The GRO is the University's official body for recognition of graduate student campus groups.
Recognition by the GRO allows a group:
- To reserve rooms on campus.
- To borrow University vans.
- To send e-mail communications to all graduate students through the GRO e-mail list server. (See below.)
- To advertise in The Grad News. (See below.)
In recognizing a group, the GRO does not endorse any of the group's positions, policies, or actions or agree to provide any money to the group. (Anyone, whether affiliated with a recognized group or not, may apply for funding through the GRO.) Furthermore, recognition by the GRO does not provide a new group with an independent university account. Questions about obtaining university accounts and transactions that require them should be directed to the GRO Treasurer.
If your group is already recognized by the undergraduate SGA, there is no need for you to obtain further recognition from the GRO, nor would it grant you any further benefits.
The criteria for being recognized as a group are as follows:
- The group must provide a benefit or service to graduate students of the Homewood Divisions.
- The group must abide by all the regulations and policies of Johns Hopkins University.
- The head of the group must be a graduate student of the Homewood Divisions.
- Religious groups must first have approval from the InterFaith Center.
- A group must be original.
- A group must maintain a minimum of five members who are affiliated with Johns Hopkins University.
- A group must be non-profit.
- A group must be open to all Homewood graduate students regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender, age, marital status, etc.
Every year, the group must submit to the GRO updated contact information for the group's officers. The deadline for this submission will be one week after the first General Council meeting of the academic year. The GRO may terminate the recognition of any group not submitting contact information by the deadline.
Approval Process
To apply for recognition as a GRO group:
- A graduate student representative from your group should write and submit a brief, one-to-two-paragraph description of the group to the GRO and send it to gro@jhu.edu.
- Send a representative or representatives to the General Council meeting in which your recognition will be decided. (This representative may not also be a member of the General Council of the GRO.)
- The GRO General Council will determine whether to recognize your group, and you will be notified by e-mail.
Recognized groups should also register as a GRO-recognized group with the Office of Student Activities.
Publicity
We have several avenues for publicity: broadcast e-mails, the GRO Calendar, the Grad News and the GRO Guide.
To send a broadcast e-mail to grad students at JHU, send an e-mail to gro@jhu.edu with the message you want to send (including a subject line), the e-mail address you'd like the message to be from, and the date when you'd like the message to be sent. We will not messages with attachments.
To have something printed in the Grad News, contact the Grad News Editor at gradnews (at) jhu (dot) edu.
The GRO Guide is now a Wiki. If you would like a more complete description of your group to be included, we suggest adding it to the Graduate Student Group section of Homewood Campus - Extracurricular Activities.
We are in the process of opening the GRO Calendar to include events held by student groups. For now, send requests to gro@jhu.edu.
Funding
To apply for GRO funding, visiting our Group Funding page and follow the directions carefully.
