The graduate student government voted unanimously Wednesday night to not rejoin the University of California Student Association because of concerns over membership fees.
To rejoin UCSA, which advocates for UC students, the Graduate Students Association would have to pay about $16,000 annually for membership. At the forum Wednesday, GSA officers said they were worried graduate student fees would have to increase to fund the membership. They also expressed concerns about the effectiveness of UCSA’s lobbying.
GSA left UCSA six years ago because some students thought many of the issues it discussed were undergraduate-related, and because there was no graduate or professional director. UCSA hired a graduate director last year.
In the spring election, the majority of GSA candidates ran on platforms that included rejoining UCSA to increase GSA’s advocacy work at the UC level.
Michael Hirshman, current GSA president, wrote an op-ed to the Daily Bruin before being elected that said GSA’s integration with UCSA was a top priority for him and Andrés Schneider, current vice president of external affairs.
Schneider said Wednesday, however, that he did not push for the measure because he thinks the decision of whether to join UCSA was not up to him. Schneider did not vote, and says he was not able to vote.
“Ultimately, this is going to be a democratic vote,” he said. “I don’t want to try to influence people. (My opinion) doesn’t matter.”
Had the proposal passed, 60 percent of the GSA discretionary budget would have had to go toward the UCSA membership fees unless an alternative source of funding was determined, said Nathaniel Ross, external president of the GSA Math and Physical Sciences Council, who introduced the proposal.
To raise those fees, GSA would either have to significantly adjust the amount of money it allocates to other programming, or graduate students would have to pass a referendum increasing their mandatory fees by $1.30 to $1.60 a year.
Some GSA members said at the forum they wanted to see more concrete lobbying benefits from joining UCSA before voting “yes.”
“This really sounds like it’s more of a headache to join them,” said Sean Buono, a GSA member, Public Health Student Association member and a graduate student from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Will Feldman, a GSA Math and Physical Sciences Council member, said he thinks part of those concerns might be because UCLA isn’t a member of UCSA.
“The more people that aren’t involved, the less bargaining power they have,” he said. “If (the UCSA doesn’t) have power now, that may be indicative of the fact that we pulled out.”
Kevin Sabo, the UCSA Board of Directors chair and a UC Berkeley student, said he is disappointed by GSA’s decision and by the concerns about its effectiveness.
“I don’t know how an organization can change to better represent your needs if you don’t communicate with them,” he said. “UCSA did go out of its way in terms of sending leadership there and waiving the fee (for this year).”
Sabo said he thinks UCSA has been effective in its lobbying efforts, citing a 70 to 80 percent success rate with the proposals it supported last year.
In addition to UCLA’s GSA, graduate student governments at UC Davis and UC San Diego as well as UC Irvine’s undergraduate student government are not members of UCSA.
Hirshman said he still thinks GSA may join UCSA in the future and that in the meantime GSA representatives will still be involved in some UC-wide lobbying efforts.