Lois MacNamara

Really, your GSE student experience IS all about you – your intellectual, cultural, and social development, your skills, your curiosity, your questions, your future. After you graduate and embark on your career, you’ll look back on this time with nostalgia – only in graduate school can you truly be the center of the universe. 

Whether you are here one year for your master’s, or a few years for your doctorate, you’ll find myriad opportunities to explore what interests you most and to discover new ideas along the way. GSE has the benefit of being a small school within a large, urban, Ivy League research institution with incredible resources – and you will find this juxtaposition to be a great advantage. You will form personal relationships with your peers, your professors, and staff members. You’ll be surprised what you will learn from the most unexpected people and situations.

You will be supported by a variety of campus resource centers – Counseling Services, the Weingarten Learning Resources Center, the Grad Student Center, and the Library are just a few. You will be nurtured by a number of GSE student organizations  – such as Students of Color United, the Association of African-American Grad Students in Education, the Asian-American Grad Student Association, and White Students Confronting Racism.  You can take advantage of campus resource centers including Greenfield Intercultural Center, the LGBT Center, Pan-Asian American Community House, the African-American Resource Center, and Casa Latina. You can attend social, academic, and cultural events sponsored by any of these centers or organizations, as well as those offered by campus groups GAPSA and BGAPSA (the Grad and Professional Student Assembly and Black GAPSA) – or any one of the many GSE or University student organizations listed here: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/student_life/orgs.php
 
More specifically, you’re invited to participate in the variety of programs sponsored by my office such as Race in the Academy, Lunch with the Dean, The Academic Profession Explained, school coffee-hours and picnics, and community service outreach to the People’s Emergency Center. You can keep posted on all these events and much more at the GSE events calendar. Why not plug in now by bookmarking this site?

While balancing your academic, personal and social lives, be sure to take care of the simple basic needs – healthy food, sufficient sleep, and regular exercise. Another benefit you have as a GSE student: Pottruck Fitness Center is just across the street!

You will find that my door is always open, so please drop by with your ideas and concerns. I look forward to working with you this academic year.

Lois MacNamara