Graduate student assembly sees growing influence

By Tamar Morad

The landslide election of Doug Mitaro-tonda '02, M.Eng. '03, a doctoral student in economics, to Cornell's Board of Trustees in mid-March was a celebratory moment for graduate students here -- and a sign of the growing influence of graduate and professional students in Cornell life.

From left: Tim McConnochie, Ph.D. candidate in astronomy and space sciences and Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GPSA) secretary; Harley Etienne, Ph.D. candidate in city and regional planning and GPSA vice president; and Brian Holmes, Ph.D. candidate in theater arts and GPSA president. Martin Lang

For years, many such students have despaired that the two board seats allocated to students have traditionally been occupied by undergraduates. That's largely because undergrads outnumber graduate students by a 2:1 ratio (13,000 to 6,000) and have been more politically active. When the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GPSA), which represents graduate, law, business and veterinary students, filed a request last year to the Committee on Board Membership to allocate a spot specifically for graduate and professional students, they were turned down.

So they turned to plan B -- bolstering voter turnout. It worked: Graduate student votes tripled to 890. "Grad voter turnout was higher this year than in any year in recent history," said Tammy Bishop, assembly coordinator in the Office of the Assemblies, which runs the trustee election. Some 15 percent of graduate students voted compared with the usual 5 percent, and grad students cast a quarter of all votes.

Mitarotonda won on a broad platform that appealed to all students, undergrads included, which emphasized improving community safety and creating a "culture of debate" on campus. The new trustee attributes the high turnout to the GPSA leadership, who -- though prohibited from backing a certain candidate -- spent weeks leading up to the vote in a flurry of activity, urging grad students to vote.

The GPSA began an upward trajectory in 2002, after graduate students voted down the GPSA's attempted unionization by the Cornell Association of Student Workers/United Auto Workers. Gavin Hurley, a doctoral student in operations research who was GPSA president in 2003-04, helped institute optional student dental and vision plans and lobbied the university to establish a $100,000 grant to reimburse working couples for a portion of their children's day care expenses, after another GPSA initiative to create an affordable on-campus child care facility lagged.

This year, however, the GPSA has brought graduate and professional student concerns to the fore like never before. That's largely thanks to the organization's leadership trio of President Brian Holmes, a doctoral student in theater arts, and Vice President Harley Etienne and Secretary Tim McConnochie, doctoral students in city and regional planning, and astronomy and space science, respectively.

Hurley agrees. The leadership has involved an unprecedented number of faculty, staff and students in problem solving, and "has been raising the GPSA's profile very effectively," he said.

Since the trio's election last year, they have met with dozens of faculty and staff members to voice concerns -- rather than passing resolutions, a past practice that often put the administration on the defensive, explained Holmes. "There was a real need to fix the channels of communication between grad students and the administration," said Etienne, who also heads the GPSA's communication committee.

As a result, they have succeeded in achieving things big and small: from a new leave of absence for doctoral students who give birth or whose children are ill (in the past, students felt pressure to continue working so as not to lose funding), to baby-changing stations now being installed in the Big Red Barn and a grad student gala ball. They improved the processes of collecting ideas and advertising benefits to grad students; increased physical access to campus through improved paving and lighting; brokered a link with Weill Cornell Medical College students; and formed a graduate leadership network that connects leaders of student groups to discuss common issues.

"The GPSA's momentum has been building over the last decade" since its start in 1993, said Victoria Blodgett, director of graduate student life. She added that the trend has paralleled growing attention by the university to graduate students' needs, and that Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman met with the GPSA this year and has made graduate life a priority. "This leadership has benefited from the momentum But they've also been very effective at focusing priorities and giving it significant energy," Blodgett said.