The Graduate English Association
The Graduate English Association (GEA) is the organization of English graduate students. The officers are elected annually. For 2011-12 they are:
- GEA President: Marissa Nicosia
- Academic Representative/GEA Vice President: Alyssa Connell
- Treasurer: Jonathan Fedors
- Secretary: Monika Bhagat-Kennedy
- Prospectives Visit Coordinators: Don James McLaughlin & Omari Weekes
- OddsUp Coordinator: Laura Soderberg
- Funding Librarian: Kelly Rich
- Writing Representative: Sunny Yang
- Grad Lounge Czar/Lord Protector: Thomas Dichter
- Grad Lab Liaison: Caroline Henze-Gongola
- GEA Representatives to SASgov: Alice McGrath & Sierra Lomuto
- First Year Representatives: Angela Britto & Dianne Mitchell
The GEA meets each month to discuss issues facing current graduate students and foster community socializing. The GEA convenes workshops for graduate students approaching program milestones and runs the William Patrick Day Essay Contest for graduate students. In conjunction with the English Department, the GEA organizes the yearly Collation and Prospectives Visit Colloquium in which faculty and students present talks. Most of these events take place in the Grad Lounge, 330 Fisher-Bennett Hall (calendar available here). The GEA has also compiled the GEA Housing Guide and the Official GEA Handbook.
The roles of individual GEA officers are as follows:
President and Vice-President/Academic Representative: The GEA President and VP convene regular meetings of the GEA, sit in on select meetings of the department's Graduate Executive Committee meetings, supervise projects undertaken by GEA cabinet officers, and organize GEA workshops. The President also delivers a humorous, inspirational speech at Collation. Together, the President and VP also coordinate academic programming, social events, and advocacy on behalf of the graduate community. They meet regularly with the Graduate Chair to ensure open communication between graduate students, faculty, and administration about opportunities, issues, and changes affecting graduate students.
Treasurer: The treasurer keeps track of GEA spending in its current state and, in coordination with the President and Vice-President, in relation to the long-term goals of the GEA. This primarily requires reconciling the GEA accounts maintained by the English Business Coordinator with the spending reported by agents of the GEA. The treasurer also acts as the point person for information about the reimbursement process.
Secretary: The Secretary attends all monthly GEA meetings at which he/she takes detailed notes. He/she then types up the notes shortly thereafter in an organized and logical format, sends them to the President and Vice-President for review, and then disseminates them to the Grads listserv. The minutes are usually sent out no more than a week after each GEA meeting.
Prospectives Visit Coordinators: The Prospective Visit Coordinators work with Ann Marie to help organize the visits of students admitted to our doctoral program each spring. This primarily entails setting up lunches between prospective students and current graduate students, organizing the annual colloquium, and making arrangements for the catered dinner in the grad lounge after said colloquium.
OddsUp Coordinator: The OddsUp Coordinator compiles information sent by event coordinators or otherwise announced and sends a weekly email with information about the events of the upcoming week. The Coordinator is also maintains a Google document listing upcoming events, which allows reading group leaders to update event information directly.
Funding Librarian: The GEA Funding Librarian is responsible for keeping the graduate community updated about various forms of predoctoral funding. This primarily entails adding entries to the GEA Predoctoral Funding Blog (which can be found on Penn English's homepage), but may also involve leading a workshop and/or sending out periodic emails about different funding sources.
Writing Representative: The writing representative acts as a liaison between second-year students and the Critical Writing Program. With the program director, the Writing Representative plans out a series of workshops to prepare the second-years for proposing a course and writing a course description. He/she might also arrange for second-years to sit in on current CPCW classes. On the most general level, the writing representative should help answer any questions that the second years might have about the critical writing program.
Grad Lounge Czar(ina)/Social Chair: The Grad Lounge Czar(ina)/Social chair coordinates social activities (in particular: 50 Book party, Collation, and first-year welcome potluck), keeps the schedule for grad lounge use, and cleans the grad lounge fridge/kitchen periodically.
GEA Representatives to SASGov: SASGov representatives attend and participate in biweekly SASGov meetings, in which they represent the needs and aims of the English Department’s graduate student body within the School of Arts and Sciences. They keep the department abreast of SASGov news through email communication as well as attendance at the monthly GEA meetings. They are also responsible for submitting paperwork to receive Departmental Merit Funding (granted through SASGov) that the department typically uses to fund its annual Collation event.
First-Year Representatives: The First-Year Representatives address the GEA about matters specific to the new cohort. He/she is attentive to the concerns of the other first-years and speaks to these concerns at GEA meetings.