Wednesday, May 29, 1996
Elected graduate officials plan for association’s revivalBy Ryan
Ozimek
Daily Bruin Contributor
Facing issues such as a dwindling budget and near invisibility
among students, next year’s Graduate Students Association (GSA)
members are already mapping out battle plans to combat their rough
road ahead.
Next year’s key leaders, President Chris Tymchuk, Internal Vice
President Grace Chee and External Vice President Danise Kimball
have begun the project of reviving the dwindling association.
So far, all three incoming officers have talked with various
campus organizations and graduate departmental councils on building
communication between the groups and the association. Lack of
communication has been a major factor in much of the year’s
problems, association officials cited.
"I’ve already begun to contact department’s council members so
that we can try to avoid the problems this year’s association had
with communication over the summer time," Tymchuk said earlier this
month.
One main issue that next year’s officers hope to focus on is
involving more students in the graduate government through
organizations such as the Affirmative Action Coalition.
"I came into office with a lot of things that I wanted to do,
but I’ve come to realize that our foremost priority has to be
getting more people involved," Kimball said.
Hoping to have graduate students better understand what the
association does for the student body, the upcoming officers want
to create an orientation primarily targeted at first-year graduate
students. This year’s association had planned to do a similar
orientation, yet the project was never created.
"An orientation would be useful for incoming
graduate/professional students because it would be an opportunity
for them to find out what the university community has to offer and
how they can get involved," Chee said.
The newly-elected officials would also like to create a textbook
lending program through the graduate government. Chee and Kimball
hope to work with graduate student representatives in order to
discuss which textbooks should be purchased and how the program
would be constructed.
Another way that the new officials want to attract attention is
to reach out to the many organizations within the graduate student
body. By doing so, the association can reach a greater number of
students, Chee and Kimball commented.
"I think it is crucial that GSA be a better resource for
outreach to graduate/professional student organizations," Chee
said.
By this process of "coalition building," the association will
assist graduate student and undergraduate organizations, the
University of California Student Association and various community
grass-roots organizations to help them communicate more with each
other.
"Until GSA establishes connections with graduate students,
anything it does is quite irrelevant," Kimball said.
Aside from increasing outreach to students, the incoming
officers also hope to make changes to the structure of the
organization.
"The Forum really has no legitimacy because many graduate
students have not had the opportunity to elect a representative for
themselves in the Forum," Kimball said.
She also raised the concern that councils may not have informed
their constituents and council members that such representative
positions are available. She cited such entities as the School of
Law and the School of Nursing as those underrepresented in the
Forum.
Another problem that next year’s officers will face is a
shrinking budget. Over the past decade, the association has failed
to raise its student fees because of the extremely low voter
turnout the association has received.
Without the necessary amount of students voting in the last
general election, the association will very likely be forced to cut
its funding to programs it solely supported, such as the
Environmental Coalition and Melnitz Movies.
Both Chee and Kimball hope getting more students involved in the
graduate government will help increase voter turnout, which in turn
would lead to funding for those organizations.
"It’s a circular approach," Chee said. "By having students more
involved with GSA and having accountable representatives, students
will feel there is more at stake during elections, and in turn,
vote."
The newly-elected internal vice president critiqued the current
government and cited fundamental problems with this year’s
association.
"I think that in its present state, GSA is a disgrace," Kimball
summed up. "My sense is that if GSA doesn’t improve its
accountability to graduate students, it should drop the pretense of
being a student representative."
The three elected officers will officially take control of the
graduate government on June 1.