This office in historic Earle C. Anthony Hall (aka "The Pelican Building") represents Cal's 10,000 graduate students and is supported by student fees. The office disburses travel grants for grad students to present their research at conferences outside the Bay Area. It runs events ranging from beer nights to workshops on PowerPoint presentations and writing scholarly articles. Several groups focus on grad students of color, who are greatly underrepresented at Cal. The Graduate Assembly also lobbies for students' interests in Sacramento and Washington.
The very cute Pelican Building itself, commissioned in the 1950s by wealthy alum Earle C. Anthony, was granted city landmark status in February 2011. Before becoming one of America's top dealers in Packard autos, Anthony founded Cal's campus humor magazine, the California Pelican, in 1903. He celebrated the Pelican's 50th anniversary by donating the building. Originally, it was to have been designed by Bernard Maybeck, who was then in his 90s. The master handed the job off to Cal architecture prof Joseph Esherick, who incorporated enough Maybeckisms into the design that the building seems a lot older than it really is. The university wasn't wild about a bunch of sophomoric humor writers getting their own building, but humored Anthony, as it were, in the hope he would donate more money later to larger causes. So worried was Anthony that the building might be taken from his beloved humor writers that he demanded gigantic pelican plaques for it that would be impossible to remove.
Sadly, the magazine foundered, and the building was given in 1978 to the Graduate Assembly. Into the Pelican Building's fireplace mantel is carved a motto pertinent to both humor writers and graduate students: "If You Can't Be Good Be Careful."