2024 Officer Elections

WaMPS has decided to start their election process for the 2024-2025 academic year. We invite all interested graduate and undergraduate students to consider nominating someone (or yourself) for a role within the Women and Minorities in the Physical Sciences. Please take a moment to fill out the nomination form if you wish to participate. After August 12th, all nominees will receive a link to submit their election statement, and will have till August 16th to accept the nomination. Voting will take place once we have all nominees. Lastly, your fellow students will vote, and we will congratulate the 2024-2025 Women and Minorities in the Physical Sciences elected officers!!

Nomination Form

Officer Positions

President:  

(Graduate Student Position Only) The President oversees the entire organization and has great influence on what the group will accomplish in any given year. The president organizes and runs all officer meetings and communicates with the membership often. The main responsibilities of the president are presented below:

  • Develop a year-long and semester plans with the officers to outline the main goals for their term

  • Lead the WaMPS meetings, including creating the agenda to support the structure and organization of the meeting.

  • Oversee the formation of committees and their progress, including those that are geared toward the mentoring programs.

  • Act as a liaison with other organizations and MSU.

  • Oversee the development and approval of the annual budget, with input from other officers and members, and secure approval from the Physics Department, FRIB, and if necessary, other sponsoring departments. 

  • Advocate for officers, members, and students to the administration, alongside the faculty advisor and vice president, especially when roadblocks or disagreements arise. 

  • Delegate appropriate tasks to other officers or WaMPS members as needed. 

  • Focus on creating sustainability within the organization through proper documentation of events and activities.
     

    Vice President: 

    (Graduate Student Position Only) The Vice President position offers a chance to support the President in critical WaMPS endeavors while maintaining the freedom to be creative and find new ways to improve WaMPS. The VP has the potential to be the oil on the bike chain that is the WaMPS Officers, finding ways to implement ideas from various places in ways that are congruent with the President's overall vision for WaMPS.  This position also allows its holder to be more on-the-ground with regard to events and WaMPS constituents, since it is not fettered by having to do more strenuous logistics like budgeting and faculty interaction. It is desired, but not required, that the VP has aspirations to be the group president in future years.

     

    Responsibilities of the VP included the following:

  • Oversees internal operations and steps in when the President is unavailable.

  • Supports WaMPS officers, members, or committees in designing and achieving events and activities in alignment with WaMPS’s overall mission, values, and strategic goals as well as building sustainability. 

  • Maintain a list of members.
     

    Secretary: 

    (Graduate or Undergraduate Student Position) As secretary, you attend all WaMPS officer meetings, and participate in making decisions that affect WaMPS's activities and goals. In your role as secretary, your goal is to support organization, coordination, sustainability, and communication among the group of officers. Specific responsibilities are: 

  • Take meeting notes, except when you are speaking. In this case, another officer shall type for you. For the meetings notes, type out detailed & readable meeting notes during officer meetings (and membership meetings, if necessary). Specific attention should be paid to writing down tasks to complete and who will complete them.

  • After meetings, summarize the meeting by writing the main takeaways from that meeting. 

  • Ensure there is a moderator role for the WaMPS meetings that is filled by another officer.

    • Ensure the moderator knows their purpose, which is ensuring the meeting begins and ends on time as well as ensuring all agenda items are addressed.  

  • Officer communication - ensure officers are on the same page by sending emails & Slack messages when necessary.

  • In charge of communicating general WaMPS-related information to members and to the department. 

  • Meeting coordination - support the President in choosing the optimal officer meeting time by collecting all other officers’ availability. Typically done via when2meet.

  • Meeting location - manage booking of in-person spaces and creation of Zoom links for officer meetings and membership meetings.

  • Organization - Ensure Google Drive remains organized into relevant and useful folders.

  • Sustainability - Ensure that officers are documenting event-planning, administrative, etc. processes so that knowledge is retained from year to year.
     

    Treasurer: 

    (Graduate Student Position Only) The treasurer is responsible for maintaining the budget for WaMPS. Specific responsibilities are:

  • Communicating with officers, members, and committees so folks know how much funding each activity receives. 

  • Complete the reimbursements

    • This includes keeping the president, vice president, and faculty liaison in the loop regarding the status of reimbursements to ensure a proper timeline for those returns. 

  • Keep the ledger up to date

    • This includes keeping an accurate record of the internal spending and refunds for all WaMPS related spending. 

    • This also includes collaborating with FRIB to ensure everything is up to date and correct. 

  • Works to create the budget for WaMPS events and operations with the President and Vice President as well ensure input from the rest of the offices and members has been collected, and then present it to BPS and FRIB for approval. 

    • This includes building the budget proposal, which allocates funds for the events, mentoring and public engagement events set up by WaMPS.

Social Media/Website Administrator: 

(Graduate or Undergraduate Student Position) The Social Media/Website Administrator is in charge of updating and maintaining the WaMPS website (wamps.org) and social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, etc.). This officer will have the opportunity to actively improve the webpage as well as provide WaMPS with a strong social media presence. This officer may be updating the webpage and social media several times a week. No prior experience in website development is necessary to hold this position, as documentation is available. Specific responsibilities include the following:

  • Posting photos to social media pages and the website.

  • Updating the website as necessary, and ensuring the information is accessible. 

