The IU Graduate and Professional Student Organization executive board is prepared to live up to last year’s success, the GPSO president said.
Last year, GPSO passed nine resolutions, more than were passed in the previous four years combined.
Brady Harman , fourth-year graduate student and second-term GPSO president , said the GPSO executive board is ready to maintain last year’s growth.
“GPSO has three focus areas this year,” Harman said. “We hope to build community identity, address benefits and services issues and advocate for clearer resource access and awareness.”
To build community identity, Harman said GPSO will advocate for new programming that will make the graduate and professional student body more inclusive, respectful and connected.
Advocating for policy change regarding inadequate professional development services, graduate assistant pay levels and parking pass availability will be addressed within benefits and services issues, Harman said.
To advocate for clearer resource access and awareness, Harman said GPSO will advocate for a more accessible and centralized network of general campus resources.
“This year, internally, we will be focusing on surveying and implementation,” Harman said. “We hope to be more methodological about attaining and reading the student voice of graduate students. We also hope to increase the transparency of our implementation of resolutions, allowing the student body to hold our officers even more accountable for tangible results.”
Increasing the student voice is the main task of Communications Coordinator Jessie Mroz, Harman said.
“We are increasing our social media presence and trying to plan new and innovative programs to include our entire graduate student population,” Mroz said. “These range from family-friendly barbecues at Bryan Park to our Pride Extravaganza event next week, where we have worked with other organizations to bring in a performer from ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race.’”
The executive committee kicked off the semester by visiting the orientations of departments with a graduate or professional program and introducing themselves to new graduate students, Mroz said.
It also works with University departments with graduate or professional programs to elect representatives for the assembly and, beginning this year, the president’s council, which will brainstorm best practices and advocacy issues, Harman said.
GPSO is divided into an executive committee and an assembly.
The president, vice president, treasurer, liaison, parliamentarian, awards officer, benefits officer, sustainability officer, community development coordinator and communications coordinator form the executive committee, while representatives from every department with a graduate or professional program form the assembly.
Once the assembly votes on a resolution formed in committee, if the resolution passes, the executive committee works to implement the goals of the resolution on campus, Mroz said.
“GPSO is the voice of the graduate and professional student body on the IU-Bloomington campus,” Harman said. “Our main purpose is to advocate on behalf of those students and their needs. We accomplish this by passing resolutions in our general assembly, then carrying them through to make positive changes at the University level.”
