Working group formed to rename GRT, GRA roles
A working group is looking to propose a unified name for the Graduate Resident Tutor and Graduate Resident Advisor positions, according to co-chair Jared Berezin in an email to The Tech.
Graduate Resident Tutor is the name used to describe graduate students who serve as mentors in the undergraduate dormitory communities they live with. Those who serve in similar roles in fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups are known as Graduate Resident Advisors.
The working group has been reaching out to members of the MIT community to solicit ideas for a better name that “more accurately reflects [GRTs’] role in residential communities,” Berezin, who is also head of Random Hall, wrote.
The working group includes GRAs, GRTs, undergraduates, Division of Student Life staff, and heads of house, according to Berezin. In addition to proposing a new name, the group also aims to revise the GRA and GRT hiring agreements.
“I think everyone agrees that tutoring is not the main role of [GRTs],” Mary Tellers, a GRT and co-chair of the working group, wrote in an email to The Tech, but “the longevity of the term and the ubiquity of the “acronym makes that mismatch unimportant to most GRTs and students.”
“Naming is difficult because there is no one word that fully encompasses the [GRT] role: resource, supporter, listener, adviser, etc.,” Tellers continued.