Welcoming Message from GSC Chair
 
 
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Dear Fellow Graduate Students,

Thank you for visiting the Graduate Student Council (GSC) webspace.  I hope this space will be a great resource for you as you navigate AERA as a graduate student. I would like to begin by expressing my excitement for serving as GSC Chair for the 2012-2013 year. I wanted to take this opportunity to briefly introduce myself and tell you a little bit about the GSC. 

  
I have just completed my fourth year at The Ohio State University in the Multicultural and Equity Studies in Education Ph.D. program. My research interests include teacher education, issues of sexuality and gender in education, and multicultural children’s education. I have served on the GSC in a number of capacities.  At our annual meeting in Denver in 2010, I helped planned the GSC reception as the Hospitality Chair.  During the 2010-2011 year, I served as the Secretary-Historian.  Last year, I was elected to the three-year Chair-Elect, Chair, Past-Chair term.

The reason I mention my involvement in the GSC is that I want to make you aware of the many ways to get involved in the GSC.  If you are not a part of the Graduate Student listserv, I highly suggest you get your email on it.  It provides a wealth of information from other graduate students FOR graduate students.  Calls for volunteers for various GSC committees will also go out over this listserv. These committees are a great way to begin involvement with the GSC.  Each Division has both a Junior and Senior Representative position. To learn more about the specific duties and responsibilities of each representative please look on the GSC roster to contact the current representative regarding his or her duties.  The Division VP nominates individuals for these positions.  It is never too early to reach out to the VP regarding your interest.  Finally, in the next few months a call will go over via the GSC listserv and newsletter from Past-Chair, Dr. Nicholas Hartlep regarding the elected GSC positions. This call will include a description of the duties of each of these elected positions and the process for applying. Please do not hesitate to contact the current GSC members for more information about these positions.

Another valuable resource for graduate students is the Graduate Student Newsletter that gets published three times a year.  The newsletter contains reports from the GSC Divisional Representatives with important graduate student information for each Division.  The Newsletter Editors will also be submitting a general call for articles from graduate students not directly involved in the council. The Graduate Student Council and many of the GSC Divisions have their own Facebook pages.  These are another great resource to find postings as to how to get involved in the GSC and Divisions.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions, comments or concerns you may have about the Graduate Student Council. I look forward to working with you over the next year as your Chair.

Cathy A.R. Brant
AERA Graduate Student Council Chair 2012-2013
cathyarbrant@gmail.com

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Greetings Graduate Students:

I am so glad you have connected with the GSC. Finding us is the first step to being involved and informed. As Cathy highlighted, you power this space and our job is to help empower you. Over one quarter of AERA's members are graduate students, so don't think just because we do not have certain letters after our names yet means we have to wait to contribute our voice to the larger community. We are vital stakeholders and are a powerful lobby, but we can only represent you to the extent to which you communicate and participate with us.
In contrast to Cathy's vast GSC involvement, I am a newcomer to the GSC and just attended my second AERA annual meeting. Being a newer member from a small department at Johns Hopkins University with little representation at AERA and no prior GSC representatives, I know how overwhelming the AERA Annual Meeting schedule, Divisions, SIGs, and submissions can be. Spreading the word about AERA and the GSC at universities like mine and helping new members navigate to maximize their experiences are two reasons I am excited about the opportunity you have afforded me as your Chair-Elect. One way to stay current and help others benefit from our resources is to become a campus liaison.

I mention my new status to urge you to consider becoming formal or informal leaders in the GSC. Like many of you, I became interested in training to be an educational researcher after being frustrated with the lack of research present in school decisions, professional development, and teacher training, as well as the disconnect between research and practice. Given my background as a middle school art teacher in Baltimore City, I plan to work on connecting AERA's wealth of researchers with practitioners to exchange solutions and concerns. Therefore, I would love to invite all of you to share your expertise to help shape how we can foster greater graduate student, researcher, and practitioner collaboration. Please contact me with your suggestions, especially if you are located or have connections in San Francisco and Philadelphia, the sites of our next Annual Meetings. 

Our annual community service projects are one area where the GSC has pioneered such crosscutting collaboration. Thanks to the vision of last year's Program Chair, Robyn Carlson, I was able to join GSC members as well as graduate and high school students from Vancouver in a mural project. You can learn more about the initiative by watching a video our newsletter editor, Bryce Walker, created. Our new Program Chair, Cecilia Henriquez Fernandez, will be carrying on this tradition. I encourage you to get involved as participants or organizers for our San Francisco and Philadelphia service projects and Take a Break Sessions.

There are also awards, funding, and professional development opportunities for which you can apply as graduate student AERA members. Thank you for your dedication. I congratulate you and wish you continued success with your programs. If there is anything I can do, please e-mail me: jcarinc1@jhu.edu. I look forward to hearing about your research, working with you, and answering any questions you may have. Together we can promote the mission of the GSC and AERA to even greater success.

I hope to hear from you soon,

Jennifer E. Carinci
AERA Graduate Student Council Chair-Elect 2012-2013
IES Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins University
jcarinc1@jhu.edu


 
 
   
     
   
 
 
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