Graduate Student Council

The Graduate Student Council (GSC) serves Stanford’s graduate student population by representing student interests in University affairs, supporting graduate student organization, and providing community events for graduate students.  The GSC is comprised of 15 elected voting members, 9 who represent Stanford’s seven schools and 6 at-large representatives.

Advocate: The GSC advocates for graduate student interests at the University level. In the 2021-2022 school year, the GSC was instrumental in securing full healthcare subsidies for all funded graduate students and large improvements to supports for graduate students with families. In the 2022-2023 school year, the platform is Affordability, Benefits, and Mental Health. See the Bill on Affordability.
For the 2023-2024 academic year, the GSC is committed to Housing Affordability, Master/Professional Student Funding, Health Care, and Transportation.

‍Fund: The GSC oversees the distribution of the Graduate Student Activities Fee.  Student organizations can request funds for events that are open to the entire graduate student community. To see our funding guidelines and calendar of VSO events, visit here!

‍Plan: The GSC plans large campus events to support and foster community among graduate students. Recent events include Thanksgiving Dinner, Masquerade Ball, and the annual Grad Formal.

This Fall, the GSC meets on Tuesday nights from 6:30-8:30 PM PDT (every week during the academic year). Because of COVID-19, we have moved all our meetings to a hybrid in person and Zoom format. These meetings are open to the public, and we send out reminders via the email list.

The in-person location is EVGR Building B Room 170. The Zoom link for each meeting is here.
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The GSC records detailed minutes of each general meeting that occurs.  The meeting minutes from the 2023-2024 Council can be found here.
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All graduate students (including professional students) can join the GSC mailing list here,to keep informed of meetings. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the GSC co-chairs at gsc-chair@assu.stanford.edu.

The GSC has authored resolutions and bills that impact student lives.  The 2023-2024 academic year bills are summarized here. You can view the resolutions and bills from the 2022-2023 academic year here, and 2021-2022 academic year here.
Additionally, the GSC in partnership with UGS has formed the Vaden Student Health Advisory Committee. If you have concerns regarding Vaden or Cardinal Care, fill out the form here.

To learn more about the work and membership of prior Graduate Student Councils, click here.

To highlight prior advocacy, GSC is responsible for advocacy efforts that led to the university deciding to 100% subsidize CardinalCare for funded graduate students, increasing the family grant, the start of the summer funding guarantee, and the start of the food pantry.

Domestic students on fellowships (paid lump sum quarterly, *not” bi-monthly) do not have taxes withheld. They must make estimated payments to the IRS quarterly (first deadline 15 Jan) or they will levy penalties when filing their taxes and owe large unexpected sums on 15 April. The GSC brought in a CPA to help students understand this during a seminar on 31 October 2022; the recording is found here. And slides here. Note a typo on the last slide (CA Tax: $1358.47). All of this information is for 2022 tax year.
For the 2023 tax year, VPGE hosted a fellowship estimated tax webinar, link here.