The GSS Weekly Newsletter

1. Professional Development Series ‐ "Achieving a Healthy Work-Life Balance"

In partnership with Graduate Student Senate, the Graduate College is hosting the second presentation in our 2009/2010 Professional Development Series for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars.

Jane Holland (Family Services) Kathleen Staley (Counseling Services) and Amanda Truppe (Student Health) will offer a workshop entitled "Achieving a Healthy Work-Life Balance".  The event will be on Monday October 5 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm.  The room location will be determined based on enrollment needs.

This presentation is open to all graduate students and postdoctoral scholars; however, registration is required so that we can ensure booking a room with enough seats.

As a graduate student (or postdoctoral scholar) have you ever wondered how to combine having a family while pursuing your professional goals? Do you feel that your happiness or health are being negatively affected by your studies?

Learn some skills from our three lecturers that will help you to balance work-life interests.  Learn about counseling services and services available to student parents at the University of Iowa.  Get some tips to staying sane during stressful times and to staying physically healthy despite long hours at a desk or lab bench.

There will be time for Q&A after the lecture.

Register before Friday October 2^nd.  We will email back with the confirmation of your registration and provide the room number.

https://forms.grad.uiowa.edu/pds-registration

If you have any questions, please contact Associate Dean Minnetta Gardinier (m-gardinier@uiowa.edu).

2. Help the GSS Academic Mentoring Committee by Taking Quick & Easy Survey!

The Graduate Student Senate Academic Mentoring Committee is back this semester with the peer mentoring survey that has been briefly circulated at the end of Spring 2009 semester. We are hoping to get a broader perspective and more answers starting this Fall 2009.

For this we are in need of the assistance of all fellow graduate and undergraduate students to take a very short anonymous survey about peer mentoring at the University of Iowa. It will take less than 5 minutes of your time and it would help us tremendously in our mission to improve graduate and undergraduate student life at the University of Iowa.

If you have previously filled out this survey and successfully submitted your answers - thank you very much for your time and effort!!

If you are interested in both mentoring a fellow student and being mentored by a graduate student, you can take the survey in either capacity, simply follow each of the links to the surveys.

Graduate students, please direct your undergraduate students to this link as well, as we are trying to reach as many University of Iowa students as possible.

• If you would like to fill the mentor survey, please follow this link: http://survey.uiowa.edu/wsb.dll/712/mentor.htm

• If you would like to fill the mentee survey, please follow this link: http://survey.uiowa.edu/wsb.dll/712/mentee.htm

Your opinions will be invaluable to us, as we are making progress towards becoming a fundamental resource of peer mentoring at the University of Iowa.

You can see our mission statement on our GSS Academic Mentoring Committee page at http://gss.grad.uiowa.edu/committees/academic-mentoring. (The survey is also accessible from there).

If you have any questions please contact alexandra-nica@uiowa.edu

The ECGPS PAGs Committee still needs additional graduate and professional students to help review the travel grant applications. Only a 30 min training session is required, and then all the scoring is done online.

The training session is TONIGHT (Tuesday September 29th) @ 6:30pm at Hardin Library Commons West http://www.uiowa.edu/~maps/h/hlhs1.htm

Considering the fact that tonight is the training session, if you are interested in serving on the PAGs Committee, it is likely there will either be a subsequent training session, or training on an individual basis.

If you have any questions, please contact the PAGs Chair, Majd S. Haddad at ecgps-pags-travel@uiowa.edu

4. ECGPS Seeks Committee Members

ECGPS is looking for students to serve on number of committees. Please consider applying for one of the following positions. If interested, please contact Eric Kaiser (eric-kaiser@uiowa.edu) and submit a CV/Resume.

• IMU Advisory Board - 1 graduate student requested by VP Rocklin. This is a new committee that will serve to guide the IMU as it looks to improve its structure and programming.

• Student Parking Appeals Review Committee (SPARC) - 3 graduate/professional students to serve on a committee that reviews traffic appeals. Chaired by UISG Senator Michael Appel. Currently meets on Tuesday evenings every three weeks. Next meeting is October 13. This is a joint committee of UISG and ECGPS.

• Student Organization Review Committee - 1 graduate/professional student to serve on a committee chaired by Kristi Finger, OSL Assistant Director for Student Organization Development (meet every WE from 11:30 to 1:00)

• Student Credit & Money Managements Services - 1 graduate/professional student to serve on a committee chaired by Kristi Finger, OSL Assistant Director for Student Organization Development (meet the third Friday of each month from 9:30 to 10:30)

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Human Rights Celebration Executive Planning Committee - 1 graduate/professional student to serve on the committee (meeting time TBD)

5. Upcoming Events

GSS posts upcoming meetings and events on the GSS Calendar. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can stay up-to-date!