The Graduate and Professional Students Senate will be installing the new executive council members at the Monday, April 22, 2013 meeting. 

Anna Prisacari, the Senate’s 2013-2014 president, showed interest in the position in November 2012 while she held another executive council position as the chief information officer.

“I really enjoyed working and getting involved with university policies and trying my best to help graduate and professional students,” Prisacari said.

Prisacari is a doctorate student in chemistry.

Prisacari will be working closely with Brian Tlach, vice president of Graduate and Professional Students Senate, to improve the organization. Tlach is a doctorate student in chemistry.

Two main resolutions that Prisacari and Tlach have for the upcoming term are graduate health insurance and leadership and involvement.

For graduate students, premiums are paid by the department or program for teaching and research assistants, Tlach said.

The graduate health insurance given to the graduate students, however, is not extended to the families of the students.

“The graduate students that are on assisstance-ship have really good health insurance through Thielen [Student Health Center], but unfortunately for the families, it is very cost-prohibited to have it,” Tlach said.

The executive council will work with the Students and Scholar Health Insurance Program Office on this resolution.

The second resolution is the council would like graduate and professional students to be more active in pursuing and securing leadership roles and opportunities while still in the graduate and professional programs.

“Every graduate student must participant in some level of involvement, preferably some leadership position by the time they graduate,” Tlach said.

The resolution is to prepare students and create a more leadership-oriented individual who will either go into academia or industry life, Prisacari said.

The two resolutions will be presented at the Graduate and Professional Students Senate meeting on Monday, April 22, 2013, for approval to be worked on over the summer months.

Because President Steven Leath is also looking to expand the graduate student population, Graduate and Professional Students Senate is looking to ensure that the programs have the means for the expansion, Tlach said.

The addition of a graduate research conference is another idea that the president and vice president are looking to add to the program.

“We want to promote more network opportunities and collaborative opportunities for grad students. We know a lot of students, for example, come from multi-disciplinary programs so that one of the other reasons why we wanted to create a graduate research conference,” Prisacari said.