Attendance: Courtney Dowdall, Ryan Klotz, LeTania Severe, Safietou Kane, Karen Mahar, Meredith Marchioni, Anne Braseby, Renee Hosang

I. Welcome

Meeting began at 12:45pm.

II. Book Sale

The book sale committee has proposed the following plan:

· The committee will meet to prepare the list of which books will be kept and which books will be given away and/or sold. The list will be emailed to SAGSA for input before books are given away.

· After it has been determined which books need to be kept, the rest will be offered to SAGSA students for free.

· Any left over books will be donated or sold.

III. Workshop

SAGSA would like to do at least 2 workshops this semester.

· First proposed workshop: Presentation on how to get your dissertation published. The person who does this workshop is well recommended. He is willing to do the presentation for free, if we pay for his plane ticket from Nebraska. Perhaps we can ask GSA or other grad student groups to co-sponsor this. Ryan will follow up with GSA to discuss the possibility.

IV. Budget

We have not yet received an update from the FIU accounting department.

V. Career Fair.

FIU Career Fair is January 29 and 30, with set-up on January 28. If we can provide 20 hours worth of volunteers, SAGSA will get $125 for our budget. We would need to sign up by Wednesday.

· Safietou can attend the required planning meeting.

· Courtney and LeTania are willing to volunteer, but more will be needed.

· Karen will send an email seeking volunteers to sign up by Wednesday. If enough people respond, we will do this. If we don’t get enough interest, we’ll cancel our participation.

· Sign-up will go through Courtney.

VI. Round Table

Rene will convene the first round table discussion on Thursday, Feb 8 at 5:00pm. We will test what kind of response we get to see if this time and format will work. The topic will be “Surviving Grad School: What Have We Learned?”

VII. Colloquia Update

Colloquia for this semester will take place on the first and third Fridays of the month at 1pm. They will continue to take place in the Labor Center. SAGSA meetings will immediately follow the Colloquia.

VIII. Web Site

We are interested in seeing if we can get an intern or undergrad to help keep the web site, and in particular the calendar, up to date. Follow up will be tabled until the next meeting.

IX. Farewell Party for Professor Fjeldman

Professor Fjeldman will be leaving FIU at the end of the semester. Bri has proposed having a farewell party and/or presenting him with a gift on behalf of SAGSA. However, it was pointed out that he does not teach any graduate classes and therefore it may not be appropriate to spend SAGSA funds on this issue. We will table this issue until the next meeting in order to determine whether there is more support for this event.

X. Sugar Babies

On Thursday March 15 the documentary film “Sugar Babies”, produced by grad student Amy Serrano, will be shown on campus. SAGSA has been asked to help gather momentum for the showing, to help produce the study guide, and to help participate on a panel discussion. It was decided to ask students who are specializing in areas related to the film if they would be willing to help. Interested students will be referred to Dr. Tardanico.

XI. Gradskeller

Next Gradskeller is Wed Jan 30 at 6pm.

XII. Next Meeting

SAGSA meetings will now take place on the first and third Fridays of each month, immediately following the colloquia at approximately 2:15pm. We anticipate convening these meetings in the Labor Center, rather than in the grad room, so as to capitalize on the colloquia.