Welcome from Chair
As summer turns to fall this weekend, you are probably
worrying, 'Who will preside over the Fall Equinox Ritual?' Rest
assured, you are in good hands with the GSC.
The GSC Social Committee will host two events this weekend: GUSH on Friday and Summer Term Party on Saturday. But don't worry, as the seasons turn, turn, turn, there is still a time for partying: NSO.
For you new students, NSO is New Student Orientation. Thanks to the Housing Office for supporting NSO this year, with these additional resources, we hope to be able to do our regular NSO events bigger this year. All graduate students can come out to attend ALL NSO events: meeting non-1st-years should be part of orientation. So, please, come to the Pub Crawl. Come to the Club Night, and the Casino Night, and the Games Night, and the Ath Night. But please, especially come to the 70s Disco Party on the Friday at the end of NSO week. Not only will it signify the end of NSO, but more importantly, it's your GSC Chair's birthday.
If this isn't enough fun scheduled for you, at the end of NSO, there is 1 day left in the fiscal year and roughly $1100 left in the Social Committee budget. With our current regulations capping per person spending at $30 per event, we can take almost 40 people to Dave and Buster's for dinner, drinks, and games. Let's do that ... Sunday, Sept 30.
And that ends the 06/07 fiscal year. Say goodbye to summer! Before we do, though, let's look back on what GSC did this summer. We started things off with Gradiators 2007, picking up new equipment, including a kiddie pool and slip-n-slides. Then we used the kiddie pool to have a party on the parking garage roof. We also had a Hookah Party, Italian Club Nutella Party, Salsa Party, Women's Frisbee GUSH, Cheese Tasting GUSH, Beach Trip, and Wine Trip. If anyone was dissatisfied with the job Social Committee did this year, please come to the next meeting to brainstorm with us about what else we can do.
What's in store for next year? The ducks aren't quite all lined up yet, but we're pretty sure the kids ain't goin' hungry tonight. We're talking to representatives from Art Center, Claremont, USC, and a few other schools about joint events with Caltech.
We've also made progress planning more interaction with undergrads. As I argued in my first article in this newsletter, Caltech is way too small to divide up our community even further into grad vs. undergrad. GSC and Housing are planning to jointly host several events in support of Caltech athletics, particularly the basketball team. We might even raffle off 5 round trip tickets to Boston to watch the New Year's Beaver vs Beaver Showdown: MIT vs Caltech women's basketball.
So what about non-party things? What about all those other committees? Thanks for the questions. You are truly the Yin to my raging Yang. We're going to ammend the GRB bylaws, which is huge. We're going to revamp the Academics Committee's teaching award methodologies. We're going to offer grad students highly discounted memberships to West Side Rentals. Also, we're going to team up with Minority Student Education Office and the Women's Center to provide more programming for these minority groups and to recruit more students to Caltech. There are lots of opportunties here in the GSC tent. How do you want to participate?
Introducing the GSC (Graduate Student Council)
This model of the GSC system consists of 3 important flows: money, information, and entertainment. Money flow is indicated by thick, light green arrrows, information flow is indicated by thin, black arrows, and entertainment flow is indicated through thick, dark green arrows. Money flows from graduate students to the GSC budget. Additionally, information about the quality of life flows from graduate students to their option reps. The BoD uses this information to determine how to convert the money into entertainment, which is then transmitted back to the graduate student body via the Social Committee and Club Funding. Some of this money ($3.5k) is returned directly to graduate students via Quickfund. At the same time, information from graduate students is communicated to relevant Faculty committees, who in turn provide us with information about the on-goings of their decision making processes.
Take the time to talk to your option representative about what we can do to help make your life better. If your option doesn't have a representative, contact a Director at Large, or become a representative yourself.
GSC Committees
New Student Orientation
The NSO (new student orientation) committee plans the GSC run events for orientation week (September 23rd-29th). Through orientation week social activities, the GSC makes it easy for new student to meet other students. It also lets us have a wild time before the crunch begins. If there's only one week this year you're going to come out and have fun...this should be it!
