The Graduate Writing Center will receive additional funding from graduate students’ quarterly fees next year, after a referendum to increase its funding passed this week.
The referendum will increase graduate student quarterly fees by $1.50, to help the Graduate Writing Center cover its $30,000 deficit.
The referendum was seven votes short of passing when the elections ended on April 15.
But the Graduate Student Association Elections Board reopened the graduate student government elections for an additional 10 hours last week because MyUCLA’s server went down at intermittent times the Thursday of elections week.
This prevented some students from voting online during the day and at Grad Bar, an event held by elections organizers to increase voter turnout.
Ten percent of the graduate student body must vote for a referendum to be considered. Of the students who voted during the first round of the elections, about two-thirds of voters supported the referendum.
But the referendum failed by default when the April 15 elections fell seven votes short of the 10 percent voter turnout.
When the elections reopened, 165 more ballots were cast.
Graduate student representatives approved the new elections results in a 14-5 vote at the GSA forum Wednesday, despite protests from some representatives that the elections reopened for invalid reasons.
Before the forum approved the results, Fernando Serrano, a graduate student in history and president of the GSA Social Sciences Council, questioned the Elections Board’s authority to reopen elections and said he thinks its decision was politically motivated.
“I have printed out the codes so (GSA members) can see them and maybe point to us where in the (elections) code justifies that move.” Serrano said at the GSA meeting.
“We know what is driving this. Some people really want to pass the Graduate Writing Center fee. And that’s just it,” he said.
Serrano said the elections code does not permit the GSA Elections Board to reopen elections, especially after presenting the results to forum.
“That’s tampering with elections results,” he said.
GSA President David ZekeUCLA, however, said he submitted a request to the GSA Commissioner of Elections Daniel Goodman before the forum knew about the elections outcomes.
“We noticed (the MyUCLA outage) while it was going on, and we tried to get them to do something about it,” Zeke said.
Goodman did not accept Zeke’s request to reopen the polls because he did not make the request within the 24-hour time period to file formal complaints after the elections.
Zeke said the Elections Board acted to ensure the elections were carried out the way they were intended to be held – without technological errors.
Mid-elections, UCLA administrators announced a plan to cut about $30,000 in funding for the center by reallocating “return-to-aid” fees. Administrators said “return to aid” fees could no longer be used to pay writing center staff because they can only be given to students in financial aid.
Combined with the center’s current deficit, the administrative cuts presented the center with a $60,000 deficit next year.
UCLA administrators decided late last month – between the first and second round of elections – to postpone the $30,000 in cuts for another year, Zeke said.
Nicole Robinson, GSA vice president of academic affairs who oversees the Graduate Writing Center Oversight Committee, said the writing center will still need to change its use of “return-to-aid” fees in the future, but will not have to cut its services next year.
“We absolutely have to find some source of funding,” Robinson said. “Otherwise we’ll be in the exact same position next year.”