Harvard Law School Student Government

Join Reading Buddies/Lectores y Amiguitos Today!

The Reading Buddies Program pairs HGSE students, staff and other Harvard affiliated volunteers with second graders at the Amigos Elementary School, a dual language immersion school in Cambridge. During weeks when the second grade student group is instructed in English, Reading Buddy Volunteers read aloud and share conversation with students on designated Thursdays listed below from 12:05 to 12:45 pm.

Reading Buddy volunteers learn how reading aloud promotes literacy in a training session led by Amigos School educators and CSV staff. Several other activities are a part of the program such as events around the holidays and a year-end picnic for students and volunteers.

Lectores y Amiguitos, the partner program to Reading Buddies, is a Spanish language volunteer program in which fluent Spanish speakers from HGSE and the Harvard community read to second graders at the Amigos Elementary School. Volunteers read aloud and share conversation in Spanish with students approximately every Thursday from 12:05 – 12:45 pm.

There are four different ways in which you can volunteer your time: If you would like to sign up for the Reading Buddies Program, there are two different groups that each read to their student every other week. You are free to sign up for one or both of those groups.
For the Lectores y Amiguitos Program, there is one group that reads to their students each week.
Because the program focuses on the one-to-one interaction of the student and the reader, we do ask that you make a commitment to read to your student on each day that your group is scheduled. To view the schedule for each group, visit the Reading Buddies website.
Additionally, if you feel like you cannot commit to reading each week or every other week, you can also sign up to become an on-call substitute reader.

To sign up for the Reading Buddies/Lectores y Amiguitos Program, please view the sign up sheet.

To learn more about these programs, contact the Office of Student Affairs at 617-495-8035 or Reading_Buddies@gse.harvard.edu.

Is your room looking a little. . .  inorganic? Spruce it up!

All proceeds will benefit the Phillips Brooks House Association,
a non-profit public service program
run by Harvard Undergraduates.

Friday, Sept 4       during Open House (2-5pm)
Saturday, Sept 5                 10am – 6pm
Sunday, Sept 6                   11am – 6pm
Monday, Sept 7                   11am – 6pm
Tuesday, Sept 8                    9am – 7pm
Wednesday, Sept 9               9am – 5pm

The following is a letter recently sent out from Drew Faust about the improved policing efforts througout Harvard.

-Marissa

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Every week we hear from several students about concerns they have or changes they would like to see that would make their lives better.  At any given time, we’re working on several of these small(er) projects.  Here’s a sampling of what we’re working on now.  Be sure to let us know if there’s something we can be doing for you!

– Working to see that Hemenway doesn’t run out of sweat towels quite so easily, especially during those peak exercise times.

– Working to get exercise mats at Hemenway for the use of a prospective HLS grappling club.

– Working on improving/increasing the laundry facilities in the North dorm building.

– Getting a rug out in front of Lewis to avoid slipping on the abundance of ice and marble.  UPDATE: We hear there is a rug out there now.  Is that so?

– As a long term project, working on getting the tunnel lights on motion sensors rather than standard switches.  A move that would both help the environment and avoid those late night, dark tunnel walks during finals time.

Bear in mind, this is not all that we have going on.  So, if you’ve expressed a concern to us but don’t see it here, don’t worry… we’re getting to it.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the above projects or anything else that is on your mind.

Brian

We have heard some concerns lately about international students finding it more difficult to secure funding for their HLS education, so we looked into it a bit to see what we could find out.

First and foremost, if you have any financial aid concerns, Student Financial Services should be your first stop.  They are ready and willing to work with everyone to come up with answers that work as best as possible for each person’s unique situation.  Additionally, as prospective interim acting Dean Jackson said during his town hall meeting, Harvard University is currently working with JP Morgan to ensure international students have access to loans similar to that which they had before the current financial crisis.

All that being said, here is a little bit of information for those of you that are interested in understand how and why the international students have been uniquely affected by the crisis.  The issue is arrising because HLS had a unique program in partnership with a private bank that allowed international students to borrow from a US bank.  Unfortunately, in this economy, the program was cancelled by the private bank last semester.  Since that time, Harvard has been working to secure a new banking arrangement.  This program is still being worked on, but at this time (and according to yesterday’s town hall, this may be changing), international students have two options, one, to secure funding from one of their home country banks, or two, borrow from a US bank with a a US co-applicant.  Again, let us reiterate, students facing these concerns should work with SFS, who is happy to help you work through your concerns.  This post is not meant to serve in an advisatory capacity, only an informative one.

One more note, according to a Harvard Crimson article, there may be some other funding coming in to help international students.  See here: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=526734

As always, any thoughts are welcome.

Brian

One of the more common complaints we’ve heard this year is that news@law was coming out too late to notify people of some of the early morning events.  Because of the way the system is structured, it is very difficult to get the news@law email out any earlier, so we’ve been communicating with the Dean of Students office regularly and working with them to come up with other solutions.

As you probably noticed, starting this week, news@law now includes the current day’s events as well as the next day’s.  We think this is a solution that should be able to satisfy everyone and hope you will agree.  Please let us know your thoughts.

Brian