GPSC History

​Summary

Graduate Enrichment Program (GEP) Workshops:

We want to thank everyone who has made the fall (2011) and spring (2012) semesters for the Graduate Enrichment Program (GEP) Workshop a success.

Guns on Campus Bill (SB1474) is Dead!

The primary sponsor of the "Guns on Campus Bill" has stated that he does not have the support necessary to advance his bill.  You can read more here. The Graduate and Professional Student Council took a strong stance against SB 1474, which if passed by the state legislature, would have allow concealed weapons to be brought on campus by students and faculty with CCW permits.

The Arizona Board of Regents, also opposed the bill, and released the fiscal impact the bill would have on the University of Arizona. To view this document, click here.

Minimum Tuition Bill (HB2675) is Dead!

The primary sponsor of the "Minimum Tuition Bill" has dropped HB2675, which if passed, would've required students to pay a minimum of $2,000 in tuition each year. This is a victory for all UA students!

The Graduate and Professional Student Council formally opposed this bill.

GPSC Asked for Representation on the ABOR Appointed UA Presidential Search Committee

In Fall 2011, the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) announced the search committee that will hire the UA’s next president.  Regrettably, ABOR neglected to include a single graduate or professional student

​Summary

Awards

Each year the GPSC gives award to outstanding students, faculty, and staff.  Here are the 2010-2011 winners:

Presidential Partnership Award 
Professor Carla Stoffle, Dean of the University Libraries
For her tireless dedication to the mission of the University
 
Presidential Award for Innovation in Administration
Dr. Melissa Vito, Vice President for Student Affairs
For her vision and efforts to have the entire UA family on board
 
Presidential Award for Promoting the Social Aims of Graduate and Professional Students
November Papaleo, Director of Women and Science and Engineering
For her excellence in external affairs for the GPSC, the UA, and the greater Tucson community
 
Presidential Award for Promoting the Economic Aims of Graduate and Professional Students
Bryan Helm, Treasurer for the Graduate and Professional Student Council
For his fiscal responsibility and conscientiousness
 
Presidential Award for Promoting the Academic Aims of Graduate and Professional Students
Robert Jacobi, Assembly Chair for the Graduate and Professional Student Council
For tenacity and lucidity in open and vigorous debate 
 
Presidential Award for Promoting Transparency and Accuracy 
Megan Stone, Secretary for the Graduate and Professional Student Council  
For mastery of record keeping in accordance with Arizona Statutes

GPSC Awards (voted on by the council)

Representative of the year
Stephen Martin
Zachary Brooks
For going above and beyond constitutional duties, embracing and fulfilling the mission of the GPSC
 
Director of the year
Joon Chu
Ryan Saxby
For exceptional self-motivated service to the GPSC
 
Advocate of the year
Nolan Kubota
For extensive outreach and exceptional representation
 
Volunteer of the year
Leslie Bosch
For consistently volunteering your precious time to the GPSC, no matter what

Graduate and Professional Student Council Transparency Initiative

The GPSC would like to encourage all of the UA family and Tucson community to join us in asking for financial transparency from the administration.  Please read our official statement for a transparency initiative through which we can be honest about the impact of potential cuts and our plans to absorb them.

GPSC Resolution Against SB 1070 & 2162

To view the resolution please click here.

Former President Emily Connally Worked Hard for Graduate and Professional Student

​Summary

This year, the GPSC saw participation from almost every college, including (for the first time in several years) representation from all four professional schools.  At one point in the year, we had 29 representatives, leaving only three open seats.

The GPSC secured its representation on all university committees, placing a graduate/professional student on the Media Board for the first time.  In addition, the GPSC President was appointed to the Provost Search Committee. 

The GPSC hired its first staff person, after a year and half of negotiations with Student Affairs to secure funding for the position.  Our new Program Coordinator began work in January of 2008.

GPSC President Catherine Neish, with support from ASUA President Tommy Bruce and the Faculty Senate, lobbied the administration to release an RFP (Request for Proposals) for an on-campus childcare center.  Vice President for Student Affairs Melissa Vito set up a group to write the RFP, composed of student, staff, and faculty representatives, along with representatives from procurement, facilities, and risk management.  The RFP was completed in April 2008, and should be released in May.

Based on the results of the GA Workload Survey held in Spring 2007, GPSC President Catherine Neish lobbied the administration to increase the minimum salary for GAs to $12,500 for the academic year.  She submitted an All Funds Request to the Provost in February.  Though supportive of the initiative, President Shelton will not know whether he can fund the project until a state budget is set in June.  Given the large cuts expected, it is unlikely to occur this year.

Representatives Robert Jacobi, Robin Quarrier, and Jim Collins, concerned about proposed changes to the Student Code of Conduct, lobbied the administration in the Dean of Students office to edit the language in the document to protect the rights of students.

GPSC Secretary Jacob Knutson worked with his internal committee to pass a council approved “Graduate and Professional Stduent Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” (a document originally written by the 2006-07 GPSC Vice President Anne Murdaugh).  The document was shown to the administration, and edits were suggested in order to make it a university approved document.

GPSC Assembly Chair Anne Murdaugh worked with staff in the Graduate College to reshape the look of the GPSC website.  The website was released in March of 2008, and is currently up and running.

GPSC Representatives Catherine Neish and Jacob Knutson attended a Lobby Day in Phoenix this February.  GPCS Representatives Kathleen Corcoran and Alison Betts attended a Lobby Day in Washington DC that same month.

GPSC President Catherine Neish worked with the Arizona Students’ Association to pass bylaw changes that (1) ensures that the GPSC President is a director on the board, and (2) allows the President to give his/her proxy vote to another graduate or professional student at the UA when he/she cannot attend a meeting

​Summary

COUNCIL MEETINGS, ACTIVITIES, AND HISTORIES
For the first time in GPSC history, we filled every slot in the council, including the three At-Large positions. This is due to the efforts of the past and current officers in recruiting membership. We benefitted by the presence of medicine, law, and business because they have different types of programs and needs than the typical graduate student. There was solid participation and spirited discussion from everyone on La Aldea (see graduate housing), changes in the Graduate College related to numbers/representations of committee members, time to deadline to graduate, and administrative drop, the school of planning reorganization, student visa reform, the student fee, the UA strategic plan, increasing numbers of graduate students at the UA, GPSC/ASUA relationships, and tuition increases. We also discussed issues pertaining to individual colleges and programs that the council as a whole helped with.

Internal Committees:
Academic Affairs - developed a questionnaire about the advisor-student relationship, put on website
Administrative Issues - worked on constitutional changes
Strategic Planning - held discussions with ABOR about tuition increases, scheduled meetings with legislators for Jani and Veronica during Phoenix Showcase
Student Life/Outreach - planned phenomenal socials! Over 300 were present at a "Taco Bar" at Gentle Ben's, a couple hundred attended Javelina Cantina and O'Malley's socials. They also held discussions about childcare, graduate housing, health insurance.

