Independence necessary

Graduate and professional students have little to gain by remaining part of the IU Student Association. The Graduate and Professional Student Organization has recently drafted a constitution to break off from IUSA and declare itself an independent arm of student government. IU academic departments with graduate and professional student enrollment must ratify the constitution; the IDS encourages them to do so. Issues that are most pressing to graduate and professional students differ widely from those affecting undergraduates. \nTwo of the most talked-about issues driving the current IUSA election are the alcohol policy and revitalization of the greek system. Graduate students have little stake in either issue because most are older than 21 and few live in greek houses. \nThe issues of interest to graduate students fail to capture the imagination of undergraduates. Undergraduates have little stake in assistant instructor pay, graduate student health benefits, research arrangements and family housing. While the average freshman may want better food in McNutt, graduate and professional students may want better food for their children who attend IU day care. The array of services (or lack thereof) that animate undergraduates is too broad for graduate students' voices to be heard.\nThe graduate and professional students are granted seats in the IUSA congress. But as a minority in a group dominated by undergraduates, the political process is a dead-end. Graduate students seek to represent themselves beyond that system.\nGranted, the break from IUSA would add one more voice to the din of organizations that seek the attention of administration. But graduate and professional students have a distinctive voice worth raising above the conversation when problems arise.\nThe GPSO has lobbied on behalf of its constituents for health care coverage, fellowship programs and optical care benefits. The group is active; it just needs legitimacy as an independent student governing body.\n