Dear Fellow Graduate Students,

We would like to offer a warm welcome to all of you – both new and returning 
graduate students - to SSSP. We are in the midst of preparing for what is 
guaranteed to be an excellent conference. 
We are your graduate student representatives and it is our distinct pleasure 
to welcome you and to do our best to keep you informed about graduate 
student events and opportunities at SSSP. Should you have any questions 
please do not hesitate to write and we will do our best to offer whatever we 
can in terms of answers or advice. 

First off and most importantly, if you have not yet done so, please register for 
the conference, 
http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/483/fuseaction/ssspconf.portal!! The 
deadline for program participants to pre-register for the meeting was May 31. 
You cannot have a voice if you are not there!! We recognize that funding is a 
limitation that many graduate students face. The roommate-matching program 
helps make it more affordable to stay in the conference hotel. This must be 
requested on the registration form by June 29. If you are not looking for 
a ‘roomie’ but would like to be paired up with an experienced voice in SSSP, 
please apply to the meeting mentor program. More information on the 
mentoring program can be found at 
http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/312/Mentoring_Program/. The deadline to 
do so is June 30.

SSSP offers many wonderful opportunities for graduate students to become 
more involved. There are a number of graduate student specific events hosted 
throughout the conference. The preliminary program has already been posted 
on the SSSP website and it includes information about a new member 
breakfast (new student members are especially invited); the Graduate student 
meeting which will give all graduate student members a voice and space to be 
heard and taken seriously, and the graduate student social.  The social is 
another space to connect with fellow graduate student members. There are 
additional networking opportunities in the welcoming reception and the 
division-sponsored reception. You can find the 2012 Annual Meeting page at 
http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/459/2012_Annual_Meeting/.

We are very excited about this year’s conference and hope that we have a 
chance to meet all of you in Denver. SSSP takes the voice of its graduate 
student body very seriously and so this is a fantastic opportunity to make 
sure that yours is heard. Again, should you wish to contact us for any reason, 
please do not hesitate!!

All the best!!

Mandy Frake-Mistak				Patrick O’Brien
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