Global Governance Student Association

The Global Governance Student Association (GGSA) is an organization geared towards graduate student advocacy, news, and assistance for the Department of Political Science and International Relations (the Department). 2008-09 officeholders are: Sara Chehab - President, Benjamin Banta - Vice President, Juris Pupcenoks - Treasurer, and Kelly McHugh - Secretary. Nick Galasso, Kristy Vander Decker, Juliette Tolay, and Erin Baugher fill out the steering committee. Dr. David Wilson is the GGSA's faculty advisor. GGSA always welcomes any graduate student in the Department who wishes to help out in organizing and undertaking its activities.

Our mission, as stated, is first and foremost graduate student advocacy in the Department: giving a voice to student concerns, prerogatives, and achievements. In service of this mission, the GGSA will post a bi-semestrial newsletter on this website, with options to sign up for an e-mail version. The newsletter will feature news and events specific to the graduate program - such as presentations or publications being produced by the graduate students, UDIRT and other GGSA planned events, GGSA advocacy notes, and a number of short book reviews submitted by undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty.

GGSA places at the top of its agenda the construction of a mentorship program for first year students, assistance in designing a graduate student professionalization seminar for first and second year students, and the planning of future UDIRT events.

The GGSA mentorship program aims to better integrate first year graduate students within their new environment, concentrating on the team of graduate students, the Department, the University of Delaware and the city of Newark. The program intends to match each first year student with a senior graduate student (in their 2nd, 3rd or 4th year) according to similar academic interests. The main role of the mentor is to answer the new students’ questions and guide them throughout the first months of the program. Mentorship activities, once students have been admitted, will also serve as a further recruitment tool; new students are given an orientation in acclimating them to the Department, the University and Newark. Incoming students are able to come on campus, visit the Department and have lunch or contact their mentor if they have any questions regarding their future life in Newark.

By extension, the mentorship committee also ensures that former graduate students of the Department continue to mentor current students, encouraging alumni to come home and share with us their professional experience and advice for our own career development.

A committee has also been established to advise the Department in designing a graduate student professionalization seminar. This course will be required for first and second year graduate students as a means of informing them of the many nuances to success in graduate school and the career of an academic. A central concern of this committee is assisting in revisions to the graduate student handbook and making more explicit the requirements of the graduate program.

Finally, a committee within GGSA is charged with selecting topics, readings, and dates of future UDIRT events. UDIRT is the University of Delaware International Relations Theory Reading Group which meets on an informal basis a couple of times each semester. They will be seeking the advice of graduate students and faculty in making these decisions, with the goal of focusing UDIRT into a means of keeping students and faculty up-to-date on the most current debates and developments within the International Relations field.

With these efforts, the members of the GGSA hope that this organization will effectively advocate and express the needs and wishes of the Department's graduate students. We hope these efforts will spark interest and greater involvement among the Department's graduate students in crafting their experience at the University of Delaware. Please check back to this page frequently for updates and news relating to GGSA and developments specific to the Department's graduate students.

For more information on GGSA, please contact: chehabsj@udel.edu.

For more information on the mentorship program, please contact: juliette@udel.edu.

For more information on UDIRT, please contact: ngalasso@udel.edu or klangley@udel.edu.