The Council of Graduate Students (COGS) represents the interests of all graduate students at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. It is our mission to work with the all components of the University community - most specifically the Graduate School and central administration - to make sure the needs of graduate students are known and addressed.
COGS is an open and democratic organization comprised of graduate students from across the University. COGS provides opportunities for graduate students to participate actively in University administrative and policy-making decisions, as well as social and cultural programming and job training. The backbone of the organization are Department Representatives, composed of students selected by all degree-granting programs at the University. COGS also elects representatives to serve on University-wide committees, on Policy and Review Councils, and in the University Senate. Together, we represent over 10,000 students.
Please find out more below.
The Council of Graduate Students is a member council of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA). GAPSA is the umbrella-body for all 10 student councils that represent graduate and professional students. Our representation at GAPSA consists of the President and our senators.
GAPSA handles similar advocacy and activist duties, acts as a locus for political and lobbying efforts with the state legislature, and hosts many social events.
The Council of Graduate Student receives it funding through a fees request proposal to the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA). GAPSA includes the COGS request and adds it to their fees request proposal delivered to the University. All graduate students are required pay the fees from which we receive our funding.
Because the web has proven itself to be an important communication medium, COGS believes that having a well-maintained website is key to keeping lines of communcation open between graduate students and COGS. As such, all material published on the web should be made available to as many people as possible. To facilite this task, this website will comform to W3C web standards, such as HTML 4.01 and CSS 1.0.
This website is maintained by the COGS VP for Communications. It was designed and modified in various stages by Sean McNee, Isaac Kamola, Caroline Hilk, Chris Pappas, and Jennifer Corcoran.