GPSS makes a difference

I've dreamt of becoming a Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) officer since I entered the University of Washington. I wanted to make a positive difference in the lives of UW students, but I discovered that only graduate students were eligible to run for office in GPSS. It was a bummer. All four years, I worked hard to get good grades in order to get into graduate school at the UW. My dream was about to come true when I was admitted to the graduate school as a one-year professional student. "GPSS, here I come!" I thought.

I submitted my application in advance and started preparing my election speech. However, a reply from GPSS Treasurer Malia Langworthy, who was responsible for the upcoming elections, ruined my long-cherished dream at once. She said, "Our bylaws state that a candidate must be a registered graduate or professional student currently to run." I couldn't understand and replied that I was a graduate student who had been admitted and enrolled. Her reply was that I was still not qualified, because I wasn't a registered graduate student.

I found a Web page that stated that I was, in fact, registered as a graduate student at the University of Washington. I sent a screen shot to her and to all the GPSS officers. However, it didn't help; GPSS did not want to recognize me as their own. Our e-mail exchange looked more and more like a Clintonian game of definitions. I was identifying myself as a graduate student, but GPSS officers tried to persuade me that I was still an undergraduate.

Meanwhile, GPSS was effectively excluding me and all one-year professional students from running for office. My issue reached the GPSS Judicial Committee but was declined by its members. Finally, when I got ahold of the chair of the GPSS Judicial Committee, he advised me to submit a resolution regarding this issue, and I did. One hour before the elections. I e-mailed it to all senators, along with my credentials. I explained that if my resolution passed, I would be eligible to run for office from the floor. At 4:30 p.m. May 9, I came to HUB 310 and found about 50 GPSS senators who were there to elect the 2007-08 officers. At first, the Judicial Committee representative was summoned to the stand and confirm that my petition to make all one-year professional students eligible to run for office had been declined.

I was given a chance to read my resolution and state my case. The issue was opened to debate, both sides were heard and a miracle happened. My resolution passed by a majority vote of the GPSS senate. Yes! Finally, I got a chance to pursue my dream. I did run for office, but I didn't get elected. What's more important is that I did make a difference. GPSS became a truly inclusive organization, and all one-year professional students now have the chance to run for office.

— Andrew Overton

Masters of Professional Accounting, 2007-08

GPSS needs to be dissolved

In the history of silly political institutions, student governments are one of the silliest. At their most useful, they are exercises in democracy for future lawyers, legislators, and lobbyists. But the GPSS is not a model democracy. As it exists now, the GPSS is an exercise in unresponsive, self-serving bureaucracy. Its representatives should be removed from the Student Activities Fee committee, and its enormous personnel budget should be eliminated.

Graduate students who may have glanced at coverage of the recent GPSS "election" may have wondered when and where they were supposed to vote. They weren't. The GPSS officers are elected by the internal constituency, the senators (of whom I am embarrassed to be one), who are not required to run for election. The GPSS is designed to run on apathy.

What does the GPSS do? It states the obvious to the indifferent. GPSS represents itself as the voice of UW graduate students in Olympia, and spends a lot of time and money advocating for the "student interest" (i.e. lower tuition and more services). But there is no reason why any elected legislator would listen to the GPSS. Aside from the fact that GPSS officers have no mandate, graduate students don't have class-based political interests. Studying is an activity, not an identity. In two or three years, we graduate. "Lower my tuition!" becomes "lower my taxes!"

Wasted volunteer time is one thing, but the GPSS is expensive. Of its 2007 projected $241,000 budget, milked out of our Student Activities Fee, the GPSS allocated $199,323 to personnel expenses alone. This includes a full ride for all of its officers, including tuition and a living stipend, cushy offices, a large paid support staff and perks: travel, a parking space in Olympia and so on. Three officers also vote on the Student Activities Fee allocation, where they vote to put your money toward their tuition.

What does the GPSS toss grad students? Well, apart from infantile discount initiatives like "Nominate your department for a Gold Star!" there are the two socials, at $500 a pop, and the new Travel Grant program, which allotted $5,000 toward helping graduate students buy plane tickets to attend conferences and present papers. This is miserly. The outgoing president allocated $4,000 to her conference travel. Martin Luther King Day was allotted $0. The GPSS doesn't build playgrounds –— they've got lunch with the governor! The vice president, in addition to substantial travel expenses, paid $5,000 to the "Washington Student Lobby," another student sandbox facing Olympia. But for a student organization to get $250 out of the GPSS requires three signatures, a budget number, and a hearing. At the same time, the GPSS keeps $200,000 in the bank. An employee told me that this funding is intended to sustain GPSS salaries in case funding is cut off, cutting themselves a generous severance check.

There are better uses for the money. Concerned about student mental health? The 2005-06 fee allocated the Student Counseling Center $40,000. Result: Intake interviews involving highly sensitive disclosures are sometimes conducted in a crowded room.

I would suggest the GPSS and the Student Counseling Center switch offices. From there, the GPSS can use Catalyst polling to find out how much more of their money grad students want to spend on this nonsense. I resign.

— Pete Sweeney

Jackson School of International Studies

New Japanese course may unfairly exclude some students

I appreciate Michio Tsutsui's effort to create a special-needs Japanese language course ("New Class for Japanese-Americans to be offered this summer" May 7, 2007). However, I am somewhat alarmed by the exclusivity implied in the course title "Intermediate Japanese for Heritage Learners" and confirmed in the course description: "This is an intermediate-level Japanese language course intended for Japanese-descended students who have strong everyday conversation skills but want to develop solid reading and writing skills."

Have all ethical and legal aspects of this been examined? Is catering specifically to Japanese-Americans compatible with the University's principle of non-discrimination? Do the course specifications really exclude people that are not of Japanese descent but do have strong Japanese conversational skills and poor reading and writing skills, for example those that have lived in Japan for long periods of time? If such people are not excluded, are the course title and the course description not misleading, and are non-Japanese-American students truly welcome?

— Reinhard ("Ron") Hahn

Program Coordinator, Dental Public Health Sciences