Psychology: GRC Descriptions

Committee Descriptions

The co-chairs are typically older grad students and their main responsibilities includes coordinating and overseeing the GRC, and acting as a liaison to the administration.

For example, the co-chairs generally attend the first-year orientation meeting that the DGS coordinates to announce the annual GRC meeting and to introduce themselves as resources to the first-years. They also contact the area reps to attend this first-year orientation meeting so that they can meet with new students in their area and answer questions. In September, they organize the annual GRC meeting where students attend to learn about and sign up for committees. Throughout the year, they get progress reports from members on specific committees. In the spring semester, they coordinate a meeting with the class reps to discuss issues and complaints from each class, and then meet with the DGS, Department Chair, and other relevant individuals to address grad student concerns. The co-chairs are also responsible for an election of a grad student to a search committee if there is more then one student interested in the position. One co-chair is elected at the end of each Spring Semester for a 2-year term, so there is always one co-chair who has been in the position for a year before the other starts.

Interdisciplinary committee

The interdisciplinary committee is in charge of creating opportunities for members of all areas of the Psychology Department to participate in academic exchange-across discipline. They typically meet between 2 and 4 times a year, and plan events such as "recombinant lunch", in which a topic will be discussed that is relevant to people in a number of areas of psychology.

Teaching evaluations

The teaching evaluations committee is in charge of collecting and summarizing teaching evaluations of faculty who are up for tenure or promotion. This includes reading recommendations of other faculty members and indicating agreement (or disagreement) with their appraisals. This position provides an opportunity to be involved in the faculty evaluation process, and an up-close picture of what is involved in having a successful faculty career. The time commitment is minimal.

Human subjects

The human subjects committee is in charge of evaluating whether experimenters (studies) that wish to use participants from the Psychology Deptartment Participant Pool meet the educational mission of the pool. Primarily, members receive an automated email with information about the study (most notably, the debriefing form), read it, and approve or disapprove online (in the latter case, with comments). The time commitment per week may vary from as little as few minutes to up to an hour.

Women's concerns

The committee is a resource for anyone that has an issue they want to talk about without, or before, going straight to the administration. Examples of issues are beliefs of preferential or detrimental treatment due to gender, or inappropriate behavior of a faculty member. If an individual has a complaint and is not sure what to do or what should be done, they can meet with the committee, which can act as an arbitrator or bring the issue to the faculty/administration. The committee functions primarily as a buffer between the individual and the faculty/administration. One benefit is that the individual with the issue can remain anonymous. The time commitment is minimal as the committee only meets after a complaint has been made.

Diversity Representation

The department rep typically heads the graduate diversity representation committee as well (see below). Responsibilities include e-mailing the faculty and graduate students each year about their diversity concerns, meeting with diversity representation committee and with faculty 2-3 times semester to address concerns, and maintaining a diversity representation website.

Search Committees

A "search" committee is only established when one area has an open faculty position. In which case, members of the committee are responsible for evaluating applicants, helping with the interview process, and helping with the decision to hire. It is a lot of work (especially during the hiring/interviewing period), but a valuable experience. Only graduate students from the specific area doing the search are eligible to be on the committee. Generally, older students in the area are given preference for the position (e.g., 4th instead of 1st year). It is particularly helpful to someone who is getting ready to go on the job market, and as a result, there may be more than one older student (e.g., a 4th and a 6th year) interested in the position. If there is more than one person interested in the position then each person typically writes a few paragraphs about why he or she thinks s/he should get the spot, and graduate students of that area vote by email to a chair of the GRC, who will hold the vote open for a week.

Teaching and Professional Concerns Committee

The Teaching and professional concerns committee head and committee members usually works with the Teaching Resource Center (TRC), to organize useful events which may include organizing relevant workshops (e.g. how to grade students' writing.) The goal is organize one workshop per semester, however, workshops should be arranged as appropriate. For example, the committee might poll the graduate students to determine topics of interest (e.g., teaching, balancing work and family, grant-writing). The time commitment is heavier during the week or two during the planning of the workshop and then the time commitment for the rest of the year is minimal.

TA/gradership sub-committee

This committee is designed to deal with issues specific to TA'ing and grading in the Psychology Department. Issues include dealing with staffing issues for courses, and TA assignments for younger graduate students.

Diversity Representation Committee

This committee meets with the chair and faculty 2 to 3 times a semester to discuss faculty and graduate diversity concerns. The committee also plans to recruit more minority applicants through the GRE test service, and at graduate school fairs. The head of the committee typically is also the department representative to the department minority issues committee (see above).

Graduate Council

The graduate council is a university-level institution. The main responsibilities of the grad council rep is attending council meetings once a month, which typically last about 2 hours and are held in the early evening, and occasionally forwarding along e-mails to the department. All reps are now also required to serve on one of the GSAS Council sub-committees (time commitment for these committees varies, but usually entails attending just one additional meeting each month).

Social Committee

Members of the social committee are in charge of organizing social events (at least one larger event in the Spring) to bring graduate students together. The committee also tries to organize and coordinate events with graduate students in other departments. It is also helpful if the social committee works with the area reps to organize the first-years party in the fall.

Graduate labor union (GLU)

The main responsibility of the GLU rep is to forward relevant e-mails from GLU (which is at the University level) to the graduate students in the department. It helps if the rep is interested in GLU issues and can attend the bi-yearly meetings. The time commitment is minimal.

Class reps

Class representatives, once chosen, let the members of their class know that they are available to listen to questions, complaints, issues, etc., that graduate students might have within the department. The class reps then bring those concerns (confidentially) to the appropriate people, including (but not limited to) the GRC co-chairs. Once a year, all the class reps make a special request for issues that concern their class, the committee meets to discuss these concerns, and the co-chairs meet with the DGS, Department Chair, and other relevant people to address the concerns of the graduate students.

Area reps/welcome committee

Area reps/welcome committee people are primarily in charge of taking new students under their wings. This includes things like (beginning in the fall): making sure that new students feel comfortable and welcome in the first week(s) of the semester (maybe planning a grad night out to welcome them before the semester starts, or stopping by their office to introduce yourself; but the area reps should also make sure that they're available to answer area-specific questions, including classes, norms, etc.); helping to plan the "welcome party" that takes place in October (for faculty and students); helping to arrange prospective student weekends/visits in the Spring; setting up accepted/new students with a "buddy" to help them find housing, answer questions, etc. after they accept and as they get ready to move to C'ville. Another important function of the area rep is to organize the first-years party which typically takes place in September.

RA Concerns Committee

Description coming soon.