TUITION REMISSION
The result of our discussions and lobbying for in-state tuition (fees) remission for the 3,000 TAs and RAs at the University of Arizona is contained in a March 23 memo from VP Powell. He mentions that to become more competitive with our peer institutions in recruiting and retaining the best graduate students the university will move to 100% in-state tuition remission by 2007-2008. We will go to 60% in 2004-2005, 80% in 2005-2006 and then to 100%. This will cost the university an additional 10 million plus, assuming tuition will not increase again (which it likely will), plus an additional few million to help cover the RAs that cannot be covered by grants. This is a strong and positive move in the direction of recognition of graduate students by the administration. We will still need to be vigilant about need-based aid to help non-GAs with tuition increases, and recruitment/retention monies for the graduate college, especially if the university decides that as part of its Changing Directions initiative it will grow the percentage of graduate students from 22% to 25%. This was all a result of open and detailed discussions about tuition increases and in-state tuition remission with President Likins, Provost Davis, VP Powell, and AVP Hixon throughout the year, as well as petitions to ABOR during their Tucson sessions and the tuition hearings in February. It also built on the hard work of previous GPSC presidencies and past Dean Pivo.

GRADUATE HOUSING/ CHILDCARE
La Aldea is the >300 person on-campus graduate student-only housing complex, improvements surrounding which are partially funded by Christopher City money (~1.2 million). Due to poor marketing and advertising and behind-schedule construction, many residents have complaints that are still not remedied. In addition, only 1/3 of current residents (60 people) are returning next fall (2004) and there are only 2 new graduate student residents for fall 2004. As a result, the university has allowed the company to accept upper class undergraduates for fall 2004 to fill their need to relieve debt (against the wishes of the GPSC and the graduate college).

Family housing was discussed at length throughout the semester with VP Saunie Taylor and Dean Melissa Vito. We decided as a committee that it is too expensive to consider building new housing at this time, because it would be impossible to make it affordable to low-income (graduate student) families, which is the purpose of the remaining Christopher City money (4.2 million). We decided with the help of Joel Valdez that we should set up a quasi-endowment (min 5 years) for money left over from CC which will yield about 2,000/year (at ~4.5%) to be given out to families as housing vouchers. The current plan is to give to about 90 families per year (CC had 86). It may also be possible to loan these monies out to other entities, for example the Park Student Union, only if they can give the same interest payments and guarantees on the funds. We agree that there must be an explicit set of directions for use of the funds (because these are long-term agreements), including memos regarding the quasi-endowment, opportunities for loans out of funds, and opportunity to purchase property within 5 years.

Saunie Taylor was instrumental in getting 50,000 last year from the All-Funds budget for childcare vouchers, but it is unclear whether this can continue due to budgetary difficulties.

LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY
Outreach was done to state and federal legislators on a number of issues. I traveled to the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students (NAGPS) meeting in Washington, D.C. in November 2003. Along with ASU graduate student leaders, I met with Representative Hayworth and assistants for Representatives Flake, Renzi, and Franks, and Senator Kyl about the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, which would help students consolidate their loans and pay them off sooner, as well as student visa reform issues and the Dream Act. We left letters for other Senators and Representatives about these issues.

Veronica Diaz and I met with state legislators during February 2004 in association with the Phoenix Showcase event. We encouraged them to support the governor's budget request concerning funds for University of Arizona faculty retention and equity, and higher education in general. Many legislators did not approve of these requests, and were hard to convince of the value of universities in Arizona.

We sent letters in November 2003 and May 2004 to state senators and representatives of our region about supporting any student visa reform legislation that may come forward in congress. Many students are experiencing crippling visa delays, resulting in missing semesters of school or choosing to go to Europe or Canada. We supported the Yale student visa reform group's platform to decrease visa wait periods by starting the visa process in the US, and making the student visa equivalent to a work visa in stability (see www.visareform.net).

A letter was sent by the GPSC to Governor Napolitano supporting the nomination of Benjamin Graff to Student Regent (he is a law student from the U of A), which was successful.

GPSC / ASUA RELATIONSHIP
Discussions with J.P. Benedict (ASUA president), myself, Melissa Vito, Jim Drnek, and Carol Thompson occurred throughout the year, with the goal of improving the relationship between GPSC and ASUA and determining where we can pursue changes to the structures of each organization to do this. We had in mind that last year ASU's student governments split into two separate organizations, one graduate and one undergraduate, that are still under one student government umbrella (and thus have similar legislatures) but have two student body presidents and EQUAL space and money for each organization. Currently, the GPSC has only 1/20 the budget of ASUA, and no permanent space in the new student union. We have some office space in Old Main, and are using borrowed space in the Student Union to increase our profile on campus and benefit by positive interactions with ASUA and other students in the student union.
The committee (J.P., Melissa, Jim, Carol and I) decided that since our organizations already split 8 years ago, we did not need to rejoin each other, because that would bring us back to where we started and would lead to problems in passing budgets, etc., that existed before. I recommended in January that we remove the ability for graduate students to vote for the ASUA president, since we cannot serve on their senate and thus it is not representative government. I heard arguments that convinced me not to pursue this course, but at the end of the year I believe the January plan was a good one.

Arizona Students Association
One area of difficulty concerned the lack of graduate student representation on ASA, the Arizona Students Association, the statewide, regents-recognized student government organization that receives one dollar from every student every semester. Currently only ASUA can appoint students to directorships from the University of Arizona. I tried beginning in September 2003 to convince ASUA and ASA that there should be a seat for GPSC on ASA, but we were repeatedly denied this representation all year. In January we launched a campaign to tell graduate students to get their dollar back from ASA (and were joined with a similar campaign from ASU's GPSA), because of the lack of graduate student representation. In April, Alistair Chapman, the new ASUA president (2004-2005), came up with a solution that involved creating a fifth, graduate student-specific seat that would act as a liason to graduate students. I thought this was a fine compromise, and could eventually lead to that seat being GPSC in the coming year, so I supported it, and expressed this support to ASA. When the issue was voted on by ASA in the following week, Alistair and the rest of ASUA backed away from the 5th seat so it was declined for the University of Arizona. Northern Arizona University, however, voted in favor of this 5th seat for their own university. So currently there is graduate student representation on ASA for all Arizona universities except the UA. ASUA argues that since there is a law student currently appointed to the ASA board for next year (without a guarantee that this seat will be assigned to a graduate student in the future) this is sufficient representation for graduate students. In addition, ASUA feels that since graduate students can vote for the ASUA president, there is no need for other representation than ASUA on ASA. Thus the ability to vote for ASUA president is a handicap to our representation on the statewide organization, and I recommend that this vote for ASUA president be removed as soon as possible. This may require outside intervention, since we have no power within the organization except the ability to run and vote for ASUA president.

A letter about this situation was sent to the Board of Regents in May 2004, and several regents, including Fred Boice and Regent Stuart (incoming president), indicated that they are concerned about the situation and are interested in beginning talks to help ASA move in the direction of GPSC representation on ASA.

STUDENT FEE
A group of students under the advisement of Dean Vito of Student Life met to discuss the possibility of implementing a new student activity fee. This was intended for broad student use, and would help finance big name concerts, speakers, comedy acts, and films. A survey indicated that a substantial enough portion of all students, including graduate students, were interested in the possibility of the fee that I felt the GPSC should be present in the committee and consider moving this to an all-student vote. I felt confident that the group was fairly representative of students on campus, except that perhaps one more GPSC member would have made the student percentage more accurate. Our discussions were open and thorough, and members drafted a detailed set of bylaws by which the funds would be implemented. The final amount agreed upon by the committee was $15/semester. Eventually, the fee did not pass an all-student vote.

