In a majority vote, GSS overturned its committee boycott, authorizing members to resume participation in university and presidential committees.
With a majority vote reached during its third meeting of the academic year Monday, the Ohio University Graduate Student Senate has voted to lift its boycott of presidential and university committees following a public meeting with President Roderick McDavis.
With the passing of the resolution, GSS members are once again authorized to participate in all presidential and university standing committees.
GSS Vice President of Communication Sarah Kaplan, who co-sponsored the resolution, admitted feeling conflicted about ending the boycott, but ultimately decided that implementing other measures in the future would be appropriate.
“I think that we can bring the fight to the administration on both sides,” Kaplan said. “I think we can work with (the committees) internally, and I know we can use the Graduate Workers Party as another means to protest and do other activities.”
While a majority of senate members agreed with the decision, some students, including environmental studies department representative Paige Walters, dissented.
“I believe that we have to go beyond this back and forth process in which we appeal to the authorities and they continue to let us down because they don’t have our well-being in their best interest.” Walters said. “By ending this boycott right now, we would lose all potency we have in our current position.”
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Additionally, GSS discussed a letter from Student Union member Ryan Powers, who, though unable to attend the meeting, urged GSS members to keep the boycott intact, writing that they had “already been betrayed once” by university administration during last year’s decision to keep the general fee intact.
“Please do not give (McDavis’) decisions, which directly harm our graduate students, legitimacy,” Powers wrote. “It is not legitimate.”
In a related measure, GSS passed a resolution to officially show its support for a separation of the graduate and undergraduate general fees, citing in the resolution that the two groups have “distinct” statuses and tuition.
The meeting also included a presentation from Boyd McCamish, a field director from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest trade union of public employees in the country, who advocated the unionization of graduate student workers.
“Why is it that, while we live in this wonderful land of abundance ... why is this sort of perpetual drumbeat being beaten about why we can’t have things like living wages? Like a real voice on the job?” McCamish asked. “Why is it that we are all constantly asked to give - or not to ask for anything in return around this idea of scarcity?”
The initiative for the unionization of graduate student workers was discussed during the meeting. GSS President Carl Edward Smith III mentioned he has recently met with union representatives to begin “union campaigning” on campus.
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