Student government is consistently plagued with complacency among the student population, but given the circumstances of this year’s GSA elections, which began Monday and will end Friday at noon, this board cannot help but stress its importance and recognize what GSA has done to positively affect UCLA.
GSA has recently made an impact on not only the UCLA’s graduate student community by backing the construction of a student center, but also to the UCLA community at large, by working with Undergraduate Students Association Council to bring back Covel tutorials.
This year’s elections feature nine candidates, eight of which come from two different slates while one is an independent. The two slates present significant ideological diversity regarding the purposes of student government, among other differences.
But most importantly, graduate students, composing roughly a third of the student population and shouldering much of the teaching and research that goes on at UCLA, have a major role in the university. The guidance of their student government can allow for graduate students to gain due representation.
GSA Momentum, the slate with two incumbents seeking reelection, hopes to bring the graduate student population together to build a more cohesive community. Central to this campaign has been the Graduate Student Resource Center, which would re-purpose the Kinross Building to serve UCLA’s nearly 12,000 graduate students. In addition to the construction of the center, the slate’s platform rests on fighting for graduate student health insurance plans and advocacy against fee increases.
Though not ignoring the issues their opposing slate identifies with, the Public Education Party, which backs candidates in each of the four offices, shows a greater emphasis over the quality and affordability of education, as well as accountability of administrators. And with students increasingly rallying against rampant fee increases and a declining quality of education, the platform seems to align more with these changes in student attitudes.
The two slates essentially present a choice for graduate students: building a community and network for future professional careers or fighting for the interest of their education and for other present financial concerns.
A previously unseen level of competition has emerged. Through these ideological differences between the two slates, GSA can play a greater role in campus issues.
Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the editorial board.