New Group Instructions

Instructions for starting a new graduate student group:

Do you have at least 10 people, half of whom are graduate students, who are interested in starting a graduate student group on campus? If so, you can be recognized through the Graduate Student Council.

Benefits of group recognition:

• Appear in the Student Activities Office database of graduate student groups. This system tracks all student groups and provides an internal mechanism by which any Brown University student can find your group. This is especially useful for record keeping as group leadership changes.

• Use of Brown University services, including Today@Brown, room reservation privileges and the option to have a financial account. All of these privileges require an up-to-date BearLink profile.

• Advertising of your events through the GSC social media channels.

Process for group recognition:

• Assemble at least 10 interested Brown community members (undergraduates, graduate students, staff and/or faculty). At least half must be graduate students.

• Complete the application form.

• Send the completed application form to gsc_nominations@brown.edu and gsc_vp@brown.edu for review.

• The Nominations committee, under the direction of the Chair of Nominations and Vice President of Advocacy, will review your application.

• Criteria:

  • Application is thorough, well thought out and comprehensive.

  • The purpose of the group is not already met in some other way on Brown’s campus.

  • The group shows clear mechanisms for the continuation of the group beyond the current membership (long term planning).

• Once reviewed by the nominations committee, your group will receive either approval, approval with caveats, or denial.

  • Approval: In this case, your group is connected with the Student Activities Office who facilitates the set up of your groups accounts.

  • Approval with caveats: In this case, your application is mostly in good shape but requires 1 or 2 improvements. We will provide an explanation, and you will set a timeline for returning the improved document. Then your application will go back to the nominations committee for a second review and ideally be approved at that point.

  • Denial: In this case, there are weaknesses in your application that are too extensive for approval with caveats, or it does not meet all of the criteria explained above. We will provide a summary of the deficits. You group is welcome to reapply, but will be treated as a new application when the improved application is submitted.