New administration supports GPSO

The Kirkwood Administration, in lieu of its recent victory in the IU Student Association election, is supporting the Graduate and Professional Student Organization in its quest for independence from IUSA.\nCurrently, the IUSA administration, headed by student body president Jake Oakman, does not support the split because graduate students should participate in the existing government before trying to create a new one, Oakman said.\nThe controversy though, has come to a head in light of the recent election.\nSophomore Blair Greenberg, treasurer elect, said the new administration is willing to work with the GPSO in order to serve the student body the best it can.\n"There are issues that relate only to graduate students that IUSA may not be as equipped to handle as the graduate students, so we are completely in favor of the GPSO handling issues that only affect them," Greenberg said.\nAlthough there are nine available spots for graduate students in congress, all seats are vacant.\nThe reason for this, as explained on the GPSO Web site, is that IUSA meetings tend to be very long, even without time spent discussing graduate and professional student concerns. \nGraduate student Andrea Rossing McDowell, coordinator of the GPSO, said the question of time and time on task is important to consider. \n"What is more effective?" she asked. "Say there is a graduate student that wants to be involved and is concerned about specific issues that concern them as a graduate student. Would it be in their best interest to sit through IUSA meetings which are twice as often and twice as long where they discuss things that don't concern you?" \nMcDowell also pointed out that the GPSO represents a very different population than that of IUSA, one comprised of nearly 8,000 people, all with very different lifestyles, needs and backgrounds than undergraduates.\n"Graduates and professional students are caught in limbo between students and faculty, and this requires different representation, a different government," she said.\nMcDowell maintained that it would not be fair for the GPSO to insist that IUSA address its issues in addition to everything else IUSA deals with. \nGreenberg agreed.\n"IUSA gets a lot of issues and can't focus 100 percent on things," he said.\nMcDowell said the two governments would be stronger as separate bodies, their strengths more noticeable in light of their independence.\n"We would have a much bigger impact going together as two large groups to advocate for joint causes," McDowell said.\nGreenberg said the GPSO's crusade for independence is not likely to cause other organizations to seek the same route.\n"Factioning off in every single school is just unrealistic," he said.\nGraduate student of political science Craig Ortsey, the GPSO graduate government chair, said the GPSO has legitimate reasons to seek its independence, although some view the group as merely another student organization.\n"The concerns for undergrads and grads are very different," he said.\nHe added the concerns each have cannot be adequately addressed by only one government.\n"Graduate students occupy a very unique niche here on campus," Ortsey said. "And many of us teach in the classroom as well as acting as students and trying to finish a degree. That doesn't exist in any other group on campus."\nAs of yet, a constitution proposed in December establishing the GPSO as an independent organization from IUSA has yet to be ratified by the majority of the graduate and professional student body, keeping the move for independence on its feet.