Graduate Student Satisfaction Survey

March 10, 2010 in Graduate Assembly by TBG | No comments

The GA is launching its first annual Graduate Student Satisfaction Survey. Through this survey, the GA hopes to obtain feedback on all aspects of graduate student life at Berkeley. The survey asks about your experience with your academic program, funding and fees, student services, and the work of the GA and should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. If you haven’t already, please take a few minutes to fill out the survey before Friday, March 19, 2010. You can find it here.

If you’re wondering why complete the survey, there are two main reasons.

(1) To be heard. By letting the GA know which issues matter to you, you will help the GA to more accurately and effectively represent the needs of graduate students in its interactions with campus and external decision-makers, and to achieve results that directly benefit you, such as improved services and increased resources for graduate students.

(2) To win a prize. Survey respondents have a chance to win three cash prizes (of $800, $500 and $200) as well as ten $50 gift certificates for the Cal Student Store.

Mark your calendars: The 25th Anniversary Empowering Women of Color Conference

March 9, 2010 in Graduate Assembly by TBG | No comments

The Empowering Women of Color Conference (EWOCC) celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend.  This historic conference will take place March 13-14 at the MLK Student Union and is free to UC Berkeley students. The conference honors women’s struggles, focuses on issues affecting women, and provides practical tools for everyday life. This year’s event, organized around the theme “Intergenerational Wisdom: Celebrating our Past, Present & Future,” includes speeches from keynote speakers Rebecca Walker and Aurora Levin Morales, a wide variety of workshops, performances, and networking opportunities. For all the details visit the conference website and email woci@ga.berkeley.edu with any questions.

March 4th Day of Action in Defense of Public Education

March 4, 2010 in In the news by TBG | No comments

As part of a statewide day of action in support of all levels of education, protestors at UC Berkeley have been blocking Sather Gate, the main entrance to campus, all morning. A planned noontime rally on Sproul Plaza should now be underway in anticipation of the 12:45 march down Telegraph Ave. to Frank Ogawa Plaza (14th and Broadway) in downtown Oakland.

You can follow the day’s activities in the East Bay and in Sacramento with the Daily Cal’s live blogs. Or read other media coverage here, here, and here.

Things to do: Seek out seasonal waterfalls

March 1, 2010 in Things to do by TBG | No comments

Winter showers bring full creeks and green hillsides, making this the perfect season to strap on your hiking boots and visit Bay Area waterfalls at their most spectacular.

Sunol Regional Wilderness, south of Pleasanton, is home to Little Yosemite, a popular destination this time of year. A recent Saturday saw visitors of all ages scrambling over rocks, peering into pools, and craning to snap the best photo. A short 1.25-mile walk along a wide, dirt trail, these falls are easily accessible. (Dogs are welcome in this park and are allowed off-leash as long as they are under voice command.) We tacked on a 4-mile loop that led us beside a babbling brook, through oak groves and pasture, to the ridge where we stopped for lunch and enjoyed our hard-earned view.

Take advantage of the wet weather and get acquainted with one of the many local waterfalls while the Bay Area is at its most lush. Here are a few more waterfalls to choose from:

Rethinking college education

February 24, 2010 in Guest blogger, In the news by Katie Kadue | No comments

Due to tuition hikes, many Berkeley undergraduates will have to cut college short, and young students statewide may find higher education entirely foreclosed. For anyone who cares about the University of California, or who values the public university more generally, this is a travesty. Instead of serving as the engine of social mobility by providing top-tier schooling to Californians who can’t afford to go private, UC campuses will increasingly cater to those from wealthy (and out-of-state) families, ultimately reproducing existing class structures rather than shaking them up.

If you’re a Berkeley graduate student invested in the future of your institution, you know all this already. But in all the debate swirling around the lamentable fee increases – most prominently, how best to protest them – another issue is at stake. It’s heresy around here to suggest that anyone who wants and works for it shouldn’t have access to a college education. But does everyone really want a college education?

As San Jose State professor (and Berkeley Ph.D.) Mike Rustigan argued in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed, many young Americans are more interested in working with their hands than sitting behind a desk, and to insist that everyone aspire to a four-year degree discounts the value – not to mention national economic necessity – of learning a trade. Caitlin Flanagan’s polemical (and pretty much universally derided) critique of the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley serves as the reductio ad absurdum of our unblinking devotion to a liberal arts education at the expense of any practical knowledge. Arguing that school garden programs rob students of valuable time with civics textbooks, Flanagan accuses Alice Waters and her “ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting” acolytes of preventing migrant workers’ kids from getting into college, which is the only way they could possibly escape their fate of diabetes and underemployment. (Waters’ suggestion that working in a garden can prove pedagogically useful is unlikely to breed a permanent underclass of sharecroppers, but if it asks students to write recipes as well as coherent paragraphs about The Crucible – if it produces people who can effectively communicate information rather than haughtily parade their cultural capital in The Atlantic – is that really such a bad thing?) Read the rest of this entry »

Graduate Assembly events this week

February 22, 2010 in Graduate Assembly by TBG | No comments

Take a break from the Olympics to check out three Graduate Assembly events this week. (For the truly committed winter sports fans, these events all end before prime time, so you won’t be forced to choose.)

