Graduate student body adopts new constitution

It was a long ordeal, and not without controversy. But almost two months after voting began, the graduate student body passed a new Graduate Student Government constitution last week.

The process began last year when the GSG Assembly established a constitution committee to draft a new document and continued during the summer with the creation of a referendum committee to arrange for a vote on the new constitution.

According to Eric Adelizzi GS, who was a member of both committees, the new constitution was presented as a referendum to voters during the first week of the academic year.

"We conducted polling at registration, which is the traditional time. We also conducted polling at a dance held later that week," Adelizzi said.

Some members of the GSG expressed concern that first-year graduate students and those who had been gone during the summer were not prepared to vote so early in the academic year. But voting was held at registration over their objections.

"That's the only place they can get people to vote," said GSG press secretary Karthick Ramakrishnan, who led the drive to delay the referendum.

After the first round of voting, however, too few graduate students had cast ballots to approve the new constitution. Reluctant to abandon the effort for reform, the assembly decided to extend voting until one-third of the graduate student body had voted to pass or reject the new constitution.

Adelizzi said GSG members believe the new constitution will be better suited to the graduate student body than the old document.

It establishes a procedure for removal of GSG officers and puts many of the GSG's governing rules in the organization's bylaws, which Adelizzi said are more easily changed than the constitution itself.

"The previous constitution was very much outdated," he added.

In addition, GSG representatives are elected by department, and the new constitution allows the GSG the option of changing representation procedures so that larger departments have more representatives than smaller departments.

Also, the GSG representative from the Graduate College will now be a non-voting member of the assembly so that college residents are not doubly represented, Adelizzi said.

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GSG officers, who were formerly elected by the assembly, will now be directly elected by the graduate student body — a change that resulted from a compromise among graduate student leaders.

Ramakrishnan and GSG Chair Lauren Hale, who are also officers in Graduate Student Local Activism, had opposed the new constitution because it did not provide for direct election of officers. After the referendum did not pass at the beginning of the semester, they met with proponents of the new constitution and developed a bylaw that would provide for direct election of officers.

In exchange, Hale and Ramakrishnan put their support behind the new constitution and encouraged members of GSLA to back it as well, he said.

Of the change in officer election procedure, Hale said, "It's a good step in bringing the GSG to a higher level of recognition."

After GSLA backed the new constitution and elections were moved online, enough students voted for the referendum to approve the new document.

"I'm actually pretty happy with the document as it stands," Ramakrishnan said. But he added, "I think I would have done this whole process differently."