GSA Meeting Roundup – April 17

The UCLA Graduate Student Association is the voice of graduate students on campus. The association meets for forum every three weeks and takes positions on current issues affecting graduate students. Forum meetings are at 5:30 p.m. in the Ackerman Viewpoint Lounge.

• Forum representatives appealed to the GSA Elections Board about concerns over technical problems with voting on MyUCLA for a period of the election last week. The GSA Elections Board can either consider or deny the appeal before GSA approves the election results at its next forum meeting on May 8.

• Michael Goldstein, the vice provost for graduate education, presented to forum regarding the Healthy Campus Initiative. He told the forum that the initiative aims to increase its outreach to graduate students and he said he hopes to program with GSA next year.
• Representatives from the Associated Students UCLA Communications Board informed GSA about its role and current challenges. One way the Communications Board said it is working to alleviate the decline in advertisement revenue in the Daily Bruin is through the creation of mobile applications, which they invited the GSA to utilize.

 Officer Reports

• David Zeke, GSA president, informed the council of the GSA election results. He also discussed his meeting with the University of California Student Health Insurance Plan Advisory Board and informed the forum that there is a possibility other schools will drop out of the program.
• Vanessa Thulsiraj, GSA vice president of internal affairs, discussed her meeting with the John Wooden Center Board of Governors. Thulsiraj and the board toured UC Irvine and Cal State Long Beach’s facilities for ideas to bring to UCLA. She also talked about the progress of the implementation of a gym tracking application to allow students to see how occupied the John Wooden Center and other facilities are.
• Nicole Robinson, GSA vice president of academic affairs, updated the forum regarding efforts to change the UC in absentia policy.  Robinson presented GSA’s worries to the UCLA Academic Senate Graduate Council, which was receptive to the concerns. Robinson informed forum about the current financial difficulties the Graduate Writing Center is facing.
• Dani Molina, GSA vice president of external affairs, was not present at forum, but the other officers reminded forum members to vote in the upcoming mayoral elections.

Compiled by Stephen Stewart, Bruin senior staff.