The Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) has funds set aside to bring a distinguished speaker on campus during the Spring semester. If you have an idea or suggestion regarding a possible speaker, please contact the GSA office at 7-7975 or email [email protected]. Any and all ideas are welcome…The next meeting of the GSA will be held on Thursday, November 8, at 4:00pm, in the Wheatley Student Lounge (4th floor). As always, all graduate students are invited to attend. Dinner will be served. There will be no meeting on November 22, due to the Thanksgiving holiday… Reminder that applications for the Spayne and Bollinger Research Grants are available at the Student Life Office and at http://omega.cc.umb.edu/~gsa/.

ENVIRONMENTAL, COASTAL & OCEAN SCIENCES DEPARTMENT SEMINAR SPEAKERS: November 14, Dr. Di Jin, associate scientist, Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, “An Analysis of Fishing Vessel Safety.” November 21, Dr. Mark L. Wells, assistant professor, Chemical Oceanography, School of Marine Sciences, UMaine/Orono, To be announced. November 28, Dr. David T. Damery, lecturer, Dept. of Natural Resources Conservation, UMass Amherst, “The Economics of Municipal Quahog Seeding.” December 5, Dr. Slava Epstein, assistant professor, Biology Department, Northeastern University, “Discovering the Hidden Biodiversity of the Ocean: Novel Approach to Grow Uncultivable Microorganisms.” December 10, Dr. James Cullen, professor, Dept. of Geological Sciences, Salem State College, To be announced. December 12, Ian Cooke, executive director, Neponset River Watershed Association, “The Role of Volunteer Advocacy in an Effective Watershed Management Framework.” Seminars are held from 2:30-4:00pm in the Small Science Auditorium, Science Building, 1st Floor, Room 006. If your coming from off-campus, please call (617) 287-7440 to confirm the scheduled talk.

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY PROGRAM: There is currently a call or proposals for the First Annual Conference on Race and Culture hosted by the Boston Students Interested in Race and Culture (BSIRC). The application deadline is November 30. The conference will be held on February 16, 2002, at Boston College. A consortium of students representing psychology graduate programs from the greater Boston area organized this conference. Currently, Marie Mesidor and Grace Rosales are part of the consortium representing Umass Boston. For more information, please go to the website established for the conference: www.bc.edu/bsirc2002 or call (617) 552-2982 ext. 2.

TALES FROM THE GRAD SCHOOL FRONT: Tips on writing a successful grant proposal from Kathleen Carmichael, PhD. “What exactly can you accomplish in this time frame and/or with these monies? It’s a good idea to attach an itemized budget to your proposal indicating why you need grant monies and how you will use them. But it’s also important to be realistic about what you can accomplish in the course of your work. Think seriously about what you can achieve with a few thousand dollars in a limited time frame. A proposal that sets impossible goals (‘I will discover a cure for cancer in six months.’) will seem less impressive and ambitious than silly. How will this grant contribute to your plans for your future career? While your immediate research plans should undoubtedly take center stage in your grant proposal, grant committees also want to know what sort of person they’re funding. That’s in large part the reason that they require letters of recommendation – they want to know more about you, not just your project. Writing a brief paragraph on your plans for the future will let the committee know that you are somebody who is looking to future projects and triumphs. Finally, recruit as many professors, colleagues, and general well-wishers as you possibly can to read, re-read, critique and edit your proposal. You need not take every suggestion offered to you, but you should give them all careful consideration. This is a crucial step in understanding how your proposal will strike a diverse audience.”

GERONTOLOGY PROGRAM: Congratulations to Jay Bulot (former GSA Coordinator, and longtime GSA member), a fourth year doctoral student, who has accepted a tenure-track position as an assistant professor of Gerontology at the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM). This position will begin in January of 2002. Jay’s responsibilities as an assistant professor at ULM will include both research and teaching duties. In addition, he will be charged with developing distance learning courses throughout the state. Jay is getting a lot of experience with distance learning this semester at UMB in his capacity as an assistant for the Elder Law class offered by the Gerontology Department. Jay will be teaching two courses in the spring semester at ULM: Social Research Methods and Minority Aging. His research will primarily be focused on his dissertation work: Barriers to and Use of Healthcare Information for Older Adults via the World Wide Web. Parts of this work have been abstracted (as posters and presentations) at the International Conference on Technology and Aging. Again, congratulations Jay…Looking for a job in Gerontology? Try Agework.com. This website, sponsored by the Gerontological Society of America, contains jobs in academic and private settings around the United States. In addition, the website provides a link to federal government jobs and volunteer work in gerontology.

MICHAEL LENZ GRADUATE RESEARCH AWARD: Last year the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) established the Michael Lenz Graduate Research Award to remember Michael, a Master’s in American Studies candidate, who was tragically slain last MarchThe award specifically recognizes the value of “nontraditional” research and will be presented again this year at the Graduate Research Conference, scheduled for early April 2002. Last year the award went to Donna Sullivan, from the Gerontology Department, for her outstanding work titled At the Bottom of the Food Chain: An Ethnography of Older Waitresses. If you are engaged in research that is a little different, please consider submitting it (it won’t be due until mid-March). Call the GSA office or email [email protected] with questions.

CORRECTION: The address for sending suggestions for spending the GSA carry-over funds was listed incorrectly last week. The correct email address is: [email protected].