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Joining NAGPS

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This page is dedicated to organizational membership; if you're interested in becoming an individual member, please see this page: Individual Membership

 

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Thank you for your interest in NAGPS, a student-run non-profit organization founded in 1987.  On this page, you will find information about becoming a member of NAGPS.  If you have any questions, please contact the NAGPS Director of Outreach at outreach@nagps.org.

If you would like a very brief overview of the most prominent aspects and benefits of NAGPS, please see this document: Introduction to NAGPS

Membership

Membership in NAGPS is open to both individuals and organizations.  Organizational members fall into one of three categories:

1)  Regular organizational member - member must (a) be an organization recognized on their campus as broadly representing graduate and/or professional students, (b) have a constitution, and (c) have an independent funding source

2)  Developing organizational member - member must (a) be forming or seeking to form a campus organization to broadly represent graduate and/or professional students, (b) have a total campus-wide graduate/professional student population of no more than 200 students or an annual operating budget of no more than $3,000, (c) have drafted a constitution, and (d) have an independent funding source

3)  Legacy organizational member - member must (a) have been in good standing with NAGPS for two or more consecutive years, and (b) be approved by a majority vote of the Board of Directors

Membership Benefits

The benefits of becoming a member of NAGPS are numerous, and some are difficult to identify or quantify.  However, current members of NAGPS feel that the most significant identifiable benefits are:

1)  Connections

At the national and regional conferences, students present about best practices and current issues at their universities, and all attendees engage in roundtable discussions of issues.  Issues addressed at the conferences include negotiating stipend increases, health and dental care, graduate families, activities, housing, working with the university administration, handling budget cuts, advisor-advisee relations, communications, and engaging students,among other topics. At the conferences’ business meetings, members vote on the Association’s national legislative platform, elect officers, and vote on any changes to the organization’s governing documents. The conferences are an excellent place to build cross-university relationships that can lead to further collaboration throughout the year.

2)  Advocacy

In order to ensure graduate/professional student issues are known, NAGPS representatives travel twice a year to Washington, D.C. to speak with senators and congressmen about graduate and professional student issues. Currently, the Association advocates in D.C. on topics including graduate student stipend tax exemption, open access to publicly-funded published research, H-1B visa reform, and student loan reform. The Association’s legislative platform evolves with student needs and is able to react rapidly to the ever-changing academic and legislative environments.

To learn more about our upcoming Legislative Action Days, please see our LAD event page.

3)  Tangible benefits

NAGPS also provides tangible benefits for its members, including discounted auto insurance through GEICO and health insurance through UnitedHealthcare. The Association is currently working on obtaining dental, vision, disability, life, and tuition insurance partnerships as well, among others.

To learn more about our corporate partnership benefits, please visit our corporate partners page.

Current Members

NAGPS members span the United States and are outstandingly diverse, from the small Ivy League graduate student council to the large public university graduate and professional student association.  For a list of our current members, please see: Current Membership

Membership Costs

The most common (and practical) question to ask is: "How much will this cost?"  NAGPS is very aware of its members' and prospective members' fiscal restraints.  There is not a straightforward way to assess how much membership in NAGPS will cost an organization, as the level of the organization's involvement in the Association will determine much of the cost.

Below, we have enumerated some of the fixed and variable costs of membership in NAGPS.  

1)  Membership dues

The current NAGPS organizational membership dues are as follows:

  • Regular membership, full year: $500
    • This membership option grants immediate access to all of the benefits of NAGPS, and the organization is considered a full member.
  • Regular membership, pro-rated: $250
    • This membership option grants delayed access to all of the benefits of NAGPS.  An organization opting for this membership category is considered a member at the start of their region's regional conference or on May 1st, whichever is earlier.  The regional conference dates vary by region.
  • Developing membership: contact the Director of Outreach (outreach@nagps.org) to discuss dues and benefits
  • Legacy membership: $10,000
    • This membership option grants an organization lifetime access to the benefits of NAGPS and the organization is considered a member in perpetuity.

    • Please note that an organization's membership in NAGPS means that all students represented by the organization are considered members.  For example, if an organization represents all engineering students on campus, then all and only all of the engineering students on that campus are considered members of NAGPS.  NAGPS encourages multiple campus organizations to collaborate and purchase a single membership, if possible and desirable.

    2)  Conference costs

    NAGPS holds both regional and national conferences annually.  While it is not mandatory that members attend all conferences, a large benefit of NAGPS is the knowledge and networking gained from our conferences.  Therefore, we strongly encourage members to attend our conferences.  Depending on location, travel costs (airfare, lodging, and some meals) can vary.  Conferences also charge registration fees to partially cover conference expenses; these fees are around $100/person for the national conference and $40/person for the regional conferences.

    3)  Legislative Action Days (LAD) costs

    Twice a year, NAGPS members can send representatives to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. to speak with their representatives about issues important to graduate and professional students.  While there is no registration fee, travel costs are borne by the member organizations sending representatives.

