GSO leaders want more representation across academic programs

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With the fall 2021 semester coming to an end, leaders from Syracuse University’s Graduate Student Organization Senate want to bring more representation across academic programs next spring.

This semester, the GSO Senate has filled all 10 university senate seats and all six at-large seats, said Daniel Kimmel, GSO’s vice president for internal affairs.

The senate also filled 16 academic program senator seats that were not filled last year, with three more expected to be filled in the spring, Kimmel said. The GSO Senate filled the seats for certain academic programs that haven’t seen a representative in the previous two years, such as civil engineering, computer science and computer engineering, according to the organization’s member lists from the past three years.

The senate currently has 56 voting members in the GSO Senate, according to its member list. The senate had 67 voting members in 2020-21 and 60 in 2019-20.

This year, only 23% of the 159 graduate academic programs at SU were represented by a senator. In 2020-21, 32% of programs were represented and 26% were represented in 2019-20.

To Kimmel, communication is one of the factors that prevented the GSO Senate from improving its representation among academic programs. When GSO reached out to some of the programs, the programs either didn’t know they had a seat in the GSO Senate or they didn’t know how to get selected for it, Kimmel said.

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Certain academic programs’ prior representation has affected their continued representation in the GSO Senate, Kimmel said. They added that, in general, there is a high turnover of senate members as many of them graduate and leave SU.

Yousr Dhaouadi, the president of GSO, said doctoral students usually stay in the GSO Senate longer than master’s students because the former come to SU for a longer period of time.

Dhaouadi said the number of students in an academic program alone doesn’t necessarily determine its representation within the GSO Senate. Academic programs that historically worked closely with the GSO Senate are likely to continue participating, she said.

“​​We definitely have to have that good relationship with departments to help us either expand representation or figure out a way to improve what we’re currently doing,” Dhaouadi said.

Dhaouadi said she plans to enhance participation by creating clearer communication to different academic programs by changing how and when GSO sends out advertisements that seats are available. She also wants to give students who intend to run for a seat enough time to consider the positions they are interested in.

Kimmel has been working with the GSO’s outreach committee to examine over 1oo academic programs that don’t yet have a senator. Many of the currently unfilled seats have historically been unfilled, they said.

“Graduate students of SU are all members of the Graduate Student Organization by virtue of being an active graduate student here,” Kimmel said. “I want students to know that they have a body of people to go to that can help them do the things that they feel need done.”