Member Engagement

Influence GCC initiatives by getting involved with one of our 14 committees!
Please email the contact person if you are interested in learning more about the work of a specific committee.  

As per GCC bylaws, there are 3 standing committees (Governance, Conference, & Communications), in addition to the Executive Committee consisting of the Board of Directors of the GCC. We also have 11 additional ad-hoc committees for you to get involved in. 

Explore our committees: Benchmarking, Carpe Careers, Communications, Conference, Diversity, Finance, Governance, Education Research, ImaginePhD, Membership & Belonging, Mentoring, PhD Outcomes, Professional Development, Virtual Career Expo

New in 2021! The GCC is convening our Committee Leaders and sharing important updates with our membership quarterly.

Read our GCC Quarterly Committee News & Updates newsletters:
Quarter 1, 2021
Quarter 2, 2021
Quarter 3, 2021

Member-Focused GCC Newsletters
Spring 2021 - Engaging with GCC at our Virtual Annual Conference & Beyond

GCC Data Policy - Please review the data policy prior to sharing GCC data.

AnchorBenchmarking Committee

The Benchmarking Committee was established in 2016 to collect and report on information from the membership that informs GCC programmatic, personnel, and structural planning.

Specifically, the committee:
• Refines and administers the GCC’s Annual Membership Survey
• Analyzes, summarizes, and visualizes Annual Membership Survey data for use by GCC members and leadership; responds to individual data requests from GCC members
• Coordinates other GCC committees’ efforts that survey GCC members
• Develops policy recommendations concerning data collection, management, and dissemination; see GCC Data Policy.

Co-Chairs: Jennifer MacDonald, The New School, macdonaj@newschool.edu; Nicole Reiz, University of Kansas

Carpe Careers: Inside Higher Ed Writing Group
The Carpe Careers Writing group provides an opportunity for GCC members to write optimistic, personal, and actionable blog posts for the Carpe Careers blog, hosted on the Inside Higher Ed website. The target audience for these posts include current PhD students and postdocs, early career professionals with advanced degrees, and our own community of graduate-level career advisors. In addition to writing blog posts, members can also serve as Peer Editors, providing support and feedback to other GCC members as they are creating narratives for their blog posts that align with the positive voice of Carpe Careers. Fundamental to this committee is our outreach on social media to promote the posts, the authors, and the general mission of the GCC, and the Social Media Chair directs our efforts in this medium.

Chair: Joseph Barber, University of Pennsylvania, barberjo@upenn.edu
Social Media Chair: Sonali Majumdar, University of Virginia
Twitter: @CarpeCareers

AnchorCommunications Committee
The Communications Committee Maintains and manages all aspects of the GCC online presence (public pages, members' only section, and social media). In addition, the Committee facilitates communications with internal and external audiences under the direction of the Executive Board.

Chair: Chris Smith, NC State University, communications@gradcareerconsortium.org

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Conference Committee
The Conference Committee organizes and oversees all aspects of the annual meeting, including dates, agenda, invited speakers and registration. The Committee also prepares reports on the organization of the annual meeting to be made available to all full members 
The President-Elect (currently Derek Attig) is an ex officio member of the Conference Committee.

Chair: To-be-announced

AnchorDiversity Committee
The GCC Diversity Committee affirms the value of diversity, equity, access, and inclusion. Our efforts will focus on traditionally underrepresented and marginalized students and scholars, and recognize that diverse identities include, but are not limited to, race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic class, age, sexual orientation, gender expression, religion, ability, nationality, and parental and documentation statuses. These identities impact graduate student and postdoctoral experiences; therefore, this committee promotes inclusive advising and programming, and access to a full range of career options for all graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and alumni of graduate programs. Through the cultivation of conversations as well as sharing resources and best practices, we aim to enrich our professional community.

Co-Chairs: Devin Horton, University of California, Davis, dlhorton@ucdavis.edu

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Finance Committee (New in 2021!)
As the GCC continues to grow and develop, we have identified a need to ensure our fiscal stewardship, and seek oversight of our financial matters by creating a representative group of our members. To help ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our membership, the GCC Board felt it important to establish a new committee to ensure the funds it stewards are spent to meet the needs of its growing membership.

For more information or to get involved, please contact Eric Vaughn at treasurer@gradcareerconsortium.org.

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Governance Committee
The Governance Committee identifies, develops and nurtures future leaders of the organization. It also facilitates the GCC election process, including recruiting nominations and voting. The committee provides a yearly report on the effectiveness of the organization, leadership, and bylaws and appoints chairs of other standing and ad hoc committees, as appropriate. It is chaired by the Past-President of the GCC.