Several things contributed to the fee's failure, in my own opinion:
1. The Wildcat destroyed the credibility of the committee and the fee bylaws with their inaccurate and biased reporting. They misrepresented the membership of the committee, usually assuming there was no graduate student representation.
2. ASUA and other groups struggled for control of the fee, leading to infighting and decisions made by the ASUA senate that were not theirs to make. This was an all-student vote, not an ASUA vote, yet they undermined the progress of the school-wide, elected, representative student fee committee with their senate arguing and votes.
3. Perhaps the strongest reason of all: students were unwilling to pay more money in this time of rapid tuition increases.
The fee committee will continue to meet next year to consider other options and the possibility of it being welcome in the future. The GPSC needs to be sure to be a strong presence on the committee as graduate student representatives.

GPSC ADMINISTRATIVE RECOGNITION
I enjoyed open and honest discussions with all campus leaders this year. Through the past efforts of GPSC members and the administration, the GPSC worked on all prominent campus committees, including the Finance Committee, SPBAC, and the Faculty Senate. In addition, President Likins granted me the opportunity to sit on the stand alongside him and the ASUA President for the ABOR tuition hearings in February. This was a welcome gesture of recognition of our hard work and representation of graduate students. It turned out that neither of us sat on the stand :) since the hearings were organized differently, but it was the gesture that was important.

For the first time in many years (perhaps ever) in GPSC's history, the GPSC president was able to sit on the stand at graduation at McKale. This was another strong gesture in the direction of GPSC's representation of all graduate students. I appreciated the chance to applaud all the PhD students as they walked across the stand, and all master's students as they were recognized. I hope in the future the GPSC president will be able to make some remarks as the ASUA president does, since the focus of both talks is likely to be very different, and will reach both major populations of graduating students.

Written by Jani Radebaugh, GPSC President 2003-200

Summary

​Summary

Faculty Senate Policies passed:

GPSC members ensured that through the academic integrity policy, curiosity driven research done in classes can be resubmitted within a student's dissertation or thesis. Additionally, we made sure that the professor teaching a class shoulders the burden of informing students of their resubmission policy within their class syllabus. GPSC members ensured the student's right to file sexual harassment complaints that would be vigorously pursued via this policy. This comprehensive policy includes regulations for faculty-faculty, faculty-student, and student-student sexual harassment. Following federal law, this policy allows students to have the right to file anonymous complaints what will be investigated.

TA workload decision package:

As mentioned elsewhere, GPSC has been heavily involved in getting this additional $2M to hire more TA's at UA. During the 1999-2000 academic year, GPSC started and was involved in the TA Workload Taskforce that wrote a report in May of 2000. This decision package came from the recommendations of this taskforce. During Fall of 2000, members of GPSC have convinced the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) and the UA administration to make this a priority. Currently, we are trying to convince the Arizona Legislature.

Christopher City:

During late spring and through the summer of 2000, GPSC members met with the VP for Campus Life and the Director of Residence Life concerning the shutdown of Christopher City. Through these discussions, they agreed to form a Transition Team to follow the former Christopher City residents to retain some sense of community. Additionally, this team would make the decisions concerning the design and rebuilding of these facilities. This team's discussions have been fruitful and they are currently reviewing architect plans and asking for construction bids for these new facilities.

Student Health Insurance:

General concerns were brought up about the student health insurance available through United Healthcare, that it is inexpensive; but, this coverage is inadequate and inflexible. A GPSC subcommittee, headed by a MD-Ph.D. student, worked to give students more options concerning health insurance. These options may include the following choices: the current coverage, high deductible - high maximum coverage (a.k.a. catastrophic insurance), low maximum - prescription drug coverage, etc. This subcommittee met with the liaison of United Healthcare on February 6, 2001, to discuss these options. There were several reports of TA/RA's not being signed up for their provided health insurance. As GPSC President, I have personally taken this issue up myself. I am negotiating with the Graduate College to provide an option to sign up for the insurance on the old Notice of Appointment (NOA) form that all TA's and RA's must fill out in order to become paid. If everything goes as I plan, then for the people who check this box on this form these people will be enrolled for the term of the appointment. All others that would like insurance would need to enroll via RSVP as they do now.

Graduate Assistant Handbook:

Members of GPSC are working closely with the Graduate College to write a Graduate Assistant Handbook. This handbook will contain all policies and procedures must follow and give a description of their rights and employment benefits. This will be modeled after the University of Michigan's Handbook.

Written by Jason Auxier, GPSC President, 2000 - 2001

​Summary

The GPSC had a successful year promoting and implementing GO, Student Showcase, GSA week, Phoenix Showcase, and renovating the GPSC web page. In addition to these events, GPSC instituted a T.A. Taskforce to evaluate the teaching conditions of graduate students across disciplines. Data were collected by an online questionnaire. Results of the taskforce were written in report-form and presented to the President's Campus Advisory Council in May, 2000. Recommendations for improving working conditions of graduate students were offered. Other steps forward included the appointment of an additional graduate student to serve on the President's Campus Advisory Council (i.e. two seats), and the establishment of graduate student seats on the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, SPBAC, and the Alumni Board. Technological advancements included the first ever electronic publishing of the GradCat, the graduate student newsletter, and an online forum for current student issues

Summary

The GPSC added the Graduate and Professional Student Research Conference to our roster of events. the most significant accomplishment was getting increased recognition through having representatives sit on many high-level university committees, such as Shared Governance. Another extremely important accomplishment: our Student Showcase Phoenix may have saved the University millions of dollars of cuts due to budget negotiations going on at the State Capitol, where we were displaying our research. Legislators had to pass through a hall between their offices and the council chambers, and we were set up in the hall, with no way around us. Clearly, the UA graduate student research impressed the legislators; instead of six million dollars in cuts, there were non

​Summary

GPSC continues to make positive steps towards establishing a strong presence on campus and in the community for graduate and professional students. As part of a new organizational structure, Directors were employed to handle the day-to-day operations of the Council. GPSC sponsors several projects for the first time, including a Child Care Initiatives Fundraiser, a T A employment survey, a constituent survey, a handbook/day planner, a Roundtable Discussion, an Awards Banquet for Graduate and Professional Students, and a presentation of Showcase winners to the Arizona State Legislature. Additionally, GPSC continues to develop and expand events such as Graduate Orientation, Showcase, and Graduate/Professional Student Appreciation Week. GPSC was also honored to host the Western Regional chapter of National Association of Graduate & Professional Students(NAGPS). The newsletter, now called the GradCat, multiplies to three issues over 5 months and reaches thousands of graduate and professional student

​Summary

"The Split" between GPSC and ASUA is finalized and GPSC receives autonomy and a $62,000 budget. GPSC also receives its own office space: a house on Martin. The first annual Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week takes place. GPSC begins to fund clubs through newly developed (and newly funded) Club Funding. GPSC approves a GPSC Constitution. The Voice, a newsletter for graduate students, is begun with two issues in the Spring of 1997

​Summary

GPSC spends much of the year negotiating with ASUA to restructure student government at UA so that it better serves graduate students. GPSC thinks ASUA is not negotiating, so it goes to the administration. GPSC battles ASUA to get money to fund professional activities for graduate students. The Professional Opportunities Development Fund is created half-way through the year and seeded with $15,000. The first annual Graduate Orientation takes place. GPSC elections are done by mail

​Summary

During the 1994-95 year, GPSC restructured its internal committees and moved to strengthen its position as the representative organization of graduate and professional students with external groups.

