This column was written by Tom Aguilar, a graduate student in community development and geography, and chair of the Graduate Student Association, and James Hodgson, a graduate student in psychology and vice chair of the Graduate Student Association:

We were among a handful of graduate students invited to the Chancellor's Fall Conference on graduate education — it was our purpose to represent graduate students and their interests. At the conference we heard much discussion about how to create a more diverse and inclusive environment for graduate study. Toward this goal, the Graduate Student Association would like to highlight a few key areas in which graduate students could work with the administration and faculty to enrich their academic lives:

• A graduate and postdoctoral student center — graduate and postdoctoral students at the conference were most excited about this idea. In discussions with postdoctoral students, graduate students found they have a lot in common with them and plan to collaborate more closely in the future. The administration was receptive to the idea of a graduate student center, and as a result the GSA will investigate how to make such a venue possible for the campus.
• International student fees and out-of-state tuition — these costs continue to restrict the number and diversity of graduate students on the campus. We would like to see these costs contained as much as possible.
• Dependent health care — this coverage is available at some other UC campuses, but not at our university. We wish to explore what would be required to bring dependent health care to graduate students at UC Davis.
• Peer mentoring — peer mentoring is one key to an easy transition to graduate life at UC Davis, particularly for international and out-of-state students. Some departments have excellent programs for mentoring incoming students while others do not. We would like to facilitate spreading the best practices in mentoring across the campus.
• Interdisciplinary contacts — reaching across units, departments and disciplines serves to make the graduate experience more satisfying. We are looking for ways to increase the interaction between graduate students in this regard, and we welcome suggestions from the UC Davis community at large.
• Graduate groups — one of the hallmarks of graduate education at UC Davis is the existence of graduate groups, which include a diverse array of students from different disciplines. But small graduate groups, in particular, may not meet the needs of their graduate students as well as most departments do theirs. We are pursuing feedback from our membership on how the graduate group experience could be enhanced.

Finally, we encourage graduate students to volunteer to assist us with these issues. One way to achieve this is to participate in the Graduate Student Association where they could serve on committees addressing these types of concerns. To learn more, contact GSA at gsa@ucdavis.edu or visit www.gsa.ucdavis.edu where a list of committees and activities is available.

UC Davis currently enrolls 4,200 graduate students in 85 master's and doctoral programs. For more detail, visit the Office of Graduate Studies at gradstudies.ucdavis.edu.