Graduate Student Association

Fellowships and Scholarships January Boot Camp for Graduate Students

Do you have an interest in learning more about funding opportunities for graduate-level work, research or dissertation funding? Will you be in Buffalo during winter break?

The Office of Fellowships and Scholarships will be hosting a three day boot camp in January to help you prepare competitive applications. Students will learn more about how to apply for funding and what review panels are looking for. Students will spend time writing a personal statement and/or research proposal.

Sessions will be held from 9am to 11am on Tuesday, January 17, Wednesday, January 18 and Friday, January 20. Students are required to commit to all three sessions.

To be considered for this program, students must complete the online application by 5pm EST on Monday, January 2: https://universityatbuffalo-wgtck.formstack.com/forms/january_fellowship_scholarship_boot_camp.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact the Office of Fellowships and Scholarships at fellowships@buffalo.edu.

GSA STATISTICS LAB DIRECTOR SEARCH CLOSED

The Statistics Lab is a new component of the Graduate Student Association (GSA) that will provide assistance with statistical data analysis to all graduate students. It is planned as a consulting service helping students with statistical aspects of their final projects (thesis, dissertation, qualifying paper etc.).

Candidates are eligible only if they have paid their student activity fee. Candidates should:

• Have experience with designing an experiment
• Know how to do statistical data analysis using Minitab, Matlab, R, SPSS, and SAS
• Know how to do data mining including supervised and unsupervised methods
• Have taken at least two advanced statistics courses
• Be organized

Experience with the following would be a plus:

• Teaching courses in statistics
• Tableau, Wolfram Mathematica
• Machine learning

The Statistics Lab Director’s responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

• Administrating the GSA Statistics Lab
• Holding a minimum of 10 office hours per week + appointment hours
• Assisting eligible graduate students in statistical research (data collection, analysis, evaluation, interpretation), experiment design, statistical analysis software
• Submitting service reports at the request of the GSA Senate and/or the GSA E-board
• Other duties as assigned by the GSA E-board

Any materials created as the Statistics Lab Director are property of the Graduate Student Association. Any GSA software or hardware requiring a password must be provided to the Graduate Student Association Executive Committee on modification or by request.

To apply, please, attach to an email in PDF the following:

• Cover letter describing your background, availability, and interest
• Resume

Send it to gsa-treasurer@buffalo.edu by January 5th. Qualified candidates will be invited to interview in the middle of January. This is a 6-month appointment (1 February – 31 July 2017) with a stipend of $5,500.

The Graduate History Association is currently soliciting paper proposals for our annual Milton Plesur Graduate History Conference to be held March 31 and April 1, 2017. Please see the attached call for papers.

As a member institution of CIRTL, UB graduate students and postdocs can sign up for CIRTL Network offerings for free.

Additional information about UB CIRTL is available at http://www.buffalo.edu/ubcirtl.html

SUNY Student Assembly President Marc J. Cohen’s Statement on ‘Sanctuary Campuses’

December 7, 2016 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Tyler McNeil, Tyler.Mcneil@sunysa.org

“As President of the Student Assembly, I want to assure students that current SUNY policies and practices prioritize the safety of all students. SUNY prides itself on openness and accessibility – and I will do everything I can to uphold these values.

“The term ‘sanctuary campus’ does not have a uniform definition which makes unconditionally supporting the term difficult and irresponsible. However, if it means ensuring that all of our students – regardless of their citizenship status – are protected under the Fourth Amendment, if it means students can walk around campus without fear of being stopped and asked for proof of citizenship, and if it means not voluntarily offering up the personal information of our students – then I stand fully committed to this principle. I am thankful to learn in a system and state where this is a reality.

“We are aware that there are various petitions circulating across several campuses on this issue. We support and encourage students to make their voices heard. We stand squarely in the corner of students. We also pledge to continue working with SUNY leadership to maintain these ideals as they are the bedrock upon which our system was founded. This is not a border, or a port of entry, or a crime scene; it is a University.”

Call for Candidates

On April 10 – 13, 2017 the following offices will be filled through a general election of graduate students at UB:

PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENT

TREASURER

The salaries for each of these positions will be $14,500 and the elected officers must be present and available to serve in the duties of their office from June 1, 2017 until May 31, 2018.

