Welcome To Your Graduate Students' Association
Who Are We?
At the University of York, the Graduate Students Association (GSA) represents all post-graduate students. We were formed in the early years of the University to specifically cater for the needs of post-graduate students, and are housed in dedicated office in Wentworth Graduate College. We are run by an executive committee, comprised of MA, MPhil and PhD students alike, with 3 part-time sabbatical officers elected in the summer term, and a number of non-sabbatical posts elected in the autumn term.
Why Do We Exist?
Post-graduates make up over a quarter of the student body at York, and this strength in numbers, along with our differing needs from undergraduates, ensures that the University recognises us as a separate entity. This is mirrored by our independent listing under the Education Act, independent source of funding, and independent representation within the university. In fact we are currently only one of two Graduate-only Students Associations in the UK to be funded and run this way.
What Do We Do?
Although a lot tends to span one or more of these areas, our tasks are often conveniently split into six key units:
- Representation - fighting specifically for post-graduate students in numerous important university committees.
- Welfare - providing short-term loans to post-graduate students in financial need.
- Academic - offering assistance, advice and support in academic appeals.
- Services - providing things like a cheap photocopying/fax and a DVD library.
- Events - organising both regular and one-off social events, including trips.
- Sports - subsidising regular sporting events, as well as organising post-graduate participation within the college sports league.
More in depth information about what we do, including how to contact us, can be accessed by clicking on the relevant headings at the top of the page.
Our Annual Report on our activities for 2007/08 is now also available: (this file is around 2Mb and may take a while to download on slower connections)
2007/08 Annual Report (pdf document)An Organisational Review into GSA procedures and how they fit into our overall aims as an organisation is presented below:
Organisational Review (pdf document)Finally, we are also looking to expand significantly on what we provide for potential new post-graduate students including housing advice/information, and are keen to hear your views on what more we can do.
The Graduate Students' Association
University of York