By undergrad standards, we graduate students are a little bit different.
Overall, we’re more international and geographically diverse; We’re older, and many of us have spouses or kids. We commute to campus from all over; none of us live on “the Hill.” Most of us don’t even know what that is.
Socially, we tend to be a bit more introverted, bookish or any other euphemism for “nerdy.” A good evening out for us means getting back to our off-campus apartments at 10:30, pouring a little white zinfandel and flipping on VH1 Classic.
Campus involvement has a different context as well. For example, 11.4 percent of eligible grad students voting in the recent GSA election is considered a good turnout. It’s a relief, then, that the majority of those 11.4 percent elected a GSA cabinet who know their diverse constituency well and aim to capitalize on the similarities that graduate students share with the rest of our campus community.
“Fees and student housing are student-centric, it’s not graduate or undergraduate-centric.” said President-elect Jamal Madni. “(Rivalries) are fun, you know, North versus South Campus, grads versus undergrads, but overall it hurts us from a policy and advocacy standpoint.”
Monica Sanchez returns to her post as vice president of external affairs, where she plans to foster relationships with USAC and student leaders at other UC campuses to impact change.
Ryan Roberts and Argus Sun round out the elected GSA “Commitment Slate” as vice president of internal affairs and vice president of academic affairs, respectively. Having swept all four positions as a ticket, the new GSA cabinet agrees on many things, especially the importance that graduate students place on financial and academic support.
“With fee increases … affordable housing is probably one of the largest concerns that graduate students have. I’ve never heard of a fellowship that included a housing stipend,” said Sanchez, who pointed out that teaching assistantships and student salaries have not increased proportionately with fees.
Part of the problem, according to the cabinet, is the lack of awareness of resources ““ not just of valuable job appointments, but of support such as the Graduate Writing Center and Graduate Student Resource Center.
Luckily the newly elected GSA officers are well aware of our co-curricular needs as well, citing the need for more coordination to prevent GSA-sponsored Grad Bars from conflicting with other social events.
Part of their solution is to increase the visibility of the GSA and to improve the utility of the Web site to make it easier for graduate students to find what they’re looking for, not just socially, but professionally as well.
“So many students are in need of graduate student researchships and teaching assistantships, and we have to do the best we can to make them as aware as possible,” said Roberts.
“There can be a more structured and informed way to go about it. There can be a mechanism where we can know what professors from each department are looking for,” added Madni.
The cabinet understands that with such a diverse pool of graduate students comes different needs, and they suggest, according to Madni, “(taking) a more heterogeneous look at the criteria for fellowships in terms of need,” and extending funding to masters’ students to help them from feeling like “the Clippers of grad school.”
Other plans include getting GSA alumni more involved, and improving the Web site to better connect graduate students residing all throughout the greater Los Angeles. They also look forward to meeting Chancellor Block for the first time together as a board.
“Because he’s new too, it’s a great opportunity for us to … really make him empathize with graduate student concerns and hopefully that can begin to foster change,” said Madni, echoing the others’ sentiments about avoiding adversarial relationships with any part of our campus community.
“Because (the unions) represent a sizable number of Academic Student Employees across the UC system … it is important to encourage functional relationships with them,” said Sun.
“TAs, GSRs and other ASEs work hard and deserve to be treated fairly.”
With the entire UC system facing budgetary uncertainties, it is especially important for the soon-to-be-elected USAC councilmembers to realize they have allies-in-waiting in the GSA who share many of the same battles.
Sanchez also sees USAC as a valuable ally for campus-wide and system-wide reform.
“They have a bit more resources, but we have a lot of practical experience,” she said.
We’re also over 21 years old, if that helps.
E-mail Aikins at raikins@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.