Anthropology Graduate Organization News

This year’s Anthropology Graduate Organization (AGO) leadership has been working closely with the Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee (DISC) to ensure that there are adequate funds in the DISC Mutual Aid Fund to support anthropology graduate student emergency expenses. The main priorities are graduate student financial security and advocating graduate representation at the departmental level and in the broader WSU community. This year, AGO leadership and DISC are working collaboratively to support graduate students’ needs. The main goal of AGO is to improve the well-being and student experience of anthropology graduate students at WSU. Some of the ways AGO plans to do this are:

Madison Honig and Haden Kingrey handing out food to guests at a table outdoors. The table is filled with wrapped, baked foods.
AGO bake sale with Madison Honig, left, and Haden Kingrey, right
  • Keeping students informed about department activities, budgets, and deadlines.
  • Planning and facilitating both professional and social events improving camaraderie between graduate students and undergraduates.
  • Providing financial assistance for anthropology graduate students via the Mutual Aid Fund.

This year, AGO hosted “Coffee with CASE,” a casual meeting between anthropology graduate students and WSU-CASE bargaining committee member Claudia Skinner to learn more about the state of bargaining between WSU-CASE and WSU Administration. AGO and DISC also co-organized a bake sale to raise funds for the Mutual Aid Fund. In total, $380 was raised  from departmental student and faculty donations.

To support food security in the community, AGO participated in the “Lend a Hand, Give a Can Community Food Drive” which was organized by GPSA, ASWSU and the Crop and Soil Sciences Graduate Student Association. This event collected 1,650 pounds of food that was distributed to the Cougar Food Pantry and the Community Action Center.

Looking forward, AGO would like to host more professional and social events to foster student camaraderie and seek out new ways to raise funds for the Mutual Aid Fund in order to continue to support the needs of anthropology graduate students. AGO is open to all ideas and suggestions for AGO hosted-events! If you have other ideas or suggestions, feel free to contact AGO president Laura Brumbaugh (laura.brumbaugh@wsu.edu) or submit an anonymous suggestion in the suggestion box on the AGO website.