Graduate students elect Griffin, Curl, Kim

By Mason Stockstill Daily Bruin Senior Staff There were few
surprises in this year’s Graduate Students Association
elections, as the unopposed candidates won their respective races
and turnout yet again languished below the cherished 10 percent
benchmark. Presidential candidate Martin Griffin and Vice
President-External candidate Kinshasa Theresa Curl, both of whom
ran unopposed, won their positions with 78 and 79 percent of votes
cast, respectively. The only contested cabinet position on the
ballot, Vice President-Internal, went to Dorothy Kim, who ran on a
slate with Curl and Griffin. Kim received 422 votes while her
opponent, Joyce Chase, received 97. Chase expressed her
disappointment at the outcome, but said she hopes she can get
involved with GSA next year. “That was the whole point of me
running, trying to find out how to get involved with GSA,”
Chase said. “Hopefully, GSA won’t be a big hole for me
next year like it was this year.” The results, announced at
12:30 a.m. Friday, reflected the 688 votes cast out of 8,879
graduate students. Turnout in the three-day election was 7.7
percent. “We’re pleased at the results and hope
we’ll be able to make GSA more helpful to graduate
students,” Griffin said. Continuing the pattern set in years
past, low turnout once again hampered elections, as too few
students made it to the polls for any of the referenda on the
ballot to take effect. In order for any referenda to pass, turnout
must hit 10 percent ““ which hasn’t happened since 1989.
“Both GSA President Dora Cervantes and elections commissioner
Alberto Gutierrez did an amazing job trying to get the vote
out,” Griffin said. “This just shows what an uphill
battle it is to get graduate students to turn out in the same
number as undergraduates.” Gutierrez agreed, saying the low
turnout was upsetting. “The same people who are complaining
about no one voting in the real elections don’t even take any
interest in what’s going on here,” he said.
“It’s not even apathy. I don’t know what it
is,” he continued. Gutierrez did acknowledge, though, that
campus politics is a “whole different ball game” for
graduate students. “We associate campus politics with
undergraduates, so it’s harder to get graduate students to
get involved,” he said. Because of the low turnout, the GSA
Membership Enhancement Referendum and the GSA membership fee
adjustment will not take effect, despite having won a majority of
the votes cast. The GSA Membership Enhancement Referendum would
have added the American Indian Graduate Students Association to the
GSA Constitution as a Special Interest Group, making it eligible
for funding from GSA. It would also have created a separate GSA
council for the School of Public Policy and Social Research. There
were 620 votes in favor of the referendum, and 51 votes against.
The GSA membership fee adjustment would have raised graduate
students’ mandatory GSA fee from $5.50 per quarter to $7.50
next year, followed by another increase to $10 the following year.
The fee has not changed since 1982, which has made it difficult for
GSA to come up with sufficient funding for its constituent groups.
The fee adjustment received 410 votes in favor and 230 against.
Griffin said that if GSA decided to place similar proposals on the
ballot next year, he and the other GSA representatives “will
just have to try a lot harder” to get turnout to high enough
levels. Also on the ballot was the Student Programs, Activities and
Resource Complex referendum. SPARC, which received enough votes
from both the graduate and undergraduate elections to pass, will
fund an expansion of the Wooden Center and Men’s Gym
buildings by assessing a $28 per quarter fee, beginning when
construction on the project will be completed, estimated to be
2004.

GSA ELECTION RESULTS

Total number of votes cast: 688

PRESIDENT Martin Griffin 78% VICE PRESIDENT – INTERNAL Kinshasa
Theresa Curl 79% VICE PRESIDENT – EXTERNAL Joyce Chase 14% Dorothy
Kim 61% SOURCE: GSA REFERENDA SPARC 74% GSA Fee Adjustment* 64%
*Turnout was too low for GSA referendum to pass.
Original graphic by MAGGIE WOO Web adaptation by HARI
RAJASEKHAR/Daily Bruin Senior Staff and HERNANE TABAY/Daily
Bruin