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By Marcelle Richards
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Student interest groups in the Graduate Students Association may
lose some voting power.
A referendum to consolidate the six groups into a single Student
Interest Group would give the board two votes in place of each
group’s individual vote.
The referendum is possibly the most heated topic on the ballot
since it puts at risk groups that, historically, have sought out
status on the forum because they felt they weren’t adequately
represented otherwise.
Charles Harless
“It’s always good to have those voices,” said
Dorothy Kim, vice president internal affairs. “They always
bring up issues you don’t realize.”
GSA forum members voted down the proposal 9-4-5 at the March 6
meeting.
It’s the first time Jennifer Bazilius, American Indian GSA
representative, recalls anything that’s created such a
“chasm” between members, the proposal’s creators
and student interest groups.
The forum is composed of 24 academic council representatives and
six student interest groups: American Indian GSA, Black Grads,
International Students, Raza Grads, University Apartments South
Residence Association and Asian Pacific Islander GSA.
Dorothy Kim
“The ethnic groups, we view ourselves as the voice of
conscience,” Bazilius said.
“But the needs of these groups are so diverse “”mdash;
there are inherent conflicts,” she continued. “It would
be impossible to incorporate that into two votes.”
One academic representative is granted for every 600 students in
a given department. A student interest group gets only one
representative, though the population represented varies.
The smallest group, American Indian GSA, represents 48 students
according to fall 2001 admissions data, while International
Students represents 1,750.
Hanish Rathod
Because students are represented through a department, it is
argued students in interest groups have double or triple
representation on the forum.
“GSA was originally formed to represent the opinions of
the graduate students as a whole,” said Naser Hamdi,
president of Engineering GSA and author of the referendum.
Though Hamdi is an international student, he said the students
should seek representation through the academic councils to keep
representation “fair.”
A problem with this is that some students don’t belong to
a department, as is the case with American Indian GSA. There is an
American Indian Center, but centers are not granted voting
power.
Since joining last year the group has been able to use GSA as a
venue for support. One example includes getting the GSA president
and vice president external affairs to write letters to congress to
federally recognize the Tongva nation, an indigenous people in the
Los Angeles basin.
“Our group has been trying for three years to get on the
forum,” Bazilius said. “It’s really upsetting,
now that we got it, to have someone want to take it away from
us.”
To get on forum a student interest group must collect 500
signatures, which puts them on the ballot to gain approval. GSA
requires at least a 10 percent voter turnout to pass referenda.
When online voting was used last year, voter turnout reached 15
percent, the first time in years that GSA met the minimum
turnout.
Hamdi fears that the number of student groups joining the forum
will continue to climb in number because of online voting, possibly
offsetting the voting power of academic councils.
Opponents disagree, saying the chances of that are slim.
“There’s hardly ever an issue in forum that comes
down to a single vote,” said Vice President External Affairs
Alain Dang, who is also the Asian Pacific Islander GSA
representative.
He added that it’s difficult to get approved as a student
group on forum, and that if approved, it reflects a desire by the
population for those groups to have voting power.
The nature of a student interest group “”mdash; a group with
population-specific concerns and agendas “”mdash; also makes the
idea of a student interest board a difficult concept to swallow for
some.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for GSA to
force these groups to get along,” said GSA President Charles
Harless. “I believe this is a solution to a problem that
doesn’t exist. I don’t see how this board would
operate.”
The referendum does not explain how the groups would decide how
to vote, he said.
“There’s a possibility of two groups overrunning
(the board),” Bazilius added.