On Wednesday, February 24, from 12-2 pm, there is a workshop on surviving oral exams in the Tilden Room of the MLK Student Union. It will cover organization, planning, stress management, and what to expect from your committee.  Learn how to prepare while enjoying free lunch and refreshments. Brought to you by the GA’s Graduate Support Services Project in collaboration with UHS’s Counseling and Psychological Services.

On Thursday, February 25, the Grad Social Committee hosts its first event of the spring semester, a Graduate Assembly open house at Anthony Hall from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Stop by for free food, drinks, and music and to get acquainted with the GA delegates and executive board members.

And on Friday, February 26, attend the graduate student health insurance plan town hall meeting on the ground floor of Eshleman Hall from 12 -1:30 pm. Go to learn more about a proposed UC-system-wide initiative to make graduate student health insurance more affordable and comprehensive as well as possible changes to our health insurance.

Things to do: The Albany Bulb

February 17, 2010 in Guest blogger, Things to do by Colleen Morgan | No comments

As winter covers most of the US in a big blanket of snow, it is just the right time of year to go check out the Albany Bulb.  There’s a certain appeal to the sight of fresh, blooming springtime flowers covering tangled, rusty rebar and spray-painted construction debris. Or maybe I’ve just been watching too many of the post-apocalyptic movies that have come out recently.  The Albany Bulb truly does inspire survivalist fantasies and visions of the post-human reclamation of urban landscapes–pick a clear day and bring your camera!

Located about 3.5 miles northwest of the Berkeley Campus (take the Buchanan exit off 80 and head west), The Albany Bulb was an active construction landfill until 1987 and is now part of the Eastshore State Park.  It’s not marked on Google Maps, but you’ll recognize it if you follow the coastline up from Gilman until you see, well, a bulb extending into the bay.  Take a nice, meandering walk (or ride) from the parking lot and you’ll be treated to breathtaking views of San Francisco and the bay as well as giant sculptures by local artists and graffiti-covered construction debris.  Head leftish on the path to Mad Mark’s castle, then wander north along the shore to find large murals and amusing uses of the large chunks of concrete scattered throughout the island.  On the north shore you’ll encounter huge sculptures by artists Osha Neumann and Jason De Antonis–I like to get to this part of the bulb by the late afternoon, so I can watch the sunset light up the city and the sculptures.

On any given day you will run into dog walkers, mountain bicyclists, anarchists, graffiti artists, photographers, and people who might rather not be disturbed.  The east side of the bulb is where there are more permanent encampments and the dogs who guard this area are not particularly friendly.  Stick to the well-trod paths and you’ll have a blast.  I bet you didn’t think that the apocalypse could be this fun!

Wednesday: Student Code of Conduct Forum

February 16, 2010 in Graduate Assembly by TBG | No comments

The GA, the ASUC, and the Graduate Student Organizing Committee are hosting a forum on the student code of conduct in response to the charges against more than 100 students resulting from their participation in protests last semester. The forum will be held tomorrow night, Wednesday, February 17, from 6:30 – 8 pm in 2050 VLSB. The event flier is below. 

Notes from the February Delegate Assembly Meeting

February 15, 2010 in Graduate Assembly by TBG | No comments

Earlier this month, the Graduate Assembly (GA) held its first delegates’ meeting of the spring semester. Upcoming elections for positions on the GA’s  Executive Board were the first topic of conversation. Many people will be stepping down at the end of this term and the delegates will vote on their replacements at the meeting scheduled for March 3rd.

Campus Affairs Vice President, Philippe Marchand, sought feedback on the changes that are being made to the Dean’s Normative Time Fellowship (DNTF). The DNTF is available only to students in certain departments and provides one year of funding for students who advance to doctoral candidacy within normative time. The changes to the award stipulate that if you accept the DNTF, you will no longer be eligible for financial support from your department after normative time for graduation. (Normative time has two dimensions: the time between entering a program and advancing to candidacy, and the time until the dissertation is filed.) This change will take effect for the 2010-2011 cohort. If you have comments or concerns, please email Philippe at cavp@ga.berkeley.edu.

Finally, UC Office of the President Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, Steve Beckwith, spoke about his position and answered delegates’ questions about budget cuts and decisions about how to allocate funding. His office distributes research funding and oversees research policy for the UC system. They also communicate to the outside world about the value of graduate training; as he said, learning to research is learning to produce knowledge. Some of the challenges his office faces currently are maintaining support for graduate students while the budget is in decline and maintaining an adequate balance of funding across the disciplines.

The Graduate Assembly delegates meet the first Thursday of every month and the full minutes from their meetings are published on the GA website.

Signs of spring

February 10, 2010 in Photos by TBG | No comments

Despite the cool temperatures and intermittent rain, spring is on its way.

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