute Unofficial Course Evaluations each semester.
• Solicited, collected, and presented student feedback regarding the grade change to Dean Kagan.
• Solicited, collected, and presented student feedback regarding the switch to the Early Interview Program to Office of Career Services.
• Formed and headed a student committee to meet with President Faust on the new dean search.
• Changed news@law in order to allow students to plan their weeks more conveniently.
• Convinced administration to buy toasters for the 2008-2009 free Monday morning bagel breakfasts.
• Obtained Splenda, strawberry cream cheese, and Heinz ketchup in the Hark.
• Worked with Restaurant Associates to respond to vegetarian students’ needs, including increased quantity of vegetarian sushi and better vegetarian labeling.
• Increased quantity of sweat towels at the Hemenway gym.
• Successfully advocated to see the Hark re-open from 2:30-5:00 to serve students’ needs in 2009.
• Distributed bags filled with candy and faculty advice to the 1Ls when they received their grades.
• Created a database of 3Ls willing to give 2Ls advice on applying to law firms.
• Dodgeball tournament (co-sponsored with HL Central and the intramural sports).
• Approved of many new students groups in 2008-2009.

And speaking of budget cuts… John Palfrey and the library administration are looking at making some possible adjustments to the library hours next year.  Adjusting library hours would save money both in staffing costs and utilities’ costs.  Throughout the process, members of the library administration have sought feedback from students about the potential cuts, and we are posting now to get more feedback for them regarding your thoughts or concerns about the potential cuts.

The adjustments that are being considered are:

• Rolling the closing time back from 2am to midnight
• Pushing up the opening time from 7am to 9am
• Canceling the extended summer hours during the Bar exam study period.  If this is done, however, the school would likely open another quiet, air conditioned study area in this period, e.g. a classroom or two.

Note, at this time, they do not appear to be considering adjusting the 24 hour access during the finals reading period.

What are your thoughts about these adjustments, alternative adjustments that could be made, or any other concerns you can think of?

Brian