Welcome to the UCLA History Graduate Student Association website. This resource has been established to facilitate communication within our community.

Three words summarize our platform for the 2010-2011 academic year: community, advocacy, and mentorship. We seek to strengthen the bonds between UCLA’s History graduate students across fields and areas of academic emphasis by initiating programs and activities that build upon the strong community established by our HGSA predecessors. We also seek to enhance HGSA’s function as an advocate for graduate students. As the representative of all UCLA’s History graduate students, HGSA plays an important role in shaping the future of the department. This role is particularly significant in light of the University’s current fiscal challenges, and our advocacy efforts will be focused on ensuring that graduate students have a voice in decisions that affect the short- and long-term future of the History Department. Finally, we seek to establish mentorship programs that connect students at all stages of the degree process. This will help facilitate new students’ transition into graduate school, maintain connections between graduate students in the advanced stages of their dissertation, improve graduate student retention rates, and, ultimately, help build the kind of supportive community we seek to foster through HGSA.

Community:

Goal: To strengthen ties between UCLA History graduate students across fields and areas of scholarly interest.

Proposed Programs:

Communication – In addition to email and quarterly HGSA meetings, we plan to revamp our Facebook page to facilitate interactive communication between HGSA and students. We will also consider additional means of improving ongoing and interactive communication.

Events – Under the guidance of HGSA’s officers, the Social Action Committee will plan and execute the majority of HGSA events for the year. The committee’s focus will be both on entertainment/recreation and on philanthropy. These events are key to developing and maintaining the inclusive community we want to foster, and to increasing the visibility of History graduate students in the broader UCLA community. More specifics on events for the fall quarter will be forthcoming once committees are finalized.

HGSA Goes Green – An initiative to help the UCLA History department become more environmentally friendly, especially with regard to resources or services utilized by graduate students (computer/printing room, TA offices and materials, etc.). As we put it, saving the earth, one dissertation at a time.

History Graduate Student Intranet Enhancement – Working with Social Sciences Computing, we want to enhance the functionality and usefulness of the History Graduate Student Intranet. By building on what already exists, we can use the intranet as the centerpiece of a stronger community of graduate students.

Advocacy:

Goal: To increase HGSA’s activity as a graduate student advocate, both within the History department and across the broader University community.

Proposed Programs:

Appoint a new HGSA officer dedicated to graduate student advocacy and representation of History graduate students in discussions about relevant issues.

Ensure that HGSA is represented at all relevant department meetings.

Devise a strategy to build upon last year’s TA survey work in order to ensure that graduate students’ interests are represented fairly and accurately.

Mentorship:

Goal: To create bonds between the department’s more advanced graduate students and newer students that will serve as a supportive mentorship community to help new students through the first two years of graduate school.

Proposed Programs:

Develop a mentorship program that connects first-year graduate students with students who have been in the program two or more years in order to: 1) ease the transition into the program and into life at UCLA; 2) help new students manage expectations and create time management skills; and 3) make new students feel welcome to the UCLA History graduate student community.

Devise a new HGSA program to assist UCLA History graduate students with funding issues and processes—especially first-year students with the annual department funding application.

Thanks, Brian Kovalesky, HGSA President and Cassia Roth, HGSA Vice-President