By Julia Mlynarek, PhD Candidate (Carleton University)

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Well it’s a New Year! 2013!

I’m writing a post on behalf of the Student Affairs Committee (SAC). Many people, especially students, don’t really know who we are and what the Student Affairs Committee actually does. So I figured I’d try to clear it up…

Who are we?

The SAC is composed of several graduate students distributed as evenly as possible across Canada. At the moment, there are seven students serving on the Student Affairs Committee. Part of these seven and Chandra Moffat (Fredericton, NB) and Boyd Mori (Edmonton, AB) who are also co-chairs of the SAC this year making sure things run smoothly.

The co-chairs – Chandra Moffat and Boyd Mori. Photo credit: Adrian Thysse

Via e-mail, we consider how improve or maintain student success and visibility in the ESC. Other members include Ikkei Shikano (Burnaby, BC), Brock Harper (Toronto, ON), Paul Abram (Montreal, QC), Léna Durocher-Granger (Quebec/Honduras), Guillaume Dury (Montreal, QC) and me (Julia Mlynarek (Ottawa, ON)).

What do we do?

The mandate of the SAC is two-fold; 1- we advise Student Members, the Governing Board, and the Society on programs of the Society for students and on other matters concerning students and 2- we advise Student Members and the Society on the training of entomologists and on the future job opportunities for entomologists in Canada. This mandate is very broad but throughout the year we try to set specific goals to help students succeed in entomology. This year for example, we will be trying to post more regular updates on the ESC blog to let the Members know what we are up to. We are also working on an updated version of the Directory of Entomology. Of course we continue working hard on letting the Student Members know of Job and Research postings. Additionally, we let the community know if a student has defended their thesis successfully in the thesis round-up (either on the ESC website, or in the Bulletin). So if you’re a student that has just submitted a thesis, let us know! We also help with organization of the annual meeting such as trying to keep the costs for the meeting as low as possible (but still sustainable) for the student, the student mixer during the meeting, the Graduate Student Symposium and the Silent auction. The proceeds of the silent auction actually come back to help the students. So a successful silent auction means extra funds for the students!

Great turn out to the ESC student mixer! Photo credit: Seth McCann

Student affair committee members (Chandra Moffat and Paul Abram) manning the silent auction at the last ESC annual meeting. Photo credit: Adrian Thysse

We work hard in our spare (non-thesis) time to encourage students pursue their dreams of working with insects. The actions we take today will influence the future entomology students which could potentially be our students in the future. We want Canadian Entomology to be the best it can be so that is respected in the world as it has been since the inception of the ESC.

If you (as a student) are interested in getting involved please contact us – students@esc-sec.ca or post a message on the ESC student facebook page. We would love to hear from you.

Enjoy the insects.

Till next time,

Julia