Departmental graduate representatives act as the primary spokespersons for the current graduate students, as well as the point of contact for the DGS and graduate committee. The departmental graduate representatives are responsible for attending and participating in graduate committee meetings and communicating information from these meetings back to the graduate students in the department. Additionally, the departmental graduate representatives participate in the recruitment process, in which they are responsible for assisting in the organization of recruitment activities, and serving as a contact for the prospective students.
Department representatives for the GSA and HGSA serve as liaisons between the graduate student government bodies and the English Department and thus work to maintain open channels of communication between students in our department and university administration. They attend monthly Graduate Student Council meetings as well as meetings for the Humanities Graduate Student Association and act as the voice of the English Department by bringing a disciplinary perspective to these assemblies. Often reps vote on various issues on behalf of our department at student government meetings, forward announcements from the GSA and HGSA to our department listserv, poll students and/or faculty on various matters pertaining to the graduate program at Rice, and are asked to serve on one university standing committee or internal GSA committee per semester.