By Stephy Mahoney | Staff Writer
Baylor’s Graduate Student Appreciation week kicked off Monday, honoring students’ dedication to their crafts and perseverance in their individual studies. The week is organized by raffle prizes and memorable events for graduates and their families.
Program Coordinator for Professional Development Laura Sepanski said the graduate school works very closely with the graduate student association officers.
This year, the Baylor Graduate School and the Graduate Student Association partnered to host a week’s worth of events celebrating its students, as Baylor cements itself as a preeminent Christian R1 institution.
Sepanski said this week has been very important for students in the graduate school since Baylor reached it’s R1 status.
“Last year it was a one-day event to honor the week and this year, they wanted to experiment with making it a whole week long,” Sepanski said.
BCU Scholar David Winkler said he is currently seeking a Ph.D. in higher education studies and leadership while serving as the president of the Graduate Student Association.
“We didn’t get to do a lot to celebrate it last year, and we knew we wanted to make it into something bigger this year to show students that we care about the work, research and teaching they do on campus,” Winkler said.
Winkler also said on Monday morning they had donuts and coffee in the graduate research center. On Tuesday they hosted an assembly to announce the new officers for next year. On Wednesday they hosted an event featuring Pop’s Lemonade with the deans of the graduate school. On Thursday, the organizers will be announcing raffle winners and Friday, they have rented out the new Cinemark theater for graduates and their families to come to enjoy a movie with popcorn and drinks.
Sepanski said students always appreciate anytime they do an event with food and she’s sure that although that is also true of undergrads, the graduate students especially live on a tight budget.
“I think one of the exciting things this year is we have a big raffle prize,” Sepanski said. “We have gift cards for everything from the bookstore Fabled, Pop’s Lemonade, Nightlight Donuts, Pignetti’s and Di Campli’s, but we also have one year of a free parking pass.”
Sepanski said the dean of the Graduate School is offering his reserved parking space — which is believed to be one of the best on campus spots — to a raffle-winning graduate student.
Winkler said the organizers have been planning this week since last year but really have been working the past couple of months with steady preparation to coordinate with the institution, graduate school and Graduate Student Association to plan this event and “get it up off the ground.”
“It’s a week of different ways to appreciate graduate students at different times,” Winkler said. “We know graduate students are teaching classes or are in seminars, or taking exams so we wanted to have exams all throughout the week.
