Graduate council ratifies constitution

Tanith L. Balaban Arizona Daily Wildcat Graduate and Professional Student Council President Alex Sugiyama presents information about amendments to GPSC's constitution last night. The council converted its by-laws into a formal constitution.

GPSC had to create its own constitution after formally spliting with the Associated Students in October. Until last night, the council did not have an official constitution, but was operating under its bylaws.

The council voted unanimously to adopt the GPSC bylaws as its constitution. Once they had a base to work from, GPSC members discussed changes to some of the document's articles in a proposal drafted by Communications Officer Gordon Zaft.

One of the most significant changes was the restructuring of GPSC executive offices.

Previously, the bylaws defined six elected executive offices - president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, elections officer and communications officer - as well as five committee heads. Under the new system, there will be a president, administrative vice president, executive vice president and treasurer. The committees were not changed, but the executive vice president will oversee the six directors. The directors will be appointed by the executive officers.

The council also voted to make it easier to remove representatives considered unfit to hold their position. The article was amended so that any representative removed from office would not be allowed to run again.

The council discussed what students can be considered as GPSC constituents. An amendment was passed to include College of Pharmacy students in GPSC because some members felt those students may have been previously unrepresented. Under the new constitution , GPSC represents all students registered through the graduate, medical, pharmacy and law colleges.

GPSC was a branch of ASUA for about four years before GPSC decided to split because it thought ASUA was not adequately representing graduate students, said Alix Rogstad, GPSC vice president.

GPSC President Alex Sugiyama said that the split has been working well thus far.

"It has allowed us to focus on issues that are more related to graduate students," he said.

Sugiyama said one of the biggest advantages to the split was the new budget.

"We went from a $26,000 budget under ASUA to $62,000 that we can use to provide more services to our constituents that we feel are appropriate," he said.

The council also discussed upcoming elections.

Elections Officer Kathleen Fernicola said graduate students will receive elections information in the Graduate Newsletter by March 24. Fernicola has set a tentative schedule, with petitions and candidate statements due April 2. Mail-in voting, which was introduced last year, will begin April 4. The ballots will be due April 18.

"Our elections were later than ASUA so we could take more time with the constitution," Sugiyama said. "But we needed to get it set before the elections since some of the positions would be new."