Graduate Students Association election results announced
A funding boost for the graduate student government and Graduate Writing Center has failed to pass in this year’s elections, graduate student officials said Wednesday.
Voting ended Monday afternoon and the Graduate Students Association Election Board announced the unofficial results of the election Tuesday night. The fee increase proposal, which would have supported the GSA and its councils, the Graduate Writing Center and graduate student financial aid was voted down ““ but voter turnout did not meet the 10 percent threshold required to pass a referendum.
All four of the graduate student government positions were uncontested. David Zeke, graduate student in economics, was elected president. Dani Molina, graduate student in education, was elected vice president of external affairs.
Nicole Robinson, graduate student in Italian, was elected vice president of academic affairs, and Vanessa Thulsiraj, graduate student in civil and environmental engineering, was elected vice president of internal affairs.
Election results must be approved by the GSA at its next forum meeting on May 9.
The proposal to raise GSA fees to $5 every quarter next year ““ on top of about $15 already paid in quarterly fees ““ required at least 10 percent of graduate students to submit an online ballot.
The referendum failed to reach the 10 percent minimum vote needed to pass. Only about 8 percent of eligible graduate students voted, which failed the referendum by default.
More graduate students voted against the referendum than in support of it, said Elvira Rodriguez, GSA director of elections. That suggests that even if 10 percent of graduate students had participated, the proposal would likely have been voted down, Rodriguez added.
This year’s GSA budget will not be affected, said Michael Weismeyer, president of GSA and graduate student in history of science. However, the GSA will need an additional source of income at some point in the future to cope with rising costs of operation and a currently static income, though next year’s budget will likely not be affected, he said.
Next year’s GSA budget will be finalized at the GSA forum meeting on May 30.
Thirty percent of the funds from the referendum would have supported the writing center. Without the funding, the center can continue operating without cuts to services for only one more year, said Christine Wilson, director of the Graduate Student Resource Center. She said the center will need to adjust to declining funding support.
“I was more disappointed by the low voter turnout than by the failure of the referendum,” she said.
The writing center’s priority right now is to improve its efforts to engage students by making the services relevant to students, Wilson said. She said she hopes that this can improve voter turnout in the future, which has been low in GSA history, a symptom of the larger issue of graduate students generally not feeling engaged on large university campuses, she added.
Voter turnout rose to 8.43 percent this year, nearly doubling last year’s turnout, but still below the 10 percent threshold required to pass a referendum. The rise in voter turnout was likely due to the fee increase proposal on the ballot, Weismeyer said.
