The introductory meeting of the fall semester for the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) took place Monday evening in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.

The GPSS is a student-led Senate that focuses on making sure the needs and issues that graduate and professional students face are heard by the university.

The meeting began with an introduction from the Dean of the Graduate College, William Graves.

Graves gave the Senate the rundown of available resources to graduate students, including the Graduate Dean’s school and the Graduate College Scholar programs. The programs will provide incentives to potential grad students, and the money will be coming from the now-defunct Presidential Scholar Program.

“We want graduate students to recognize that we’re here for you,” Graves said.

Graves said the university was facing big challenges in recruiting graduate students, and that the University would be ramping up its recruiting efforts this year. He added that the current political climate was discouraging international graduate students from applying to Iowa State. With that, Graves said that the department would focus on four countries for their international recruiting.

Ecuador, Ghana, Japan and Malaysia are the targeted countries, Graves said.

Adding to the new initiatives the college is testing out, Graves said that five graduate departments would be offering free applications and will make a tentative decision on applicants five departments: Horticulture, molecular, cellular and developmental biology, immunal biology, sustainable environments and neurobiology.

“We want to test whether a rapid decision makes a difference,” Graves said.

Also at the meeting, Carolyn Cutrona was introduced to the Senate as a new Associate Dean of the Graduate College. Cutrona’s job will include directing job training for Directors of Graduate Education, or DOGEs.

GPSS President Norin Yasin Chaudhry then gave her opening statement of the semester. She said she was intent on growing the level of diversity and inclusion in the GPSS and the graduate college and bettering the college’s relationship with Student Affairs.

Chaudhry added she wants to spread the word of the GPSS to both people on campus and to prospective students.

Following Chaudhry’s opening statement, each of the Executive Council members laid out their specific department requests for the new senators.

PAG (Professional Development Grant) Chair Eleanor Field requested feedback from senators about the “outdated” PAG website, which she said will be hopefully getting an update during the school year.

Research Conference Chair Niranjana Krishnan then informed the senators of results of a survey regarding the Graduate and Professional Students Research Conference, which included topics such as the day of the week the conference could be held on — Wednesday, April 10, 2019 — and the venue —Memorial Union. She then announced that the conference would for the first time be divided by college.

Krishnan also announced that Dr. Raychelle Burks, assistant professor of chemistry at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, will be the keynote speaker of the conference.

The meeting also included the ratification of the updated GPSS Constitution. This process takes place each year and is done in order to keep the GPSS running. The bill passed with 35 votes of yes, with all present senators voting in favor.