The beginnings of GPSC influence in national advocacy:

In mid-May, the new GPSC President, Mitzi Forbes (Nursing), went to Washington DC to lobby for NAGPS on graduate student needs under health care reform. ASUA President, TJ Trujillo funded the trip out of his cabinet's budget. By July, the health reform proposals which were before congress held some provisions which could damage graduate students financial ability to complete their education. The Health Insurance Association of America offered to pay the expenses of sending a letter to every member of Congress outlining the concerns, and suggesting ways to address them in the context of health reform. As the Chair of the NAGPS Health Reform Task Force, Mitzi authored the letter. Eventually, the congressional session ended without passing health reform, and the issue died as national elections swept a new party into power.

The summer meeting of the NAGPS Board of Directors (BOD), which included Tom Cooley (as National Conference Coordinator) and Mitzi Forbes (as Mountain Region Coordinator), was hosted by GPSC in late June and early July. The BOD reviewed plans for the upcoming (October) National Confsolutimittee to write a proposal and lobbying packet. The result was the Teaching Assistants Benefits Package (or TAB) which was a three-point package of benefits designed to improve the conditions for TAs at the UA: 1) in-state registration waivers, 2) health benefits and 3) a teacher effectiveness training program for TA's during their first year of employment. The teacher effectiveness training program was developed by the University teaching Center, who would run the program. The initial cost of the package was budgeted to cost $3.6 million. Although it was expected that obtaining funding for the entire package would take several years, it was hoped that part of the package would be funded got 1995-96. Dr. Michael Cusanovich directed Sponsored Projects to develop a parallel plan which would implement the benefits package for GAR's (graduate RA's) as soon as it was won for GAT's. The TAB was presented to the ASA during a weekly telephone conference, and received positive comments, but the ASA never followed through with efforts to include it in their state lobbying efforts. TAB was also presented to the University Administration, and Pres. Manuel Pacheco included $1 million toward funding the package as part of the university's decision package request which was forwarded to the Arizona Board of Regents. In September the Arizona Daily Star published an editorial which referred to Teaching Assistants as " second-string" and "often deficient". GPSC President, Mitzi Forbes called the paper to protest and requested to speak to the editorial's author. The woman who wrote the editorial supported her assertions by claiming that UA Vice-President, Celestino Fernandez had stated this to her, and that "everyone knows it's true". After continued pressure to support her assertions with facts, she invited Mitzi to respond with a Guest Opinion of her own. The Guest Opinion, which defended the quality of graduate TA's, was published on the editorial page of the Star on September 20, 1994, and called for the community to support TAB. The Board of Regents approved the entire decision package which was then forwarded to the legislature. The new Arizona legislature refused to fund the University's decision package request, and the possibility of funding any part of TAB for the next year died.

Dental Insurance:

The GPSC Health Committee began to work on getting Dental Insurance for Grad Students. A member of TJ's presidential staff, Keli Farinech, was interested in working on the issue for all students, so the project was turned over to her. During the course of the year, TJ lost interest in the project, and Keli was not able to gain the cooperation of university administration without TJ's support. When it became clear that ASUA would not get dental insurance for the student body, GPSC took back the project of finding dental insurance for grad and professional students only. GPSC Vice President, Matthew Troth (BPA), found one dental plan which was available to grad students. Mitzi Forbes contacted a local dental HMO, and by April of 1995 two plans were available for UA grad students to enroll in.

Beginnings of the Professional Opportunities Development Fund:

Towards the end of the 1993-94 term, when GPSC was considering taking the grad share of ASUA funds and becoming independent, Ron Dickinson (BPA) proposed the establishment of a Professional Opportunities Development (POD) fund with a large portion of the monies. The fund would parallel the Graduate and Professional Student Travel Grant, but would be available for Masters and Professional students, who do not present at conferences, and to graduate and professional organizations who want to sponsor professional conferences or bring in speakers locally. When the effort to remove GPSC from ASUA failed, Ron rewrote the proposal as a project of ASUA. A resolution in support of POD passed both the outgoing 93-94 GPSC, and the incoming 94-95 GPSC. Mitzi and GPSC Treasurer, David Lane (NDS) sat on the ASUA Budget advisory committee. When considering the Clubs and Organization funding, ASUA VP for Clubs and Organizations, Josh Becker, claimed that $20,000 of the club funding monies went to graduate and professional clubs and organizations (most of it to fund conference travel). Mitzi proposed to Josh that he transfer that money to GPSC's control. GPSC would then use it to fund grad and professional clubs and organizations as part of the proposed Professional Opportunities Development Fund. Eventually Josh turned down the offer, and further attempts to get ASUA to establish a line item in the budget to fund POD to serve seniors, Master's and Professional Students failed.

The ASUA Budget and the "Audit":

During the summer, the GPSC was the only legislative body which was able to meet quorum, and so was the body to address the ASUA budget, which was initially presented to GPSC on July 20th. In reviewing the ASUA budget proposal, GPSC secretary, Ted Glenn (Science), found an apparent $50,000 discrepancy/ mathematical error. In light of the error, GPSC unanimously voted down the budget. The task of reviewing the ASUA budget and working with ASUA to correct problems was passed on to the GPSC Finance Committee.

Chaired by Ansel Kanemoto (Engineering), and including all the BPA reps (Matthew Troth, Kyle Pennington and Alex Sugiyama), the committee took on the unofficial designation, "BPA goons", and spearheaded GPSC's efforts to improve ASUA's budgeting procedures. During this time rumors surfaced that some units within ASUA in the past year had overspent monies and had broken UA policies for authorized expenditures. The 'goons' asked ASUA for information which would justify the budget requests of the various units within ASUA, and for the ASUA expenditures of 1993-94. Previous ASUA budgets had been planned in a haphazard fashion and had been poorly tracked. ASUA had not been implemented a system to track past expenditures, and it took the ASUA Treasurer about a month to gather the requested information. During this time ASUA President, TJ Trujillo submitted a budget twice more. Each time there were mathematical errors or discrepancies in the budget, and each time GPSC unanimously voted it down. Stating that even though past budgeting procedures within ASUA were inadequate, there was no justification to continue the practice of failing to properly handle an excess of half a million dollars of student monies every year. Eventually GPSC stated it would refuse to pass any budget which did not include monies to fund an audit at the end of the fiscal year. ASUA President Trujillo was opposed to the idea of an audit. Matthew Troth represented GPSC in working with ASUA to negotiate a settlement to the impasse, and proposed a compromise of requiring an internal accountant's report (IAR) rather than an audit. During the GPSC meeting of August 31st, GPSC was set to discuss and vote on the fourth ASUA budget proposal. When it became apparent that the budget would fail again, TJ Trujillo surprised everyone and agreed the IAR. The IAR would be funded out of any additional bookstore revenues if they became available, and would be funded out of his own presidential account if they did not. GPSC passed the budget, and ASUA began the process of improving it's budgeting and tracking procedures.

