A ministry update!

After a delightful time shopping and eating delicious new things at the Queen Victoria market early yesterday morning, Mike picked up Ash and Jared and I and drove us out to LaTrobe University to meet with the Christian Union team there. Ash will be writing a little bit about that meeting and another meeting with a national staff member with Christian Union working with graduate students. Suffice to say, the eyebrows wagged in our favor and we had a couple of really productive, positive meetings yesterday.

Today I hopped on the bus to Monash to meet Ash and Mike there for the undergraduate Student Life (Campus Crusade in Australia) weekly meeting, which was delightful. Then I wandered upstairs to the Monash Postgraduate Association, an office which serves the Post-grads (Graduate students) at Monash with seminars, socials, support, and advocacy. Here they have 4 full-time staff devoted to helping graduate students to cope with grad school problems and find community. Jenny, executive officer of MPA, sat down with me and happily answered all my questions about how the MPA works. Basically, the university funds the MPA to increase the completion rate (graduation rate) of post-grads by providing advice and support. In the case of conflict with supervisors (advisors) or problems with intellectual property rights, the MPA can act as an independent advocate for the graduate student, explaining their options and even going with them to help sort things out. I'm not sure if there's really anything like it in the 'states.

Ash joined us later and we continued a great discussion about the perils of graduate school and the role that a group like ours, devoted to meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of graduate students could play. The MPA provides a lot of inspiration for our work in the future at Penn State and in Melbourne. The mission of the MPA to support graduate students is very much like ours in PSCG. Their website even uses the slogan "Don't go it alone" - which we've discussed using in the past. Perhaps they would like our Top 10 reasons to get involved with PSCG, including "Your advisor is not your God" and "The late-night library raves are getting old."

P.S. It has come to my attention that our Slideshow gadget up on the right-hand side seems to be broken, hopefully temporarily. In the meantime, click here to visit our gallery