Greetings, Tigers! I’m Courtney Allen, your Graduate Student Government (GSG) president-elect for the 2017-2018 school year, and I’m excited and passionate to represent the graduate student body. I want to thank everyone who uplifted and supported me during this process. I’m elated and honored to help represent Clemson and its graduate students.
This year I want to focus on many tasks, and work to create progress for graduate students.
Working with my executive cabinet, steering committee, Senate and all graduate students, I plan to assess the ways in which graduate students are incorporated on campus. It’s important to understand what we as graduate students really want from our experience at Clemson. I feel the best way to do this is to assess what we currently have access to and what services we hope to obtain. I will focus on assessing committees/taskforces that graduate students are a part of as a way to ensure we are represented and our voice is heard.
Next, I will focus on creating an engagement/involvement plan for graduate students on all campuses (Main, Clemson One, UCG, Greenville Health System, CU-ICAR, Anderson, Charleston and Distance Education Online). Involvement is a critical part to any student experience, but especially the graduate student experience as it is more rigorous and requires a lot of time and energy daily. However, I believe as graduate students, we should still have a great graduate student experience that challenges and supports the progression toward our degree. I will task my executive cabinet to ensure that all events and initiatives coming from GSG will have a specific outcome/impact for all graduate students on all campuses.
Finally, I want professional development to be a focal part of the graduate student experience and I plan to create programs that will help build the skills graduate students need to be successful in any field. Another way to provide more professional development opportunities is by utilizing the professional development programs provided by the Graduate School. These programs are specifically created just for graduate students from all majors, with the overarching goal of helping all graduate students.
Everything I want to accomplish will not be possible without input and involvement from all graduate students, so I will challenge all graduate students to get engaged and help me move this experience forward.
Working with Vice President-elect Aury Kangelos, I plan to create a graduate experience that challenges, engages and motivates students to make an impact on Clemson and the world.
President-elect
Courtney Allen