GPSF continues to seek separation from student government

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated the GPSF proposal to separate from student government. Student Congress is one branch of student government. The article has been updated to reflect this change. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes.

During the Graduate and Professional Student Federation meeting Tuesday, several bills were passed concerning amendments in the constitution. The main discussion was about the steps needed to separate the GPSF from student government.

Who spoke?

Dylan Russell, the president of GPSF, said some of his priorities are protecting graduate and professional student rights and increasing civic engagement.

He discussed the current issue of separating GPSF from Student Congress. Last year, it was not passed because the threshold, two-thirds of the student body, was not met.

“With 10 times as many graduate and professional students voting compared to any other election in the past and we had undergrads overwhelmingly vote for separation too,” Russell said.

Autumn McClellan, social chair for GSPF, said parts of the undergraduate experience are not on graduate students’ radars.

“The issues that come before Congress are overwhelmingly undergraduate issues,” she said.

Marie Eszenyi, the treasurer for GPSF, said the advocacy issues are different among undergraduates and graduate students.

“My job is to not only look at our finances, but to also make sure that we’re best representing graduate students’ interests in terms of how our student fees are allocated,” she said.

Why was this meeting important?

Members of GPSF expressed issues with the current structure of student government and explained reasons why separation would be beneficial.

“We’re a bigger part of the University, we’re contributing more and more dollars, and yet at the end of the day, the person who represents me is an undergraduate student,” McClellan said.

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