Greetings Graduate Community!

I hope preparations for finals week have been going well for you. Only one week left! For my final report I decided to gather and summarize a list of goals that I have achieved or that I am in the process of completing as your Graduate Senator.

I will continue working for the graduate community during the 2009-2010 academic year as Co-Chair of the SoGS Dean's Student Advisory Board. I will also continue to work for Student Government in a new role as Director of Academic Affairs. Please do not hesitate to contact with me ideas, concerns or suggestions! Have a great summer!

Accomplishments over the past 14 weeks:

1. Setting up English dept. internships for the SoGS Newsletter with the help of Lisa Douglas of the SoGS DSAB
2. Creation of the SoGS DSAB Constitution with the help of Dean Thomas and Megan Cronenwett
3. Approval of the Ohio Board of Grad Students Constitution
4. Creation of SoGS Wings Group (in-progress)
5. Creation of SoGS DSAB Website (in-progress)
6. Bylaw amendments to specify the new graduate senator responsibilities
7. Successful execution of a Wings Survey poll regarding my Guardian project
8. I went on a fact-finding mission and met with Asst. Dean John Malicki, and contacted individual departments to learn and understand about their undergraduate-only policies on certain job opportunities. Departments have these because of the steep learning curves for jobs. The typical grad student may only be around for 1 year, whereas undergrad students are around 3-4 years. Departments prefer undergraduate students in some position for these reasons. Please contact me if you would like further explanation.
9. I went on a fact-finding mission and met with Dr. Laura Luehrmann, Dean Thomas, and Michelle Streeter-Ferrari (UCIE) to identify a problem. Foreign students pay much higher tuition rates than domestic students. Unfortunately, if foreign students are awarded scholarships or assistantships the higher tuition rates drain the scholarship pools much faster. I am working to lower the cost of tuition for foreign and out-of-state students who attend WSU on a scholarship or GA in order to increase the scholarship pool of money for all students. Dean Thomas is currently working a proposal to give to Provost Angle.