GSA: council representatives discuss their roles
By Betty Song
In a corner on the third floor of Kerckhoff Hall, surrounded by
undergraduate student government, the cabinet of the Graduate
Students Association (GSA) carries out its executive duties.
But a history of low voter turnout at the graduate polls, with
less than 10 percent last year, causes one to wonder how many grads
know where the office is  and more importantly, how the
association works and what it does.
"GSA is a fairly low key organization  a lot (of graduate
students) don’t know about it," said Mark Felder-Allen, the health
professionals council president and forum representative. "Number
one, graduate students are a lot busier than undergraduates."
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, graduate students will be voting for
new officers to the cabinet. Although much work is done through
this key administrative body, the heart of the association lies in
the forum, or the association’s main legislative body.
The forum consists of cabinet members and representatives from
11 different department councils who meet individually. In addition
to that, the forum holds monthly meetings to promote stances on
general graduate issues, Felder-Allen said.
But in spite of the cabinet’s accountability to the forum, power
lies in the executive body.
"The (cabinet) knows most what’s going on, and makes up the
majority of the forum agenda," Felder-Allen explained. "Anybody can
present an agenda item and any grad student can attend forum
meetings, but the cabinet holds the most power more by
default."
The five voting members of the cabinet include two appointed
commissioners and three elected positions: president, internal vice
president and external vice president.
By being involved with on-campus issues, the GSA president
communicates directly with the UCLA administration. As a result,
the president can intervene on behalf of students by knowing which
administrators are needed for specific problems.
For example, last month graduate students from the University
Apartments/South Family Student Housing complex contacted the
association’s current president, Tim Beasley, to help resolve
redevelopment problems that could lead to the eviction of many
residents.
After passing a forum resolution in support of the student
residents, Beasley met with administrators from Business
Enterprises and Housing to discuss solutions.
In addition to being in charge of the budget and appointing
non-stipend appointees, the president’s duties often include other
unforeseen commitments.
"After November, whatever you want to do as president, you don’t
have time for," Beasley said. "There are important things that the
administration thinks about doing, so (they) have some control over
the president’s agenda (too)."
Traditionally, the president has also served as chair of the
UCLA’s Associated Student’s (ASUCLA) board of directors, a role
which this year has consumed large portions of time in light of the
association’s current financial crisis.
In contrast to the president, the external vice president deals
with off-campus entities such as the UC Regents and other student
government UC-wide.
Additionally, the external vice president is more political,
being primarily concerned with registration fees, financial aid and
affirmative action, said external incumbent Kevin Welner.
However, the Office of the President’s guidelines concerning the
1993 Smith vs. Regent court case restrict student lobbying of state
and national government agencies with mandatory fee money.
"(However) we could (still) lobby UC Regents and the Office of
the President, and that allowed us to work with them to express our
viewpoints," Welner said. "We were able to participate in
successful efforts to limit fee increases for the 1994-95 school
year to 10 percent."
As a result, one of Welner’s key projects this year was to work
with the UC Office of the President to revise the Smith guidelines.
The UC Student’s Association, a coalition of UC student
governments, is engaged now in dialogue with the office over
changing the current student lobbying limitations.
As opposed to working with the administration or other outside
entities, the internal vice president works primarily within GSA as
general office manager and chair of the forum and President’s
Council meetings.
As a law student, the current internal vice president Rachel
Hobbs said that the opportunity to represent professional schools
was her main goal.
Hobbs used her role as chair to facilitate discussion of such
issues as the differential fees which raised this year’s
professional student fees.
"I had a direct interest in differential fees," Hobbs said. "And
as chair of (some) committees and at forum meetings, I wanted to
make sure all different views were heard to arrive at the best
conclusion."
Although the forum could not affect the fee hikes, the
association passed a position statement in opposition to the fees,
Hobbs explained.
One of the two appointed voting members in the cabinet is the
commissioner of Academic Affairs, the official liaison between GSA
and the Academic Senate committees, which create academic
policy.
This year’s commissioner John Hajda began the year with a vision
statement defining the Graduate Students Association’s place within
the university.
"I hoped to set a mood which defines graduate students as junior
colleagues to the administration, faculty and peers," Hajda said.
"Student groups exist for a lot of different reasons, so (now) they
could see where GSA was coming from."
The Academic Senate also created a task force to survey 1,300
students regarding the fairness and efficiency of procedures
guiding last year’s Professional Schools Restructuring Initiative
(PSRI).
The initiative was an administrative proposal to restructure
various professional schools and programs in order to save
money.
Serving as a link between grad students and the main
cabinet-forum structure, 11 councils representing related academic
departments create GSA’s base.
"Each department has a ‘GSA’ organization of some sort and they
elect someone to go to the council, and councils elect a
president," said Katherine Crosswhite, humanities council
president.
Councils also elect representatives who go to forum and relay
information back to their individual councils, Crosswhite said.
Usually, presidents meet before the forum meetings to preview
the agenda. The presidents take the issues back to their councils
in order to form a collective position which will be voiced through
the council representative at the actual forum meeting.
Despite the complex outward structure, those who are involved in
GSA believe that interest is the initial step to understanding.
"Nothing is hidden if students have a strong interest in
anything that goes on," Felder-Allen said. "And anyone can attend
forum meetings."