Pressing for an increase in representatives within the Graduate and Professional Student Council, members of GPSC voted at their Wednesday night meeting in Hudson Hall to pass an amendment to their constitution allowing for those not affiliated with a specific graduate department to have official status.
As a result, programs existing apart from the University's academic departments, such as the program in cell and molecular biology, may now have voting GPSC representatives. Under previous charter rules, GPSC members had to be associated with a department of the graduate school. This amendment affects approximately 100 students in three programs.
In addition to expanding the scope of representation within GPSC, some of its members said they thought GPSC should play a more proactive role in the University community. Specifically, GPSC representatives said they wanted the Student Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees to have more actual legislative power.
Although the committee can present ideas to the Board of Trustees, they have no legislative power to implement them, said GPSC member Susan Timberlake. The fact that the committee seems to play a decision-making role for graduate students is "misleading," she said.
Michael Tino, a fourth-year graduate student in cell biology and an at-large member of the GPSC Executive Board, agreed with Timberlake and said he hopes the committee can begin to act on its ideas.
"The student affairs committee is basically an advisory committee," Tino said. "One of the things we'll be doing this year is to redefine our relationship to the Board of Trustees. Hopefully we'll be in a position to make specific proposals to the Board of Trustees."
Timberlake also added that although there is a trustee committee on student health, there is no student committee.
IN OTHER BUSINESS: Heather Hayter, a GPSC member and an at-large member of the GPSC Executive Board, announced to the council that the proposal to incorporate the Department of Geology into the Nicholas School of the Environment has been approved by the Academic Council, NSOE and the geology department. Graduate students who enrolled in the Department of Geology before the change, however, will graduate under the old rules, Hayter said.
In his report on the Ad-Hoc Committee on Severe Weather Policy, Tino said that about 50 students answered GPSC's call for a student response. E-mail responses ranged from complete dissatisfaction to agreement with the University's policy. In their messages, some students said they wanted to go to class the afternoon the hurricane hit, while others said they felt they were almost killed by falling trees, Tino said.
Also, the annual GPSC basketball ticket camp out, which was held Sept. 20-22, was successful as 600 basketball season tickets were given away to graduate and professional students, Hayter said. She added that in conjunction with the camp out, GPSC raised approximately $600 for the North Carolina Rural Health Coalition through fund raising.
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