In its penultimate meeting of the year last night, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) approved appointments by the Nominations Commission and discussed a possible joint-resolution with the ASSU Undergraduate Senate regarding diversity.

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GSC meeting (co-chair Paul Gurney to right) #gallery http://daily.stanford.org/image/full/6066
Alvin Chow

GSC meeting (co-chair Paul Gurney to right)

Early in the meeting, ASSU President Elizabeth Heng and Vice President Lauren Graham, both juniors, presented a bill to confirm the ASSU Executive Cabinet.

According to Heng, 38 students applied and interviewed for Cabinet positions and 10 were selected. These 10 students include six Cabinet members, as well as an ASSU historian, webmaster and two directors of marketing and outreach.

The Executive Cabinet will meet for one or two hours every week, and cabinet members will pursue their own projects and initiatives. The bill passed by consensus.

Cullen Buie, co-chair of the GSC Diversity Committee and a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, then proposed a Diversity Committee resolution to the Council. The resolution would be made jointly with the Undergraduate Senate.

Buie said he wanted the ASSU to take a more formal and opinionated stance and that ultimately, the organization would draft a document on which both the Undergraduate Senate and the GSC would agree.

Buie spoke about ideas the Senate proposed, including a University-wide five-year plan to increase diversity. Currently, no such plan exists.

In addition, the resolution would make diversity a big priority for the newly-created Vice Provost of Graduate Education, reaffirming the University’s interest in maintaining diversity in the student body as well as the faculty.

Buie also proposed a Faculty Senate committee on diversity.

“There is currently no report on graduate student diversity, so the Faculty Senate may never see this information,” he said. “We should look at it yearly.”

Tom Lee, a fourth-year doctoral student in electrical engineering and former GSC co-chair, suggested that the ASSU should decide what it will do to address diversity.

“It shows we’re actually willing to put some effort behind it,” he said.

Specifically, Lee said the ASSU should focus on programming and funding, calling them “the two big strings that we could pull.”

Such programming might include recruiting events and other events that would help retain minority and female graduate students, Lee said.

Rebecca Kaplan, a first-year student in the Graduate School of Business, suggested surveying current students for their thoughts on diversity.

Any proposed diversity resolution would not be drafted until next fall, however, because the Senate will not meet again this spring.

The GSC also approved the new student representatives on University committees. These students applied and interviewed for positions, before being selected by the ASSU Nominations Commission.