Chair: Bri Konnick, University of Chicago, konnick@gradcareerconsortium.org

AnchorEducation Research Committee
This committee was created for the purpose of advising the GCC Members on up-to-date information, tools, and resources related to graduate career education research and practice. The goals of this committee include:  
  • Providing GCC members with current best practices, current literature, and research practices in graduate career education. 
  • Advising on research topics and questions of interest to the GCC community that could help them in evaluating their work and programs.
  • Promoting GCC and its efforts within the broader graduate education community.
Co-Chairs: Michelle DeLair, Washington University in Saint Louis, mdelair@wustl.edu; Natalie Lundsteen, UT Southwestern, Natalie.Lundsteen@utsouthwestern.edu
AnchorImaginePhD: An IDP for Social Sciences & Humanities
ImaginePhD is a free online career exploration and planning tool for PhD students and postdoctoral scholars in the humanities and social sciences. Launched in October 2017, it now has 28,000+ users from 90 countries. Humanities and social sciences PhD students and their mentors have long recognized the need for more resources to help bridge the knowledge gap between doctoral education and the realm of career possibilities. ImaginePhD is designed to meet this need by allowing users to:
assess their career-related skills, interests, and values
explore careers paths appropriate to their disciplines
create self-defined goals
map out next steps for career and professional development success
Chair: Teresa Dillinger, University of California, Davis & ImaginePhD Project Lead, tdillinger@imaginephd.com 
Twitter: @imaginephd
AnchorMembership & Belonging Committee (New in 2021!)
This committee will be focused on 3 initiatives:
  1.  welcoming and connecting with new members
  2.  working on efforts towards belonging and inclusion within the current membership
  3.  identifying and inviting potential new members to join GCC 
Co-Chairs: Angie Hawkins, Stanford University, angie.hawkins@stanford.edu and Kay Gruder, University of Connecticut, kay.gruder@uconn.edu
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Mentoring Committee
The Mentoring Committee was established in 2017 with the overarching goal of facilitating mentoring between GCC members. In its inaugural year, the committee launched a pilot mentoring program for a small cohort of GCC members and will be evaluating the pilot program over the next few years. The committee plans to expand and scale up the mentoring program and is always seeking volunteers to help in the valuable work that goes into these efforts.
Vision: To promote mentorship within, between, and beyond the GCC.

Applications for 2021-2022 Mentoring Program now open! Apply to be a mentor or mentee by July 23rd. 
Read more about the 2021-2022 Mentoring Program. 

Chair: Diane Safer, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, diane.safer@einsteinmed.org
GCC Mentoring Committee Poster

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PhD Outcomes
The PhD Career Outcomes Committee collates information on STEM and humanities/social sciences career outcomes from multiple sources. To this end, we have developed a database of all GCC member institutions’ publicly available career outcomes dashboards as a resource for the community. We have also collated information on over 25 taxonomies in use, and have developed crosswalks between these different taxonomies so that institutions will have tools to easily compare their career outcomes to others while choosing a taxonomy that works best for them.
We are presently developing a manuscript on the landscape of career outcome reporting that includes three main sections:  
1) institutions or groups with clearly defined, active taxonomies
2) platforms and methods of visualizing career outcomes
3) national coalitions/efforts that encourage reporting of outcomes and provide resources towards this end.

Chair: Tammy Collins, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, tammy.collins@nih.gov

AnchorProfessional Development Committee (New in 2020!)
The GCC Executive Board has established a new ad hoc professional development committee that began its work in August 2020. The Board appointed Amy Pszczolkowski and Pallavi Eswara to co-chair the committee for one year.
The goals of the committee in the first year include: 
  • Form a diverse committee composed of 5-7 GCC members from different types of institutions, offices, and length of time in the profession.
  • Conduct a comprehensive assessment of the various professional development opportunities that currently exist for GCC members.
  • Conduct a gap analysis on what member’s need and want for professional development offered by the GCC.
  • Prepare a report for the Board on the existing opportunities and innovative new offerings of professional development for current members.
  • Pilot one or two new offerings by June 2021 based on the report above.
  • Collaborate with the Communications committee to develop a communication plan to disseminate information to members on professional development opportunities.
Co-Chairs: Amy Pszczolkowski, Princeton University, alp19@princeton.edu; Katie Homar, North Carolina State University, kshomar@ncsu.edu

AnchorVirtual Career Expo
In partnership with Career Eco, the GCC Virtual Career Expo (VCE) committee organizes an annual virtual career expo for trainees at GCC member institutions. This committee was established in 2012 and focuses its efforts on employer engagement, educating students and employers on best practices for navigating the virtual event and promoting career opportunities. The GCC VCE is a single day, online career expo for advanced degree students, postdocs, and alumni in fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. 
The committee also assesses the expo and discusses additions and changes to the event and/or committee activities. 

The 2021 Career Expo was held on March 3, 2021
All You Need to Know About the VCE

Co-Chairs: Mary Bradley, UT Health San Antonio, bradleym1@uthscsa.edu; Alecia Williams, UT Southwestern, Alecia.Williams@UTSouthwestern.edu