Students in the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs voiced their desire for a change in the structure of their representation in Graduate Student Senate on Monday.
The meeting began with a presentation from Megan Chapman, Environmental Studies representative in GSS, explaining the change in the school. The Environmental Studies and Public Administration programs, which were previously under the College of Arts and Sciences, are now a part of the Voinovich School. However, the GSS constitution does not reflect this change.
The body unanimously approved a resolution modifying the language of the constitution to create a senator position to represent the Voinovich School. The Environmental Studies and Public Administration representatives will be under the new senator.
“It has been a long time coming having the Voinovich School have a legitimate place on this campus, and this is a step in the right direction,” Chapman said. “It is time that everyone knows who we are.”
The language change will be presented to the Board of Trustees for approval in the coming weeks. The trustees will meet on April 19.
Co-sponsor of the resolution and VISION’s presidential candidate, W. Alex Wesaw, who wasn’t present at the meeting, sent a video in lieu of his Minority Commissioner’s report, addressing last week’s discussion of the proposed tobacco ban. He encouraged GSS to remember minority cultures that use tobacco for rituals in the discussion of the ban.
“I think culture matters,” Wesaw said. “It is important that we remain sensitive to these types of issues in our community.”
The upcoming GSS elections were also discussed, encouraging graduate students to vote. Last year, largely because the election was uncontested, less than 200 of the near 2,000 graduate students voted, said Tynita White, current president of GSS.
Despite the approaching membership change of the body, attendees of the meeting were also encouraged to continue their work and presentation of ideas.
“We have done some cool things this year,” said Ed Gaither, current vice president for Administration and Finance and Team Renew’s candidate for the same position. “We may have run out of time before we ran out of ideas.”
The meeting concluded with a resolution approving VISION’s candidate for Vice President for Committees and Legislative Affairs Liz Volpe as the Public Administration department representative.
oh271711@ohiou.edu
