The University of Arizona Graduate and Professional Student Council filled four vacant seats during its Nov. 9 meeting through a special process they voted to pursue last week. The seats were filled with no more than 10 votes per candidate, with none of the candidates receiving a “no” vote.  

The representatives will be filling previously vacant seats in the colleges of engineering, science and the Eller College of Management (non-MBA). 

GPSC voted for Hadiqa Maqsood to fill the vacant position for the College of Engineering. To fill the two vacant seats for the College of Science, GPSC voted to elect Barbara Dobrin and Alyssa Sachs. The vacant position for the Eller College of Management (non-MBA) will be filled by Gaurav Deshpande.

The Graduate College will be increasing graduate assistants salaries, GPSC President Jessica Baxter announced. 

“My understanding is that GA’s will be getting a pay raise,” Baxter said. “All GA’s will be getting a pay raise of $150 per semester starting in the spring.” 

The current pay range for graduate students is between $11,000 and $40,000, Baxter said. The average pay is $17,000. 

“They’re working with the administrative offices because the dean of students, provost… all of their GA’s should be making $17,000 according to university policy, but that has not been the case,” Baxter said.

“Some of those groups have not reported — voluntarily reported — that information to the grad college,” she said.

Only a few colleges are currently not on board with the pay raise, but have pledged to work on getting them eventually.

“Some colleges like Fine Arts, [have] very small classes, and [it’s] a lot of dollars per students,” Baxter said. “They don’t bring in a lot of grant money. So, they have different challenges.”