Summer 2005

The Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC) continues its efforts to improve the experience of GSAS students at Columbia. Over the past few years, GSAC has worked closely with Dean Pinkham and Dean Axcelson to raise stipends and improve graduate housing, and to ensure that graduate student concerns are addressed by the administration.

Anyone is welcome to attend our meetings, which take place monthly. Please see our website for meeting dates, times, and locations, as well as general information about the Council and our events announcements (www.columbia.edu/cu/gsac).

In the meantime, here are some of the projects we worked on during the spring 2005 semester:

Faculty Mentoring Awards:
For the second year in a row, GSAC recognized Columbia’s outstanding faculty mentors. This years's recipients were Professors Volker Berghahn of History and Irwin Garfunkel of Social Work. We will continue to seek out Columbia's best during 2005-06; if you know of a truly excellent mentor to PhD students, please watch for the announcement of the 2006 mentoring awards this coming spring.

Participation on Committees:
GSAC continues to make sure graduate student voices are heard on campus by staffing the following university committees with GSAS students: the 2005 Presidential Teaching Awards Committee, the Provost's Student Advisory Committee on Manhattanville Expansion, the Morningside Health Insurance Committee, the Earth Institute Advisory Council, the University Grievance and Disciplinary Committees, the Lerner 6 Committee, and (of particular importance for the 2004-2005 academic year) the University Re-accreditation Subcommittees.

Meetings with the Administration:
As we strive to improve services for the GSAS student body, members of GSAC continue to work with administrators from the Dean's office, University Libraries, Health/Dental Services, Counseling & Psychological Services, Student Services & Transportation, and the Senate Committee on Childcare.

Quality of Life Survey:
Over the next calendar year, GSAC will conduct its second Quality of Life Survey. Data from our first survey was crucial to the recent audit of CU Institutional Real Estate, and was also reviewed by University Apartment Housing (UAH) and the Off-Campus Housing Assistance Office (OCHA) in their attempts to improve student services.

Graduate Student Group Recognition:
Our outgoing Vice Chair, Ramon Verastegui (Applied Physics & Applied Math), streamlined the group recognition application, making the application process much simpler. See our website for more information.

Graduate Student Event Funding:
GSAC continues to award $10,000 per academic year to fund graduate student events such as conferences, interdepartmental socials, concerts, readings, and journals.

Upcoming Social Events:
Include monthly mixers and sales of subsidized tickets to the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and a Broadway play. Look for announcements of these events in the GSAS email newsletters.

Finally, GSAC is pleased to announce the Steering Committee for 2005:

Chair: Kira von Ostenfeld, History
Chair Emeritus: M. Kai Ho, Sociology
Vice Chair: David Bornstein, Art History & Archaeology
Secretary & Communications Coordinator: Karen Hiles, Music
Budget & Finance Chair: Adam Meshel, Biology
Social Chair: Pari Kooshesh, MEALAC
Arts & Entertainment Chair: Jan Horsky, Medical Informatics