Graduate & Professional Student Association

Graduate Student Center

The Graduate Student Center (GSC) houses the business office for the Graduate and Professional Student Association. Programs run through GPSA are maintained and administered through this office.

Hours & Contact Information

8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Monday - Friday

(480) 727-9870

The Graduate Student Center is located in the Center for Family Studies Building. This is the two-story white building  across from the Architecture and Environmental Design South building - next to the Forest Mall turnaround with the large stone spheres, just south of University Drive.

Resources

Conference Room

The conference room is equipped with a full-size conference table that comfortably seats 10 and the room is capable of seating up to four more upon request. The room includes a white board and conference-call telephone, a digital projector and screen are available with prior authorization and approval. The conference room is fully handicapped accessible. To reserve the GSC Conference Room for your next group meeting, presentation, or the like, please email your requested date, time and duration to annette.jecker@asu.edu, or call (480) 727-9870. Please specify if you will need to check out the Proxima digital projector for the conference room. The project is not to be removed from the GSC. Click here to check for availability.

Full-Access Computer Lab

The Graduate Student Center provides free wireless internet connection and maintains four desktop computers for any graduate student to use during normal business hours.

Student Lounge

Comfortable couches and chairs await the weary graduate student who needs a bit of relaxation. The student lounge offers a temporary refuge for any graduate student in need. Bookshelves advertise many campus events and hold a collection of donated graduate level books for community use.

Kitchen

A nearly full-service kitchen is available at the Graduate Student Center for all graduate students to use, including features such as a microwave, refrigerator/freezer, coffee pot, dishes and silverware. Periodically, free coffee and treats are available to GSC visitors.

Family Resources

A changing table is available for student use.

Graduate Student Center Gallery

The Graduate Student Center hosts small exhibitions of two-dimensional artworks made, curated, organized and juried by graduate students at ASU. Organized by the Graduate and Professional Student Association.

Current Exhibition:

Moving Through Worlds: Life, Death, and Landscape

August 31, 2009 through September 24, 2009

Featuring artists: Sungyee Kim and Mohammad Javaheri

In this exhibit we feature two graduate students in fine art, Sungyee Kim and Mohammad Javaheri, whose work speaks to how living things, and we as human beings, inhabit and move through space and time. In our everyday movements we create paths in our physical and mental landscapes. We delight in the beauty of natural forms, we mar once quiet spaces with monstrous acts. The passage of time deepens paths, conceals scars.

--Catherine Nichols and Lauren Strohacker, Graduate Student Gallery Curators

Services

GPSA Business Offices

The first floor of the Graduate Student Center houses the business office for the Graduate and Professional Student Association. Programs run through GPSA are maintained and administered through this office. Forms for graduate student travel grants,  research grants, on-campus graduate student organizations seeking funding for their events, and much, much more are typically returned to the GPSA Business Office.

GPSA Executive Offices

The office of the GPSA President, Vice Presidents, and Assembly President occupy the second floor of the Graduate Student Center. Several GPSA committees meet regularly in these offices as well.

Students seeking to become involved in the GPSA are encouraged to meet with the executive officers, who maintain regular office hours in the Graduate Student Center.

 

Brief History of the GSC

The proposition for a graduate student center began during the first year of GPSA with guidance and brainstorming from Presidents Brian Collier and Tim Lant. As originally envisioned, the Graduate Student Center would be a place where graduate and professional students could have study space, a coffee shop, food court, computer labs, 24 hour meeting and study spaces – all accessible with an ASU ID.

In subsequent years of GPSA, President Tracy Chavis negotiated a Graduate Student Center with ASU Administration and President Deirdre Hahn followed up with the logistics and initial planning for the center. By the Spring of 2005 the commitment of a location and dedicated resources for renovation were given for the Center for Family Studies Building. The previous occupants, the Hispanic Research Center, were moved from the building to a new location on campus. Kirsti Cole, Destiny Cider and Robert Fischer worked as GPSA representatives on a small committee to plan for the usage of space and décor of center. Also included on the committee were Anita Dubbs, GPSA Senior Office Specialist; Stacy Smith, ASASU Office Manager; Luke Ngo and Joseph Degraft-Johnson, ASU project and Facility managers. This committee met every two weeks from April 2005 to October of 2006 to set priorities and update on progress for the GPSA move to the center.

The GPSA relocation from the 3rd floor of the Memorial Union offices to the GSC was set for orientation week in August, prior to the final installation of a few basic utilities (e.g., desks, chairs, phones, computer lines). For several weeks GPSA operated from personal cell phones and office floors, a challenge for the annual GPSA Research Grant competition and the orientation of the new Assembly.  However, by October 2006, most of the final renovations were complete, just in time for the Grand Opening celebration with students and ASU administration.

The GSC Grand Opening Celebration, planned by Internal Affairs committee and chaired by Vice President of Internal Affairs, Destiny Cider, included the First GPSA Juried Art Show (coordinated by Scott Murphy, Photography MFA student) in the GSC conference room; a buffet dinner for ASU administrators and graduate students featuring the ASU Alumni string quartet (coordinated by Bree McEwan, Director of Communications); student talent from ArtVerge (coordinated by Stjepan Rjko, doctoral student in Arts, Media & Engineering); and the annual GPSA Research Grant Award reception (coordinated by Mary Aubin, Director of Graduate Research). The opening reception invited speakers included Milt Glick (ASU Provost), Maria Allison (Dean of Divisions of Graduate Studies), Marjorie Zatz (former Assistant Dean of Division of Graduate Studies), Tim Lant (founding member of GPSA), and Jess Koldoff (President of GPSA). All of these activities introduced students and administration to the accomplishments of GPSA, Graduate Student Organizations, high quality research projects, and award winning arts of the graduate student community.