WGSA 2016-2017 Elections
Election schedule
Nomination period: Thursday, February 18 - Friday, February 26
Voting (online): Monday, February 29 - Friday, March 4
Winners announced: Monday, March 14
New officers assume responsibilities of office: Monday, May 2
Election guidelines
To nominate yourself or someone else for one of the positions listed below, fill out the nomination form
here. You may elect someone for more than one positon.
All nominees will be asked to accept/confirm their nomination prior to voting.
Each confirmed nominee will need to provide the following by Saturday, February 27:
-A picture of yourself, preferably a headshot
-A list of 3 reasons why you should be elected. These may be related to why you want the job, what you hope to do while you’re in office (i.e. your priority initiatives), or your relevant qualifications.
If you are running for more than one position, you should submit a list of 3 reasons for each position for which you are a candidate.
This is the first year we are requesting this information from each candidate. Our intention is to provide everyone voting with a little background information/context for evaluating the candidates (as opposed to just voting on people’s names), while keeping the requirements for candidates to a minimum.
Open positions
Core Officers:
WGSA President – Oversees association activities and coordinates with faculty/administration
(Currently: Tara Gancos Crawford, taragc@uga.edu)
-Provides vision for organizational growth, coordinates and delegates responsibilities for new initiatives and implementing ongoing and annual events and activities
-At times can require significant time investment; must be willing to step-up and fill in to get things done when other officers are unavailable, and requires a fair amount of public speaking
-Lots of opportunities to meet and collaborate with a variety of people from across the Warnell and UGA network
WGSA Vice President – Conducts/delegates exit interviews for graduating Warnell graduate students (Currently: Kristen Lear, klear@uga.edu)
-Serves as backup to the President to run meetings and events if the President cannot attend
-In charge of scheduling exit interviews for graduating Warnell graduate students, which is a great way to learn more about Warnell and meet people you never knew!
-This is a great way to be more involved in WGSA if you’re new or not ready to run for President, but you still want experience with helping run the organization!
WGSA Treasurer – Handles financial activities/responsibilities. This includes creating budgets, maintaining the private bank account, making purchases for WGSA events, record keeping, submitting audits and other financial documents as required for student organizations, and handling merchandise orders and sales, as well as being involved with the general running of
WGSA
(Currently: Adrian Parr Moore, amparr@uga.edu)
-Opportunity to serve and improve the Warnell graduate community o Provides increased interaction and communication with Warnell faculty, staff, and students; you get to know a lot of new people through this position.
-Great for practicing your organizational skills (i.e. you need to be organized to do this job well!).
WGSA Secretary - Manages WGSA email and archives, keeps track of participation points, assembles and distributes weekly bulletin, helps to conduct exit interviews, and manages WGSA website (currently, but website management will be handled by a dedicated person this upcoming year; see Website Coordinator position description, below)
(Currently: Abby Sterling, avsterl@uga.edu)
-Great way to get involved in all WGSA activities, including helping to shape the direction of WGSA programs and activities, and the annual symposium
-You will get a lot of experience with communicating to large groups through email; good skills for future career, and looks good on a CV or resume
-Can be fairly time consuming depending on what you want to accomplish as a group, but a great way to meet students, faculty and give back to the Warnell community
NEW core officer support positions:
To help reduce the workload for the core officers, and to improve the efficiency and efficacy of WGSA’s programs and activities, the current WGSA officers have come up with several new positions to fill for the coming year. These new positions will augment our existing manpower, helping ensure ongoing growth and success of our organization.
Website Coordinator
-The WGSA website is a valuable centralized place for finding WGSA information.
-The Coordinator will be responsible for updating the website/blog regarding important announcement, upcoming events, workshop materials, etc.
-Doesn’t require a lot of time (it’s relatively easy to update and maintain everything), but there is ample opportunity to invest in improving website functionality and responsiveness, if you’re interested
Podcast Coordinator (possibly same person as Website Coordinator)
-The podcasts are a unique opportunity to share the research being done at Warnell with a broader audience.
-This position requires contacting students/ faculty to discuss their research, recording and editing the audio file, and posting it online.
-Most interviews last about 10 minutes, but editing might require an hour or so depending on your skill/proficiency.
Fundraising Committee Chair
-Work with current President Tara Gancos Crawford to establish small grants program for Warnell graduate students.
