go vote...and make your voice heard

I know what you're thinking...is she crazy? Didn't she already talk about this? 

Well yes, and no. Right now I'm talking about voting on campus for something graduate students should care about. There is a group of graduate students who are senators in the Associated Student Government (ASG) who have started a movement. The have gotten a bill passed through the ASG body and we are now being asked to vote on the referendum. (Voting starts tomorrow morning, February 6 through Thursday afternoon, February 7)

What it's doing is creating another body of students that operates under the ASG umbrella, but it's just for graduate students. It reduces the amount of time required for member participation, and gives us a voice that we didn't have before. To read more about it, and the hard work they have done, please visit their Facebook page, University of Arkansas Graduate Student Congress.

So starting tomorrow go vote at vote.uark.edu. It won't be available until tomorrow morning, but there it is for your convenience. You can also find a slate of candidates that are being supported by the Graduate Student Congress organizers on the Facebook page if you'd like to vote for some candidates while you're out there.

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If you've been paying attention to what's been happening on campus, or even if you haven't, you need to be aware of the conversation about allowing the concealed carry of guns on the University of Arkansas campus. As graduate students, this puts us in a unique position. We operate as almost every different "type" of person on the U of A campus, we act as staff (running labs), faculty (teaching classes, doing research) and students attending classes. If you've taught a class before, it's likely you've run into at least one disgruntled student. As a graduate student, it's likely you've run into a colleague who was under intense stress to complete a project, meet a deadline, etc. Everyone has a bad day once in awhile...some more than others...and I cannot imagine that being allowed to carry a gun would make any of these situations turn out better.

No matter what your position on concealed carry, there are discussions happening everywhere. On campus, in Fayetteville, and there's at least one online petition you can sign onto. Get involved. Graduate students are members of the U of A community and will be impacted by any decisions made on concealed carry. Your voice matters.

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Come out and support your fellow graduate students at FROM ABSTRACT TO CONTRACT. There will be almost 120 students presenting the work they do from 1:00 - 3:00pm at Mullins Library in the reading rooms. Come by, have a snack, and visit with your fellow students. Everyone is invited. To hear more about Graduate Education Week, check out this radio spot on NPR, Saluting a Unique Campus Population, from last week featuring our very own Dean of the Graduate School, Dr. Todd Shields (and me for those of you keeping track).

Have a great week...go vote!

~~ Dawn