During the course of the ASUA budget negotiations, President TJ Trujillo decided to apply pressure to GPSC to pass the budget by freezing all accounts but his own, citing his position as Chief Financial Officer as authority to do so. Both legislative bodies disagreed with his interpretation of those duties, claiming that since the legislative funding is guaranteed in the constitution, the ASUA president cannot freeze their funds, and in fact, s/he cannot spend any funds her/himself without legislative authorization. This issue was not settled at this time, and would become a source of major conflict in the Spring. Later in the fall, President Trujillo decided that he wanted all areas of ASUA to submit goals and bimonthly reports to him, and he was refusing to sign requisitions for units which were not up-to-date on their reports, again citing his authority as chief financial officer.

Oiling the Internal Workings of GPSC:

As part of an effort to improve the inner workings of GSPC, Ansel Kanemoto (Engineering) forwarded a number of amendments to the GPSC Bylaws which would clarify the job descriptions of the GPSC officers and raise the requirements for GPSC reps to receive their stipends. A few of the officers resisted the efforts of the Constitution Committee to rewrite the bylaws affecting their office, and so GPSC Vice-President, Matthew Troth (BPA) shepherded Ansel's project through the Executive Board. It took some time, but both efforts were finally successful. In October, Matthew Troth proposed a consolidation of the GPSC committees which would reduce the number of committees from 12 to 5. The Executive Board proposed the 5 new committees, and GPSC passed the new committee structure as part of its standing rules. By the end of the fall semester there was still no budget passed for GPSC. Some disagreement existed between the executive officers who believed it was the Treasurer's responsibility to produce the budget, and the Treasurer who believed his responsibility was to track expenditures, not propose a budget. All appropriations until this time had either been passed individually by the GPSC or by the Executive Board. Ansel proposed that the GPSC finance committee draft a budget procedure for GPSC's internal budgeting. Eventually Mitzi and Kyle took on the task of producing a preliminary budget, but a specific budgeting procedure was not presented during the year. 

Graduate Student Housing and Christopher City:

During the summer of 1994, the deplorable conditions of the UA family student housing complex again became news. Residents had complained for many years about the infestation of roaches, and the occasional sewer backups. When some residents finally complained to the County health department, the county officials blamed residents for the roach infestation claiming that some of them were not clean enough. Many of these residents are international students from cultures where cleanliness is a high priority, and they were deeply embarrassed by the public accusation. Eventually it was found that the backups in the sewer systems had caused some of the carpet pads to rot setting up a haven for roach infestation which was impossible to eliminate no matter how hard the residents cleaned their apartments. A task force on Christopher City was formed by the Student Affairs Division. Chaired by Dr. Robert Wrenn, it was assigned to address the immediate health and safety needs of Christopher City, and look for long-term solutions to the problems there. Initial efforts focused on fixing the complex's sewer system and replacing pads and carpeting in the worst apartments, and fixing faulty air conditioning. Dr. Saundra Taylor agreed to allow GPSC to appoint a GPSC rep who was also a Christopher City resident, Paul Funk (Agriculture), to the task force. Many residents complained that poor management of Christopher City and neglect on the part of the University had resulted in the deterioration of the complex, and wanted to take over management and form a cooperative. By late fall it became clear that the task force would recommend tearing down Christopher City instead, and rebuilding. However, the recommendation was for significantly fewer units and an increased cost in rent. In response to the immediacy of the report, and at Paul's request, Mitzi wrote a letter to the Wrenn task force outlining guidelines which the University should follow in deciding the future of family student housing. These principles included maintaining the number of units available, affordability of the rental units for families living on student employee wages, and supporting the sense of diversity and community which the current residents felt. The GPSC and the Undergraduate Senate both passed a resolution supporting these basic principles.

While family student housing was a pressing issue, there was also a desire on the part of some grad students for graduate housing for single students. The issue was brought to Dr. Saundra Taylor, Dr. Adela Allen and Dr. Michael Cusanovich during several meetings which occurred during December of 1994 and Spring of 1995. At a meeting with GPSC on April 20, 1995, Dr. Cusanovich discussed several possible ways to meet accomplish this goal. Dr. Cusanovich suggested that GPSC survey grad students to see if there was enough support for the issue to justify the investment, and to bring him a proposal on the issue.

Childcare, Social Activities and Advocacy rolled into one:

In September the new Campus Childcare Coordinator came to meet with ASUA President TJ Trujillo and GPSC President Mitzi Forbes to ask for $150,000 in funding. She proposed to use the money to subsidize childcare for low income student parents. At the time, ASUA was not expecting enough revenues to provide the funding, and GPSC did not have enough to assist. Mitzi returned to the council and challenged the Finance and Student Affairs Committees to 'get creative' and try to come up with ways to find $150,000 to help fund childcare initiatives in the future. Some ideas had come from other universities where the grad student organizations raise money by sponsoring social hours. During this time, the GPSC Communications Committee was developing a 1-page survey which would go to all grad students in the Graduate Informer. As part of the survey, grad students were asked what issues they would like to see GPSC address. The usual major issues (GA benefits, housing, financial aid) received support, but a surprising finding was the desire of grad students for GPSC to sponsor social events. At the same time, Dr. Adela Allen, Associate Dean of the Graduate College, and GPSC advisor, proposed that GPSC establish a monthly grad student night at Gentle Ben's, a favorite student hangout in the district just outside the University entrance. The owner of Gentle Ben's was a friend of Dr. Allen's, and she approached the owner about the idea. Gentle Ben's was enthused about the plan, but construction in the area delayed moving forward on the proposal during the remainder of the 94-95 term.

Campbell Commission and working to get the grad student 'voice' at the table:

During the Spring of 1994 the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) responded to pressure by the Arizona Students Association to investigate and take into account the costs of education when setting tuition from year-to-year, not just the requests of the University Presidents. A commission, chaired by Regent Rudy Campbell, was charged by the ABOR to investigate the issue and make a recommendation to the entire ABOR by December of 1994. The Commission was composed of 3 ABOR members, the outgoing student regent, Spencer Insolia, the University Presidents and the Student Body Presidents from all three Arizona Universities. Spencer wanted to have in-state registration waivers taken away from GA's and given to undergraduates, and he placed that issue on the Campbell Commission agenda. In addition the Commission was set to investigate the possibility of differential tuition (charging higher tuition for graduate students). Mitzi started to attend Campbell Commission meetings to represent graduate student interests on these issues. Although it is a rare occurance, the student body president at ASU was a graduate student this year, and his presence on the Campbell Commission was helpful. The argument was successfully made that differential tuition is based on a faulty assumption that graduate students have lucrative jobs waiting for them when they graduate. This is not true for those in the arts, the humanities, the social and behavioral sciences and those who intend to stay in academia. Charging differential tuition would unfairly disadvantage lower and middle income students from seeking graduate education as well, and harm diversity goals. Some of the Regents also were of the opinion that all or most grad students were given positions as GA's (at the whim of faculty)and are well supported. UA Interim Graduate College Dean, Dr. Patricia Van Metre and Mitzi had the figures at hand (due to the previous year's GPSC survey of GA's) to inform the commission that this is not the case. Only about 1/3 of UA grad students are GA's. Out-of- state GA's are state employees, crucial to the quality of education and research at the UA. It is unfair to pay them so little to teach this state's undergraduates and do this state's research and then charge them out-of-state tuition (which amounts to approximately 20% of their pay. Eventually the proposal to take out-of-state tuition waivers from GA's was dropped. Before the commission completed it's meetings, however, it became very frustrating to sit in the meetings and feel one does not have a 'voice' at the table of policy makers.

