Tuesday, May 5, 1998
Participate in student government
GSA: Inactive graduate body must get involved to improve
administration of privileges
By Andrew Jon Westall
During my term as president, it has been my purpose to get
graduate and professional students interested in student
government. Our government, the Graduate Students Association
(GSA), had been at an organizational low for some time. The lack of
communication between the students and their representatives was
extremely poor. GSA’s finances were and are still extremely
unstable, leading to disinterest and ineffectiveness.
The organization’s leadership had become the voice of a few
activists, and not the voice of 10,000 graduate and professional
students. These problems led to other organizations being the
effective voice of students, while your officially recognized
representatives wallowed in their own misery. I believe we are on
the path of returning GSA to its mission and prominence, but only
with your help will we get there.
You see, if GSA is ineffective then the needs of graduate and
professional students go unmet. If GSA did not create a sexual
harassment task force to survey students and produce results, more
than likely, issues of sexual harassment for students would go
unanswered. If GSA did not attempt to begin constructively dealing
with the transportation problem on campus which was recognized as
the number-one campus problem by 69.3 percent of students, then the
parking, parking permit and on-campus traffic issues would go
unchanged. If GSA did not bring dental plans and dental programs to
the forefront of an electoral process, then many students may not
have been given the chance to choose what’s best for themselves and
the student body.
Numerous other issues may have gone unanswered, such as meeting
the needs of international graduate students, building new single
graduate housing, child care and a five percent fee rollback for
graduate students. And who is to say that GSA should not have a
voice in the unionization issue; it’s our jobs at stake, and we
should be able to voice our opinion. What GSA needs more than
anything else is your involvement and participation. Without you,
we cannot begin to speak for all graduate and professional
students.
But, you may ask, how can I participate? How can I get involved?
Or, I don’t have much time, but I would still like to contribute.
Well, there are many ways students can get involved in student
government, and the first step is to vote. Voting is the most
sacred and democratic of processes available to any organization.
In the last five years, GSA has been unable to get 10 percent of
the graduate and professional student body to vote. This is
outrageous.
How can any elected officer or issue truly be effective if only
eight or nine percent of the student body participates? Remember,
you are a member of GSA by being a fully enrolled and registered
graduate or professional student. It is important to vote for the
candidates of your choice, to take a stand on the issues which
affect and are important to you, and to cast your ballot in that
manner. This year, we have two candidates for all three offices
(president, vice president internal, and vice president external),
a newly-created Public Policy Council, and an election of a vice
president of academic affairs. We also have issues dealing with a
mandatory fee increase, a mandatory dental plan, a voluntary dental
program, changing special elections procedures, changing quorum for
our legislative body, and surveying graduate and professional
student labor issues. Take a stand on these issues and let your
government know what it should do.
On top of the basics of voting, there are numerous other ways
for students to get involved in student government. GSA is a very
decentralized organization, split among 11 councils and a central
office. Each council is a grouping of various departments within a
broad academic discipline, such as humanities, social sciences or
health professionals. These councils provide a variety of functions
for the GSA, such as distributing money to student groups, sending
delegates to the GSA Forum (legislative body), and sending issues
of concern to the central office. The presidents of these councils
also make up other bodies of the GSA, such as Elections Board or
Appointments Board, and even appoint the Judicial Review Board. I
invite all students to participate in their designated councils.
Many council representatives become involved in the central office
later in their GSA careers due to experience, knowledge and
expertise. The councils are the backbone of the organization.
At the central office level, there are a variety of ways to
become involved as well. GSA offers numerous stipended and
non-stipended positions which oversee just about everything
imaginable. The GSA cabinet members involve themselves as directors
of Melnitz Movies or the Environmental Coalition. One director is
in charge of over 35 scholarly journals put together by your fellow
students.
Other cabinet members are involved in the functioning and
effectiveness of your voice, such as communication, elections,
appointments, programs, and academic affairs. These and other
stipended positions take up time, but they pay and some pay pretty
well. If you’re not interested in the money or taking up too much
time, GSA appoints over 75 students to committees all over campus,
dealing with disabilities, outreach, the Academic Senate and many
others.
These are great ways to become involved in GSA without too much
commitment; most require a couple of hours a month. Applications
for the upcoming year will be available May 11. As I said before,
without you, GSA cannot do its job.
This year, the cabinet worked very hard to get students
involved:
*we improved communication (particularly through e-mail)
*we improved participation (seen through getting quorum for all
the bodies most of the time, and coming to the GSA tailgate parties
at the football games)
*we improved accountability to our constituents (just ask
SAGE/UAW)
*we improved the shared governance system (by interacting with
the Academic Senate, the administration, the Regents, the Alumni
Association and others)
But improvement should not be a reason to relax and become
ineffective again. What we need is to move towards excellence.
"Excellence for students" should be the motto of GSA for the
upcoming year, and you should help to ensure excellence. We can
ensure excellence through participation by becoming an appointee or
an office of a council, or coming to 301 Kerckhoff (the GSA office)
and talking about the issues that concern you most. We can ensure
excellence by passing the GSA mandatory fee increase in order to
financially stabilize your student government and give it the funds
necessary to become effective. We can ensure excellence by dealing
with our issues and not letting other organizations find the
answers for us. Help your representatives and yourselves by
ensuring excellence through the electoral and appointments process
this year. Help ensure excellence by becoming involved.Westall is
the president of the Graduate Students Association (GSA). The GSA
web site is available at http://www.gsa.asucla.ucla.edu/