For the Mentor Program Committee, and those who are interested, here are the official notes from the Orientation Focus Group meeting held by the Graduate Student Assembly May 17. (Thanks to Amy Dove Forestell, president of GSA):
Brief meeting summary:
We each described our orientation experience. Most was done in the departments, and everybody from the last 4 years did look at the online orientation. The department orientations tend to cover meeting the faculty, research areas, department specific things, etc., but not things like getting keys, where things on campus are, austin/campus-wide things, etc.

John Dalton talked about what other parts of UT (international, undergrad) are doing , and what other grad schools (Michigan and Berkeley) are doing. Other schools tend to do things like panel discussions and more abstract ideas rather than mechanical topics like parking and IDs. We said that a mix of both would be useful. We talked about ideas for panel discussions, like how to network and find your advisor, how to transition from undergrad to grad (both academically
and personally) or from work to school, etc.

Another idea John presented was an OGS open house on the main porch and in Dean Rodriguez's office, which we said we would attend (especially with free food). It was emphasized that anything that gets grad students to meet people outside their department is good. Perhaps Grad Interest Groups (like FIGs)?

We discussed the role that the GSA barbecue plays as an information fair. Since there are already 2,000 students attending, it is good to get them while there is free food. But would a separate info fair by OGS be useful as well?

Many more topics were mentioned as well (inclusion of international students, the up-coming grad life webpage, if academic rules are being communicated, PDCE programs, OGS advertising, etc.).

Some issues that came up that I thought might be of interest to the Feminist Solidarity Group were:
Information packets for new students--do we want to make a handout for our Mentor Program to include in folders given to incoming English and Creative Writing students, and is there any other information we might be interested in seeing handed out to new students?
On-going dissertation, writing, and professionalization seminars being conducted by the Graduate School, of which several of us at the Orientation Focus Group were unaware. We might try to remember to post these events on the blog when we hear about them.
Campus-wide interest groups for graduate students?? A way we might look towards developing our group in the long term?

If you have any ideas about Graduate School wide orientation, get in touch with Stephanie Odom-Robertson or Layne Craig. The focus group plans to meet again during the summer, and we'd be glad to let you know when and/or pass your ideas along to the group. If you have any ideas about the Feminist Solidarity Group getting involved with orientation, please share--the English Dept. orientation in August is already being scheduled.