The Community Builder

Janet Daniels was named director of the Student Center at Harvard Griffin GSAS in February 2026. A member of the School’s staff since 2013, Daniels brings a wealth of experience to her new role, as well as an eclectic background that includes an MFA in writing literature for children and experience as an adjunct professor teaching courses on fairy tales. Known for her infectious enthusiasm and deep commitment to graduate students, Daniels works closely with student organizations and leaders, as well as the Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Council (GSC), to create opportunities for connection and engagement across the School’s community. She spoke recently with Harvard Griffin GSAS’s Office of Communications about her new role, the work of the Student Center, and her vision for the future.

Image

Janet Daniels, Director of the Student Center at Harvard Griffin GSAS

/

Tony Rinaldo

Why do you do this work? What gets you up in the morning?

I feel that I can make a difference. It can be something small—a student glances at our social media stories and finds an event they want to attend in the upcoming week, or enters Lehman Hall and knows where to go because we created a building directory.

I love the annual beats of the academic year: from the excitement and energy of orientation when incoming students start their journeys to Commencement. Watching a student I've worked with walk across the stage is one of the best experiences, especially knowing that they got there after years of work and struggle. Over the years, I’ve worked with many student leaders, and I’ve seen them grow and develop skills they don’t always get in their academic work. Many have told me that student leadership helped prepare them for their careers. PhD and master's programs are hard, and to know that I help students even a little bit in making it through Harvard Griffin GSAS is just so rewarding. 

I also love variety. A job like leading the Student Center is great because no two days are the same. Stuff pops up all the time. Students stop by, staff have questions, and running Lehman Hall, a 25,000-square-foot building from 1920—things happen, and there is a lot of connection-building and problem-solving, which I enjoy.

How has your study of children’s literature and background in storytelling shaped how you think about engagement and building community at Harvard Griffin GSAS?

I think at the core of a lot of children's literature is a story about finding your community, or finding yourself, and I think we're still doing that at every age. Our students are doing that.

A lot of children's literature consists of picture books, so I was taught how to study the art, think about visual literacy, and tell a story with words and images. That's the beauty of a picture book—when words and images dance together, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. That translated to my work because we do posters, publications, and social media. I also studied middle-grade and young adult children’s literature, which informed my thinking about representation and inclusive literature—it’s important to make sure everyone’s voices are shared and that there’s not just one type of protagonist or narrative. 

After receiving my MFA, I taught classes on children's literature, English, creative writing, and fairy tales as an adjunct professor in the Boston area for three years. From that experience, I knew I wanted to be in an academic space, but I found that working as an adjunct was very hard. I didn’t belong to a community and didn’t know where I would be teaching semester to semester. Then I found my way to Harvard Griffin GSAS, and it was a really good fit.

For someone new to Harvard Griffin GSAS, how would you describe the Student Center and its role at the School? 

The Student Center provides students with the opportunity for extracurricular activities and community building. Our students are primarily PhD students, so they’re here for a long time, and I think it is good to nurture other parts of themselves in addition to their academic identities while they’re here. We want to offer those opportunities.

There are four pillars to what we do at the center. The first consists of programs and events—orientation, family, and January@HarvardGriffinGSAS programming, as well as language tables and more. The second pillar is student leadership development through our Student Center Fellows, student groups, and the Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Council. The third is Lehman Hall: we run the physical space, but we want students to feel like it's theirs. The last pillar is administration and communication; for example, our social media and Engage platforms, which highlight events and opportunities to connect with other students.

What are some of the ways you and your team help create connections and community for graduate students?

We recruit, organize, and collaborate with the Student Center Fellows, who create programs for students, by students in different areas, including arts, athletics, wellness, and music. The fellows take students to Red Sox games, and organize everything from ski trips and meditation workshops to birding events—we give the fellows the freedom to follow their passions and create programming that students are excited about. Students can attend one-off events or sign up for recurring activities like dance lessons or orchestra rehearsals.

We oversee about 40 student groups at Harvard Griffin GSAS, which create communities around affinities, activities, or identities. Our office helps student groups with everything from finances to event planning. If a student wants to create a group, we’ll help them to set it up for success.

We also advise the GSC, which is our student government. Each student pays an annual fee, and the council reinvests those funds back into the community through conference grants, research funding, and large-scale events. We manage Lehman Hall, which is the only space on campus dedicated solely to our students. We have dining opportunities and host events here. Finally, we run Engage, our student activities portal, which allows student groups, fellows, departmental groups, and offices to share extracurricular and community-building activities.

You spent several months leading the Student Center in an interim capacity. Now that you’re officially director, what feels most important to focus on as you step into this new chapter at Harvard Griffin GSAS?

What feels most important right now is to continue focusing on community building and sharing with students that they can engage with the Center however they want. If they want to come in for a coffee, if they want to be a student leader, if they want to go to an event—I want them to know about what they could try. 

Beyond community building, my ethos is to have ideas for collaboration or improvement, be ready for opportunities to arise, and jump on them when they do. We have had wonderful collaborations with so many offices in Harvard Griffin GSAS and across the University. This year alone, we have partnered with the Harvard Graduate School of Education for a school-wide Diwali celebration and Harvard Law School for a women’s basketball game. As the director, I will work hard to take any opportunity that comes along to provide great programming and spaces for our students.

Do you have any stories about times when you thought you really made a difference in the life of a student? 

The thing that I'm most proud of is working with LGBTQ@GSAS, a Harvard Griffin GSAS Student Group, to celebrate Pride Month. We lit Lehman Hall in the Pride colors, arranged for a professional photographer, and shared the first image of Harvard publicly celebrating Pride. One of the student collaborators said that he never thought he would be recognized in this way. I get emotional every time I talk about it because I was able to work with student leaders, learn their vision, and execute it.

Every Commencement, students come up to me to say that being a student leader helped them through difficult moments during their PhD. One student council president once told me that her science experiments had failed for an entire year, which made it very hard to keep going. But when she came to the Student Center to help plan programs and events, it gave her a sense of accomplishment and purpose. Having another space and another role helped her get through that challenging time.

I’m also very proud of the Student Center’s family programming. Student parents saw a need, created a student group, and developed initiatives. When it became too much for them to maintain, the center took responsibility for continuing them. For example, each year we host a family photo shoot, which is the cutest thing ever. We hire the Harvard Griffin GSAS Photo Society to take family photos—free of charge—so students can use them for holiday cards. There’s always a little kid running around Harvard Yard in a bow tie. It’s adorable. We also organize a holiday craft event, a family music jam, and a Pride celebration for families. Students often tell us how meaningful it is to meet other parents, especially when they may be the only person in their department with a child. Those moments of connection are really beautiful.

As you look ahead, what are you most excited about for the future of the Student Center at Harvard Griffin GSAS?

I am so excited about what is to come. I think it's positive that Harvard Griffin GSAS is still investing in the Center—it shows that the School cares about our students holistically, so I'm excited to carry on that work and lead because I think it's essential to our students’ success.

Specifically, connecting back to my training in art and inclusion, I would love to do a lot more with the art in Lehman Hall. I would like to make this space as warm, flexible, and inviting as possible, and reflective of our students. One idea is that I would like to switch up the artwork, both temporary and permanent, and work to make the building more visually inclusive.

I can’t wait to share the Student Center’s programming with current and future students and continue to find ways to help them become connected, get involved in student leadership, and find their Center.