Usually, these social happenings take half the budget. The other half is reserved for academic events, i.e., readings and colloquia. In short, the GSO does whatever its members want it to do. The agenda is set by graduate students and the activities are planned and managed by graduate students. Research groups typically meet once or twice a month, on or off campus, for discussion of classic texts, recently published works, or faculty and student works in progress.
Many students participate in more than one group.
About once a month this research group meets to discuss, informally, two working papers by graduate students. Occasionally, we have open forums on topics as diverse as nature or sports in literature, or on what an ideal survey course would look like. Our topics range historically from first contact to the end of the nineteenth century, with a bit of sloughing into the twentieth. We also welcome topics on other literature from the time period, e.g., Victorian. Some of the working papers are from seminars, others are trial runs for conferences, and others come from ongoing dissertations.