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Chancellor Katehi visited the GSA General Assembly for our January meeting to discuss her vision for UC Davis. Please read Chancellor Katehi's Draft UC Davis Vision Document and leave comments on the page or send comments via email to the GSA Chair at mksingleton@ucdavis.edu. We need to submit written comments to the Chancellor by February 5, 2010, which is right after our next meeting. We can discuss the document together at the February 3 GSA meeting for final comments. To Download and Print, please click here: Draft UC Davis Vision Document.doc

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FREE tax info session hosted by GSA
Local guest speaker, Tax Professional with over 16 years experience

Fischer, Carrillo & Associates
719 Second Street, Suite 19
Davis, CA 95616

www.taxzappers.com
Phone: 530-756-8299
Fax: 530-756-8099

Tuesday Feb 9th 6:00-7:30pm @ 1227 Haring Hall

Information about common tax issues for grad students plus Q&A session. The event is free to all grad students, but advanced registration is requested. For more information or to register visit http://gsataxprep.eventbrite.com

A .pdf of the flier for this event is available: GSA_tax_session.pdf Feel free to print and post in your department!

Check out the Yoga for Grads page to learn how to sign up now for this quarter's Yoga for Grads class.

GSA has teamed up with Outdoor Adventures to put together a Snowshoe trip for grad students. The 14 spots on the trip have all been paid for. Let's hope everyone has a great time.

GSA Chair, Malaika Singleton, is serving on the Research Strategies Working Group of the UC Commission on the Future. Please check out this UC Commission on the Future page for more info on her service.

GSA Calendar

If you have an event you'd like posted to the calendar please email gsapro@ucdavis.edu or gsaexternalchair@ucdavis.edu

If you are not getting the weekly announcements, they are posted here GSA Weekly Announcements.

During the first week in December the GSA held a food drive at three of its larger events. Grads at the General Assembly meeting, Pizza Night, and Coffee Bagel Donut Day all donated nonperishable food and cash to the Food Bank of Yolo County. A few programs even had their own drives run by grad students. On that front special recognition needs to go out to the Comparative Pathology Department who gathered up four big boxes of food and a nice wad of cash for the food bank. All together the GSA drive collected 273 pounds of food and 113 dollars for the Food Bank. Since they are able to provide $11 dollars worth of food for every dollar donated, that makes the cash portion of our drive worth over $1200 to those in need in Yolo County. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make the drive a success!

Looking for Office Ultimate for $60, check out our new page devoted to publicizing great buys for grads.

This past November, the Regents unanimously voted to make GSHIP a mandatory non-academic requirement for the UC system.The UCD GSA had drafted document to request the Regents support a system-wide mandate for graduate (professional) student health insurance, GSHIP Statement.pdf. We were also featured in the Aggie on this issue November 17, 2009.

The new UNITRANS H-Line provides free service to and from Silo/Health Sciences district.

Erica McKenzie (GSA Treasurer), Marrah Lachowicz-Scroggins (GSA External Chair), and Cynthia Degnan (GSADC) are currently serving on an ad-hoc committee to evaluate the student affairs budget for 2009-2010. We've created this page Student Affairs Budget for you to leave your comments.

• Concerned about the UCD budget? Please our page for news briefs UC Budget or get the latest UC Davis budget information on Budget News. If you are interested in the general University of California System Budget, please see the following document UC Budget Myths and Facts
  

• Want to know how the budget cuts are affecting UC Davis? Interested in how the GSA Executive Council is involved in the campus budget work? Please visit UC Davis Budget
  

• May budget revise causes another mid-year crisis for UC funding for more information UC May Review and for information on how the state schools are affected see CalState May Review
  

• If you are interested in learning more about the effects of the state's budget crisis on the UC system and UC Davis in particular, the administration has set up a SmartSite to facilitate community discussion of the these vital issues.
  

• UC System-wide 9/24 Walk-out, ongoing events by the Davis Organizing Committee, and information about the UC Budget Crisis: please see UC Systemwide Budget Crisis for more information.

Interested in what goes on on campus? Want to make a difference? Please volunteer to sit on a Campus Committee. See Committee Openings to get involved today! There are also opportunities to serve on system-wide committees, please see System Committees to apply.

Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI, right) with GSA External Chair Marrah Lachowicz-Scroggins. Rep. Kennedy received an award on behalf of his father, the late Ted Kennedy at the Committee for Education Funding Legislative Conference September 30, 2009

GSA is advocating for YOU! Please contact Marrah at External Chair for more information.

Concerned about Sustainability issues on campus and in the City of Davis? Please see our page for Sustainability Information and Resources.

Post your Photos of grad student life!

The Graduate Student Association would like to welcome our new students to campus. Have a question about grad student life? Ask A Grad Student

To help you get acquainted with our campus, be sure to read our New Student Guide.

For more resources for those new to Davis, be sure to see our sister site, Davis Wiki.

• Due to a change in staffing, please note that the GSA Office is now open Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9:00-12:00 and everyday Monday through Friday 1:00-4:00. We are closed Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
  

• Attention Representatives: If you are not receiving our emails, please contact the GSA Office at gsa@ucdavis.edu so we can be sure to add you. Our rep listserv experienced some problems, and several people's names did not get added. Also, if you faxed your rep registration form during the month of October, please check in with the GSA Office to ensure we received it, as our fax machine was broken during some of October and we may not have received it.
  

• Keep up with everything GSA related by adding yourself to the GSA listserv and checking for activities tailored to graduate student interests GradLink.
  

• Join the GSA and Grad Studies Facebook groups.
  

• New Extramural Funding listed DEADLINES APPROACHING FAST!
  

• CBDD is a regular event 9:00-11:00 AM every Friday throughout the year in the GSA Office, come join us for some free food and a chance to socialize!
  

• BENEFITS UPDATES Optometry benefits are now included in SHIP insurance. NAGPS offers Dependent Healthcare benefits through United Health Care. University of California establishes Academic Student Employee (ASE) child care reimbursement program childcare.pdf.
  

• Discounts for students now offered by the Office of Graduate Studies through a partnership with Cal Aggie Alumni Association
  

• Davis Humanities Institute has a DHI listserve for graduate students who want to receive news of events, funding opportunities, and other items of interest to graduate students in the humanities and humanistically-oriented social sciences at UC Davis.

• Professors for the Future Information Session [info]
• GSA Tax Preparation Information Session [info]
• Sex and the Cinema: "Precious" [info]
• BGPSA Jeopardy/Trivia Night [info]

For upcoming events check out the Events Board. If you know of any events, or to create one of your own, post them at the bottom of the Events Board page!

The Geography Graduate Group is interdisciplinary with faculty from more than twenty departments and centers on campus. GGG students are doing research in areas of the humanities, natural sciences, and everywhere in between. The group has three representatives at the GSA General Assembly: Alison McNally, Josh Perlman and Craig Beebe. Their departmental graduate student association is known as SAGE (Students Advocating for Geographic Education) and has been in its current form since the students organized in the 2007-2008 academic year to ensure their interests were considered in administrative decisions. The geography students have been actively involved in building the core curriculum for their graduate group. In addition to SAGE, several of the students have formed GLOBAL: Geography Club as a social organization in 2007. Students with geographical interests from all over campus are welcome to join GLOBAL.

Interested in being the GSA's next Featured Group? Contact the GSA's Public Relations Officer at <gsapro AT ucdavis DOT edu> for more information.