Lauren Gay is a Junior in Political Science and Psychology in the College of LAS. An active member of Panhellenic Council and her sorority, Lauren is also an Illinois Student Admissions Representative (ISTAR), Order of Omega member, Illini Democrat, National Society of Collegiate Scholars, and the Transfer Leadership Committee Chair. She can be reached at legay2@illinois.edu.
Are you a transfer student? Are you new or have you been here awhile? Have you found your niche? Are you looking for fun and free social events to meet people like you? Well if you answered yes to any or all of the above, the Transfer Advisory Group, or more commonly known as “TAG” is definitely for you.
As a second semester freshman transfer student from California, I hardly knew anyone when I moved to the university. When I heard about TAG from Cory Ohms through meetings, I immediately knew it would be something I wanted to check out. Little did I know that I would not only find an amazing home away from home in this community, but also several leadership opportunities which led to even more. Since the RSO is relatively new, the structural kinks had to work themselves out and once they did this past year under Kenny’s leadership (our president), I became more and more involved, which eventually led me to a position on the executive position as the Transfer Leadership Committee (TLC) Chair.
Since I have served on the exec board of the RSO in the past year, I commonly get asked about the structure of TAG. TAG is the overarching organization which oversees all social, professional and extracurricular activities for transfer students, specifically in LAS but also more generally at the university. The executive team consists of the President, Vice President, Secretary-Treasurer, TLC Chair, Marketing Chair, and Programming Chair.
The TLC has its own committee which oversees important transitionary programs for new and existing transfer students while working with the LAS Administration. Formally, the objective of the Transfer Leadership Committee (TLC) of TAG is to ease the transition of transfer students into the greater sphere of the University of Illinois. That said, we’ve had some amazingly successful programs that included surveying incoming transfer students, “native” (non-transfer) students, and students that have been at the university for longer than a semester about their experiences with advising, classes, registration, living situations and resource availability. Using that, we brought that to the LAS administration who has begun important programs, with members of TLC, to ease those findings for transfer students. You can be a member of TAG and not a member of the TLC, and also a member of both. I highly encourage you to check the committee out! Our next meeting is Tuesday, April 15, 2015 at 5 PM in 1024 Lincoln Hall. Hopefully we’ll see you there!