Other academic support issues cited by respondents to the CoT study concerned the library and, for students outside the natural sciences, computational support. The departmental administrators we interviewed felt very strongly that programs to develop professional skills, such as seminars on teaching, are of low priority to doctoral students in the Humanities and Social Sciences divisions. In some programs the lack of office space for students prompts students to work in the library or at home rather than within the department, which should be the hub of the intellectual and social community. The success of lounge areas devoted to graduate students or shared with faculty for lunches and seminars suggests one means of compensating for this. Students in the natural sciences also can suffer from isolation from other graduate students in their department if their work is highly lab intensive, but the close association of graduate students, faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and technicians within each lab produces its own social group and commonly leads to long-lasting personal bonds.
Departmental administrators are themselves valuable assets to programs.
They commonly are the most reliable source of information within a department for students to learn about policies and support services. Because of their personal contact with graduate students from the entire department or program, they are also important sources of information to faculty on the effects of policies and structures on student morale, and on the adequacy of student support services. For these reasons, it is important that these staff members retain offices physically within departments and that they, as well as divisional Deans of Students, are effective in conveying a sense that the success of its students is University priority. The quality and expense of University health services and of housing handled by the Neighborhood Student Apartments Office were also particular concerns. Like undergraduates, graduate students see a strong need for more space dedicated to student-union type activities and for longer hours of food service on campus.