-Activities will include helping with administrative details and logistics related to establishing new fundraising campaign, fundraising and coordinating fundraising volunteers, handling correspondence with donors and sponsors, etc.
Mentor Program Coordinator
-The coordinator contacts undergraduates and graduates at the beginning of each semester to inform students of the program details and to solicit interest
-Throughout the semester the applications must be reviewed, and pairing of undergraduates with graduate students is done through email
-Check in with participants at the middle and end of the semester for feedback and ideas for improvement
-This program has received very positive feedback and is an important contribution to Warnell. There is room for further program development and great potential for being a valuable long-term program.
-The time requirements are not substantial, but organization and attentiveness to timelines throughout the year are helpful for success.
Procaffeination Hour Coordinator
-Contacts Warnell graduate students at the beginning of each semester to determine a weekly meeting time and solicit input regarding PH activities and topics of interest for the WGSA workshop series
-Identifies and schedules individuals to lead weekly activities or workshops o Emails PH activity/workshop leaders a week in advance for a paragraph describing the workshop/activity, which then gets posted to the WGSA website
-Works with WGSA core and supporting officers to coordinate coffee and donut logistics each week
-This is a fulfilling position that requires engaging with many graduate students in Warnell about their research, and helps to boost CV content for those leading the workshops. Additionally, it is a valuable contribution to the Warnell graduate student community, and has received very positive feedback. It would be great if this could develop into a long-term program.
Diversity Committee Chair
-Help plan and implement activities for fostering greater diversity awareness and inclusivity within Warnell.
Warnell Graduate Student Representatives:
Member of the Honors and Awards Committee - Works in the month of February to decide which students in Warnell will receive scholarships.
Member of the Teaching Effectiveness Committee - The Teaching Effectiveness Committee works to improve and recognize instructional quality within Warnell, e.g. it coordinates the brown bag discussion series, offers course assessments to faculty, identifies instructional mentors for new faculty, and nominates faculty for university-wide teaching awards
Member of the Curriculum Committee - Oversees approval of all new courses and course changes in Warnell (voting done on-line). Considers proposals for undergraduate curriculum revisions and makes recommendations on them to the faculty before the faculty votes on adoption of revisions. Typically 2 hours a month, with the potential for more should the full committee decide to meet and discuss curriculum changes.
Member of the Graduate Affairs Committee - As the graduate representative this student works with a committee of Warnell faculty to award Warnell assistantships to incoming students. Also, if applicable, this student also considers proposals for graduate curriculum revisions and makes recommendations on them to the faculty before the faculty votes on adoption of revisions.
Member of the Seminar/Colloquium Committees - Assists in selection of speakers for the Warnell weekly seminar series and works closely with WGSA core officers to coordinate and host the Colloquium speaker (typically a well-known/influential natural resource professional) who gives the plenary address to initiate the annual Warnell Graduate Student Symposium.
Warnell University Council Student Representative ** This student serves as the student representative for Warnell on the University Council. Student must be able to attend monthly University Council meetings on Wednesday afternoons and serve on University Council committees as needed.
** NOTE: This position is open to graduate and undergraduate student nominees, and all Warnell graduate and undergraduate students will vote for the representative for our school. We are soliciting graduate student nominees as part of our WGSA election cycle, but the vote for this position will be done in a separate election organized by Katelyn Kivett.
If a graduate student is elected for this position, this student will also serve as the UGA Graduate Student Association Representative (see description, below).
UGA Graduate Student Association Representative *** Attends UGA Graduate Student Association (GSA) meetings (normally on Monday evenings) on behalf of the Warnell community, keeps the Warnell graduate community informed of events sponsored by the GSA and the Graduate School, and communicates student concerns to the GSA and University Council Representatives to facilitate advocacy on their behalf to the UGA and Graduate School administration.
o Requires attending monthly meetings and reporting back to the WGSA officers and/or the Warnell student body regarding any information that impacts Warnell graduate students. In addition, this position should aim to promote an interdisciplinary mingling between Warnell and other graduate departments at UGA through socials, conferences, etc. More about GSA can be found at https://gsa.uga.edu/
*** If the University Council Representative position (above) goes to an undergraduate student, we will do a separate follow-up vote to elect someone for this position based on the pool of graduate student nominees for the University Council Representative position.
If you have any questions, please email taragc@uga.edu
