Mission

The Student Advisory Committee is the departmental committee that represents all graduate students, through which the department "participates in the University-wide program which promotes active involvement of students in academic decision-making." (Quote from the Graduate Student Handbook of the Statistics Department) "The main function of the committee is to act as a liaison between faculty and students. By making themselves available for comments from both groups, the committee promotes effective communications from both groups; the committee promotes effective communications and student awareness of departmental policies. A member of the S.A.C. attends departmental faculty meetings."

"In addition, the S.A.C. sponsors social/recreational events and enters teams in various intramural programs available on campus. The S.A.C. is also responsible for the assignment of graduate student office space in the Oceanography/Statistics Building (OSB)."
Members

The current members of SAC are:

Jason Cleveland (President)
Wade Henning
Yuanyuan Tang
Jose Laborde
Gary Gramajo
Ajay Gupta
Vladimir Geneus
Tommy Wiesen
Shuguang Zhang


In general, the procedure for a student to become a member goes as described below. It starts with a request to all students to volunteer to serve on the committee on behalf of his/her class. The committee can have up to six members. If there is more than six volunteers, students in the class that has two or more volunteers will vote to elect one for their class.

To fulfill the committee's mission described in the Graduate Student Handbook, members of SAC expose themselves to comments from both faculty and students and will keep in talk with both sides to address any issue that may arise. SAC plays an important role in university-wide bottom-up issue collection and top-down policy dissemination. Students are encouraged to talk with SAC members about their questions, concerns and comments about every aspect of the departmental and university operation and policies in the good faith that we together can make the department a good place for us to learn and to grow.
Duties of the SAC President

  • Greet new graduate students in the begining of every Fall semester.
  • Assist the faculty in getting new students acquainted with the department.
  • Make new students aware of the existence of the SAC and elect one new student to become a member of the SAC as the first year student representative.
  • Organization of the Spring picnic each year.
  • Hold at least one SAC meeting in each semester.
  • Other discretionary things.
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