But after GPSF President Mikisha Brown enthusiastically proposed a relief effort, the room's silence was broken.
The meeting was the GPSF Senate's first of the year.
Brown, a second-year graduate student in the School of Public Health, and the rest of the executive board presented ideas to increase interaction among graduate students. Brown's main proposal, around which most of the meeting revolved, was the Helping Emergency Assistance Relief Together project.
In this proposed plan, GPSF would set up satellite locations around campus for graduate students to donate money to the relief effort in New York City.
Brown said the satellite locations could be set up in areas that graduate students frequent, such as the cafeteria near the medicine, business and law schools. She said the project also would address one of the main problems of graduate student life -- isolation.
"We, as graduate professionals, are just in our building and don't get to interact with other students," she said.
For the HEART project, GPSF would use rollover money from last year -- money allocated for projects but not used -- to match up to $5,000 of the contributions made by students.
Some senators at the meeting voiced concerns about the GPSF donating such a large sum of money.
These concerns were calmed by Treasurer James Alstrum-Acevedo, who said, "The rollover from last year was approximately $11,000, and GPSF has a security account as a cushion for a rainy day of about $13,000."
