Council of Graduate Students

at The Ohio State University

Secretary

Lauren Chivington

Lauren Chivington is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the English department at the Ohio State University. Lauren earned their Master of Arts in the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities with a major in English Literature from the University of Chicago in 2020 and their Bachelor of Arts in English from the Ohio State University in 2018.

Lauren's research focuses on the visual rhetoric of silence, particularly the research object of the empty speech balloon. They wrote their undergraduate honors thesis on controversial visual narratives and the potential of the comic medium to mediate intergenerational trauma while educating future generations. They published it in the International Journal Of Comic Art (IJOCA) in 2018. Lauren wrote their master’s thesis on the empty speech balloon and the many ways it is both seen and overlooked and how it characterizes the comic medium even as it pulls on its seams. They published this work, titled "Signifying Silence: The Empty Speech Balloon" in ImageTexT in 2021. As a researcher, Lauren incorporates comics studies, new media, and pop culture. They have a wide variety of research interests, including autobiography, trauma studies, disability studies, neuroscience, 20th + 21st-century literature, digital media, medical humanities, and graphic medicine. 

As a speaker, Lauren has presented their work around the world, speaking on topics including their own disability journey navigating the post-Covid medical landscape, and living radically in the face of the Wellness Narrative and chrononormativity through Chronic Wellness. Lauren is passionate about interdisciplinarity, and activism as a part of their scholarly life and work. They are part of several organizations at OSU in addition to being secretary for CGS. They serve on the advisory board as a graduate representative to Ohio State's Wicked Science program, they are acting president of the Disability Studies Graduate Student Association (DSGSA), and are in their second year as Assistant Director of the Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences' Humanities and Cognitive Sciences High School Summer Institute.

As an adjunct professor since 2020, Lauren prioritizes multimodality, accessibility, and communication with their students. They work from a "guide on the side" pedagogical philosophy and love seeing their students grow. Lauren is also passionate about praxis. They are making an autobiographical graphic novel about their illness journey called Sensitive, a short visual project about their Long Covid journey called The Long Haul, and are launching a website devoted to helping those with chronic illnesses called ChronicWellness.Care.

As a person, Lauren does too much. In moments of free time, Lauren enjoys playing with their two cats named Simba and Stitch, doing freelance photography, playing video games, taking nature walks, making art, and eating ice cream and reading books with their partner.

Website: https://laurenchivington.com/

 

Roles & Responsibilities:

As laid out in the CGS Constitution (Section 8.6) the Secretary's duties are as follows...

  • The Secretary will be responsible for writing and publicly publishing minutes of all meetings of the Council and the Executive Committee, for maintaining records of legislation, and for communicating announcements and information to the delegate body. All minutes and legislation must be publicly published with one week of approval by a simple majority vote by the Council.
  • The Secretary will be responsible for maintaining attendance records and determining quorum at Council meetings as declared in Article 5, Section 1 of this Constitution.
  • The Secretary will oversee the Career Development Award, which encourages graduate students to prepare for placement into their chosen field and provides an opportunity to defray associated costs.
  • The Secretary will be responsible for ensuring that the Constitution, Bylaws, and Standing Rules are updated at the end of every semester to reflect all passed legislative amendments.
  • The Secretary will have the power to appoint a Deputy Secretary. This appointment is subject to approval by simple majority vote by the Executive Board.
  • If the Secretary is absent from a meeting, their duties will be assumed by the Deputy Secretary, if appointed, Chief of Staff, if appointed, or the Treasurer, in that order.
  • In the absence of the President, Vice President, and Treasurer, the Secretary will preside over meetings of the Council.
  • The Secretary will fulfill other duties as directed by the Council, the Executive Committee, and the President.
  • *** This officership is eligible to use a CGS-owned parking pass for CGS business