In December of 1994 and January of 1995, Mitzi and Matthew started a round of meetings with UA administrators. A major goal of the meetings was to convince the administrators that the graduate student 'voice' should be represented on all committees and task forces of the UA, whether standing or ad hoc, which addressed any issue of concern to students; and that GPSC, should be asked to appoint those students. Following this round of meetings, administrators increased their requests to GPSC for the appointment of grad students to UA committees

​Summary

In May 1993, GPSC became a legislative branch of ASUA. GPSC's new President, Thomas Cooley (now representing Optical Science) and Vice President, Mitzi Forbes (Nursing) had both been members of the negotiation team which had created the new student government structure. In addition the new ASUA President, Derek Lewis, and the Vice President for Programs and Services, Kristin Major, had also been members of the team, so it was hoped that the transition year would be smooth. It was not.

Elections for the 1993-94 ASUA had included GPSC reps, and immediately it became apparent that ASUA would have major troubles structuring elections which would meet the needs of graduate students. GPSC elections the year before had been held at the department level, and the ballot return had been good. Left to the ASUA Elections Commission, information about available GPSC seats was disseminated only in the Arizona Daily Wildcat.. With the new ASUA elections process, students could not vote in their departments, but had to vote in centralized polling places for each constituent unit. These polling places were often closed due to lack of poll workers during the elections hours. The number of recorded votes was much lower than the previous year, and this fact was used to attempt to discredit the representativeness of GPSC. At the first joint meeting of the incoming Undergraduate Senate and GPSC each new legislator introduced her/himself. At this time many humorous incidents were related in which a GPSC candidate had been misinformed by the ASUA elections workers where her or his constituency was to vote, and so no one who went to vote for him/her could vote. Many of the new reps had not even been able to vote for themselves.

When the new constitution had been accepted in Spring semester of 1993, there was an agreement between the ASUA and GPSC that once both groups had approved the constitution, there would be no changes made until the new structure was implemented. This would prevent the 1992-93 ASUA Senate from making changes to the structure after GPSC had accepted it. All changes had to wait for the 1993-94 ASUA to take office, so that GPSC would have a voice in the changes. However, when the new constitution was passed out to the 93-94 ASUA a problem became immediately apparent. It is true that the constitution had not been changed but bylaws, which had not been agreed to by GPSC had been added by the 1992-93 ASUA Senate in the final Senate meeting (which lasted six hours). Many of these bylaws imposed changes which the GPSC negotiation team interpreted as direct violations of the agreements in principle which had been reached during negotiations. Bill =46isher , one of the new Undergraduate Senators, and GPSC Vice-President Mitzi Forbes began a process which would ultimately take 2 years to amend the bylaws to reflect the agreements which had been reached during negotiations. The team which was established to address these issues eventually became a standing committee of the legislative branch, known as the Joint Legislative Committee (or JLC), through which all constitution and bylaw amendments were to pass.

The first agreement which had been reached by the negotiation team had been the budget process. Agreements on the appointment process and legislative process quickly followed because they were very similar. The issue which was most difficult to agree on was the structure and role of the Central Governing Council (CGC). ASUA's representatives had envisioned it being a powerful body through which the ASUA President would govern ASUA. The GPSC representatives had envisioned it as a relatively weak body which existed to coordinate among the various units of ASUA. Immediately after inauguration, conflicts arose between the ASUA executive branch and the ASUA legislative branch over control of ASUA. The Undergraduate Senate and the GPSC objected to the political nature of some of the appointments made by the ASUA President and the Vice President for Clubs and Organizations. After a lengthy joint meeting, complete with temper tantrums and tears, a few of the appointments failed to pass GPSC and had to be referred to the CGC. In an effort to get the contested appointments confirmed, ASUA President Derek Lewis failed to call any CGC meetings for several weeks and allowed the contested appointees to serve in their appointments. Then he failed to put the issue on the CGC agendas so no votes could be taken. He claimed that GPSC had not properly notified ASUA that they had voted against the appointments (even though he had been present during the meeting in which the appointments were not confirmed). He even purposely failed to post CGC meeting agendas twenty four hours in advance so that the meeting could not be held without violating Arizona Open Meeting Law. He eventually ruled that absentee votes would be counted on this issue, even though ASUA has no provision for absentee balloting in its constitution. In the end, one of the contested appointments was confirmed and two were overturned, but not before the legislative bodies got a good taste of the political games which were to become a common part of doing business in ASUA.

In November of 1993, allegations surfaced that there had been serious misappropriation of funds within Clubs and Organizations. ASUA President Derek Lewis refused to take action to investigate the allegations, so GPSC passed a resolution empowering a committee, lead by Dan McGee to investigate. By December 7th the investigation had been completed and Dan presented his report to GPSC. Although Dan's investigation had confirmed the allegations against the VP for Clubs and Organizations and had also uncovered action taken to cover up the incident by the ASUA President (which included efforts to intimidate his own cabinet), and although the actions uncovered were impeachable offenses, GPSC chose to only pass a resolution of censure against both officers.

In mid-January there was a move by three ASUA legislators (Jon Shoemaker, Brad Milligan and Wendy Anderson) to return ASUA to a unicameral government and remove GPSC as a legislative body of ASUA by using petitions signed by students on campus. At this time, GPSC plans for leaving ASUA first began to be formulated, which would include taking approximately 23% of ASUA's budget (grads students comprise 23% of the student body) and forming a separate student government for grad students. Efforts to fight the unicameral proposal and prepare to leave ASUA if necessary were lead by Tom Cooley, Dan McGee and Mitzi Forbes. The issue was finally settled before the ASUA Supreme Court which ruled the referendum petition signatures which had been collected by Brad, Jon and Wendy were invalid because they had been collected under false pretenses.

Student Showcase:

During the summer, Cynthia Lunine (Agriculture) informed GPSC that she did not have the time to continue as the director of the Showcase. GPSC appointed Ron Dickinson (BPA) and Bill Bottke (Science), both serving their second term on GPSC, as director and assistant director of the Student Showcase, and allocated funds to hire work study students to staff Showcase. Building on the initial plans of Cynthia Lunine's committees, Ron and Bill began to work on the first Student Showcase. The plans met with a great deal of skepticism on the part of ASUA and some UA administrators, who did not believe that GPSC could pull off such an ambitious project. It was not until Steven Dvorak (ECE) and Jeffrey Warburton (Theatre), faculty serving on CGC, spoke enthusiastically about the Student Showcase did ASUA take the project seriously. On Homecoming day of 1993 the first Student Showcase occurred on the U of A mall. Although this initial Showcase was relatively small (with only about 100 participants), the quality was impressive, and UA administrators took note of its potential for future years. Ron and Bill's hard work and dedication earned them the first GPSC Representative of the Year Award.

TA Bookstore Discount:

For a month and a half during the late summer, GPSC President, Tom Cooley, took a leave of absence. During his absence GPSC began receiving complaints that the ASUA Bookstore was eliminating the 10% discount for GA's at the end of the fall semester. The GPSC Vice President contacted the Wildcat, and began to meet with ASUA Bookstore Director, Frank Farias; Vice President for Student Affairs, Saundra Taylor; and the Dean of Students, Melissa Vito protesting the elimination. GPSC also worked with the Graduate College and Michael Cusanovich, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies to protest the elimination in President Pacheco's Cabinet. In the end, Frank was directed to continue the discounts.

