Following in the footsteps of organizations such as the Duke Student Government, the Graduate and Professional Student Council now has its own home page on the World Wide Web.
"The World Wide Web is a great new way to get information out to people who need it," said GPSC president Michael Tino, a third-year graduate student in cell biology. "I see it as the next wave in communication, and I wanted to get GPSC in on it as soon as possible."
Tino said that the GPSC home page was created about two weeks ago with some help from Trinity senior Arnold Baker, director of DSG computing and communications.
"The page now has direct e-mail links to all of our officers, descriptions of GPSC services, an updated calendar of events, information on basketball camp-outs and links to newsgroups and Web pages which may be of interest to graduate and professional students," Tino said.
The page was created in response to chronic problems in communication with the group's constituency, he said.
"Our 4,500-plus graduate and professional students are spread out over the entire University, and many departments do not yet have representatives," he said.
Although GPSC currently lacks members representative of the graduate student body, Tino said those openings would be filled gradually during the next few weeks. "I get a few more representatives each day," Tino said.
The new Web page should help correct some of the many problems that GPSC has experienced in the past with disseminating information out to all of its members, Tino said.
"With the Web page, hopefully people will become aware of services they weren't aware of before," said Susan Timberlake, a third-year graduate student in biomedical engineering.
So far, most graduate students have not been aware of GPSC's services, but said they would use the Web site as a resource.
"I'm interested in finding out about GPSC and the Web page would be the most convenient way to do that," said Jim Box, a first-year graduate student in the Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences.
One of the ways that Tino said the Web page would prove useful would be to keep those students who cannot make every GPSC meeting aware of its proceedings.
"I intend to get agendas and minutes online sometime in the future," Tino said. "Also, we might post announcements of committee nominations there."
Tino said that although the new Web page would be a valuable addition to GPSC's ability to communicate effectively, it would not replace any of the other methods currently in use.
"I think that having several modes of communication is vital in order to get word to and from everyone," he said. "We'll still have meetings, still have a newsletter, still use The Chronicle for ads, and still have the duke.grad newsgroup.É I think [the Web page] is one more avenue of communication between graduate and professional students and GPSC."
The GPSC homepage can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.duke.edu/gpsc/.
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