In its last meeting of the semester, the Graduate and Professional Student Council reflected on this year’s accomplishments and set its goals for future progress.
Outgoing President Heather Dean, a sixth-year student in neurobiology, described the past year as “phenomenal,” highlighting major accomplishments such as gaining a second seat for GPSC on the Board of Trustees and doubling the number of student groups affiliated with it to more than a hundred.
Newly elected GPSC President William LeFew, a third-year applied mathematics doctoral student, and Vice President Lettye Smith, a third-year student in the Divinity School, set the goals for next year, focusing mainly on restructuring GPSC to enlarge representative involvement and responsibility.
They said this will greatly help GPSC increase visibility and credibility.
“If we can’t bring GPSC constituents into us, we will go out to find them,” Smith said.
LeFew said it was important for representatives to become more involved in their individual schools and departments by building relationships with administrators, as well as coming together to create “a unified voice for the graduate and professional committee.”
A major factor in amplifying representative interest and involvement will be the first annual GPSC retreat at Beaufort, N.C., set for August. Nathan Kundtz, a first-year graduate student in physics who was involved in the planning for the retreat, said the two-day event will also augment representatives’ education, interaction and goal-setting.
“It seems that representatives really want to be more involved. What we’re proposing is having next year’s voting privileges depend on going to the retreat,” Kundtz said, stressing the importance of attendance.
“We want responsible representatives who know what's going on,” added LeFew. “If part of the purpose is to make an informed [General Assembly], then we’d like to propose voting privileges based on this.”
The trip will include educational programs as well as social events to build the GPSC community.
In a question and answer session with the General Assembly, LeFew and Smith sought to gain suggestions from the representatives on other restructuring issues.
“From everyone involved, what would incite you to become more involved in GPSC? What would make you want to do more?” asked Rachel Lovingood, outgoing GPSC communications coordinator.
Kundtz suggested continual increases in programming and visibility would attract graduate and professional student attention and cause representatives to gain interest in their responsibilities.
Kelly DeMeester, next year’s attorney general and Fuqua graduate student, said requiring each representative committee and department to hold individual events each semester would increase involvement.
Some representatives said GPSC may be trying to overreach its future goals as the new executive board attempts to totally restructure the system.
“If you aim high and get stuck somewhere in between, you’ve accomplished something,” Smith said.
In other business:
Sara Becker, GPSC treasurer and graduate student in psychology, outlined the current and proposed budgets for the 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 school years, respectively. GPSC, due to dramatically increased student group funding and programming, has overspent its revenue for the previous two years, and Becker said its current spending projections will not be sustainable beyond 2006-2007. “What do we do when we run out of money?” she asked. GPSC will be weighing the options of raising student fees or decreasing costs in the fall.
GPSC approved the Graduate and Professional Student Basketball Campout policy adjustments. The co-chairs for this fall’s event will be Molly Miller and Major Treadway. New policies include alteration to voting eligibility for members of the Basketball Committee.
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