Notes from Planning Meeting 1

Thanks for coming everyone. Around 30 people were in attendance, with plenty of active discussion on what the council should do and how it should try to do it. During the forum, it sounded like there’s a general consensus about the types of things a grad council should aim to do:

  1. Open channels of communication between the department and the students
  2. Promote bonding and socializing among the graduate students
  3. Professional development.

In terms of the structure of the council, people still have many different ideas so we would like to have a second meeting next week specifically to discuss the structure and details of the council. Details on that to follow soon. The following links include information presented and notes taken at the meeting.

Prepared info slides: UW PGSC Planning Meeting 1 Slides

Whiteboard notes from the brainstorming session:

Notes from attendees:

PGSC Elections for 2022-2023 – Candidate Profile

Hi everyone!

It’s come to that time of year again for PGSC Officer Elections! As you may have heard from the colloquium last Friday there is lots of things to work on around the department. If you are interested in being an officer please fill out the following form:

https://forms.gle/H8dti6gc3u5ywCLs8

If you are wondering what the time commitments and tasks are for each position, check out this page!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vcOwZAPVaxeTymlffx89nEsHwmXNIwWToZirkIEUaWE/edit?usp=sharing

Nominations will be open until next Friday, May 6th, at 5pm. Elections will be held the following week. We’ll be updating this web page each evening as new nominations come in so you can see who else is running!

 

Best,

Cameron Kuchta
PGSC President 2021-22

 

CURRENT NOMINEES:

(Last Updated 5/18/22)

  • President
    • Cameron Kuchta
  • Vice President
    • Luca Riitano
  • Chair of Peer Mentoring
    • Vedant Basu
  • Chair of Recruit & Welcome
    • Michael Martinez
    • Jack Reily
  • Chair of Professional Development
    • no nominees yet
  • Chair of Social Activities
    • Elise Chavez
  • Representative for International Students
    • Priyadarshini Rajkumar
  • Representative for Abroad Students (CERN, etc.)
    • no nominees yet
  • At-Large Representative for 2nd/3rd years
    • Luca Riitano
    • Elise Chavez
  • At-Large Representative for 4th/5th/6th+ years
    • no nominees yet

PGSC Election Results for 2021-2022

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who voted in the PGSC elections! The results are in and your new PGSC Officers for the 2021-2022 school year will be

  • Cameron Kuchta, President
  • Luca Riitano, Vice President
  • Vedant Basu, Chair of Peer Mentoring
  • Jessie Thwaites, Chair of Recruit & Welcome
  • David Guevel, Chair of Professional Development
  • Elise Chavez, Chair of Social Activities
  • Kunal Sanwalka, Representative for International Students
  • Sarah McCarthy, Representative for 2nd/3rd year Students
  • Ben Harpt, Representative for 4th/5th/6th+ year Students

Congratulations to all of our new officers! And a huge thank you to all of our outgoing officers! As always, you can use our comment box to leave feedback/suggestions on how the PGSC can better serve your needs. PGSC is looking forward to another year of advocacy, learning, support, and camaraderie!

Best wishes for the coming year,
Kayla Leonard DeHolton

PGSC Elections for 2021-2022 – Candidate Profile

Hi everyone,

 

As we approach the end of the school year, it is time for elections for the PGSC officers for the 2021-2022 school year. If you are interested in being an officer next year, please fill out this Candidate Profile to indicate which positions you are interested in:

https://forms.gle/DD7e6uRAKPfbuPPz8

 

Nominations will remain open until Friday April 16th at 5pm. Elections will be held the following week. The list of nominees will be shared publicly as they come in, so check back at this page.

Per our constitution, everyone may nominate themselves for up to two positions, so long as they indicate which of the two positions is their preferred position. If you win both positions, you will be asked to fill the position you indicated as being preferred, with the second position being filled instead by whoever came in second place. Also note that to be eligible for the President position you must have been a PGSC officer in a previous year.

If you are interested in running but have questions about the responsibilities of any of the positions, please reach out to any of the current officers.

 

Best,

Kayla Leonard DeHolton
PGSC President 2020-2021

_______________________________________________________

CURRENT NOMINEES
(last updated 4/16/2021)

  • President
    • Cameron Kuchta
  • Vice President
    • Luca Riitano
  • Chair of Peer Mentoring
    • Vedant Basu
  • Chair of Recruit & Welcome
    • Jessie Thwaites
  • Chair of Professional Development
    • David Guevel
  • Co-Chair of Social Activities
    • Elise Chavez
  • Representative for International Students
    • Kunal Sanwalka
  • Representative for Abroad Students (CERN, etc.)
    • no nominees yet
  • At-Large Representative for 2nd/3rd years
    • Sarah McCarthy
  • At-Large Representative for 4th/5th/6th+ years
    • Ben Harpt

Pi(e) Day Bake Along

Hey folks!

Pi Day is this Sunday (3/14) and our celebration is going virtual this year. The festivities will have two parts: a bake-off photo contest, and a pie bake-along on Sunday, 3/14 at 1:59pm.

Bake-Off Photo Contest:

Upload a picture of your baking to this form (https://forms.gle/RhDry3DjixSWsnN96). You can include anything you have baked during quarantine. Since we will be hosting a pie bake-along on Pi Day, we’ve included a category specifically for things baked on Pi Day.

Voting categories (with prizes!) will include: Best Quarantine Bake, Best Pi Day Bake, Prettiest, and Most Creative. We will also vote for Best Showing by a Research Area (no prize, just bragging rights) so encourage your peers to get involved. You can fill out the form multiple times for multiple entries. Voting will take place on Monday, 3/15 with winners announced Tuesday, 3/16.