Social Committee
Welcome new students! In this blurb every month you'll find updates about what the social committee is up to. The social committee works to improve the social network of graduate students at Caltech, and also hosts joint events with undergraduates. Each month the social committee is in charge of the Graduate Underground Social Hour (or GUSH) which is the third Friday of each month at varied locations. This 2-3 hour event is a good opportunity to blow off steam after a hard day's work. In addition to this, 4 times a year we host a term party, generally joint with a club or group, where grad students can let their hair down and get a little bit wild. This past year we have placed an emphasis on off-campus trips, and have secured funding for these events during the next year. We've also worked hard in the past year forging connections with other schools, and will hopefully have joint events with the Pasadena Arts College, USC, and UCLA in the coming year. Now on to the blurb, which is the agenda for the coming social committee meeting:
First, we need to plan 1-2 more off campus trips by the end of this fiscal year (October 1). Previous meetings have suggested such trips as Magic Mountain and Dave and Buster's. We will nail down final dates and point-people for those events at the meeting. Secondly, we need to have a summer term party before NSO. There is about $800 in the Social Committee budget for this, so let's make it a good shindig. Finally, many of you know we've been in contact with the Pasadena Arts Center about doing joint events. What you may not know is that we had a small meeting with the social chair at USC yesterday, and have one planned with UCLA next week. Hopefully we will be able to plan several joint events, under the auspices of being in the same place at the same time. Possible dates and events will be discussed at the meeting.
See you socially,
Evans Boney, Social Committee Chair
Under Represented Students
The URS (under represented students) committee represents several groups
on campus, including: women, minorities, LGBTQ, and students with
families and dependents. Our hopes for the 2007-2008 academic year are
to participate in a recruitment effort as well as to create a community
for the students who are already here. Please join in on discussions
with our group to share your thoughts, experiences, and ideas.
Quality of Life
The quality of life committee covers a wide range of activity but can be
summed up by saying that our goal is to do all that can be done to make
Caltech a happier place. To field the opinions of the graduate
community, we will put together a comprehensive survey addressing areas
such as social life, health care, collaboration between the graduate
students and the undergraduates, activities the graduate student council
(GSC) can support to best address concerns, dining (on and off-campus),
cost of living, and gender harassment. This survey will be very
influential in directing funding, administrative support, and the
direction of the GSC. Following this survey, we will ensure that areas
of concern are addressed in addition to pushing to enact all positive
suggestions. We welcome and encourage all graduate students who would
like to provide input into the survey, and who would like to share in
the task of improving the graduate experience at Caltech.
Best Regards,
George Cadena
Housing Committee
The mission of the Graduate Student Council Housing Committee is to promote the ability of all Caltech graduate students to live in an affordable, quality housing environment during their time at the Institute. To meet this mission, we work with on-campus entities (Housing, Maintenance, the Faculty board, etc.) to ensure inexpensive, quality graduate housing and with off-campus entities to provide graduate students with choices in housing. As part of our mission to help students find off-campus housing, we will be unveiling a low cost subscription with Westside Rentals. Stay tuned in the next month for details.If you are interested in GSC Housing related issues, please join us at our next meeting on September 27th at 12:15 outside the Red Door Cafe.
Academics Committee
Academic issues claim an overwhelming part of any grad student's life, and thus are essential in GSC's work. The main focus of the Academics Committee lies in conducting the Lab Review, the GSC Teaching and Mentoring Awards, and the Everhart Lecture Series.Would you like to know more about the lab and advisor you consider joining? Do you prefer some work styles more? Then the Lab Review can help you in making this very important decision. All grad students before graduation receive a questionnaire related to their experiences in the laboratory and with their advisors. Questions include freedom to choose your own research, whether the advisor was hands off or hands on, advisor's willingness to support/advocate for you and many other.
Given annually in June the GSC Teaching and Mentoring Awards recognize extraordinary teaching (yes, it really does occur) and mentoring. We also hope these awards will encourage the tradition of top quality teaching and mentoring at Caltech. The awards are bestowed in three categories Ð Teacher, Teaching Assistant, and Mentor. Nominations are accepted during the whole year through our website.
The Everhart Lecture Series is a forum for outstanding graduate students to present their often path breaking research in front of the whole Caltech community. This requires that the three selected awardees discuss scientific topics at a level suitable for graduate students and faculty from all fields while addressing current research issues. Speakers receive a $500 honorarium and recognition at graduation. Selection takes place every fall and lectures are delivered in the Winter and Spring term.
Anyone interested in these or other academics related issues is encouraged to contact the Academics Committee at gscacad@caltech.edu.
Andrej, chair of the Academics Committee