The Council of Graduate Students, or COGS, approved a proposal Wednesday to increase the amount of money it will set aside for funding graduate students to attend conferences in the U.S. and abroad.
The approval came during COGS’ first meeting of the semester. The proposal will now move to the finance committee, COGS president Stefan Fletcher said.
Fletcher said the group placed money into an investment account last year. The proposal would allow them to use some of the annual returns for its conference grant endowment fund, he said.
Fletcher said that each semester, the group gets more qualified conference grant applications than it can fund. They received 79 applications for conference grants in the spring but could only fund 30 to 35 of them, he said.
The grants are distributed on a lottery basis.
“Last fall, we were able to find enough money to fund all that applied, but with the situation with the economy, we’ve been looking for a more sustainable way to fund conference grants,” Fletcher said.
The group set $9,000 aside for conference grant funding for the fall and approved to fund 30 students for $300 each to attend conferences this semester, treasurer Amanda Herzog said.
COGS also is pushing to start a central graduate student center on campus, said Adam Lovgren, vice president for graduate wellness.
Lovgren said there are many resources available for graduate students on campus, but they are spread out and many students don’t realize they are available.
“It would be much more efficient in providing services to graduate students, as well as being a place students could mingle and meet each other to go along with our wellness concepts,” he said.
Dr. MaryLee Davis, the COGS faculty advisor, said this would be a significant step for the graduate student population and the executive board has done an excellent job communicating their needs to administration.
“On campus, it’s not anyone’s fault, but there’s been confusion from faculty and staff about the difference between undergraduate student needs and graduate student needs,” said Davis, a professor of higher education and osteopathic medicine.
“The diversity within the graduate student population is huge, as are the unique needs and the unique situations.”
Fletcher said one location that has been proposed as an option for the center is Chittenden Hall, which is currently closed and in need of structural repair.
He would like to see resources such as a Ph.D Career Services center, a graduate wellness area and a graduate student lounge at the center if it were to be built, he said.
“It would help try to get graduate students from different departments across campus interacting,” Fletcher said.
The group also is continuing to work to improve childcare access for graduate students on campus and in the city of East Lansing, Fletcher said.
According to a survey that went out to graduate students last year, approximately 16 percent of graduate students have children, he added.
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