Graduate students vie for GSA posts this week

By Mason Stockstill

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Politics are erupting all over campus this week, but it’s
not just for undergraduates.

The Graduate Students Association elections get under way
Tuesday, lasting through Thursday with polls at five locations
across campus.

In addition to the three GSA cabinet positions (president, vice
president-internal and vice president-external), graduate students
will also be voting on three referenda.

Presidential candidate Martin Griffin, who is running unopposed,
has had experience in GSA before as academic affairs commissioner
this year and as elections and appointments commissioner in
1998-99.

“I believe GSA can bring graduate students together and
create a sense of community,” he said.

Griffin considers three issues facing GSA in the coming years to
be important: the impact of the expected explosion of undergraduate
student enrollment known as “Tidal Wave 2;” declining
diversity of the graduate student population; and helping GSA be a
more effective resource for graduate students.

“(Tidal Wave 2) will have implications for faculty-student
ratios … I want GSA to have a clear position on this,” he
said.

Griffin also pointed out that issues that affect graduate
students will, in turn, affect the faculty in the future.

“If you don’t have a diverse graduate population,
you won’t have a diverse faculty,” he said.

Vice president-external candidate Kinshasa Theresa Curl also
said that she would like to focus on diversity in her role.

Curl, an urban planning student, is also running unopposed. This
year she has been involved with Planners of Color for Social
Equity, and hopes to advocate for GSA within the University of
California Student Association.

“I want to make sure our issues are taken seriously …
like affordable housing, support services for graduate students,
and Tidal Wave 2,” she said.

“We need to make sure graduates are not just acquiring
M.A.s and Ph.D.s, but that they are receiving a quality
education,” she added.

The only cabinet position that is contested is vice
presidential-internal. Joyce Chase, an African Area Studies
student; and Dorothy Kim, an English student are running for the
position.

Chase decided to run for the cabinet position because she said
GSA could reach out to graduate students better than it has been
doing.

“When I went to my orientation here, I signed up to be a
part of GSA, because I was interested in being a part of it, but I
was never contacted,” she said. “I’m not trying
to blame anyone, but I think that (GSA) could do a better job of
reaching out.

“I’ve spoken to other students, and many of them
don’t know much about GSA either,” she continued.

Kim, the other candidate for vice president-internal, also said
the two big issues she sees facing GSA in the coming year are
diversity and the influx of undergraduate students.

Additionally, she said she wants to find a way to cut down on
what she sees as excessive amounts of paperwork within GSA.

“There’s an immense bureaucracy in GSA, especially
for smaller groups to get things done,” she said.
“I’d like to streamline that and make it more
user-friendly,” she said.

Kim is a member of UCLA’s graduate council this year, a
committee made up of students, faculty and administrators that
makes decisions regarding graduate education.

The referenda on the ballot include the Student Programs,
Activities, Resource Complex referendum, a fee increase to fund
expanded student facilities; and a GSA fee adjustment for
inflation. The adjustment would increase the GSA fee from $5.50 to
$7.50 per quarter per student. The GSA fee has not gone up since
1982, leaving GSA with a shortage of available funds to
disburse.

Also on the ballot are propositions to add the American Indian
Graduate Students Association to GSA’s constitution as an
officially-sponsored student group, and to create a separate GSA
council for the School of Public Policy and Social Research.

For more information, go to http://gsa.asucla.ucla.edu.

GSA CANDIDATES Martin Griffin
Running for: President Joyce Chase Running for:
Vice president-internal Kinshasa Theresa Curl
Running for: Vice president-external Dorothy Kim
Running for: Vice president-internal SOURCE: Candidates

Original graphic by YU WANG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Web adaptation by BENJAMIN CHIANG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff