Election time is like finals week - it's a chance to review what you have been working on, get perspective on where you've been and re-evaluate where you'd like to go. Student government organizations, like your own degree pathways, should always be scrutinized because there is certainly room for improvement within them.
It was my hope as president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council, the representative student government organization for the 9,000 graduate and professional students on campus, that discussions last week with the Associated Students of the University of Arizona candidates could lead to positive change in the relationship between these two organizations. I still believe this is the case, despite the difficulties and misunderstandings that have occurred during some of these discussions, printed in part in the Wildcat.
Part of the challenge in having these discussions is rooted in the current structural relationship between ASUA and GPSC, which is a result of past events. Eight years ago, GPSC split from ASUA and became an autonomous organization with a parliamentary representative structure, with its constituency being all graduate and professional students on campus. At the time of the fairly embattled split, ties were maintained that I believe should have been severed, and connections that should have been kept were not.
I believe that for the GPSC to truly function as the graduate and professional student representative body, graduate and professional students should not be able to vote for the ASUA president and vice presidents, and yet we can. I feel this undermines the power of GPSC, and places responsibilities on the ASUA presidency that it cannot meet.
The administration recognizes that ASUA and GPSC have separate and equal constituencies, and as such, we are equally represented at the Arizona Board of Regents tuition hearings and in all big campus committees, including the Faculty Senate and the finance committee. We voice very different, though equally important, concerns at these committees. In many ways, we function as the student government at Arizona State University, where there are two organizations with two student body presidents, one to represent undergraduates and the other to represent graduates and professionals.
We act as if this is the case here at the UA, and yet we still call the ASUA president the "student body president," as does ASUA's constitution.
This year, we have asked ASUA to consider changing its constitution to show that it represents undergraduate students only, for the benefit of graduate, professional and undergraduate students on campus. We seek this separation so that we can be free to pursue our own space and money, both of which are orders of magnitude smaller than ASUA's.
We also feel we should be free to have a GPSC seat on the statewide student government organization, Arizona Students' Association, which is recognized by the board of regents and gets $1 from every student each semester. We feel we have a right to this seat, and hope ASUA will work to convince ASA that this is the right course to pursue.
Will moving GPSC toward being the sole graduate and professional student representative body have negative consequences? I don't believe so, because I have also been working with ASUA President J.P. Benedict this year to find the areas where ASUA and GPSC can work together. We have focused on building a framework for programs like child care, family housing and student life issues that are common to all students. There is strength in unity, and we can accomplish much more on these issues together than we can separately. We hope the new ASUA president, Alistair Chapman, will help us strengthen GPSC. We hope ASUA will let us move out of the house, so that we can both grow up together.
Jani Radebaugh is the president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council. She is a planetary sciences graduate student and can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.