The polls may be open, but the fervor of fliering, endorsing and campaigning usually associated with election week is noticeably missing in the Graduate Student Association elections.
While voting for GSA officers began April 19 at noon, the political climate among graduate students has remained relatively quiet.
A distinctly less intense elections week is one of the many differences between GSA, the student government council for the graduate student body, and its undergraduate counterpart, the Undergraduate Students Association Council, said Berky Nelson, director of the Center for Student Programming.
“USAC is far more politically oriented and are really into developing slates and going out and soliciting groups to support them,” Nelson said.
While both GSA and USAC hold elections every spring, the different demographics represented by the undergraduate and graduate student populations contribute to the differing levels of interest in each group’s elections, he added.
“GSA focuses on issues such as student housing for spouses and children, TAships, various things that lend themselves primarily to what graduate students have an interest in. They’re not as inclined to spend as much time dealing with politics.”
Peter Wu, a fourth-year computer science masters student, said GSA campaigning has not been largely visible to the typical graduate student.
“I think I saw a couple of days ago they put up fliers for the election in Boelter,” Wu said. “Other than that, I haven’t seen any campaigning.”
Wu, who spends most of his time working in the computer labs on campus or studying in the library, said graduate students show much less interest in elections than undergraduates do partly because of a lack of communication within the graduate community.
“There’s less inter-department communication and there also seems to be less communication among grad students in their residences since some commute to work or live further away, whereas you can imagine those in the dorms will have connections to others also living in the dorms,” he said.
This type of isolation characterizes the graduate student population, as most graduate students interact solely within their own departments in a culture where academics are the main focus. The fact that many students also have personal lives where they have families and dependents leaves no real sense of community, said Jamal Madni, GSA president.
“One of the key challenges GSA faces is getting the messages out to graduate students and engaging them because everybody is so sectionalized,” Madni said.
In contrast, USAC has seen a high level of student engagement this year on issues such as reinstating Night Powell hours, a process which was initiated by two students who brought their concerns about the reduced Night Powell hours to USAC, said Cinthia Flores, USAC president.
“Night Powell was a very concrete example of students taking part in student government and USAC facilitating the process,” Flores said. “I think undergraduates are very invested in USAC and see it as a resource that is available for them to take the initiative and come to us with their issues.”
Voting for GSA elections ends April 23 at noon, and campaigning for USAC elections are set to begin next week.