ChE Graduate Student Committee

Our graduate student organization, ChEGS, appoints student members to the ChE Graduate Committee to ensure students have a “voice at the table” for graduate program decisions. This fall, the graduate program advisor and faculty will select four additional students to increase the diversity of student input to the graduate committee.

Chemical Engineering Graduates Society (ChEGS)

The graduate student organization, Chemical Engineering Graduates Society, is referred to as ChEGS.

ChEGS exists as a means to provide a social outlet for chemical engineering graduate students of all backgrounds in order to form a more cohesive graduate student body in the Chemical Engineering Department.

Any person currently enrolled at the University of Michigan and is seeking either a Masters or Doctoral degree within the Chemical Engineering Department is eligible for membership into ChEGS.  Special consideration may be made as the Officers see fit for those who do not strictly adhere to this description, such as visiting students or graduate students with multiple appointments.

Introduction

For more than 25 years, the Chemical Engineering Graduate Society (ChEGS) has strived to bring a diverse group of graduate students together through a number of events. Chartered as an organization to offer free bagels to graduate students weekly, ChEGS has since expanded to host a wide variety of social, academic, and outreach events. These events are open to all graduate students in the department and are fully funded by financial support from the department.

The goal of ChEGS programming is to ensure that students have a well-rounded experience throughout their time in graduate school. It provides a sense of community between students in the department and gives students the opportunity to get to know their chemical engineering peers. ChEGS hopes to continue organizing programs and events for graduate students as well as expand its reach throughout the surrounding communities.

Building off of the success of the first decade of ChEGS, the last 15 years have been marked by an increase in the number and diversity of events as well as graduate student involvement. The following paragraphs provide a snapshot into some of the most successful events organized by ChEGS.

Social Events

Throughout the year, ChEGS organizes a number of social activities to promote interaction between graduate students. A department favorite is bar night, where ChEGS provides appetizers at bars and breweries around Ann Arbor. Interdepartmental bar nights with the Mechanical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, and Industrial and Operations Engineering departments were included to promote interaction between students across different departments. Other off-campus events  included kayaking on the Huron River and summer barbeques at Gallup Park.

Graduate Symposium

2012 marked the inaugural Chemical Engineering Graduate Symposium. The symposium showcased work done by current graduate students in the form of presentations as well as a poster session. Overall there were more than 140 people in attendance including current graduate students, faculty, and alumni of the department. The aims of the symposium are to keep closer ties to alumni of the department, encourage interaction between groups in the department, and allow students to showcase their thesis work.

GradChat

Students and faculty meet once per month to discuss important social topics. The purpose of the program is to encourage discussion and openness among students and faculty.