Know the Role: An Interview with the Chemistry Department's Ombudspersons
The University of Chicago is rich with student services available, but sometimes it’s hard to know exactly where they are, what they do, and how they can benefit members of the UChicago Chemistry department. We sat down with the current members of the Chemistry Department ombudspersons, a volunteer position intended to help counsel and mediate problems and conflicts, to learn more about how they operate and how they work to help students in need.
Interviewer: Would you mind telling me who you are, and what you do at U Chicago?
Julia: I'm Julia Driscoll. I'm currently a fourth-year PhD student in Mark Levin’s group, so I do organic methods.
Miah: I am Miah Turke. I am a fifth year in the chemistry department, and I am in Ka Yee Lee's group. I do biophysics.
Irma: And I'm Irma Avdic. I'm a third-year student in David Mazziotti’s group, and I do theoretical chemistry.
Interviewer: Wonderful, thank you. Would you tell me a little background about yourself and how you became familiar with the Ombudsperson position?
Miah: The ombudsperson position started my year. It used to be what the Director of Graduate Student Initiatives is now. So, the DoGSIs, that used to be the Ombuds person role, where if first years were having trouble in classes or conflicts with PIs, students would come to them. That role had a lot of responsibilities, and they were just getting piled on. So, they separated the position into two roles.
And the DoGSIsrole went from student support to more of an event planning, community building, town hall leading kind of thing. It'slike student council meets party planning committee.
Interviewer: Can you explain what an ombudsperson does?
Julia: It started out being very much like people being trained for mediation to help resolve very large conflicts with students and PIs. But we've taken on a sort of student advocate role where students can come and tell us things in confidence and then we can take that, try to come up with solutions that solve the problems that affect broader communities; because obviously, if you're really stressed about a class, I'm guessing a lot more people in that class are also stressed. So, seeing what we can do for that. And then also just trying to pick up on the general needs of the department and the students specifically, and if we can do anything on our side to meet those needs.
Irma: I feel like a lot of it is just listening at this point, just kind of being a listening ear, comforting people and being someone that they can go to if they can't think of anyone else, or if they don't feel comfortable going to anyone else. So, it's just providingcounsel.
Miah: From someone who gets it.
Interviewer: What does that do for students when you give counsel? What do you think that most people need? Do they often just need someone to talk to, rather than needing help with a problem?
Miah: It can be both. I think most often they want someone to hear them and validate them, and so that's usually our role. But sometimes it's more of offering suggestions because when you're in a stressful period of your life, it's hard to know what to do. But an outside perspective often can be very helpful. It seems like it might be a simple solution to go talk to this PI or do whatever, but in their situation, it's hard to see that because they're in the middle of all of it and it's just blurry.
Interviewer: Can you namethe kinds ofproblems that you encounter regularly?
Julia: Right now, everyone's group joining research groups, so I know the first years get very stressed about that. You must have tough conversations with PIs and it's a tough thing to navigate. You must get a PI’s approval to join their group, and that's the hard part. (Students) get nervous about that first approach. It can be scary for them. There's that and just being stressed about classes or graduating on timeor personal conflicts within their lab.
Interviewer: Is it interpersonal? Do you see a lot of conflicts between students in labs?
Julia: Not necessarily. Sometimes there are discussions about general interpersonal conflict with a friend or there's issues with a family member or just general unexpected situations that affect their academics in some way directly or indirectly.
Interviewer: I know that Chicago grads were able to unionize after. You said there's some advocating that you do for students, but are you involved with the union effort at all?
Julia: Not directly, no.
Irma: The union has their own grievance process and there are designated people with the union to help with the union issues, and those people are outsidethe university as far as I'm aware…
Miah: But if someone were to come to us, we would know what to say, maybe this is something that you could take to the union.
Irma: Ours is a volunteer position, so I don't see the union really affecting the role in any way.
Interviewer: It seems like a formal way of dealing with getting counsel on how to live as an academic professional, which is great. But I wanted to ask, how would you all define being an advocate.
Irma: Sometimes I think of myself as more of an ambassador rather than an advocate. Especially because we'resort ofrepresenting the opinion of a larger group of people, butwe're not necessarily trying to make a case for something.
For example, I feel like the union might be a better example of advocacy, whereas we are trying to be the voice for a larger group of students because not all of them mayhave the opportunity for their voices to be heard. And yes, that sounds like advocacy, but because we are limited in our resources, time, and in our relationships with faculty members, Istilldon't consider it to be an advocacy role.
Interviewer: That's an important distinction. What do you want people to know about the work you're doing right now?
Miah: I just want people to know that we exist. I think people might know, but it's like there's a large - and this is a chemist phrase - but there's a large energetic barrier to reaching out for help. I think thateven if people know who we are, it may seem like a really difficult task to come to our office hours or send an email.So, I just want people to be more comfortable reaching out to us because we'rejust people.
Julia: I think people can downplay their own problems. People think you have to be in a full-on crisis in order to go and talk about your problems. Like if I am going to the Ombuds, I better be in tears 24/7, on the floor, unable to make my classes’ and all of these things. But they can just come to us and chat about small problems in their life or if they need to vent about their friend, that is fine! Or if you just want someone to watch you make a difficult phone call, be for seeking out mental health services, we’re great for that. We'rea good resource to just either be a listening ear or give you the push that you want.
To speak with an ombudsperson, reach out by emailing Irma, Julia or Miah, or by visiting their weekly office hours on Fridays from 3:30-4:30 in Kent 114. If you’re not ready to meet, but need assistance, there is an anonymous Google form available (please leave contact information if you would like a response to your inquiry or comment).
Irma Avdic (iavdic@uchicago.edu) Julia Driscoll (jldriscoll@uchicago.edu) Miah Turke (mturke@uchicago.edu)