The Graduate Student Organization held its last meeting of the semester on Wednesday night. The meeting was broken up into three parts: a budget meeting, elections and a special meeting.

Budget meeting

After much debate about the funding of individual student organizations, the GSO senators approved a budget of $485,910.71 for the 2016-17 academic year.

The debate came from a new method of allotting funds to individual student organizations. The finance committee chose to allot funds based on whether a group represented an academic department.

If a group — based on historical precedent or empirical evidence — represents an academic department, it is allotted funds per student in that department. Each student was valued at $58.45, up to a $12,000 cap. If the group was not representative of an academic committee, it received $1,000.

The debate was centered around both the $12,000 cap and the $1,000 flat rate. Representatives of smaller organizations that were allotted $1,000 from the organization said they felt the amounts were low, as did larger organizations that received the $12,000 cap. The Computer Science and Engineering GSO, Information School Graduate Organization and Whitman GSO were all allotted the maximum amount.

After numerous motions and debates surrounding changing the amounts, all figures remained the way they were originally proposed.

This was partially because raising the cap or the flat rate would increase the budget, which was already near the maximum amount allowed for it based on GSO’s fiscal policy. Organizations will still be able to apply for special programming funding for specific events and initiatives.

All other lines in the budget were approved. The only change was made after GSO President Can Aslan made a motion to set aside $2,000 of the $40,000 special programming budget for the School of Education Council.

This was for their clinic simulation program, which was approved this semester, but too late for the group to hold the event. The senators approved the motion.

Elections

Four executive board and eight senator positions for the next academic year were up for election Wednesday night.

Both Rajesh Kumar and Rahul Goyal ran for GSO president. Both cited experience with GSO as reason to support their candidacy. After mild debate, the senators elected Kumar, who had been active in the finance committee.

In an interview with The Daily Orange after the meeting, Kumar said he would be focusing on reaching out to more graduate students to increase the representation of diversity in GSO. He said he is also hoping to set up career services specifically for graduate students in departments across campus, among other initiatives.

Aslan, the current GSO president, ran unopposed for vice president of internal affairs. Peta Long was elected over Dimple Dhanani, the current financial secretary, for vice president of external affairs.

David Lemon, a member of the finance committee, defeated Goyal for the position of comptroller.

Only seven of the eight senator position were filled, so the eighth will roll over into next semester. Goyal, Dhanani, Chaudhry Azhar Iftikhar, Jingyuan Wang and Diksha Shukla were elected to sit on the University Senate.

Ryan Falkenstein-Smith and Yingbian He were elected as senators at-large, which are general members of the GSO voting body.

More senator positions will be open in the fall semester.

Special meeting

During the special meeting, the senators voted to approve three separate resolutions. These included holding a referendum on the student-employee health policy when the working group currently discussing it makes a suggestion.

The referendum would be handled by the newly elected GSO executive board and would gauge graduate students’ opinions on any major suggestions made by the working group.

Part of the resolution also stipulates that next year’s GSO executive board must attempt to get written agreement from the working group that it will see the referendum as binding in their final decision.

Senators also approved the creation of a standing committee on child care and change of two clauses in the Travel Grant Policy to allow for more flexibility.

Published on April 13, 2016 at 11:44 pm

Contact Delaney: dovanwey@syr.edu