GSA Fee Increase worth the cost

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 Edward Chiao

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Vote yes on the GSA Membership Fee Increase Referendum. Even
though it will be an additional cost to students, it will help GSA
maintain established programs like GradBar, Melnitz Movies,
Discretionary Funding and Publications Funding ““ and create
new ones.

The increase will be a small one at only $3 for next year,
followed by a $1 annual increase through 2005-06. Since grad
students now pay $7 toward their GSA membership, if passed, this
referendum will make that total $10 next year, and $13 in 2005.

Ten dollars is not much for one student to pay ““
especially when it means GSA’s budget will expand by an extra
$30,000 that will be put directly back into the student community.
The additional yearly increase also helps protect graduate students
in future years by considering rising costs and inflation.

GSA represents graduate voices, fights for graduate resources,
and helps create a much-needed graduate student community.
Enhancing GSA funding only enhances its ability to increase quality
of graduate student life.

VP of Academic Affairs needed

Vote yes on the Vice President of Academic Affairs Referendum.
Though GSA already has an Academic Affairs commissioner, creating a
stipended position will give needed attention and authority to
graduate academics.

The various academic departments and concerns at the graduate
level require more than a commissioner can effectively handle.
Currently, the Academic Affairs commissioner is not required to do
more than attend meetings during the academic year, and receives
little pay for the additional work they do. A vice president would
have year-long office hours and ensure full graduate student
representation in the Academic Senate.

Just this year we witnessed conflict between graduate students
in the history department and department administrators. Problems
like this undoubtedly exist in other departments and a Vice
President of Academic Affairs might have been able to help prevent
or assist with these types of issues.

The Academic Senate makes decisions affecting all facets of the
graduate student experience; it is important that graduate students
have an elected official to ensure their voice is represented.

Say no to SIB voting referendum

Vote no on the Student Interest Board referendum. This
referendum consolidates the voting rights of student interest
groups like the Asian Graduate Students Association, the Black
Graduate Students Association and Foreign Students Association by
exchanging their individual votes for a collective maximum of two
votes. The groups, along with any other groups who join in the
future, will form the Student Interest Board. Currently, each
interest group can have as few as 10 people but have as much voting
power as academic graduate department delegates who represent 600
people.

The referendum has the right idea in trying to reduce the voting
power of these groups, but it doesn’t go far enough ““
it would maintain double representation. The idea of interest
groups voting in governing bodies is inappropriate. In the United
States Congress, the Black Caucus does not get an additional vote
on top of the various votes of the black senators. Instead, they
use lobbying to express their needs to existing, less narrowly
focused powers. To grant interest groups their own power is
redundant and unfair: the students are already represented by their
corresponding departments. To ensure fairness in representation,
this referendum must be voted down, and a new referendum should be
drafted to eliminate these interest groups from voting at all. They
should have lobbying power, not voting power.