  • Liking and sharing posts by other accounts to expose the WaMPS audience to relevant events/groups/resources in the community.

Mentor Training Coordinator:

(Graduate Student Position Only) One major facet of the WaMPS mentoring programs is to ensure that mentors have the tools necessary to become a good mentor. The Mentor Training Coordinator is responsible for providing training to the mentors in the WaMPS Mentoring Programs. Some specific responsibilities include the following:

  • Lead committees for mentor trainings.

  • Plan and host trainings for the mentoring programs.

    • This largely involves re-using material from past mentor trainings, but can also be done by bringing in experts to train mentors, or through other avenues if desired.

  • Sustainability - work with the Secretary to ensure mentor trainings are appropriately documented so that the material can be passed down year-to-year.

Mentoring Program Evaluator:

(Graduate Student Position Only) Another essential aspect of the WaMPS mentoring programs is the evaluation of the programs. The Mentoring Program Evaluator is responsible for assessing the mentoring programs a few times throughout the course of the programs, as well as at the conclusion of the programs. This can be performed through various methods, but traditionally has been done by sending out forms and receiving feedback from mentors and mentees. Any issues that are brought to the attention of the Mentoring Program Evaluator shall be addressed as deemed appropriate by the organization. Some specific responsibilities of this position include the following:

  • Lead committees for mentor/mentee check-ins.

  • Evaluate results from the check-ins and ensure that mentor and mentee responses are protected.

  • Follow up with mentor/mentee pairs as deemed necessary.

  • Document main takeaways from feedback to be accessible to future leadership.

  • Work with the rest of the organization to address feedback for the mentoring program.

  • Building and implementing feedback into the mentoring program structures and procedures.
     

    Public Engagement Coordinator:  

    (Graduate or Undergraduate Student Position) One of WaMPS’s goals is to spread the enjoyment of science to young people and the public through interactive demonstrations and activities. Time commitment varies by project, event, and activity, but a couple hours a week should be expected.  You also make sure the volunteers have the supplies they need for the given activity/demonstration (reimbursed by WaMPS of course).  Public Engagement coordinators from past years have already assembled several outreach activities to choose from for a given event, but you are also welcome to add to this list if you have ideas! Some specific responsibilities include the following:

  • Lead WaMPS outreach activities that include, but are not limited to Girls Math & Science Day and the MSU STEM Festival

    • This includes designing the outreach activities, writing short proposals to highlight the planned activities, recruiting volunteers, and performing the demonstrations at the events.

  • Maintain collaboration and communication with community partners to ensure the community has a voice in the events we hold.

  • Document and reflect on events that are held to ensure knowledge can be passed on to future leadership
     

    First Year Liaison: 

    (Graduate Student Position Only) As the first year liaison your primary responsibility is to serve as a consistent voice for the first year cohort at regular WaMPS meetings. You will advertise all WaMPS events to fellow first years and encourage them to attend and participate.  This is really quite simple because of group chats/classes where you see everyone in your cohort at least 3 times a week! Finally, we think the real perk of being the first year liaison is the ability to attend the officer meetings and contribute your opinions and ideas.  It is a great way to get involved in an organization that (hopefully) you are passionate about early on. This position allows you the flexibility to volunteer to help with things only when your course work/exam schedule allows. Specific responsibilities include the following:

  • Advertise WaMPS activities and events to first year graduate students.

  • Communicate any important dates (e.g. exams, project due dates, etc.) that impact first & second year graduate students

  • Provide schedule of core physics/astronomy graduate courses

  • Share your ideas and opinions at weekly officer meetings
     

    Undergraduate Liaison:

    (Undergraduate Student Position Only) As the undergrad liaison you would provide WaMPS with information about support or types of events undergraduates would like to see from WaMPS. Additionally, you would serve as a way to advertise the events to the undergraduate population and encourage them to attend and participate. You would collaborate with undergraduate organizations (SPS, Astro Club, SWISE, etc.) to help increase awareness and engagement for WaMPS and our overall mission.  This may include attending these other organizations’ events to better understand the needs of undergraduates.  You will be able to share your opinion and make suggestions that ensure WaMPS activities and events are accessible and relevant to undergraduate students. Specific responsibilities include the following:

  • Encourage undergraduate students to participate in WaMPS activities and events

  • Ensure WaMPS activities and events are accessible and relevant to undergraduate students

  • Communicate any important dates (e.g. exams, project due dates, etc.) that impact undergraduate students

  • Provide schedule of core physics/astronomy undergraduate courses

  • Share your ideas and opinions at weekly officer meetings
     

    General Events Coordinator:

    (Graduate Student Position Only) As the general events coordinator your primary responsibility is facilitating general WaMPS events. Additionally, you would lead committees for events such as regularly held cookouts and social events. You would also have the freedom to propose and lead new events in line with WaMPS’s mission and vision statements to support community building. Specific responsibilities include the following:

  • Leads committees for general WaMPS Events (e.g. Fall and Spring Luncheons, General body meetings, etc).

  • Largely involves scheduling committee meetings when needed, reporting progress to other WaMPS officers in officer meetings, and delegating the tasks needed to run an event to committee members.

  • Initiate other general events that follow WaMPS’s mission and vision

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