Updated: Aug, 28 at 2:36 a.m.

What is the Graduate Student Organization?

The Graduate Student Organization is Syracuse University’s graduate student government body. GSO’s elected representatives advocate for graduate students’ concerns across campus on topics such as international student housing, graduate employment and off-campus safety.

Casey Darnell | Asst. News Editor

Who is in GSO?

All graduate students are members of GSO, and each academic program may elect a GSO senator. GSO is split into two parts: executive board and Senate.

Jack Wilson, a doctoral candidate in the College of Arts and Science’s psychology department, was re-elected GSO president in April. As president, he oversees the body’s budget and operations and represents graduate students to SU’s Board of Trustees, university administrators and the graduate school. He also serves as head of GSO’s executive board.

Nicholas Mason, the sole newcomer to the executive board, is the vice president of internal affairs. Mason, a graduate student in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, previously served on GSO’s finance committee. As vice president of internal affairs, Mason will run Senate meetings, keep track of registered student organizations and ensure the organization’s committees are working properly.

Sweta Roy, a doctoral student in SU’s bioengineering program, is vice president of external affairs. Roy organizes GSO events, informs graduate students about the GSO and recruits senators from academic plans lacking representation. There are currently 128 academic programs without senators. 

Joshua Fenton, a doctoral student in SU’s mathematics department, is GSO’s comptroller. Fenton maintains the organization’s financial records and prepares the body’s annual budget.

Senate

The GSO Senate is comprised of three categories of voting members: academic plan senators, university senators and at-large senators.

Academic plan senators are elected by students in their academic plan, or program. Each program can elect one APS.

University senators, elected by the entire GSO Senate, represent graduate students in SU’s University Senate, which is the faculty governing body. University senators can voice graduate students’ concerns on university-wide issues. Both Wilson and Fenton also serve as university senators.

At-large senators are also elected by the GSO Senate but represent all graduate students, as opposed to academic plan senators who only represent students in their program.

All academic plan senators and at-large senators must serve on a committee. Graduate students from SUNY-ESF can elect a maximum of three senators, though SUNY-ESF has its own Graduate Student Association.  

These are the nine committees in GSO:

• Academic Resources and Affairs
• Child Care Task Force
• Diversity
• Finance
• Graduate Employment Issues
• Grant
• NAGPS (National Association of Graduate-Professional Students)
• Outreach
• Student Life

Has the GSO unionized?

In April, graduate students protested SU’s decision to move all graduate employees to the student healthcare plan.
Hieu Nguyen | Asst. Photo Editor

About 1,200 graduate students work as graduate assistants, research assistants and teaching assistants at SU. The National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate student researchers and teaching assistants would be able to unionize to protect their interests like any other employee, something that GSO explored on and off for years.

Syracuse Graduate Employees United announced its union drive in November 2017. Members of the group want to be recognized by the university as a union. However, many graduate student union drives have gotten held up in the NLRB, with universities using their legal teams to stall and appeal decisions.

SGEU has decided that going through the labor board isn’t the right move. Instead, its members hope SU will voluntarily recognize the union, without intervention from the government.

A union would have the power to make contracts and engage in collective bargaining with the university. SU does not have a legal responsibility to bargain with individual graduate employees or the GSO. Members of SGEU have pointed to schools like New York University and the University of Connecticut as examples of universities where successful unionization has led to greater stipends or better health insurance benefits.

Colleges almost universally oppose unionization, claiming that graduate employees are primarily students rather than employees, who would have a federally-supported right to create a union.

SU and GSO haven’t announced their positions on the union drive. Chancellor Kent Syverud said in an interview in December 2017 that the university is limited in its ability to comment on the union drive but would be working on its position over the next few months. No public decision has been made.

While GSO’s Employment Issues Committee has endorsed the union drive, the GSO body as a whole hasn’t made a decision.

