The graduate student government is holding an election for its executive cabinet Tuesday. The Daily Bruin editorial board interviewed each of the cabinet’s four unopposed candidates and evaluated their platforms for the coming year.
While the Graduate Students Association’s vice president of internal affairs may seem to have limited duties, candidate Alexander Fung aims to achieve a wide range of action items during his term, with clear ideas for specific goals he hopes to bring to fruition.
In order to expand and build cross-department connections in the student body, Fung and his fellow candidates intend to organize biweekly socials for graduate students from different departments. While implementing these scheduled events would be cheaper than the current system of Grad Bar socials, Fung still needs to make sure they would actually attract more students from the campus’ more disengaged communities.
His plan to hold a Graduate Organization Presidents’ Roundtable to bring more graduate students into the fold of the GSA is also a welcome addition to the current structure of the GSA Forum, even as a non-constitutional body.
He also aims to improve graduate students’ access to parking on campus by educating students about the different transportation policies and parking options, and creating a task force to work with UCLA Transportation. These measured and realistic goals will benefit from his plan to create a new director position to find possible solutions. While Fung admitted that he doesn’t have exact ideas for parking at the moment, he expressed a willingness to learn on the job and collaborate with the new director.
In addition, his idea to expand the job market for graduate students by centralizing opportunity postings and resources is commendable, although he needs to work out the logistics of this endeavor.
One concern this board has with Fung’s goals is that he will take too much upon himself to achieve tangible results. Delegating these goals and working with other GSA offices will be essential to his success as vice president of internal affairs.
Visit this page to read the board’s full evaluations of all four GSA candidates.