Any student enrolled in a department that is currently represented by GSA and has attended two Senate meeting in the past twelve months prior to becoming a candidate shall be eligible to run for office.  If you have not yet attended any GSA Senate meetings, the remaining dates to fulfill this requirement are December 7, 2016, February 1, 2017, and March 1, 2017.  *PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DECEMBER SENATE MEETING IS TONIGHT AND SIGN-IN STARTS AT 6:00PM!!*

*Please note that international students holding an assistantship will be restricted by INS work requirements and may not be eligible to run for office under United States Law.*

Petitions for candidacy will be made available on Monday, January 30^th, 2017 and are due back to the Election Committee Chair by Monday, March 6^th 2017 at 4:30pm in the GSA Office (310 Student Union).

All prospective candidates must attend a mandatory meeting with members of the Election Committee where the Election Rules and Regulations will be handed out and reviewed.  Meetings will be arranged between prospective candidates and the Election Committee to occur between Wednesday, March 8^th and Wednesday, March 15^th, 2017.

Please contact the Election Committee Chair, Alexandra Agostinelli (ajagosti@buffalo.edu) to inquire about the details of the application procedure and formalities.

The GSA President is proposing a resolution to the GSA Senate at tonight’s meeting in order to seek improved services for parenting students at UB.  Please see the attached resolution for further details.  Any comments or concerns may be addressed to Tanja Aho at gsa-president@buffalo.edu.

Dear Students:

The Council of Advocacy and Leadership is an organization consisting of all seven student government Presidents, the Chief Justice of the Student Wide Judiciary, and the UB Council Student Representative at the University at Buffalo. Our purpose is to provide resolutions on key issues at every level of the University hierarchy affecting any and all student governments and their constituencies. Collectively, we represent all 30,000 students at UB.

In light of the recent Presidential election, a series of events have occurred across college campuses, both throughout SUNY and the nation. As the elected representatives of the entire student population, we want to make our message clear: we support equality for ALL. Equality for all students of color, equality for all religious denominations, and equality for all sexual orientations, gender expressions and identities. We will not tolerate a campus environment that accepts or allows discrimination, much less one that actively promotes hatred, harassment, and an unsafe environment. Every student has the right to free speech, but what we have witnessed goes far beyond that right.

Regardless of your stance on the results of the Presidential election, it is important to recognize and understand the minds of those surrounding you. Some students feel excitement; others feel fear. As students, educators, and future leaders, it is our place to encourage positive discussion and growth that benefits our community. We cannot be complacent in striving for unity in our ever-changing society, particularly in this time of transition.
We commend UB students on their methods of sharing their concerns and the respect shown to their peers. Do not be afraid to speak truth to power and always stand up for what you believe in, for our voices are the tools through which our future is crafted.

Should you have any questions, concerns, or ideas to share, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,
The Council of Leadership and Advocacy

Tanja Aho, President, Graduate Student Association
Connor Arquette, President, Medical School Polity
James Corra, UB Council Student Representative
Nicholas D’Angelo, President, Student Bar Association
Jacob Henning, Chief Justice, Student Wide Judiciary
Jeffrey Morrisey, President, Graduate Management Association
Sara Perrone, President, American Student Dental Association
Matthew Rivera, President, Undergraduate Student Association
Taylor White, President, School of Pharmacy Student Association

Dear fellow graduate students:

Paper deadline coming up? Wishing you had an extra pair of eyes to look over your work?

The Graduate Student Association (GSA)’s editing assistance program is currently accepting submissions for all fee-paying graduate students at all stages of their degree. Graduate students with materials ready for submission or presentation receive constructive feedback from advanced English graduate student editors, ranging from sentence-level to minor content-oriented questions. Further, projects that undergo editing, whether large or small, benefit from readers outside of the field of study: submission can include MA and PhD thesis/dissertation submission (individual chapters and completed projects), journal articles for scientific and humanities papers, academic job application materials, seminar papers, and response papers.

Submissions can be either paper or electronic (Microsoft Word files). To submit, please visit the GSA website for the submission website and provide a note on your deadlines: http://gsa.buffalo.edu. The service is attentive to the need for privacy that comes along with larger projects. Though we ask students to allow for a 2-3 week turn-around for edits, we typically can return papers within specially requested time frames.

Questions? Editors can be reached gsa-editorial@buffalo.edu.

Best,

GSA Editorial Services