ocated in the newly renovated Student Activities Center and led by a student-majority board, the Graduate Student Resource Center (GSRC) is dedicated to providing information, workshops and meeting space for UCLA’s 10,000 graduate students.
The GSRC is the direct result of a resolution passed by the Graduate Students Association (GSA), which worked with Student Affairs to respond to graduate student concerns about resource availability and access. The GSA continues to play a key role in developing the strategic plan for the GSRC.
Hired as the GSRC’s coordinator in January of 2005,

  1,623 = The number of UCLA
masters and doctoral
degrees awarded in 2003-04		  

Christine Wilson is excited about the opportunity, explaining, “There is a real need for a one-stop shop for graduate student information on all kinds of campus-related issues, from fellowships to childcare. And we can finally fill that need here at the center.”
She has plenty of experience as a UCLA graduate student, having completed her Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and literature in March 2003. “I found that I was always being asked for information,” says Wilson. “Somehow I became a walking reference tool for my fellow grad students.”

  
office hours to encourage more drop-in visits, but for now she is the only staff member. Wlson is also determined that the GSRC’s Web site will serve as a major source of information on graduate student-related issues such as funding, post-grad careers and housing. And she is pleased that graduate student groups are already using the center as a meeting place.
UCLA is one of the only public research universities in the country to offer this facility to its graduate students. “Student services at most universities tend to focus on undergraduates’ needs, figuring that graduate students are more experienced in university settings,”
 
UCLA has to compete for the best and the brightest graduate students just like every other university in the country. One of the ways the University is demonstrating its commitment to graduate students is by establishing the Graduate Student Resource Center (GSRC).
Wilson spent the first few weeks on the job cultivating contacts, attending meetings and locating resources for the GSRC. She envisions a time when the center will have longer
 
says Wilson. “But graduate students still need access to information, just different kinds of information.”

Find more information online at
http://gsa.asucla.ucla.edu/gsrc.
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