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Topics

Listed below are the six most popular topics identified by the Program Committee and Delgates to this Conference. Each Delegate will have a role (remember, the roles are Presentor, Facilitator, Reporter, and Response Moderator) in developing these topics for presentation at the National Conference on Graduate Student Leadership this November. The Program Committee considered the preferences of each Delegate in developing the Topic and Role Assignments (see left-hand navigation menu). The Program Committee looks forward to a great discussion of the these interesting and challenging topics.

Topics for NCGSL 2007

  1. Balancing Graduate Student Demands with the Rest of Your Life:
    1. How can we improve graduate programs to promote a balance of career, life, happiness, and health?
    2. What are some ways you have found to successfully achieve more balance?
    3. What can we, as students, do to create a graduate education environment that will promote better balance for future students?
    4. What resources are needed to help graduate students with responsibilities to spouses, children, parents and jobs; and what can schools do to help provide them
  2. Ethical Behavior and Responsibility:
    1. What is intellectual property? As students, how can we take control of our own intellectual property?
    2. What are some examples and steps to take when making ethical decisions?
    3. Keeping in mind that many graduate students do not continue in the academy after graduation, what is an appropriate training strategy for good ethics for faculty and students?
    4. How can we build positive relationships by being responsible and ethical at a university?
    5. What are some steps toward preparing for issues on confidentiality?
  3. Affording a Graduate Education:
    1. Where can students find financial planning resources on-campus or off-campus?
    2. What can be done at universities to help students plan for the cost of their graduate education?
    3. What are methods on how to overcome common economic hardships faced by graduate students?
    4. How can we prevent student debt during a graduate student education?
    5. What actions can we take when stipends are not sufficient enough for students to support themselves?
  4. Making A Smooth Transition: Preparing for Life After Graduate School:
    1. What are some tips on how to choose and build relationships with your mentors?
    2. What are some easy ways students can go above and beyond expectations graduate students?
    3. What are some things that you should or shouldn’t do when making a first impression?
    4. What are effective ways to network?
  5. Inclusiveness:
    1. What is the philosophical difference between diversity and inclusiveness?
    2. Recent discussion in the current presidential race has to do with a colorblind society (colorblindness is defined as overlooking the skin color of a person.) Do you think that promoting colorblindness on university campuses is a positive approach to race relations?
    3. Has your graduate school experience, in any way, shaped and affected your current understanding of racism? If so, how and why?
    4. What can graduate student leaders do to promote diversity or inclusiveness on college campuses
  6. The Meaning and Role of Community:
    1. What comes to mind when you hear the word "community"? Do you define it as an on-campus or off-campus entity?
    2. What do you feel is the graduate student role in each of these communities and how is that role different from undergraduates?
    3. Does building community enhance or detract from the graduate school experience?
    4. Most universities have a community commitment of some sort, what role should graduate students play in that commitment?
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