One of the duties of the GSA Council is to regulate the various graduate student clubs on campus. The GSA is the parent organization of campus organizations as those listed below.

Graduate Student Organizations

• American Society of Metals and Materials
• Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA)
• Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology Student Leadership Council
• Graduate Christian Fellowship
• Korean Graduate Student Association (KGSA)
• Optical Society of America
• Rice Chinese Students and Scholars Club (RCSSC)
• Soccer GSA
• SPIE
• Student Engineers Educating Kids

Department GSAs

• Bioengineering (BIOE) GSA
• Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering GSA
• Chemistry GSA
• Civil and Environmental Engineering GSA
• Computer Science GSA
• Ecology and Evolutionary Biology GSA
• Graduate Mathematicians, Applied and Computational Mathematicians and Statisticians (GMACS)
• Physics & Astronomy GSA

In addition, interested students may found their own clubs. A list of currently registered clubs is available from the Office of Student Activities.

The approval process is outlined here:

1. Read over By-Law C of the GSA By-Laws. This section discusses how to establish a registered graduate student organization.
2. Submit to the Office of Student Activities and the GSA Vice President of Internal Affairs:
a. draft constitution for the organization, a template for which is available here;
b. the following items, available from the Office of Student Activities:

• • information forms about student officers;
  • a letter from a member of the Rice faculty or staff stating his or her intent to serve as the faculty or staff sponsor of the organization; and
  • an agreement, signed by the primary officer of the organization, that the organization understands and will abide by the rules of Rice University

3. After the constitution has been reviewed, updated, and approved by the GSA Vice President of Internal Affairs, the club constituion will be added to the agenda of the next GSA Council meeting for approval.
4. Send a representative or two (typically the primary officers) to the scheduled meeting. These representatives will make a short (1-2 minute) presentation to the Council. Not all clubs are approved: a club's representatives must be ready to answer questions and argue for the organization's approval.
5. Upon approval by the GSA Council, the organization will become a registered student organization will all the benefits thereof, including the ability to reserve rooms on campus and have a bank account. Bank account application forms are available in the Clubs Office. See the Financial Guidelines section of the Clubs Manual for further details.
6. The GSA Vice President for Internal Affairs will then place the approved constitution on file with the Office of Student Activities.