By Cheryl Fogle
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The Associated Students Undergraduate Senate and Graduate Professional Student Council held a joint legislative session last night to discuss a graduate proposal to have GPSC separate from ASUA.
"We feel that we can best serve the needs of graduate students if we are independent from ASUA," said Melanie Ayers, GPSC president.
GPSC member Alex Sugiyama said ASUA is a confrontational system in which the president makes up a budget and the two senates must either accept or reject it. He believes that as a seperate body, GPSC would have more control over its spending.
GPSC wishes to implement a child care program, a library endowment, and a Professional Opportunities Development (POD) fund that would provide graduate students with money to attend conferences and do research.
ASUA President Ben Driggs supports POD, but he does not think that the child care and library endowments can be funded under ASUA because the student government is "not a grant-giving foundation."
The current fall semester ASUA budget, effective through Jan. 15, 1996, has money for POD under clubs and organizations because ASUA by-laws prohibit giving money to individual students. Child care and the library endowment are not funded.
Members of both bodies agreed to meet later to continue the discussion.
Ayers said that she wanted further negotiations.
"This needs to be a smooth divorce so that GPSC and ASUA can work with each other after this is all over," Ayers said.