Advocacy Day 2023: CGS Deans and Students Talk Graduate Education on the Hill

It’s about a half mile from the Longworth House Office building to the Dirksen Senate Office Building, but several graduate school deans and a few graduate students happily hustled across the Capitol complex on a sunny, warm day back in April to make their next meeting.

CGS Deans and students pause in front of the Capitol building during CGS’s Advocacy Day event.

It was CGS’s annual Advocacy Day, the first one in person since the pandemic, and CGS member deans and students participated in a host of congressional meetings in which they discussed topics of vital importance to the graduate education community.

One memorable meeting was with Representative Zoe Lofgren’s office (D-CA) to discuss the establishment of the bipartisan Graduate Research and Development (GRAD) Caucus, and a host of other issues, including graduate student mental health, housing assistance for students, and immigration reform. At another meeting with Senate Appropriations Subcommittee staff, the graduate deans discussed annual appropriations for the National Science Foundation and benefits of the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) and the NSF Research Traineeship program for graduate students.

Mark Sheridan, Vice Provost for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at Texas Tech University and current chair of the CGS Advisory Committee on Advocacy and Public Policy, attended this year’s Advocacy Day. Sheridan knows it is important for graduate deans to be advocates on Capitol Hill, in state legislatures, and in local communities.

“In order for graduate deans to do our jobs, we must understand all the issues that impact graduate students. That includes issues such as federal funding for graduate education and research,” Sheridan said. “To be an effective graduate dean, we must be able to advocate on behalf of our students and understand the issues so that when we come back to our campuses, we can talk about these issues with our campus partners.”

In preparation for Advocacy Day, CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega and the Government Relations and Public Policy Department hosted a Pre-Advocacy Day Workshop in which graduate deans and students learned how to be effective and impactful advocates for graduate education.

“Advocacy Day is a great opportunity for policy makers and staff members to hear directly from graduate deans– the people who are on graduate school campuses every day, engaging with students and faculty,” Ortega said. “They know the issues and what they need for their programs and students to succeed. It’s important for us at CGS to equip our deans with the confidence and skills to make connections and build these important relationships with policy makers and their staff.”

Member deans and CGS President Suzanne Ortega and Government Relations and Public Policy department stand with Nasser Paydar, Assistant Secretary of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education.

Advocacy Day began with a meeting including Ortega, the visiting graduate deans, and Nasser Paydar, Assistant Secretary of Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. They discussed student loan debt and the Student Loan Forgiveness Plan, which is a top priority for the Biden administration. The group also discussed other financial aid reforms underway at the Department of Education, the decline in domestic student enrollment, international student enrollment, the cost of higher education, and graduate student mental health.

Sheridan found Paydar’s comments about graduate education to be refreshing and substantive.

“He comes from higher education and he understands higher education. He’s involved with higher education both in terms of developing and nurturing the pipeline of graduate students that are necessary to meet the demands of the U.S. workforce and for the overall benefit of the U.S. economy,” Sheridan said.

Next, the graduate deans and students met with House and Senate congressional staff to discuss topics that ranged from fiscal year 2024 appropriations for graduate education and research programs, the use of Pell Grant funds for graduate studies, graduate student mental health and mentorship, broadening participation and access to graduate education for underrepresented groups, and the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act.

Chris Nelson, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at University of North Dakota (UND), said he participated in Advocacy Day because he wanted to help foster a connection between policy makers in D.C. and the graduate community in his state to improve graduate education.

“I wanted to help make a difference for graduate education generally, but more specifically, for our graduate programs and graduate students at UND. Advocacy has as much or more to do with establishing and building relationships as it does with communicating specific policy positions. Without relationships, you’re just another voice in the noise,” Nelson said.  “Advocacy Day enabled me to begin establishing and building the relationships that, with regular outreach, I hope will facilitate the possibility of policy impacts in the future.”

Jo Field, a natural resources and environmental studies PhD candidate at University of New Hampshire, was one of the students who attended Advocacy Day and feels that graduate students need to be involved advocating for graduate education.

“It felt important for me to attend Advocacy Day to help shine a spotlight on some of the most pressing issues facing our graduate student body, and to remind those in Congress that support from the federal level is critical in strengthening our graduate research and education,” Field said. “I think graduate students are uniquely positioned to serve as powerful advocates for graduate education because of their ability to draw upon their lived experiences and leverage the perseverance, communication, and leadership skills that we develop as we go through graduate school.”

Phil Trella, Chris Nelson, Amy Scott, Amanda Godley, and Clay Gloster stand in front of Representative Zoe Lofgren’s (D-CA) office before a meeting with her staff member.

Amanda Godley, Vice Provost for Graduate Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, attended Advocacy Day for the first time and said she learned a lot about the nuances of being an advocate and how to engage with people with different policy priorities.

“At the pre-Advocacy Day workshop, I learned a tremendous amount about current graduate education policies being debated in the federal government as well as how advocacy and policy making work. Although I was already well-informed, I learned details and strategies I had not thought of before,” Godley said. “I also learned how broader political debates, such as debates over the debt ceiling, can affect how one advocates for seemingly unrelated priorities like graduate education. I gained concrete tools and more confidence in continuing to advocate for graduate education at the federal and state levels.”

Sheridan feels that the day was a success because they were able to get across the big picture issues that are vital to graduate education.

“I think one thing that I and others really wanted to do is to home in on what could be done with regard to developing and nurturing the graduate student pipeline and in focusing on resources to get more domestic students in the graduate pipeline,” Sheridan said. “Expanding Pell eligibility has bipartisan support and does resonate with members of Congress and their staff. Let’s just start with baby steps.”

Learn more at CGS’s Advocacy Day webpage, where you can find resources for being an advocate and photos from the day.