Patrick Shanahan/Cornell Marketing Group

Interim President Hunter Rawlings speaks at the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly meeting Sept. 26.

At the Sept. 26 meeting of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, Interim President Hunter Rawlings gave an update on several initiatives begun last year.

Saying the GPSA is making a “concrete difference” through “all the things you are doing,” Rawlings noted three areas of progress: a decrease in student health plan rates for dependents; an increase in the amount of child care grants; and progress on the new housing community that will rise on the site of the former Maplewood Apartments.

“You help us understand better what graduate students go through, what they need, and we like working with you on trying to answer your questions, helping you with the kinds of things you think are high priority,” Rawlings said. “We also appreciate hearing from you on things that need to get better.” He expressed his appreciation for the service graduate and professional students give to the GPSA, because it is “really important not just to you, but to the whole university.”

The Student Health Benefits Advisory Committee has been a strong advocate for affordable student, spouse/domestic partner and dependent coverage; this year their premium rate for the health care plan is now the same as that for the individual student, at $2,560, a new requirement of the Affordable Care Act. Additionally, the plan options have been enhanced for students with the creation of the Student Health Plan-Medicaid, an innovative, low-cost option for students.

Similarly, Rawlings credited graduate and professional students for working to increase grants for child care. The average amount of each family’s grant has more than doubled: In 2015-16 the average award allocated per family was $3,726, up from $1,616 in 2014-15.

Rawlings also reported on the new Maplewood complex, which aims to help meet graduate and professional students’ needs for affordable, well-appointed and well-maintained housing within walking distance of campus. GPSA leadership and other members of the graduate and professional student community have met with the development team, and the project is moving through the town of Ithaca’s public approval process.

Project materials will soon be online for public review in advance of public hearings to be held beginning Oct. 18. “It will be very important for public officials to hear your voices at public hearings over the next two months,” he said.