The Graduate Student Council voted in favor of a decreased budget at its first monthly meeting of the semester Wednesday night. The Council also elected a new vice president of advocacy, chair of student life and chair of technology to its executive board.
The new budget will be $118,000 — $6,000 lower than GSC’s fall 2023 budget — due to a decrease in graduate school enrollment from 3,070 to 2,920 students, each of whom pay a $40 activity fee every semester, according to former GSC Treasurer Sofia Verba GS.
The most drastic change is the amount provided to students attending academic conferences, which will drop from a $20,000 allocation in fall 2023 to $4,664 in fall 2024. Verba stated that GSC might supplement this deficit with its savings, which total over $172,000 because of unspent money it accumulated in 2020-21 during the pandemic.
The council heard speeches from six candidates vying for spots on GSC’s executive board before electing Dominique Barnes GS as its next vice president of advocacy, Verba as chair of student life and Dominique Walker GS as chair of technology.
Barnes, who was previously GSC’s chair of nominations, ran unopposed and used her speech to discuss her commitment to working with graduate student clubs and ensuring students can access the campus resources they need.
Verba beat out two other candidates to be Chair of Student Life. Her platform highlighted how her past two years as GSC Treasurer and experience organizing GSC initiatives such as the food pantry have given her perspective on relevant student life issues.
In her speech, Walker said she hopes to bolster connections among graduate students and staff and use multimedia to share available resources with grads as the technology chair.
GSC will vote on a new treasurer at its October meeting.
Dean of the Graduate School Thomas Lewis ’90 addressed the Council. He mentioned that the Graduate School is working on the development of PhD360, a larger program that groups together various professional development opportunities to support doctoral and MFA students.
Grace Hu is a senior staff writer covering graduate student life. She is a sophomore from Massachusetts studying English and Neuroscience.
