The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) hosted an event Friday night at Perfect Games in Ames, which was a social gathering for graduate and professional students to get to know each other and relax after a couple of weeks of classes.

“We’re here to eat pizza, drink non-alcoholic beverages and have fun,” Zachary Zenko, GPSS president said.

Their event at Perfect Games was a make-up scheduled after they planned to host a barbecue at Brookside Park in Ames on Aug. 28 and it was rained out.

“We asked if everyone still wanted to do something or if we should just drop it and everyone still wanted to get together,” Cory Kleinheksel, GPSS vice president said. “We planned this because we know it’s gone over well in the past.”

GPSS holds a Research Conference every spring semester where graduate students and senators present their findings. The weekend after the conference, a spring social is held for the students at Perfect Games.

“It goes over so well we decided we might as well do it in the fall,” Kleinheksel said.

Apart from their social events, GPSS takes their role on campus very seriously. They host more than 50 members and have a potential to have 150 senators, if every program was represented. Kleinheksel hopes to reach out to every program and have representation from every one, and encourages students to join.

GPSS also hopes to have a stronger social media presence this year. They have Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles that they hope can reach out to more students through, Chief Information Officer Bharat Agrawal said.

Despite their feelings on their social media campaigns, they have a much larger turnout than expected for the fall social.

“It gets better every time we do one of these, so we must be doing something right,” Kleinheksel said.

The next GPSS meeting is Sept. 21 in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.