Graduate Student Government joins SAGE Fall Summit in Tucson, Arizona! On October 18-19 GSG Executives Annie Rappeport and Rachel Lamb along with Advocacy Coordinator Ashley Clark, represented the interests, concerns and ideas of the UMD graduate student community at the SAGE fall summit.
What is SAGE? University of Maryland College Park is an active member institution within the SAGE Coalition. SAGE was established in 2008 and is an entirely student run organization (like our GSG). All SAGE institutions are public research I universities. The focus of the coalition is advocacy at the federal level.
UMD GSG participates with SAGE on advocacy topics including graduate student mental health, international student support, affordability, research funding and Title IX. Participation includes monthly coalition meetings, the fall Summit and time in the spring on Capitol Hill.
The coalition also works to provide benchmark research on topics like fees, employment and shared governance to help each member institution better advocate on their home campuses.
What Happens Next? All efforts now are geared to the four days on the Hill in the spring where SAGE white papers will be presented at meetings with legislators. The working groups for this spring will be Sexual Misconduct/Title IX Issues, Immigration, Federal Research Funding, Student Finance (Affordability) and Mental Health. UMD Execs Annie and Rachel are co-chairing the working group on Federal Research Funding, but UMD will be free to add input to any of the groups and white papers.
PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING A WORKING GROUP YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT!
It is a great experience for those interested in the topics themselves, policy, legislative advocacy and connecting with peers across Research I institutions!
