Talking to other graduate students and professors at conferences over the last couple years I have realized that for the most part, STEM graduate student organizations (GSOs) typically focus on one (or more) of the following:
- Social Activities: These activities exist primarily to develop social ties between members and their departments.
- Advocacy: Â This includes participation on departmental/university committees, pushes for graduate student interests, and community outreach.
- Professional Development: This includes development of new professional development and networking opportunities. Additionally, existing opportunities are actively sought out.
As an example, when I first got to the University of Kansas, our GSO was primarily run by 1-2 people and existed solely to plan the recruiting weekend, welcome picnic, and halloween party. This placed our GSO heavily on the Social side of the scale. Lately, our GSO has shifted towards trying to do all three (though we are still weighted heavily towards social).
What I have learned from my discussions with others is that most GSOs do not cover all areas described above; however, with some (relatively) simple changes, your GSO can start to grow in these areas and become something greater.
1. Build a Leadership Team
Many GSOs which are struggling to do a variety of activities, struggle because every activity requires the attention of the 1-2 people in charge of the organization. If you have a devoted group of ~5 people who are willing to take charge of planning events, you can spread out the responsibilities among them. This also helps reduce event-planning burnout, while allowing your organization to tackle more.
When developing your leadership team you need to take a few things into account. STEM departments are widely varied and your leadership team should reflect that. Ideally, each major division in your department should have representation on your team. This allows your leadership team to split the effort in advertising your events to your department, and increases the draw to the events that you plan. If you can’t get someone from certain divisions at first – don’t fear! – as your GSO grows, interest in serving on your GSO leadership team will grow.
Your team should also span multiple generations of graduate students in your department. Ideally, you will find a number of devoted students early in their graduate careers that will take ownership of your organization. Participation of younger students also reduces the likelihood that your organization will die out when members of your team graduate. Ideally, every year there should be new younger students that cycle into your GSO as older students graduate or step back. Additionally, reaching out to a trusted faculty member to act as an advisor to your organization can play a key role in building up your presence within your department.
2. Determine your Vision
Start off by determining what you want from your GSO. Many graduate students get caught without an overall vision for the change they want to be in their department. Additionally, many GSOs underestimate the amount of support they can obtain from their department to pull off larger-scale events (as our department reminds us repeatedly, if we succeed they do too!). I’ve included some sample questions for you to bring to your GSO to start get the ball rolling on thinking about a vision — you should discuss these and write these down with your leadership team.
general questions
- What is your current fundraising plan? Do you have goals for how much you want to raise over the next year?
- Do you have a budget? (You should have at least a rough budget!)
- If money wasn’t an object, what event would you want to try to create for your program.
- Who are the administrators in your program who exist solely to benefit graduate students?
social activities questions
- How many social activities are there for graduate students to bond with one another?
- How effective are these social activities? Do they cover the same people every time – or do they encourage mixing between groups and divisions?
- Are there some social activities that are not centered around alcohol?
- How frequently does your organization want to plan a social event? How much of your money are you going to put towards these?
advocacy questions
- Are their any glaring issues in your program? Is there a lack of safety/ethics training? Is morale low among graduate students?
- Do graduate students have a voice in your department?
- If you could change something about how your program works, what would you change?
- How open are lines of communication between students, faculty, and the department?
- When graduate students have a concern about something – who do they go to?
professional development questions
- What is the attitude in your department towards professional development? Is there a high focus on it already from other sources? Are students going out of their way to find prof-dev events to participate in?
- What are recent, successful, professional development activities that have taken place in your department?
- Do you notice any holes in the current programming? Are all of the activities centered on careers in academia when many graduate students want to go into industry?
- How involved are current graduate students with alumni? Are alumni coming back and talking about their career experiences? Is there a means by which graduate students can reach out to alumni for help networking/job-finding?
- Are there centers on campus that put on professional development events for STEM students? Could you bring them into your department to help run things.
3. Solicit Feedback
Okay – so you have a leadership team and you have a vision. Now is a good time to touch base outside of your leadership team. I recommend drafting a constitution for your GSO (most universities require this for student org status anyway!)  You can find ours here. A constitution not only makes you write down many of your answers in Section 2 in an organized manner – but also it makes you organize them and think about how they fit into your organization. Think of a constitution as your framework plan of what you want your organization to become (not necessarily what it currently is). Your constitution should clearly reflect your mission, your goals, and what you are as an organization.
Sample constitution sections:
I. Name and Purpose (Vision!)
II. Membership
III. Officers
IV. Fundraising
V. Meetings
VI. Committees
VII. Events
VIII. Amendments
When you have your constitution – introduce your organization to graduate students and send your constitution out asking for feedback. Once you get it – discuss it with your leadership team, incorporate it, and then send the constitution out for a vote of graduate students. It is important to include all students in your department in this process, as the more involved they are the more pull they will feel to attend/volunteer in your GSO later.
After passing your constitution, it is important to continue solicit feedback. Plan monthly (or more frequently!) meetings of your GSO that are open to graduate students, where they can offer ideas or help with current projects. Keep in touch via email, letting them know what you have been working on lately. Start a Facebook/LinkedIN group where graduate students can connect with your organization and hear about upcoming events.
4. Be Inclusive and Transparent
A common mistake made by graduate student organizations is that they act too much in the shadows. If you plan something – take credit for it! Your goal should be to reach out to students in your department at least once a month (or even more if you started a Facebook/LinkedIN group). The more open you are about what you’re doing, the more likely that graduate students will see how they could fit into your organization.
On that note, you need to be inclusive to ideas that don’t originate from your leadership team. If someone comes to you with an event idea that they are really excited about, ask them what help they need to implement it. Give them ownership of their idea, and assist them in making it a reality. If your GSO actively hears ideas and implements them, that encourages more ideas from graduate students. If you get a reputation of being a black hole where ideas die, then you will get less participation. Additionally, the more that graduate students outside of your leadership team are involved in your organization, the less strain there is on your team. Ideally, your team will eventually move to a more advisory role helping to organize the overall efforts of graduate students in the department.
5. Don’t be Discouraged
Building a GSO takes time and effort. When you are first starting out, your monthly meetings might only be your leadership team. As you begin to do more your department will start to notice, and more students will want to be involved. Having the discussions mentioned earlier in this post are the first steps into building a self-sustaining GSO – but only with TLC and patience will your GSO grow.
Look out for my upcoming posts that will go into greater detail on how to develop the social activities, advocacy, and professional development aspects of your GSO.
Have anything to add? Feel free to leave a comment below!