Director of Libraries Cliff Haka speaks to the Council of Graduate Students on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012 in a private dining room of Brody Square. Haka discussed the issue of whether or not to designate special graduate student only areas in the library. State News File Photo
Graduate and professional students will have a chance to look at their long-term goals, per suggestion by MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon.
The Council of Graduate Students, or COGS, will take part in a strategy-visioning session at its monthly full council meeting Wednesday, following in the footsteps of MSU’s Faculty Senate.
“It could help shape the next three to five years of the organization,” COGS President Stefan Fletcher said. “It’s a long-term look at some areas that really affect areas of graduate professional student education.”
Fletcher said Simon mentioned the potential for a COGS strategy-planning session in a meeting following the Faculty Senate strategy-planning session.
“(Simon) is leading sort of a strategy-planning initiative herself, in terms of trying to see what is next (for the university),” said John Beck, an associate professor in human resources and labor relations who will facilitate the session. “COGS wanted to do a parallel process.”
Beck said a strategy-planning session is a sort of forum where ideas and interests can be brought up.
Members of the Faculty Senate who took part in the activity this summer, such as professor of kinesiology John Powell, said it involved a level of analysis after the initial session, determining key terminology and ideas that came up frequently.
Powell said the senate still is analyzing the dialogue and hopefully will have a discussion on how to handle the issues at the next senate session.
“The benefit is a more structured and focused approach to address the needs and topics of interest that graduate and professional students have,” Fletcher said. “It’s an indicator of where graduate and professional education stands at MSU and what COGS can do in its capacity to help further the experience that advanced students have while they are here.”
Fletcher said the length of the session will cause some issues, such as tax reviews of certain groups, to be held for the November COGS meeting.
According to the agenda, the group will look at five general areas of interest during the session: graduate student research support, supporting an interdisciplinary, graduate and professional student community, career and professional development, graduate student life and welfare and building the university’s future.
Powell, as well as Sue Carter, a journalism professor who is also a member of the Faculty Senate, said it is important for graduate students, as the future of the university, to take part in activities such as strategy-planning sessions.
“No doubt they should take the opportunity to … identify the matters of interest and desires for planning,” Carter said.
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