President
The president is responsible for organizing and moderating MSSA meetings, including board meetings and general body meetings. Further, they should be able to offer assistance to other roles as needed and keep track of all events. The president also serves as a main point of contact with MSE office staff to communicate goals between MSSA and the department as a whole.
Vice President/Visit Weekend Chair
The Vice President is primarily in charge of planning or delegating the planning of the prospective student visit weekends. The Vice President also helps the President organize orientation events for the first years before the first week of classes. In addition, the Vice President assists the president with other duties as needed, and assists other board members in planning/running other MSSA events as needed.
Treasurer
The MSSA treasurer is responsible for managing the budget for MSSA. This includes proposing a budget around March, tracking spending, and obtaining tax-exemption forms. The treasurer creates the budget, obtains approval from the board, and submit it to the MSE office in conjunction with the President at the beginning of Spring quarter. In addition, the treasurer assists in submitting expense reports and communicating fiscal matters with MSE office staff.
Secretary
The secretary’s main duties involve reserving rooms for board meetings and other events, and sharing events and information with the listserv via the weekly newsletter (this format could be changed depending on the board). This also includes updating/monitoring the list-serv, and creating flyers/announcements for events, depending on the board.
Student-Faculty Liaisons
The student-faculty liaisons plan and moderate department Town Hall events and canvasses for issues amongst graduate students in our department. Stu-Fac has regular meetings with department faculty (DGS, chair/associate chair). The student-faculty liaisons also plan quarterly student-faculty lunches, which involves coordinating with the department to provide lunch and inviting a faculty member to come discuss their career with students. In the past, they have also organized a student-faculty mentorship program for first year students during advisor selection.
Social Chair
The social chair is in charge of running several events each quarter related to the social
development of the department. Examples of past events include sporting events, visiting a corn maze (the world’s largest!), bar nights, comedy shows, trips to museums, Zoo Lights (at the Lincoln Park Zoo), Paint and Sip, scavenger hunts, etc. They also organize transportation to these events and ticket distribution.
Outreach Chair
The volunteer/outreach chair serves as the contact between the department and various outreach and volunteering organizations in the community, and helps share outreach opportunities with the department. The position entails coordinating the department’s participation in Letters to a Pre-Scientist, Junior Science club, and other outreach with BGCC; this mostly consists of planning JSC activities and organizing volunteers (can be in the form of an Outreach Committee). The Outreach Chair(s) will also lead organizing fundraisers such as Penny Wars, the Holiday gift drive, the MSSA 5k, and other fundraisers to help support Letters to a Pre-Scientist and JSC.
IM Chair
IM chair is responsible for organizing games, practices and teams for all IM sports. They are in charge of gauging interest for each sport and making sure that a given time slot will have high enough attendance every week.
Inter-Organization Ambassador
The ambassador is responsible for announcing her- or himself via email to GSA, MGLC, and GLAC, to establish a line of communication with these organizations, as well as any new student organizations that become relevant to MSE graduate students (an example is RSSI, but this will ultimately depend on the situation and the ambassador’s best judgement). The ambassador should also volunteer to be a department representative (DR) for GLAC.
First Year Representative
The first year representative is a role that comes about during the winter quarter. Their job is to serve as a liaison between the current first year cohort and MSSA such that their opinions and concerns can be more readily heard within the department. Further, the role will help organize and manage MSSA events.
Webmaster/Historian
The job of the webmaster is to keep the MSSA website updated and in good shape. The website is a resource for the students in the department to find contacts in MSSA, see recent department news, and learn more about what activities we have been organizing for the department.
The historian keeps documentation (pictures) of MSSA events to share with the department and students MSSA-organized activities. This includes managing the @nu_mssa Instagram account and website photo gallery. Otherwise, the webmaster/historian also helps the rest of the MSSA board organize and execute events.