I recently attended the annual CCM in Washington, D.C. as the senior graduate student representative for Division I. During the meeting, I had the opportunity to spend time with graduate student representatives from each division. Here are some of the highlights:

Division I’s Fireside Chat
Division I’s fireside chat is titled “Getting Published: Ensuring Your Work Makes an Impact.” The purpose of the panel is to review publishing venues in light of relative benefits and trade-offs, while the format will be informal question and answer to take full advantage of our renowned expert panelists. We are very fortunate to have four stellar scholars join us in the talk, including Drs. Janet Hafler, Marcia Mentkowski, Anne McKee, and Bridget O’Brien. The talk is sure to be enlightening and enriching for both graduate students and junior scholars.

Volunteer Opportunity during AERA 2014
This year the AERA Graduate Student Council will partner with Philadelphia Urban Creators (phillyurbancreators.org), a grassroots youth organization using an innovative model of social change to create healthy and sustainable environ- ments within the urban landscapes where they reside. Winners of Mobilize.org’s 2013 reGenerate Philly Summit Awards, PUC currently runs a variety of initiatives focused on urban innovation in North Central Philadelphia, includ- ing a fully-operating urban farm. Their group seeks to unite, educate, energize, and empower Philadelphia youth to become passionate leaders in the movement to transform blighted urban landscapes into models of community-based sustainability through community organizing, service-learning, artistic expression, and urban agriculture. Following an orientation and tour, we will work outdoors alongside members of PUC to help support their mission.
Direct inquiries to: Marisa del Campo [email protected]
Date: Wed. April 2, 2014, Time: TBA, Cost: $20.00
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Philadelphia-Urban-Creators/210097399024597

Resources
The Graduate Student Council (GSC) will be publishing sample accepted abstracts from past AERA meetings to assist graduate students in fine-tuning potential submissions. Division I submitted three abstracts to be included in this resource, including authorship from Jamie O’Keeffe and Michael Soh – many thanks to both of them for sharing their work. In addition, the GSC will be putting forth statistics related to graduate students for each division, including:
- The number of graduate students relative to the total membership for each division;
- The number of graduate student abstracts submitted to the annual meeting, relative to the total membership for each division;
- The number of graduate student abstracts accepted to the annual meeting, relative to the total membership for each division.

If you have any queries or requests specific to graduate student issues in Division I, please feel free to contact myself or my co-representative, Michael Soh. In the meantime, I look forward to meeting Division I members at the annual meeting in Philadelphia! Angela Blood, Division I Graduate Student Representative