Pie Bake-Along: 

We will have a bake-along on Pi Day, 3/14 at 1:59pm. Bakers of ALL experience levels are welcome to join us as we work through a simple apple pie recipe. If you want to make it even simpler, feel free to buy pre-made pie crust (or even cans of pre-made pie filling – we won’t judge!). And for advanced bakers, feel free to pick your own recipe and join us for some baking camaraderie.

Check you UW email to find Zoom details. This zoom room will also be open all day on Sunday for people to hop in and chat if you are baking stuff beyond the bake-along.

For the bake-along, you will need:

We hope you will join us for a celebration of pi and pie!

Best wishes,
Susan Sorensen, Jack Dolde, and Kunal Sanwalka

Recent Virtual Events – Spring 2021

PGSC has had fun hosting virtual social events for grad students this semester! In January we hosted virtual trivia night; see below for photos of our trivia contestants and hosts! Last week, first year representative Kunal taught fellow grad students how to bake a delicious chocolate cake. Yum!

 

Join us this week for game nights on Thursday and Friday with prospective students. And stay tuned for details about our upcoming Pi(e) Day activities and more!

Launching PGSC Social Pods

PGSC is launching a new program to create groups of people with similar interests via slack/email/etc. We hope this will be useful in connecting you with like-minded individuals with whom you can explore your hobbies. If you are interested in joining one of these social pods, you can find channels for each on the PGSC Slack workspace. Search for #social-pods- and join any you are interested in. There are currently groups for cooking, online games, crafting, music, sports, and more! (Note: any activities are intended to be virtual and/or covid-friendly.)

2020-2021 Elections

Self-Nomination Process:

If you would like to run for a PGSC Officer position for the 2020-2021 year, please fill out this survey to indicate which positions you are interested in: https://forms.gle/kZWvdrfvzoG9LW7h6

Nominations will close at 5 pm on Friday, April 24th. Elections will be held the following week.

As per our bylaws (posted on the PGSC website), everyone may nominate themselves for up to two positions, so long as they indicate which of the two positions is their preferred position. If you win both positions, you will be asked to fill the position you indicated as being preferred, with the second position being filled instead by whoever came in second place. Also note that to be eligible for the President position you must have been a PGSC officer in a previous year.

Self-nominations will be publicly shared throughout this process, so that people can choose what to nominate themselves for based on what is in high or low demand. For that reason, we will post people’s nominations below as they come in.

 

CURRENT NOMINATIONS:

  • President
    • Kayla Leonard
  • Vice President
    • Brent Mode
    • Abigail Bishop
  • Chair of Peer Mentoring
    • Abigail Bishop
    • Sarah McCarthy
  • Chair of Recruit and Welcome
    • Trevor Oxholm
    • Cameron Kuchta
  • Chair of Professional Development
    • Rob Morgan
  • Co-chair of Social Activities (2nd/3rd year)
    • Cameron Kuchta
    • Abigail Shearrow
  • Co-chair of Social Activities (4th+ year)
  • Representative for International Students
    • Bryan Luu
    • Susmita Mondal
    • Tadepalli Sai Chaitanya
  • Representative for Abroad Students (CERN, etc)
  • At-Large Representative (2nd/3rd year)
    • Brent Mode
    • Sarah McCarthy
    • Abigail Shearrow
  • At-Large Representative (4th/5th/6th+ year)
    • Leslie Taylor

Slack Workspace

Hello everyone!
To ease communications amongst the physics graduate students, we’ve taken the first year’s Slack, enhanced it, and now we’re ready to open it up to everyone! Even if you’re already a part of the Slack, please peruse this entire email so you can make the most of this new / improved resource!
And please download the Slack application to your phone and computer to get push notifications from your fellow pals!
To join, click this link:
https://tinyurl.com/pg-slack
To view the handbook (and the Code of Conduct), click this link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G9Q_KvsGDYivg2CPtP3emhnk8GMGRKZS3FWe_zShlc8/edit?usp=sharing
The Code of Conduct contains very important rules like:
  • Be Respectful. 
  • Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, any and all biases are strictly banned
  • Refrain from profanity. 
  • Sharing sensitive course materials (past exams, past homework, etc) is prohibited. 
  • Sharing FERPA protected content is prohibited. 
If you violate any rules from the Code of Conduct, your account may be deactivated from the Slack Workspace.
Channels to Join:
  • #GMAWIP-Announcements, #Housing, #International-Students, #Memes, #Courses-*, #Research-*, #Daily-Inspirations
  • #Papers-* channels have bots that post new arXiv papers nightly. To know more about the bot, visit this link: https://github.com/abigailbishop/slackPoster
To join a channel from the desktop application, click “Channels” on the left sidebar, click the channel you desire, then click the button to join it.
If you have any questions about the Slack space, you can send a message to Rob Morgan and Abby Bishop.
Cheers,
PGSC

Grad Lounge Construction Update 12/20/2019

Hey folks,
We just wanted to give a quick end-of-year update for the state of the grad lounge. We are excited to announce that the construction is complete! All that is left now is to move everything (furniture, dishes, etc.) back into the lounge, which will be happening over the break. Your keys should work in the door again, and we have a new sink, fridge, and microwave all ready for use. Please be considerate and clean up after yourself if preparing food in the grad lounge, especially since we have not moved the cleaning supplies back in yet.
Keep an eye out at the start of next semester for an announcement of the lounge’s grand re-opening!
Happy holidays,
Susan Sorensen & PGSC