NAGPS:

In this time period, the Mountain Region Coordinator for the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) contacted GPSC and suggested that the UA submit a proposal to host the National NAGPS Conference in Tucson in October of 1994. After returning from his leave of absence, Tom wrote the proposal, which was accepted by the NAGPS Board of Directors in Januaryresulted in a resolution on the issue passed unanimously by the conference. NAGPS Legislative and Employment Concerns Coordinator, Gina Pearson, invited Mitzi to come to Washington, DC and lobby for graduate student concerns under health reform on Capitol Hill. While attending the National NAGPS Conference, both Tom and Mitzi became members of the NAGPS Board of Directors. Tom as the Nationn the U of A campus was the lack of child care. Graduate students had long been concerned that adequate child care be provided, and GPSC got Dorothy "Dot" Roome (Fine Arts) appointed to the UA Commission on the Status of Women in order to address this issue. Dot visited childcare facilities and investigated ways in which other campuses provide childcare. A subcommittee of the Commission worked through the summer and fall to study the issue and make recommendations. In January 1994 the committee presented its report and recommendations to the Provost. There was no action on the committee's recommendations, and on April 6, 1994 GPSC passed a strongly worded resolution requiring the University to respond to the recommendations by hiring a full-time director for child care and provide a budget which would allow the director to operate. The resolution was hand delivered to Dr. Martha Gilliland, Vice Provost, and Dr. Saundra Taylor, VP for Student Affairs. In response a search committee, including Dot, was formed and a full-time director for child care was hired.

Travel Grants:

During the 1992-93 academic year, the Graduate and Professional Student Travel Grant Fund had been through three quarterly award cycles. Difficulties in the process became apparent, and the new GPSC Chair of the Committee, Jennifer Ellis (Humanities) worked all year to make the process flow more smoothly. Half way into the year, David Lane (Non-Degree Seeking) joined the committee to help Jennifer computerize the award process as much as possible, and ease the strain on the Committee Chair.

State Politics, Tuition, and the beginnings of TAB:

The Health Committee continued to gather data on the study of student vulnerability through the fall semester. After attending the NAGPS Regional Conference in October, 1993, GPSC Treasurer, Thomas Sisson (Science); and GPSC Vice President and Health Committee Chair, Mitzi Forbes brought back ideas used by the Graduate and Professional Student Senates at University of Washington and Washington State to successfully lobby for health insurance for Graduate Assistants in their state legislature. In late fall, a one page survey was sent to all GA's on campus eliciting information about health insurance coverage and asking for individual GA stories on the personal impact of health insurance (or the lack of it) to be used in lobbying the Arizona Legislature for health insurance for GA's. Over 500 GA's returned the questionnaire. While working on this issue, the need for coordination with GSO's at ASU and NAU became apparent. In December, Tom Cooley and Mitzi Forbes went to Tempe to meet with the GSC presidents from ASU and NAU. The three organizations formed the United Graduate and Professional Students of Arizona (UGPSA) to coordinate efforts for graduate students and lobby on state-wide issues of concern to grad students.

Beginning in 1993 GPSC began to respond to efforts within the Arizona Board of Regents to implement differential tuition for graduate students. GPSC's arguments in opposition to differential tuition are included in the minutes of December 7, 1993. Tom Cooley and Dan McGee attended ABOR meetings during 1993 and 1994 to speak against differential tuition.

​Summary

This was the first year that students were elected to be representatives for graduate students at the U of A. In May of 1992 the ASUA Senate held a meeting in violation of Arizona Open Meeting Law, and created a CGPS (Council of Graduate and Professional Students) to serve as an advisory body to the ASUA Senate. GPSC protested the 'secret' formation of CGPS as an attempt to undercut the GPSC claim to be the official elected representatives of graduate and professional students at the UA.

On May 20, 1992 ASUA president Danny Siciliano, and ASUA Senators Derek Lewis and Wendy Anderson approached GPSC with a proposal to give GPSC 2 seats on the ASUA Senate. GPSC decided that holding 25% of the seats in a unicameral government would not improve the likelihood of graduate student issues being addressed. GPSC unanimously voted in favor of independence, accepted the constitution drafted the previous year, created standing committees, and officially adopted their first advocacy issue (health insurance costs). The council of 1992-93 had a busy year and addressed several other issues.

Student Health Insurance:

In spring of 1992, the Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee to the Arizona Board of Regents had been trying to avoid the collapse of the student risk pool due to increases in premiums. There were no graduate students on this committee (SHIAC). SHIAC decided to split the risk pool and put students with dependents into their own risk pools. The result was a dramatic increase in health insurance premiums (ranging from 32- 48%) for students with dependents. Thirty percent of these student families were forced to drop health coverage that year. GPSC passed a five point resolution in opposition to the increases, and created a Health Insurance Delegation to investigate the situation and find a way to remedy the situation. The committee was successful in convincing the SHIAC to lower premiums for students with dependents when the new policy was presented for the following year. During the course of their investigations, the health committee learned that the University had cut the budget for the Student Health Center so drastically over the previous three to four years that student safety was gravely jeopardized; the Health Center was in danger of closing its doors. GPSC applied intense pressure on the UA administration and passed a joint resolution with the ASUA Senate in support of restoring funding the Student Health Center. In response to GPSC pressure, the administration formed an ad hoc task force (the Roberts Committee) to investigate the situation and make recommendations. The appointment of the GPSC Health Committee Chair to the Roberts Committee represents the first time a GPSC representative was appointed by administration to serve on a UA committee. The Roberts Committee documented the tenuous position of the Student Health Center, and recommended a multi-year restoration of funds. This effort was successful in saving the health center. The Health Committee also pointed out that the University had no data on the health needs or vulnerability of its student body, and convinced the administration to fund a study to gather this data. The study was conducted during the spring of 1993 and the fall of 1994.

Student Showcase:

During 1992-93 the University of Arizona was suffering its third year of budget cuts and mid-year rescissions from the Arizona Legislature. The negative public attitude towards higher education in general, and research and graduate education in specific, threatened the vitality of all graduate programs. In August of 1992, the GPSC Programs Committee proposed a project to the Interim GPSC Executive Committee for a graduate research symposium aimed at showcasing the benefits of graduate research to the State of Arizona. The Executive Committee overwhelmingly approved the project, and a proposal was sent to UA President Manuel Pacheco. President Pacheco expressed enthusiasm for the project, but offered no funds to carry it out. Under the direction of Programs Committee Chair, Cynthia Lunine (Agriculture) the planning for what eventually became the Student Showcase began.

Travel Grants:

Martha Gilliland, Graduate College Dean, wanted to establish a graduate student travel grant fund, and offered to let GPSC administer the funds if they came up with an acceptable proposal. Under the direction of GPSC Treasurer, Thomas Cooley(Engineering), a proposal for a competitive grant program was presented and accepted. The first Graduate and Professional Student Travel Grants were awarded in spring of 1993.

