UC News

How Graduate Student Government plans to enrich campus life

The Organization Previously Known as the Graduate Student Governance Association sets its sights high for the coming year, with a mission to make campus more welcoming and connected than ever before—alumni included.

headshot of Megan Carroll By Megan Carroll 513-556-2379
8 minute read

By Chris Pasion

The door to the Graduate Student Government (GSG) office hangs open and the inviting aroma of freshly brewed coffee spills out into the halls of Steger Student Life Center. Inside, members of the executive board gather around couches and chat nonchalantly, as if they are old friends. Sporting their "crispy" new name (as President Sid Sridhar describes it) after rebranding away from the "Graduate Student Governance Association," the board is excited and energized.

The executive board is comprised of four members who each operate in differing roles, three of whom are returning to GSG leadership from the previous year. The experience they each bring to the table will inform how they go about interacting with students and getting them involved more with their campus. Vamshi Krishna Kore, GSG’s campus ambassador, says that after being on campus for a few years, "it was made clear that graduate students are living in their own little bubbles. They have their research, they have their classes, but it was a tiny little world for them, and they weren’t really venturing outside the comforts of it." The GSG plans to burst these bubbles and—through intentional programming and event planning—get people to interact.

Vamshi is especially passionate about getting people more involved on campus, adding "we don’t want students to just sit in their labs or just come to campus for their courses and then go home. We want them to get involved because when you have more and more people involved, you get more and more ideas and that’s how we grow. It’s how the university grows."

GSG’s Manifesto: Advocacy and Connectedness

GSG’s outreach stretches across nearly every facet of campus; they are an organization that wears many hats. The GSG works to create an inviting atmosphere for graduate students on campus and looks for ways to enhance student life in any way they can. Sid lists this as the GSG’s "primary agenda" this year; they plan to achieve this through hosting intentional programs and events that connect different members of campus with each other. 

There are two goals at the heart of the GSG’s mission this year: 1) to expand graduate students’ horizons by getting them more involved and educated on their campus and 2) to fiercely advocate for mental health and wellbeing by partnering with campus resources that champion holistic wellbeing and growth. The programs that the GSG has planned are designed to help tackle both of these important issues. They will be partnering with other campus offices, such as Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) and Student Affairs, to make these programs successful. 

In 2018, the GSG established their largest advocacy event, the annual Spring Ball, which they hold as a celebration of the year’s achievements. Vamshi describes this is event as one where people "really let their hair down." The ball is packed with food and dance, all in the name of raising funds for charity. For the 2019 event, the GSG was able to raise over $6,000, which they split between three different charities: ProKids, Community Members Interested-COMMITTED, and Neighborhood Allies. The GSG is still in the process of choosing which charities they will support at the 2020 Spring Ball, but the hope is that, with a higher budget and higher attendance, they’ll be able to far surpass past donations. 

In addition to raising money for charitable causes with the Spring Ball, the GSG also uses the event as a platform to celebrate outstanding achievements. The GSG supports students through scholarships, some of which are given out at the ball. At this event, the GSG awards various Excellence Awards, which recognize outstanding service and scholarship, as well as the Presidential Medal of Graduate Student Excellence, a prestigious honor that is given out by the university president. The GSG also provides awards to students throughout the rest of the year in the form of Group Grant Awards, Research Fellowships, and other awards. 

I think that social element goes a long way in terms of mental health building and creating networks around campus.

Mohan Pillai GSG Vice President

Another program returning from years past is the GSG’s signature Grad Cafés. These events take place throughout the semester as informal gatherings for students to come and network with people from other disciplines. Vamshi highlights an interdisciplinary research project borne out of a chance meeting between an engineer and a design student who met at one of these events. Providing a space for different types of perspective and expertise to meet and have an exchange is what fuels innovative thinking and action. In addition to operating as a networking opportunity, Grad Cafés give students the ability to slow down and take a breather from their work. Mohan Pillai, the GSG’s vice president, touches on how these functions benefit students by saying, "I think that social element goes a long way in terms of mental health building and creating networks around campus."

Treasurer Abigail Richard wears a magenta winter coat and poses in front of a bush with a red brick building in the background.

Treasurer Abigail Richard.

GSG’s treasurer, Abigail Richard, expresses interest in expanding Grad Cafés to include alumni members as well; she highlights it as an opportunity for current students to learn from alumni members’ experiences. This could be a platform for alumni members to "talk about some of the job opportunities they’ve had and how other grad students could pursue those particular routes that they ended up going down in their professional lives."

One of the things the GSG plans to achieve is to create a sense of pride for campus life, which is seemingly absent from graduate schools. Vamshi elaborates with, "That sense of pride and that spirit of the university is there when you are in undergrad, but not as much for graduate schooling. If you ask someone what college they went to, they’re going to say their undergraduate college, not their graduate university." The GSG hopes that when people leave their graduate studies at UC’s campus, they will look back fondly on the time they spent here. With all of the events they plan and awards they organize, the GSG is certainly doing their part to ensure this happens.

Reflecting on the journey he has had with GSG, Vamshi says, "I think it would be heartening for alumni members to see how far we’ve come as a crew." Student enrollment has risen with each consecutive year, meaning more people are looking for ways to get invested on UC’s campus. In order to guide this, the GSG has become more involved on campus than ever before. Vamshi notes that an increase in numbers means "there are more Student Affairs offices popping up, more policy changes happening, and more people looking to call campus home. The GSG is involved in every step."

Tags

Related Stories

Debug Query for this