The recently restructured graduate student government is raring to get its constituents more connected to Penn.
The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly has emerged from a major organizational makeover and is now eager to promote interdisciplinary cooperation among all 10 graduate schools represented by GAPSA and to spearhead new campus initiatives.
Guided by a new banner - "A unified force empowering students and redefining the graduate experience"- GAPSA has the following plans on its agenda:
n GAPSA is funding a trial run of a shuttle bus loop from campus to Broad Street for all of October.
Penn Transit services currently only reach 20th Street and run on a "shoestring budget," MBA student and GAPSA Vice Chairwoman of Student Life Kara Yokley said.
If the trial is successful, GAPSA, in conjunction with the Undergraduate Assembly, will pitch the service to the University administration.
n GAPSA is headlining its promotion of interdisciplinary scholarship with the GAPSA/Provost's Award for Interdisciplinary Innovation, which awards six graduate students area-research fellowships.
n The second annual GradFest has been scheduled for May 2008.
The festival, established last May as a graduate analog to Spring Fling, aims to provide graduate students a chance to interact with others outside their own programs.
n GAPSA and the UA plan to work together in promoting environmental sustainability on campus.
"We're hoping to be more efficient, plan more events," said GAPSA spokeswoman and fourth-year School of Arts and Sciences student Alina Badus.
GAPSA ratified an amendment to its constitution in late March, making it an umbrella organization that governs all of Penn's 12 graduate schools except for the Veterinary School and the Graduate School of Education.
In the course of streamlining, the Graduate Student Associations Council, formerly the other prominent voice on behalf of Penn grad students, was replaced by SASgov, which focuses only on SAS.
Funding to the 10 represented graduate schools will no longer be channeled through GAPSA. Instead, the schools will receive the funding directly.
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