A new set of Graduate and Professional Student Council officers was elected by 719 graduate student voters last week, down from 1,167 voters in last year’s elections.
Last year’s ballot included a referendum on whether the Associated Students of the University of Arizona or GPSC should represent the UA’s graduate population, which probably resulted in last year’s higher turnout, said Paul Thorn, current GPSC president.
“”Apparently, a lot of grad students had an opinion on that issue and came out to vote,”” Thorn said.
Catherine Neish ran unopposed and received 588 votes for the position of president.
“”Obviously, I wasn’t really waiting for my results, but I was excited to hear the results for everyone else,”” said Neish, a graduate student in planetary sciences.
Neish said her biggest concern as president will be to focus on improving health care for all graduate and professional students.
“”We’ve done a lot of work this year, and I’m excited to pick up where we left off and keep on working,”” said Neish, who currently serves as GPSC secretary.
Kathleen Corcoran, a graduate student in immunobiology, defeated her opponent, public administration graduate student Jacob Knutson, by 184 votes for the position of vice president.
“”I would like to advocate for more funding for travel grants next year as a first priority,”” Corcoran said.
Knutson also ran for the position of constituent for the Eller College of Business and Public Administration and won. Corcoran said she is excited to get to work with Knutson next year.
Anne Murdaugh, a graduate student in physics, Elaine Ulrich, a graduate student in optical sciences and Sarah Mosher, a graduate student in French, were elected to be the three at-large representatives next year, receiving 1,175 votes total.
Members of each separate college vote on their own representatives, and the at-large representatives represent graduate students as a whole.
“”We will have similar duties as the constituents do, but we have to specifically look at the entire graduate student body, not just our specific college,”” Ulrich said.
Ulrich served as GPSC president during the 2005-2006 school year and currently serves as an at-large representative.
“”I’m hoping that I can improve the amount of legislative activity,”” Ulrich said. “”I want to improve the needs of graduate education at a national and state level.””
Murdaugh, the current vice president of the GPSC, said she wants to work on increasing communication between graduate students and the GPSC next year.
Murdaugh and Neish worked on developing a mini-council called the Associative Graduate Students of the College of Science in the past year, so all departments in the College of Science could become more connected.
“”I want to work on developing more things like that,”” Murdaugh said. “”I also want to integrate the GPSC with the campus as a whole. There’s no reason we can’t serve all of the UA students, not just graduates.””
