[A closer look] Election brings thoughts of change

With the election date fast approaching, UCLA graduate students
are preparing to decide who will be their new representatives in
the Graduate Students Association for the 2005-2006 school
year.

The elections will be held from April 27 to May 3, and ballots
will be available for submission online via the MyUCLA Web
site.

This year, graduate students have been faced with a variety of
issues dealing with everything from finance to student health.

One area where graduate students look for change is in their
representation within the entire University of California system,
said GSA Social Sciences Council President John Marston.

Marston said the GSA has been working with the UC Students
Association to achieve this goal.

The UCSA is a UC-wide organization comprised of students who
advocate for accessibility, affordability and quality of education
within the UC system for both graduates and undergraduates.

Marston said every year the GSA contributes a certain amount of
monetary support to UCSA, yet the organization is continually
dominated by undergraduate representatives. He said this causes
graduate students to experience more difficulty voicing their
concerns within the UC system.

“The external vice president is trying to reflect graduate
student voices,” Marston said.

Marston added that graduate students may be concerned about the
election of new representatives, pointing out that the
administrations over the past two years have been much more
organized than those of previous years.

“The officers (elected) this year should be just as
organized,” Marston said.

Graduate students have also shown increased interest in the
Graduate Student Resource Center, which opened in January 2005 in
the Student Activities Center, said GSA President Jared Fox.

The center provides graduate students with a variety of
activities and events geared toward aiding graduate students during
their time at UCLA.

“Graduate students outside of the GSA are really excited
(for the resource center),” Fox said.

In order to avoid any concern over the continuation of the
resource center, Fox raised $100,000 in temporary funding for the
facility, which will keep its doors open for another 18 months.

Another issue that graduate students are concerned about, Fox
added, is their futures in the workplace. He said many students
expect to enter academia after their schooling.

The roadblock they face is that there are only enough faculty
positions to accommodate approximately 40 percent of Ph.D.
graduates who intend to become faculty members, forcing them to
look into other forms of employment in the private and corporate
sectors.

Fox said these concerns are being ameliorated through the use of
the resource center, which provides graduate students with seminars
and workshops that help them use their curriculum vitae in a
corporate setting.

There is also concern for the indifference shown by some
graduate students toward GSA.

“It’s not even a concern; it is a lack of
concern,” said Alix Hui, a fourth-year graduate student in
the history department. “(Graduate students) don’t
really pay attention to GSA at all. … It is a function of
graduate school that you care about your own research and your own
department rather than all the other students.”

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