    Membership expectations

    While no members are required to do anything more than pay their dues, NAGPS expects that members have joined the Association in order to enhance the lives of graduate and professional students.  To that end, NAGPS expects that members will do their best to try to attend the annual national conference and their respective annual regional conference, and one or both of the Legislative Action Days.  Of course, budget and time constraints often make full participation at every event impossible.

    NAGPS also expects that members will communicate with NAGPS when asked to do so, in order to ensure that the needs of all NAGPS members are addressed in a timely manner.

    NAGPS suggests that each member organization designate at least one person as their representative to NAGPS.  This person should act as the liaison between the university organization and NAGPS, staying aware of NAGPS happenings and informing others in their organization when necessary.

    Conferences and Advocacy

    NAGPS holds two types of conferences, the national and regional conferences, and also administers Legislative Action Days (LAD), for which members can send representatives to Washington, D.C. to advocate for graduate and professional student issues.  Below is a description of each event.

    1)  National conference

    As NAGPS is an organization that spans the entire United States, the national conference is our cornerstone event.  At this conference, held annually in the fall, attendees present about their organizations' best practices and current issues, company representatives talk about current issues in the field of higher education, and members vote on the Association's legislative platform and elect officers.  This event provides attendees an excellent opportunity to learn about other universities and their graduate/professional student organizations and to form relational ties.

    The 2010 national conference will be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by the MIT Graduate Student Council in Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 11th-14th.

    2)  Regional conferences

    NAGPS is divided into five geographical regions (see map, with links to regions and their conferences at the bottom), and each region holds an annual regional conference in the spring.  Like the national conference, each regional conference is meant to inform members of other organizations' practices and issues, and to strengthen bonds among groups.  Regional conferences are shorter than the national conference, and since they are physically closer to most schools, they are often more accessible for members who may not otherwise be able to travel to the national conference.

    3)  Legislative Action Days (LAD)

    During LAD, held once in the spring and once in the fall, members carry out one of the most important missions of NAGPS: to advocate for its constituents.  At LAD, NAGPS members meet with their congressional representatives and address the issues they face as graduate and professional students.  To help with the advocacy work on Capitol Hill, NAGPS runs an on-site training session for all LAD attendees and provides other materials to help attendees prepare.  Click here for the LAD event page.

    Current issues for which NAGPS advocates on Capitol Hill include:

    • Tax exemption for graduate student stipends
      • Since 1986, graduate student stipends have been subject to taxation.  By exempting student stipends, the government would be financially encouraging more students to pursue advanced degrees and would be investing in the educational future of the United States.
    • Raising or eliminating the cap on H-1B visas given to holders of advanced degrees
      • The supply of high-level technical positions in the United States is greater than the number of people who can fill them; these are the positions that significantly drive economic growth.  Currently, the federal government caps the number of holders of advanced degrees who are allowed to stay and work in the U.S., resulting in a "learn and leave" phenomenon in which many of the country's brightest foreign-grown minds are educated in our universities and forced out of the country after graduation.
    • Open access to federally-funded published research (the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009, FRPAA)
      • Currently, individuals and libraries pay large amounts of money to publishing companies with high profit margins in order to access scholarly research.  The purpose of such research, however, is to be as widely and freely accessible as possible; its purpose is not to fund the publishing industry.  FRPAA would ensure that much of the research done with federal taxpayer money would be freely accessible to the public, thus allowing greater access to knowledge and more governmental transparency.

    You can view the entire NAGPS legislative platform here.

    Organizational Structure

     NAGPS is governed by a 17-member Board of Directors, which is ultimately held accountable to the membership.  The members of the Board of Directors are:

    Each individual region may also set up its own governance structure.

    The Future of NAGPS

    Though NAGPS has had a strong existence for 23 years, we are not easing up on our pursuit of improvement.  The following is an incomplete list of current projects we are undertaking, with the goal of continually striving to meet our members' needs and requests.

    • Website overhaul - our current website is not as user-friendly as we would like, and our Director of Administration is working diligently to convert to a new, cleaner, easier-to-use version.
    • Videoconferencing - we realize that it is often difficult for some members to attend our conferences.  For that reason, the NAGPS President has committed to video stream some of the 2010 National Conference so that even members who can't attend in person can enjoy some of the conference's content and make informed votes in the business meetings.
    • Concerted national advocacy efforts - we are making a significant effort to collimate and coordinate our LAD efforts this year by doing extensive research on our advocacy topics, supplying all attendees with the research findings well ahead of the event, and even partnering with professional lobbyists to provide high-quality advocacy training to attendees.

    We feel that the future of NAGPS is very bright, and we hope you will join us in our efforts.

    Contact

    For further information or if you have any questions, please contact the NAGPS Director of Outreach at outreach@nagps.org.