Graduate student group addresses problems, needs

Hina Alam, 26, has been asking several questions since she came to IU from India last month to pursue her master's degree in journalism. Questions about lodging, where to buy food, interaction with faculty members, making friends and even dating etiquette, have troubled her.\n"As a graduate student," Alam said, "I feel that my issues are very different from undergraduate students. I wondered if there was a forum where graduate students could discuss their problems."\nBut Alam wasn't aware that there is an organization that can answer her questions.\nIU's Graduate and Professional Student Organization, the governing body of graduate students, established itself as independent from the IU Student Association in July 2002, after a two-year effort. The University granted GPSO autonomy from IUSA to better address graduate and professional student issues, which are often different from undergraduates' concerns. It provided student representatives a forum to advocate for graduate students' needs.\nEvery year, IU departments elect a graduate student representative in the beginning of the semester to act as a voice at GPSO meetings. \nHowever, the organization is facing a lack of representatives from nearly half of the graduate departments and schools at IU. Of the 62 departments listed on the organization's Web site, only 37 have representation in the graduate student body for this year.\n"Either the (Graduate Student Associations) of some departments are inactive, or the students have got really busy," said Matt Hottell, who was GPSO moderator from 2002-03. \nThis means that the 7,607 graduate and professional students currently enrolled at IU are underrepresented to the University administration, faculty, staff and other student organizations.\nPart of the problem is a lack of volunteers in most of the graduate departments.\n"The School of Journalism, for instance, requires a volunteer, and the school is yet to find one," said Erika Biga, GPSO director of public relations. \nAccording to GPSO's Web site, other graduate schools and departments without representatives are astronomy, theater and drama, cognitive science, criminal justice, economics, fine arts, geological sciences, linguistics, optometry, speech and hearing, among others. \nThe GPSO representatives, usually elected members, secretaries of GSAs at various departments or student volunteers, are responsible for representing the collective voice of their departments and then reporting that voice at GPSO's meetings.\nMost graduate and professional students' questions can be answered at GPSO's Web site at www.indiana.edu/~gpso, or, at the GradHouse, 803 E. Eighth St., where the graduate student body's operations are tucked in a two-room office. Representatives also serve to inform their constituents of GPSO's orientation programs, picnics, happy hour get-togethers, sessions on gender issues and conflict management, and tax sessions where they can learn how to file their taxes.\n"Most of the graduate students are stuck in the same school with the same group of people for the whole year," Hottell said. "The happy hours and picnics we organize serve as a suitable place to start friendships, look for dates and romantic relationships. The GPSO is there to meet the educational as well as the social needs of grad students."\n-- Contact staff writer Arindam Mukherjee at armukher@indiana.edu.