GSA Steering Committee

Message From the Chair

Joel Maurer, MD 
Senior Faculty Advisor in Admissions and Careers
Michigan State University College of Human Medicine

Dear fellow AAMC Group on Student Affairs (GSA) colleagues,

It is with genuine gratitude that I serve as your 2024-2025 GSA National Chair. When I reflect on the scope of my involvement with the AAMC, I initially think of a very humbling, exciting, overwhelming, and somewhat intimidating experience attending my very first Learn, Serve, Lead meeting in Washington, DC. I was relatively new as my institution’s assistant dean for admissions and was eager to learn as much as possible about medical school admissions at the national level. What I didn’t expect, though, was how highly attended this meeting would be with so many experienced individuals representing a variety of core affinity groups within an academic medical community! I had to make some sort of sense of all this.  And for me, that started with the GSA.

After acclimating to my new administrative role, the GSA was there for me, providing a wealth of resources and networking opportunities to assist with my day-to-day operational needs. I was so grateful to have this community by my side, helping me think about a variety of ways to improve admissions through holistic review and its alignment with the mission of my college. The GSA community helped give me the strength and gumption to overhaul our admissions processes to improve fairness and equity to the applicant while challenging certain institutional assumptions about the status quo. And at a subsequent Central Region GSA Spring Meeting in Rochester, MN, I did a somewhat scary thing:  I “raised my hand” to volunteer! Having received so much from the GSA, I wanted to express my gratitude by giving back.  And through the ongoing culmination of lived experiences on the Central Region GSA Steering Committee, the National Committee on Admissions (COA), and the National GSA Steering Committee, I now find myself humbled and honored to lead our greater GSA community as we continue the hard work of serving our students while making sure we also prioritize serving ourselves.

As Dr. Marcy Verduin, GSA 2023-24 National Chair, stated in her message from last year, “The landscape of medical education is undergoing rapid and accelerated change.” This hasn’t changed over the course of this last year, nor do I see it slowing down anytime soon. The scope of our work in moving forward with issues related to learner support can feel daunting, especially as we focus on the equity needs of our community and those we serve across the medical education continuum:  working with the pre-health advising community to improve the transition to medical school, enhancing opportunities for students to finance their education, understanding the overall impact of USMLE Step 1 becoming a pass/fail exam, improving our understanding of program signaling as students transition to residency training, and promoting GSA collegial wellness related to our personal and professional needs (just to name a few!). Regardless of how we identity within the greater GSA (admissions, financial aid, student diversity, student records, or overall student affairs and services), these issues require the input and support of the collective GSA membership. Your willingness to share ideas and experiences helps us best address ongoing issues. Your feedback on the challenges we address is paramount to the continued growth of our community and those whom we serve.  It is with a sense of excitement (and a healthy dose of trepidation!) that I look forward to working with all of you this coming year. I promise to give you my best effort as we continue the hard work of serving our students.

In closing, I suspect that all of you have a story on how you became involved with the GSA, and gathering them for a GSA-serving community document might make for an interesting read!  If not doing so already, I encourage you to lean on the GSA to extend a helping hand when times get tough.  Be confident in your strength and bravery when needed. But most of all, don’t be afraid to “raise your hand!”

With PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect),
Joel