Committees

Academic and Professional Development

Our committee is concerned with a broad range of topics that involves enhancing career, academic, and personal growth of graduate students - both in and out of the classroom. In addition, our committee finds ways of broadening our knowledge and skills, together with the development of personal qualities for graduate students.

Some ways we help meet the needs of graduate students are through the organization of a series of seminars and workshops where professionals offer their expertise. These include proposal writing workshops, resume workshops, networking, and entrepreneurial workshops.

Other interests of the committee include working with university resources such as the Center for Career Opportunities (CCO) to better meet the needs of graduate students in the areas of career development, networking, and developing professional skills, and working with the Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE) to better foster the graduate students in terms of teaching and learning. Please feel free to browse our upcoming sponsored workshops.

If you have any questions or concerns about the committee, please free to contact us. Any ideas, suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Current members:
Andrea Campero Battisti, Biological Sciences
Christie Eissler, Biochemistry
Kristen Fantetti, Biological Sciences
Ida Ngambeki, Engineering Education
Reazur Rahman, Biological Sciences
Munazzah Rahman, Comparative Pathobiology
Ravi Sinha, Materials Engineering
Cheng Zheng, Statistics

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Finance

The finance committee is responsible for developing the annual budget for the PGSG organization and to secure funding for the operations of the PGSG for the year.

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Legislative and Strategic Planning

This committee is full of enthusiastic people who have worked hard to bring you the PGSG constitution. The PGSG Legislative and Strategic Planning Committee enforces and reviews the constitution and shall make recommendations to the senate for improvements when necessary. All bills pertaining to changes in constitution, addition of by-laws etc, that appear on the senate floor, are referred to this committee.

This committee is also charged with drafting a strategic plan for the Graduate Student Senate (PGSG). The strategic plan defines the PGSS goals and objectives, provides a framework to benchmark the performance of our PGSS with that of our colleagues in peer institutions, and identifies issues that PGSS should be discussing.

Any graduate student is more than welcome to join the Legislative and Strategic Planning Committee. Feel free to e-mail for further information.

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[Constitution] Please also refer to the PGSG Constitution

Promotions

The PGSG Promotions Committee handles publicity for PGSG workshops, info sessions, callouts, and the annual Fall Picnic and Spring Gala. We advertise through email, flyers, our website's event calendar, and Facebook. Our goals for the 2007-2008 school year include increasing PGSG publicity through more multimedia methods, and aiding in the overall efforts of PGSG to increase departmental representation throughout the Purdue campuses. Would you like to help PGSG promotions in getting the word out on PGSG? Contact the Committee chair, or talk to your department senators about your comments or suggestions. We’d love to hear from you!

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Social

The social committee is responsible for fostering the communication between Purdue University graduate students. The committee strives to achieve this goal by hosting monthly social events to cater to graduate students from all walks of life. The planned social events throughout the year attempt to bring graduate students and families together to create an atmosphere for socialization and to embrace cultural differences. The social committee has planned past activities including a fall picnic and spring Gala.

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Student Affairs

We are committed to improving the quality of graduate life. Currently we are focusing on improving graduate parking issues, creating consistent across-campus library hours, and increased transparency in graduate student fees. This committee spearheaded the addition of optional vision and dental insurance for graduate students in 2003.

Another project is the taxation exempt initiative in which we are part of the effort lead by the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students. In February of 2003, PGSG senator Shannon Knapp visited Washington, D.C. to express our interest. NAGPS is currently working on the sponsorship of a bill in the U.S. senate that allows graduate salary and fellowships to be tax exempt. We will be sending another representative again this year to lobby in our behalf.

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Travel Grants

The aim of the Purdue Graduate Student Government (PGSG) Travel Grant is to assist Purdue University graduate students in attending technical conferences which in turn will help to develop graduate students professionally and augment the overall quality of research at Purdue. Grants are distributed among graduate students on a competitive basis.

This committee is largely responsible for the administration of the program. Duties will be divided among committee members and will include checking applications for eligibility, recruiting and training reviewers, updating directions and application forms, data entry, generating a final report, advertising the program, and other assorted duties that may arise. Please note that members of the travel grant committee are not eligible to apply for a travel grant for the semesters they serve.

You may also wish to get involved as a Travel Grant Reviewer.

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Community Outreach

The main goal of the Community Outreach Committee is to provide opportunities for all Purdue University Graduate Students to aid those in our local community in need of assistance in a variety of areas. The committee aims to organize various outreach events over the course of each semester such that any graduate student may attend and provide a service to someone in need. As this committee is new any ideas of local outreach are welcome as we begin to plan the upcoming semester events. Thanks for your input and support and we truly hope to benefit our community over the course of the next year.

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