[Gsc-anno] Orientation Logo Contest, Cultural Festival, Locker Lottery, Reading Room Renovation, Stipend Increase(12Jun08)

[Lorenna Lee-Houghton]

**************************  GSC ANNOUNCEMENTS  *************************
    more extensive announcements online: http://gsc.mit.edu
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headlines (details below):

	     1. Orientation Logo Contest
		Deadline June 15th!

	     2. Cultural Festival

	     3. Stratton Student Center Locker Lottery

	     4. Barker Reading Room Renovation
		Student input needed!

	     5. 3.5% Stipend Increase for Graduate Students!

details:
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*Orientation Logo Contest!*

Interested in designing a logo for GSC Orientation?
It will appear on the Orientation T-shirt, GSN magazine,
and posters all over campus!

If your logo is selected, you will get a $100 gift card to
Cambridgeside Galleria!!!
Besides, your name will appear on the GSN magazine!

Deadline to submit:   June 15th, 2008

Please send your logo in the form of a JPG to gsc-oc at mit.edu,
along with your name, course number and a
brief description of your logo.

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*Cultural Festival*

[PERFORMANCE + FREE YUMMY FOOD!!!]
Do you want to have yummy food?
Do you want to enjoy cultural performance?
Then, please come to Sidney-Pacific graduate residence hall
(70 Pacific St.) to enjoy the cultural festival, on June 15th.
We will have delicious food from 7 countries
and cultural performance by representatives of 7
associations at MIT.  You will be served yummy food
and wonderful performance, so don't forget to
mark a big red circle on your calendar.
It would be one of great memories which
you cannot forget in your MIT life.

When : Sunday, June 15, 1-4pm
Where : Sidney-Pacific Graduate Residence Hall (Multipurpose room)

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*Stratton Student Center Locker Lottery for Summer 2008*

We have 48 lockers for current, registered MIT students.
Applications can be found at
http://web.mit.edu/campus-activities/www
and are due June 13th.

The Lockers are in the Reading Room and Game Room.

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*Barker Reading Room Renovation*

The Barker Engineering Library will begin modest initial improvements
to the grand Reading Room under the Great Dome in the coming year.
We are seeking one graduate student to provide input as we engage
the services of an architect in creating initial designs.

This initial phase will involve changing the landscape at the
floor level in the Reading Room, including furniture and lighting.
Our vision for this phase of the Reading Room project is to
enhance the effectiveness of the space as a quiet and inspirational
place to study and engage in the documents of engineering.

Student representatives will work with us in the following ways:
- Attend three meetings with the architect throughout the summer.
- Participate in preparatory meetings with Libraries staff.
- Bring other student input to the project to react to and provide
input to architect-provided designs - be a representative
for the student population that you represent.

The Libraries will pay for the time spent in helping us with this  
project.
If interested email gsc-secretary at mit.edu

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*Stipend Increase for Graduate Students*

As it does every year, the Graduate Student Council made a
presentation this spring to the Dean’s Group, advocating for an
increase in graduate student stipends.

To inform our arguments, the GSC conducted a Cost of Living Survey,
which measured the cash flow of each graduate student to inform
recommendations on stipends and rents to the administration.

We analyzed the survey data and came to four results.
First we determined the distribution of respondents of the survey
to show that the survey was representative of the graduate population.
Next we determined that the basket of goods and services that make up
graduate student consumption inflated by 3% over the course of  
2007-2008.
Third, we showed that according to the survey results,
many graduate students were not making ends meet and used savings,
credit card debt and gifts from relatives as ways of resolving their  
budget gap.
Finally, we showed that the cost of off-campus housing is roughly at par
with the cost of on-campus housing in January of 2008.

The GSC presented these findings to the Dean's Group meeting
at the end of February.  This resulted in a stipend increase of 3.5%.

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______________________
Lorenna Lee-Houghton
GSC Secretary, 2008-2009





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