Graduate Student Committee
Current Graduate Student Committee Members, 2007-2008
Co-presidents: Anna Panszczyk and Toby Weisslitz
GSC-AGES/GSC-faculty liaisons: Will Taylor and Euan Griffiths
Social chair: Samantha Riley
Mentoring coordinator: Alexis Seccombe
Writing group coordinator: Sarah Cantrell
Furst forum co-organizer: Jasmine McKewen
Please feel free to email committee members with questions, suggestions, and any issues you would like to raise with the Curriculum. History and Function of the Graduate Student Committee (GSC)
In 1992, graduate students Matt Kaplan and Bil Hays made a series of proposals to the Curriculum and to its Graduate Students in March of 1992. One of these proposals led to the creation of the GSC.
The Graduate Student Committee works to bring students in the Curriculum together and to address their needs and interests. Each semester the GSC distributes a survey to graduate students to gage areas of concern. Survey results guide commitee members in planning activities for that semester and selecting issues upon which to focus.
Graduate students elect GSC members for one-year terms each spring. The GSC typically includes a president, one or two faculty liaisons, and one or two social chairs. Their responsibilities are outlined below:
President
The President coordinates the other group members and serves as representative to the Graduate and Professional Student Federation (GPSF). He or she is required to attend the GPSF meetings and to report back any significant developments. The President also organizes an annual meeting between the Curriculum Chair (and any interested faculty members) and graduate students held in late October or early November. The purpose of this meeting is to facilitate communication between the Curriculum Chair and the students. The Chair uses these meetings to inform students about upcoming events, and students have the opportunity to ask questions and express their concerns about such matters as comprehensive exams, financial support, upcoming job searches, program requirements, possible course topics, and the like. In addition, when any issues of importance to graduate students arise, the President calls meetings of the students and addresses large concerns with the Curriculum Chair. Finally, the President is charged with conveying relevant news (via email and regular mail).
Faculty Liaisons
One or two Faculty Liaisons link students and faculty. They channel student opinion and grievances both to the Curriculum Chair and to the GSC President. To do their job adequately, representatives are tasked with surveying the students to establish areas of concern. In addition, they represent the students at all faculty meetings that do not involve personnel decisions, and they are responsible for providing a written or email report of each faculty meeting to the other graduate students (within a week of the meeting).
Social Chair
One or two people act as Social Chair each year. The Social Chair arranges bi-weekly happy hours and other opportunities for graduate students in the Curriculum to get together. She or he also organizes design and production of the annual comp lit T-shirt, soliciting design submissions from graduate students. The Social Chair also helps organize the annual picnic and any other outings in which students express interest.
Writing Group Coordinator
One or two people serve as coordinators of the Writing Group. They set up and monitor a listserv of all Comparative Literature graduate students interested in giving and getting feedback on academic assignments throughout the year. The Writing Group meets on an as-needed basis, but usually every two weeks, to review one or two submissions from members, from semester papers, conference papers, and conference abstracts, to practice conference presentations and non-english papers, if enough reviewers familiar with the language are found.
Mentoring Coordinator
To make the first year in the program and the move to Chapel Hill easier, the student mentoring program matches incoming graduate students in the Comparative Literature program with mentors from veteran graduates. The mentors and the new students are matched based on their current literary interests including languages and fields of studies. The mentors volunteer their time and emails to communicate and meet with their mentees. Ideally, the mentors share their own experiences with the program and the town and help find answers for the new graduates' questions. The chair of the mentoring program organizes the students' information, and communicates between both parties in order to facilitate the matching process. The chair organizes with the comparative literature program a dinner/happy hour for all the students to meet. During the semester, s/he tries to keep in touch with the students to make sure that the goals of the mentoring are achieved to a satisfactory degree.