Council worked to decrease teaching assistant workload, improve stipends

The Graduate and Professional Student Council had to face many conflicts with its constitution during representative elections and other council activities this year.

Because two versions of the constitution were interchangeably used, officers had to deal with the question of whether alternate representatives would be allowed to run for the four officer positions.

A motion raised by representative Beata Blachuta would have kept the version of the constitution that allowed alternate representatives to run in officer elections. However, the motion failed to pass the councilâs vote, and the constitution that only allowed elected representatives to run was kept.

ãThe motion failed due to a lack of participation,ä said Kirsten Copeland, outgoing president of the GPSC.

She said all of the council members present would have been in favor of the motion in order to pass it.

The representative elections, which were the first ever to be held online, were also found to be unconstitutional because paper ballots were not available to voters, Copeland said.

This year was the first time ever that seats were contested in GPSC elections. Three people ran for seats in the College of Agriculture and in the interdisciplinary studies program.

Copeland said she hopes that in the near future, GPSC will be able to hold elections similar to those held by the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, in which all positions, including officer positions, are elected by a popular vote.

ãThatâs not logistically possible right now,ä she said.

The numbers of graduate students taking part in the council are on the rise, however.

Last year, there were not enough potential representatives to hold elections. All the representative seats were filled by appointment.

Copeland said she sees GPSC as a growing organization, especially with the higher number of nominees for officers and representatives

This yearâs GPSC worked to secure $1.5 million from the state Legislature to hire new teaching assistants and reduce TA workload at the university.

The council also worked with two different healthcare providers to give graduate students adequate health insurance and worked with the Legislature to give graduate TAs a 25 percent tuition remission, which would lessen the financial strain on graduate students.

Next yearâs officers were elected at the final GPSC meeting on April 30. Pete Morris won the presidential election, and Thomas Kinney won the administrative vice president position. Beata Blachuta will be the executive vice president, and Roberto Flores will be the treasurer next year.

Kinney said he wants to update the GPSC constitution.

ãYou get legitimacy if you follow the rules,ä he said.

Morris said he would like to work on getting tuition remission for TAs.

ãIf we donât have the conditions to favor the best graduate students, we wonât get them here,ä he said.