Merger with ASUA:

GPSC still had no budget, and the officers and representatives served without stipends. Dr. Michael Cusanovich, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, and Dr. Saundra Taylor, the new Vice President for Student Affairs came to an agreement on transferring the graduate students' share of student government funds into an account for GPSC. In response, ASUA president Danny Siciliano asked Dr. Taylor to delay the transfer and sponsor negotiations between ASUA and GPSC to restructure ASUA in a way that would maintain a unified student government and leave student government monies within ASUA. GPSC had not yet been notified of the previous agreement worked out between the Vice Presidents (and did not learn of it until December of 1994). In October of 1992 an eight member team, four from GPSC and four from ASUA, began meeting. GPSC team members included GPSC President Steven LaFrance (Fine Arts); GPSC Treasurer Thomas Cooley (Engineering); GPSC Elections Officer Anupam Goyal (Engineering); and Health Committee Chair Mitzi Forbes (Nursing). ASUA Team members included ASUA President Danny Siciliano; ASUA Administrative Vice President Kristin Major; ASUA Senator Derek Lewis; and UBRC Chair Spencer Insolia.

The negotiation team met for three months, and came out with a proposal for a bicameral legislature. The ASUA Senate became the Undergraduate Senate, and GPSC became the second legislative body. The new structure reduced the power of the ASUA President, and shifted more power to the legislature. A central council was established to facilitate communication between the various units of ASUA, and settle any disputes which might arise between the legislative bodies. GPSC voted to approve the new structure in January of 1993 and the ASUA Senate unanimously accepted it in February of 1993. The new system of government became official with the inauguration of the 1993-94 ASUA.

Highlights

• GPSC meets for first time on Friday, November 22, 1991
• 16 graduate and professional students from 10 colleges were present
• GPSC creates separate government structure from ASUA

Advocacy

During much of the 1980s graduate and professional students at large and those graduate and professional students who served on ASUA sought to address problems (representation, housing, child day care, poor wages) through ASUA. When it became clear that the only way to address graduate and professional student issues, graduate and professional students felt compelled to form GPSC.

Nationally, GPSC fit the trend many graduate and professional students were facing. Student governments at the time were open to all but invariably overwhelmingly served only undergraduate student interests. In 1968, graduate and professional students at the University of California San Diego formed one of the first graduate and professional student governments.

Historically, graduate and professional students have been apart of the university student community in the United States and elsewhere since the founding of universities. In 1088, the University of Bologna was the first university formed and only in modern times were degrees others than the doctorate awarded. In the United States, Harvard College, later renamed Harvard University, considered by most to be “the oldest institution of higher education” in the United States, originally awarded only what are now known as undergraduate degrees. The first commencement at Harvard was held in 1642 in which nine men were graduated. Two centuries later the first doctorate degree in the United States was awarded when Yale held its 1861 commencement.

The 20th century in the United States saw a rise of undergraduate students and degrees awarded. What accompanied this growth is the creation of “student body governments” that almost exclusively fell under the purview of undergraduate student leaders. By the mid-1910s, campuses around the United States had formed “student body governments” made up primarily of undergraduate students. It was not until the student movements of the late 1960s that graduate and professional students felt prompted to form separate student governments. Though various graduate and professional student governments formed throughout the 1970s, it was until the 1980s that graduate and professional students became forming student governments in earnest in response to Congress eliminating the tax-exempt status of graduate stipends.

The idea of a national graduate student association was discussed by graduate students from four schools attending the First National Teaching Assistant Training Conference at The Ohio State University in the spring of 1986.This group called the first national meeting in March 1987 at Washington State University. The group became the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) at this meeting. A national conference coordinator, information exchange coordinator, legislative concerns coordinator, and five regional coordinators were selected.

Events

Prior to GPSC inaugural meeting, numerous events were held that foreshadowed the creation of GPSC. During the 1991-92 school year there was a movement within ASUA to improve student outreach, and a series of town halls were held. At this time, a director had not yet been appointed for the Graduate Student Association (GSA), part of ASUA. At a town hall in November of 1991 graduate students turned out in large numbers to express their displeasure at the lack of attention their issues received within ASUA

Programs

Though GPSC did not have any programs during its first year, the first issue GPSC members addressed (proposed by College of Nursing Student Mitzi Forbes – later changed to Ngawang Thekchen) was to address the 1992 Student Health Plan. The concerns were summarized from the May 20, 1992 minutes: “Graduate students have no health coverage when out of the Tucson area. This is hazardous to most graduate students who must travel to conferences and do extended field work in pursuit of their academic program requirements. Their health and safety is at substantial risk if seriously ill or injured while out of Tucson.
The inability of the most financially vulnerable graduate students, primarily those with spouses and children, who cannot absorb the year-to-year 42-48% increase in health costs this plan forces on them--twice the national average cost increase of about 21%.”

Summary

written by GPSC leaders during the first year or leaders who retrospectively wrote about GPSC’s first year

In 1991, two graduate students, Javier Duran (Spanish) and Carlos Rodriguez (Higher Education) began working with Dr. Adela Allen (Associate Dean of the Graduate College) to improve graduate student representation in student government. At that time the only graduate organization in student government was the Graduate Student Association (GSA), a service of ASUA which operated under the Administrative Vice President (now the Vice President for Programs and Services). The GSA had little support and poor funding. For ten years the GSA had tried to get support within ASUA for graduate student issues, only to be ignored. Javier Duran had served as the GSA Director in 1990-91, and tried unsuccessfully to get the ASUA Senate to create two seats for graduate students.

During the 1991-92 school year there was a movement within ASUA to improve student outreach, and a series of town halls were held. At this time, a director had not yet been appointed for the GSA, and at a town hall in November of 1991 graduate students turned out in large numbers to express their displeasure at the lack of attention their issues were receiving within ASUA. Major issues of concern to graduate students at the time were the appalling condition of Christopher City (the U of A family student housing complex), the lack of Graduate Assistant/Associate benefits, the poor wages for graduate employees and the lack of job protection, and the lack of day care available. Six months into office ASUA President Lee Knight finally appointed a director for the GSA (Stephanie Wickstrom), but tabled all graduate student initiatives.

In frustration Carlos, Javier and Stephanie began to work with the Graduate College to form a graduate student council. The Dean of the Graduate College, Martha Gilliland, asked the deans of all the colleges to appoint a representative to the new Graduate Student Council (GSC). The first GSC was recognized by the Graduate Council during the spring of 1991, and began the process of seeking official recognition as the sole representative body for graduate students at the U of A.

On November 22, 1991, 16 graduate and professional students (see list below) from 10 colleges met. Collectively, they changed the name from the GSC to GPSC, the Graduate and Professional Student Council. They drafted a constitution, sought funding and held elections for their successors.

Founding members (attended November 22, 1991 meeting)

• Javier Duran  - founding member
  • President (Co-Chair)*
• Carlos Rodriguez - founding member
  • Vice President (Co-Chair)
• Stephanie Wickstrom - founding member
  • Graduate Student Association - GSA (part of ASUA) helped form GPSC
• ​​Mark Fishbein - founding member, College of Science​

​​In attendance

• Sam Dinkin, At-Large
• Mary Ann Flynn, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA)
• Barbara Thompson, College of Education
• Doug Brown (Mines), College of Engineering
• Renee Turner, College of Fine Arts
• Angie Record, College of Fine Arts
• Kathleen Donovan, College of Humanities
• Andy Rogers, Business & Public Administration (BPA)
• Mark Yamamura, College of Medicine
• Tinna Kwan, College of Nursing
• Rick Hudson, College of Science
• Bill Bottke* not listed in first minutes; listed in subsequent minutes, College of Science,