This academic year, the Graduate Students Association plans to
focus on myriad issues, including student representation on campus
committees and student programming.
But No. 1 on the officers’ list of priorities is
developing a graduate student writing center.
During the spring elections last year, graduate students
approved a fee referendum to fund a writing center.
For months it was unclear whether the referendum would be
allowed to pass because only 18 percent of the student body voted
in the election, though a majority of those students voted to
approve the writing center.
That year, a new rule was implemented stipulating at least 20
percent of the student body had to cast ballots in order for the
result of a referendum vote to be valid.
Before his resignation, former Chancellor Albert Carnesale
approved the referendum, but GSA will not receive the funds until
winter quarter, said GSA President Monica Sanchez Rivas.
The writing center is meant to help graduate students develop
and edit their graduate theses.
Sanchez Rivas has said the center can help students from every
area of study, as well as international students who need help with
English.
John “Mac” Marston, GSA vice president internal,
said he is currently working on setting up a governing board for
the writing center and hiring a full-time coordinator.
“Our expectation is to start providing services at the
start of winter,” he said. “But I have never hired
someone for a full-time position, so I’m unsure about the
exact launch date.”
Sanchez Rivas said one of her main goals for the year, aside
from the launch of the writing center, is to help establish a
committee on campus to work on graduate student diversity.
Recently the University of California Students Association voted
to create graduate student diversity committees on all UC
campuses.
At UCLA, Sanchez Rivas said she thinks some of the major points
of the committee will be to work with Student Regent Maria Ledesma
on a study of Proposition 209, focusing on how undergraduate
admissions affect graduate admissions.
“It’s important to understand that if there are
problems with undergraduate admissions, four years later that is
the applicant pool for the graduate programs,” she said.
Sanchez said she also wants to focus on lowering international
student fees, which could help attract the best students to UCLA
and help address the problem of diversity.
She also said she wants to work with campus bodies like
Associated Students UCLA to inform students about all of the
services offered on campus.
Janet Cummings, GSA vice president of academic affairs, plans to
focus on two major issues for the year.
She said she hopes to increase student response to department
review surveys issued by the Academic Senate as a means of
increasing student input in department reviews and decisions.
Cummings also said she wants to increase student representation
in the graduate student resource center. That way, students can
have more of a say in programming that the center provides.
Marston said he plans on continuing to build on the current
student interest board, which includes non-academic student groups
such as the Black Graduate Students Association, the Armenian
Graduate Students Association and the Residents Associations.
“One of my goals this year is to establish a Weyburn
Terrace Residents Association,” he said.