Executive Committee

It is the responsibility of the MCGSO Executive Council to advocate for the interests of the student body. The Executive Committee is comprised of 9 members (President, Vice President, Communications Officer, Student Services Liaison,  Treasurer, Outreach Co-Coordinators (2), Website and Social Media Chair,  and Master’s Liaison).

Your elected officers for 2021-2022:

Role descriptions

President: The MCGSO President oversees the MCGSO Executive Board and is responsible for holding General and Executive MCGSO meetings. The President also serves as a co-chair of the Grant Committee, attends regular meetings of the Graduate Advisory Committee (GAC) and Grad Student Life (GSL). The position of president is eligible for biomedical PhD students in their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year.

Vice President: The MCGSO Vice President serves as Community Programming committee chair. It is the responsibility of the Vice President to coordinate community events for the biomedical graduate student body. The position of vice president is eligible for biomedical PhD students in their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year.

Treasurer: The MCGSO Treasurer maintains the annual budget of MCGSO to ensure that all spending is properly accounted for. This responsibility includes overseeing all transactions involved for SRGP and Travel Grants as well as social and outreach events. The MCGSO Treasurer works closely and regularly with administrators at the university’s finance department and reports the status of the MCGSO budget at monthly meetings. PhD students in their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year are eligible for the position of Treasurer.

Communications Officer: The MCGSO communications officer distributes any information regarding MCGSO events to the student body and takes minutes at MCGSO meetings to be distributed among the members. The communications officer also serves as the MCGSO liaison to the Graduate Student Organization (GSO). The position is eligible for all PhD biomedical students.

Outreach Co-Coordinators: The MCGSO outreach co-coordinators take the lead in organizing community education and enrichment programs that involve both the general public and specifically, K-12 students. This position is open to all Biomedical PhD students and three-semester MS students.

Student Services and Advocacy Liaison. Informs students of the resources available to them (i.e. career services, workshops, health coverage, family services, parking, etc.) and works with faculty and administration to promote grad student needs. Actively collects student concerns and suggestions in order to communicate them with the MCGSO president and committee so the issues may be discussed and presented to faculty and administration tactfully and through the proper channels. All Biomedical Graduate Students are eligible for this position.

Website and social media chair: The MCGSO website and social media chair will be responsible for the maintenance of our website as well as the promotion of events on social media and will work closely with the Communications Officer. The position of Website and Social Media Chair is eligible for all Biomedical Graduate Students.

Grant Officers – NOT an elected position: Grant officers are responsible for collecting all MCGSO Professional Development Grant (PDG) and Student Research Grant Program (SRGP) applications and processing them for approval by completing the relevant evaluation rubric and working with the MCGSO treasurer and finance office to initiate the award process. There can be up to 2 Grant Officers. This position is only available to PhD students.

Student Research Grant Program Officer/co-chairperson- NOT an elected position: The SRGP officer/co-chair works with the President to organize and execute the grant process from application to review to award. This officer prepares, distributes, and collects all application materials; assigns appropriate peer reviewers to each application; collects feedback from the study section and communicates to the applicant their award status.  SRGP officer must be a BGE PhD student who is familiar with the SRGP process, preferably has applied in the past. SRGP officer will also serve as a Course Grant Officer. This position is only available to PhD students.

In addition to the Executive Board elected positions described above, biomedical graduate students are eligible to participate as MCGSO Program Representatives.

Program Representatives: It is arguable that the most important members of the MCGSO are the Biomedical Graduate program representatives. Each biomedical graduate program has one representative; a PhD student for PhD programs, and a Masters student for Masters programs. The Program representatives are responsible for attending all MCGSO meetings and participating as committee members for either or both the Community Programming and Grant committees. If the designated Program Representative is unable to attend a meeting, we ask that they send a proxy representative to vote in the favor of that program in the event of any votes at the meeting in question. If you are interested in representing your program, please let us know!

If you have any questions about these positions, please refer to the MCGSO Constitution for a more in-depth discussion, or feel free to contact any current member of the MCGSO.