The university and GSO have held positions on graduate employee unionization in the past. In 2002, when graduate and teaching assistants on campus started working to form a union called United Graduate Employees, then-Chancellor Kenneth Shaw warned against it. Shaw called graduate employee unionization a “negative intrusion into the basic structure of graduate education.”

The issues that sparked unionization efforts then — stipends, healthcare and working conditions — are the same issues members of SGEU now cite in their union drive. Less than two weeks after Shaw’s warning, GSO voted to support unionization but nothing came of it.

What stance do they take on graduate student healthcare?

In April, GSO members voted to switch to a less expensive health insurance plan.
Hieu Nguyen | Asst. Photo Editor

In April, the Senate voted to switch all graduate student employees from the employee health insurance plan to the student health insurance plan. Graduate student employees previously had a choice between the two.

University administrators said the new plan would offer graduate employees cheaper insurance with more benefits. But many students, including those in SGEU and even some GSO senators, expressed concerns about the details of the plan, the way it was chosen and its approval.

When SU announced in 2015 that it was requiring graduate employees to switch to the more expensive student plan, graduate students protested on campus and GSO censured the university administration. SU went back on its decision and agreed to change the insurance plan if the GSO approved it.

The Graduate Assistant Health Insurance Committee, comprised of administrators, faculty and a few members of the GSO Executive Board, was formed the next year to explore better options for graduate employees’ insurance plans.

When the university announced in February that it was again considering switching plans, many graduate students were reminded of the 2015 scare, which had prompted the GSO to initially consider unionization. Limited information was provided about the 2018 plan, and many students expressed concerns about whether recurring or expensive treatments, such as for chronic illness or surgery, would be sufficiently covered.

University administrators held listening sessions and office hours to gauge student input, but few students attended the sessions.

SGEU was vocal in its opposition to the plan, criticizing the university administration for what it considered “closed-door changes” to graduates employees’ healthcare. The GSO Executive Board stood by the plan. Wilson said in an interview at the time that, despite concerns, graduate students with disabilities or chronic illnesses would receive more coverage under the new plan, not less.

Many graduate students, including some GSO senators, also took issue with the way GSO approved the plan. GSO’s Resolution 16.05, passed in 2015-16 academic year, states that the executive board should conduct a referendum among the graduate student body regarding any changes to health insurance benefits. But the executive board and Senate nullified that resolution as part of the vote to switch plans.

Wilson and Rikki Sargent, vice president of internal affairs for the 2017-18 academic year, said there wouldn’t be enough time to make a decision on the health care resolution if a referendum was held. The resolution passed with 24 votes in favor, 9 against and one in abstention.

The next day, about 50 graduate students, including SGEU members, held a rally outside Hendricks Chapel to protest the healthcare switch, which takes effect in the 2018-19 academic year.

What kind of progress has the GSO made with improving career services?

GSO has lobbied SU to improve graduate career services for years.

In March, SU announced that it was creating a new career services office for graduate students, called the Office of Graduate Professional and Career Development. The new office will target distinct disciplines and industries via a curriculum-based approach, offering hands-on help and panels for more specific assistance.

In a campus-wide email sent in May, Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele Wheatly said the university will hire two new staff members this summer to support graduate professional and career development.  

How is the GSO funded?

GSO senators approved a budget of about $409,000 for the 2018-19 academic year during its last meeting of the spring 2018 semester.

Student fees from the graduate student body fund the GSO’s budget, which covers service providers, operating expenses and student organizations. About $163,000 of the budget also goes toward service provides like Graduate Career Services, Student Legal Services and the Slutzer Center for International Services.

Registered student organizations fall into two categories: departmental RSOs, like the Engineering and Computer Science Graduate Student Organization and the Whitman Graduate Student Organization, and non-departmental RSOs, such as the Black Graduate Student Association.

Andy Mendes| Digital Editor

Published on January 2, 2017 at 1:22 pm

Contact Casey: casey@dailyorange.com | @caseydarnell_