2008-2009 Grad Assistant to the Dean and Chancellor

The Grad Student Assistant to the Dean and Chancellor (GSADC) works in the Office of Grad Studies and is an ex officio member of the GSA Executive Council. Learn more about the GSADC position here.

My position serves in large part as a liaison between grad students and the administration. I can also help connect you with resources for just many questions or problems that you may have. If you have any questions related to your life as a grad student, or would like to talk with me about something that you think grad students might need, please feel free to email me at gradassistant AT ucdavis DOT edu.

Recent Activity

Fall Quarter Report

During the month of September I primarily focused on organizing the Week of Orientation and Welcome with the outgoing GSADC. The week went well, with a broad variety of events to help grad students transition into a new academic and personal life in Davis.

After WOW ended, I began collaborating with other grad student leaders on projects that could improve grad student’s lives. Working with the WRRC grad student intern and other interested people, we began to develop an informational ‘zine for grad student parents. This ‘zine covers a broad range of topics for anyone who is considering parenthood or who is already a parent on campus. I also became involved in a collaboration with Campus Violence Prevention Project, the WRRC, and other campus orgs to address violence and harassment against marginalized and/or underrepresented grad students. This has become the Grad Ally Coalition, which is working to train two grads in each program who can be resources for those who fear or experience violence or harassment.

I organized Dialogue with the Dean in November, which focused on concerns of students in Grad Groups. This session opened up a number of concerns and questions for grads but ended up focusing primarily on the difficulty of finding and creating a lasting community as a grad student. Together we developed a long list of ideas which I have published on the GSA wiki to encourage grad students to be proactive in creating the community that they need.

As part of my position, I’ve represented grad students on a number of committees on campus including, Grad Council, Campus Council of Community and Diversity, The Administrative Sub-committee of grad council, and the SHIP committee.

I met regularly with Dean Gibeling to update him on issues of concerns to grad students and to report on various projects that I and other grads were developing. I also met once with Chancellor Vanderhoef and impressed on him the importance of University support of grad student’s well being through fostering community, and on the needs for more information and resources for grad students on whom someone (child, parent, spouse, etc.) depends for care.

At the end of the quarter, I defined my service project in consultation with Dean Gibeling. I will focus much of the rest of my time on developing a handbook for grad students about developing a good mentoring relationship with faculty. I will use some work done by previous GSADCs, will use information on mentoring gathered from the Retention Task Force, will write and distribute my own surveys, and will hold meetings for grad students to talk in person about their successes with and concerns/questions about mentoring. I will use the forums to determine which topics I should focus on in the handbook. Lastly, I will interview professors who have received the Distinguished Teaching Award for graduate and professional teaching to find out how they think grads can work to develop or improve mentoring relationships.