Editor:

I was pleased to see your coverage of elections for the Graduate and Professional Student Council ("GPSC to let grad students vote by mail," April 4). I would like to take this opportunity to clarify the GPSC elections process and put the April 4 article in perspective.

The GPSC elections process is parliamentary in nature; each constituency elects its own representative(s) to the council. The number of representatives allocated to a given constituency is based on the relative population of that constituency. For example, the College of Agriculture has two seats while the College of Pharmacy has only one because it's smaller in size. Once the newly elected council is in place, officers are then chosen by the council from within.

Traditionally, GPSC elections have been part of the general ASUA elections. Graduate and professional students had to go to designated campus locations to vote for their constituency representatives and ASUA executive officers. This method was both inconvenient and confusing, resulting in low voter turnout among graduate and professional students. In an effort to alleviate these problems, GPSC decided to conduct elections by mail this year.

Elections-by-mail offers several advantages. For one, it is cheaper. But more importantly, it offers greater convenience and a simplified process. However, the new elections process could be further simplified. We could do away with the nominating petition! This is an unnecessary hurdle for candidates. It requires them to campaign - a time-consuming activity most graduate and professional students could do without. In fact, if challenged legally, the nominating petition would fall flat on its face. Any student can run for student government, regardless of whether they have the signatures currently required by the nominating petition process.

There are few career benefits associated with being on GPSC. Service in student government is rarely encouraged by faculty advisors. It takes time away from academic endeavors. So if a graduate or professional student is willing to make a personal sacrifice and serve on GPSC, why make it more difficult for them? The original proposal for the GPSC elections-by-mail did not include a nominating petition. However, since we are still part of ASUA, we were required to keep within the ASUA tradition and maintain the nominating petition. Just another reason for a separate graduate government.

Anita D. Bhappu
BPA representative and GPSC vice president