After an energetic debate and some agitated deliberations, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) voted 8-5-1 against a new resolution that would make all graduate students eligible for the Caltrain GO Pass program, at their meeting last night.

The failed resolution proposed by the GSC members suggested that the Caltrain GO Pass program be available for all graduate students provided that all graduate students are charged a $106 annual fee for the value of their own pass.

The GO Pass for off-campus graduate students is a program that subsidizes train passes for unlimited use of Caltrain. At last week’s meeting, the GSC members unanimously rejected a proposal by Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ‘82, which suggested funding for the GO Pass program in 2008 by charging a mandatory annual $45 fee to both on-campus and off-campus graduate students. The funding model only benefited the latter.

Before a vote was taken, co-chair of the GSC George Bloom, a doctoral student in comparative literature, presented the reasons why there have been various limitations constraining the funding models of the GO Pass program for off-campus students.

The standard contract offered by Caltrain has a binding mandated minimum requirement, Bloom said. According to the contract, every eligible member of the graduate student body, whether the student lives off-campus or on-campus, is required to buy a GO Pass in order to benefit from the program. The Graduate Student Transportation Board estimated that the total cost of the GO Pass to the University last year was $350,000.

Additionally, Caltrain has a mandated maximum cost that prohibits companies from charging GO Pass beneficiaries more than the face value of the pass, which is $106 per student.

“This is why we cannot charge 1,000 students [who would agree] to buy the GO Pass even for a $400 dollar fee,” Bloom said. “There is no way around it.”

Bloom added that the proposal of a non-refundable charge on all graduate students equal to the full cost of the program is the first funding model he has supported.

“Although this is not the best funding model, it is the only feasible, inclusive and financially sustainable model,” he added. “This is equal opportunity and equal cost for everyone.”

After Bloom presented the proposal, co-chair of the GSC Kristina Keating read an email response from Etchemendy, which was addressed to the council and which stated the Provost’s stance on the issue.

“The University has invested and will continue to invest very large amounts of money in subsidized on-campus housing to make it possible for any student to live on campus who so chooses,” his email read. “I do not want the large number of students who do not want a GO Pass or who do not think it is worth $106 to think the charge was imposed by me or ‘the administration.’”

When the floor opened up for comments, arguments in support of the new GO Pass funding proposal were strongly debated. Some attendants at the meeting argued that the GO Pass offered a reasonable cost for a student commuter that was not offered otherwise.

Psychology graduate student Jessica Cameron, one of the three leaders of the GO Pass action committee, affirmed that the GO Pass not only benefits off-campus graduate students who choose to live in the city because of personal, family and professional reasons, but also graduate students who would like to go to San Francisco and other vicinities.

The majority of GSC members, however, did not support the resolution. While some GSC opponents of the resolution stated that the GO Pass was not a cost that their constituents were willing to incur, others agreed that the bus system offered a better service to the city and more convenient schedules.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t pay for GO Pass,” said fifth year doctoral student Maria Spletter, a member of the GSC who lives on campus. “It doesn’t take me where I want to go in San Francisco."