Deomcratic development

When the Graduate Student Government enfranchised its constituents last week and held the first student body elections of the GSG executive board, it simultaneously strengthened its visibility, legitimacy and relevance for all graduate students. Still, increasing student input and participation in the GSG requires sustained outreach. While it took a hundred years for Princeton's graduate students to choose their own student leaders, we need not wait another century for the next stage in graduate student democracy.

It is of course heartening that a graduate student population so activated by major issues of housing and health care seized the chance to choose the leaders who advocate on their behalf before the administration.

Within hours of the start of voting last Thursday, graduate students, domestic and international alike, quickly reached the GSG's ten percent turnout requirement. Holding elections online, the GSG made voting convenient while using the Web for a deeper purpose than matching grad singles up before the annual Valentine's Dance.

From a field of 37 students nominated by their peers, 13 accepted candidacy for one of seven offices (and several withdrew before the election date). Yet while an election may seem like a choice for leaders, these elections were equally significant for incorporating students as informed participants.

It is the graduate student voters who benefited most from the process and will continue to do so in coming years. Although modest in scope, 27 percent turnout demonstrated that many graduate students — as busy as they may be with precepting and research — are still interested in investing a portion of their time to the one student organization that purports to serve all of their interests.

Given the time constraints on graduate students, it is important that students maximize any investment they make. Consequently, GSG leaders should keep the cultivation of an informed and interested graduate student body among their top priorities. Here a benchmark of progress would be doubling turnout (to 40 percent) in next year's elections.

GSG elections reformed the head of the organization, the seven-member executive. But the body of the GSG, the Graduate Assembly, in which departmental representatives manage the GSG's budget and bylaws, remains ubiquitous and distant from the average graduate student. Nearly a quarter of graduate programs and departments lack representatives, meaning that students in those fields have no spokesperson in the assembly.

To bridge this gap between governed and government, the GSG should publicize a simple and neutral procedure for graduate students to choose departmental representatives when a seat is vacant or the current representative has served for one year. Even in cases where only one student seeks the position, regular and open elections guarantee that the representative remains responsible to his or her constituents and that the students know who their representative is.

A complete and accountable assembly is fundamental to a democratic GSG. Since graduate students hold a range of perspectives on the function and aim of the GSG, it is vital that debates over the GSG's work spread beyond the small contingent of students who attend GSG meetings.

For example, students should be confident that their spokespersons in the assembly honor the GSG's stewardship of students' dues and return GSG funds to the student body with value-added, through informational, cultural and social events of broad appeal. Thus, to spread the GSG's proto-democracy throughout its structure all departments should hold annual elections for representatives even if the incumbent office holder believes no one else wants the position.

Finally, the GSG can increase transparency by inviting the 'Prince' and Tiger TV to report on assembly sessions. If the financing of video coverage appears difficult, the GSG could seek graduate school assistance in this effort. Public airing of GSG meetings will not only increase graduate student visibility in the Princeton community, but also help GSG meetings develop the focus and deliberation exercised by the Undergraduate Student Government.

They say the first steps are always the hardest. The GSG should capitalize on its historic stride toward democracy and engage with an even broader segment of the graduate student body. Departmental elections, regular press coverage and innovative investment of the budget offer three fundamental steps forward. Jason Brownlee is a politics major from Raleigh, NC. He can be reached at brownlee@princeton.edu.