By Christie S. Peterson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
After only two years as a body within ASUA, the Graduate and Professional Student Council moved at their March 23 meeting to investigate the possibility of becoming independent once again.
The council authorized the investigation in response to a discussion at the previous night's meeting of the Central Coordinating Council, which proposed the assimilation of GPSC, the Undergraduate Council, and CCC into a unicameral system.
The council's suggestion was made by CCC member Sgt. Brian Seastone of the University of Arizona Police Department. In a later interview, Seastone said that the legislative system "needs to be revamped to become more responsive."
Seastone said he envisions a single senate comprised of six graduate and six undergraduate representatives, as well as three other elected officials and two faculty members.
Such a system, he believes, would eliminate problems he has seen in the past year such as "three to four week delays" in legislation.
Associated Students President T.J. Trujillo, who suggested a similar change at a December senate meeting, said he supports consideration of Seastone's idea.
One of Trujillo's complaints with the current structure is the amount of money paid in stipends to the GPSC members: $15,400 per year, compared to the amount paid to undergraduate senators, $7,700.
"I still have some big concerns with how effectively we deal with legislation," he said, but the issue is now in the hands of the legislature. "If they want to act on it, it's their prerogative."
GPSC has chosen to act on it, but not quite in the way suggested. To avoid being combined with undergraduate representation, possibly losing a true graduate student voice in ASUA, the council is considering complete separation.
According to a release prepared by Matthew Troth, GPSC vice president, the report authorized last week "is to include structural recommendations such as the relationship with ASUA and the location (Student Affairs, Graduate College, etc.) of the GPSC,
securement of graduate student fees that are currently allocated to ASUA, and relationship with the administration."
"Two years ago, there was a little bit of reluctance on both parts," Troth said, referring to the move which joined GPSC and ASUA. He said there were people both in and outside GPSC who would approve the move.
Problems which Troth sees in the suggested unicameral system include at-large elections, which would make it possible for "a little tiny clique of maybe 40 people" to get a graduate member elected, and the fact that the graduate student voice would "always be a minority."
"They (graduate students) will have a voice, but they'll never be able to ... win," he said.
But not all members of ASUA approve of the possibility of a separate GPSC. Senator Ethan Orr described it as "one of the worst things that could happen to students," graduate and undergraduate alike.
"Any kind of separation of student government is detrimental to the student body," he said. He also thought the issue was not one which should be dealt with at the end of the term because it would be future members who would have to deal with its repercussions.