Student Committee Participation

Contributing to your community (“service”) is an important part of academic life. There are many service opportunities in the Psychology Department that involve working together with faculty, graduate students, and other members of our department on key issues. This is a way to have a voice, to learn about effective self-governance, and is a beneficial addition to your CV. The most common committees with a role for graduate students are the following:

 

Graduate Assembly of Students in Psychology (GASP): The purpose of GASP is to support its members by advocating for student rights and resources, facilitating the dissemination of vital information, and promoting the creation of social networks.
https://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/graduate-program/student-organi...

 

Faculty Graduate Student Committee (FGSC): Facilitates ongoing communication between the department leadership/faculty and graduate students to identify and work on specific graduate-student issues and concerns. The committee is made up of two representatives per cohort, along with department leadership and Student Services graduate staff. Involves attending meetings at least twice a semester, being a liaison between one’s cohort and the committee, and working on issues between meetings. Given the centrality and focus of this committee for graduate student matters and well-being, we expect that every graduate student will serve on this committee once during their graduate career (space, schedules, and timing permitted). When interested in serving on this committee, please let the GASP leaders know.

 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (DEI): Works to improve department policies and practices for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion across undergraduate, graduate, staff and faculty experiences through a broad range of initiatives. If interested, please contact the chair/co-chairs of the DEI committee, who are listed at this webpage: https://psychology.berkeley.edu/diversity/ucb-psychology-diversity-visio...

 

Community Building & Cohesion Committee: Aims to foster community engagement within the department by promoting opportunities for social events and idea exchange, and by addressing issues that interfere with community cohesion. Members include faculty, staff, emeriti, and graduate students. If interested, please contact the chair of the CB&C committee: https://psychology.berkeley.edu/resources/climate-and-equity

 

Area Admissions Committee: Work with faculty in your area to identify and select the most promising graduate applicants. Procedures and work flow vary by program; for example, in some programs, all students serve during their third year in the program. If interested, please contact the Area Head for your program.

 

Faculty Search Committees: Be a full-voting member of a faculty search committee. Involves serving as the liaison between graduate students and the search committee and faculty as a whole, facilitating a meeting between job candidates and interested graduate students, surveying graduate students about the job candidates, and presenting the results of the survey to the faculty. Search committee chairs will seek out a graduate student member for every search.

 

Newsletter Committee: Work with faculty members and other graduate students on The Insight departmental newsletter, which has two issues per year. Examples of tasks involved are writing pieces for the newsletter, formatting the layout of the newsletter, interviewing people for newsletter pieces, etc. If interested in working on the newsletter, please reach out to the faculty lead/s on this committee.

 

ULAB Mentorship:  Serve as a graduate student mentor for the ULAB program.  ULAB does require a two semester commitment.  For more information about ULAB, please visit the website: https://ulab.berkeley.edu/labs/cogsci

 

REP Mentorship:  Serve as a graduate student mentor for the REP program.  For more information about REP, please visit the website:  https://sites.google.com/berkeley.edu/rep/home?pli=1