Three years of changes to a document that governs graduate students were approved by the Academic Council on Tuesday.

The Graduate Student Rights and Responsibilities Document cements the rights of graduate students, lays out the steps for filing grievances and explains the processes for theses and dissertations.

The document was created in 1971 and had not been modified since 1984, Graduate School Dean Karen Klomparens said.

The changes must be approved by the MSU Board of Trustees to be considered official.

Among the changes to the document is a mention of the Graduate Employees Union, which was formally recognized in April 2001.

"We needed to catch up and recognize the contracted union," she said.

Minor word changes also needed to be made to the document to stay current with the times, while substantive changes were made to clarify language, she said.

References to "typing" when referring to a thesis or dissertation were amended to include "word processing."

The new document also guarantees legal representation to graduate students accused of a criminal offense, said chemistry graduate student Sam Howerton, who was president of the Council of Graduate Students three years ago when the changes began.

Howerton said these changes were made with a desire to improve the university but will probably go unnoticed by most students.

"This document is transparent to most graduate students except for those few individuals who end up having problems," he said. "It is going to help those few people that are really in a bind."

After spending several hundred hours debating these changes that might only be used by students that file grievances, Howerton said he is relieved.

"I really do think it makes this university a better place for graduate students," he said, adding he believes there is still room for improvement to the document.

Teaching assistant April Herndon said she is interested to find out the changes that will be made to the document because of the range of areas the document covers.

"It establishes all of the guidelines of conduct for graduate students here at MSU," the American studies graduate student said. "It is pretty much everything you need to know when you're a graduate student while you are here."

Herndon said she used the document to set up her guidance committee, which is a group of faculty members that oversees a student's graduate work.

The document establishes a structure and procedure for Herndon and other graduate students to complete course work.

"The document has a pretty broad-ranging impact on our lives as graduate students," she said.