Word on the Street: How will you be voting in Friday's referendum?

Today, students will vote for the second time in 2016 on whether or not to separate the Graduate and Professional Student Federation from the undergraduate student government. To see where students stand on the issue this time around, staff writer Paige Nehls asked students: “How will you be voting in the referendum — 'Two for Two' or 'Better Together'?" Students will also have the choice to vote for "no," supporting neither option.

56 out of the 75 people polled were not aware of the referendum. Eleven supported "Two for Two," and one supported "Better Together."

Sophomore Tahjamare Warren, global studies 

Two for Two

“I was listening to a graduate student speak … and she was talking about how the needs are very different for graduate students versus undergraduate students, and about how a lot of the fees that they pay, for school fees, really benefit undergraduate students more and not really meet the needs of graduate students. So it just makes sense then if we’re going to have, like, two different age groups of people on the same campus that have completely separate needs the governing bodies really should be, need to be, different…” 

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Sophomore Kennedy Whiteside, global studies

Two for Two

"I think it’s kind of common sense just to separate them because we’re not dealing with the same issues. And the fact that it hasn’t been separated is kind of ridiculous to me.”

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Third-year Ph.D. candidate Alanna Gillis, sociology

Two for Two

“I think that since the majority of the students last year did vote for it to separate but because of, like, the technicality of it needing a higher voting percentage for it to be successful, like, it should have passed last year. So I’m voting for it because that’s what the majority of students wanted and I think that it can better represent graduate students who do have very different needs that are right now underrepresented by the current way that it is set up.” 

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First-year graduate student David Gill, romance studies

Two for Two

“I’m voting for 'Two for Two' just so that we have a grad student basis in student government decisions … specifically in terms of our funding because well we are paid a bit more I think than undergraduate students. I think it’s only fair that the student fees that we are paying go to programs that are managed by grad students instead of undergraduate students because we know our situation best.”

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Second-year Ph.D. candidate Chu-Wen Hsieh, anthropology

Two for Two

“We have different opinions and different views for the future between graduate students and undergraduate students … we can have our own money and undergraduate can have their own …” 

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Junior Mirella Quintana, economics

Two for Two

“I think that it should be (separated) because we are two different classes and we have different problems and different viewpoints … we are in different stages in our lives currently.”

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First-year Thomas Turner, undecided

Better Together

"Honestly I didn't know about this until yesterday so I'm kind of still not as informed as I should be. To my understanding it was something, if they got separated, then we wouldn't have a Board of Trustees, or something along those lines, and that funding would be decreased across the, um, for undergraduates, so we should vote against that."

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