The UCLA Graduate Students Association is the voice of graduate students on campus. The association meets for forum every three weeks and takes positions on current issues affecting graduate students. Forum meetings are at 5:30 p.m. in the Ackerman Global Viewpoint Lounge.

Agenda

• GSA decided to send a letter to University of California President Napolitano demanding more support for graduate students in UC schools with a 13-0-2 vote.
• GSA approved its yearly budget with a vote of 15-0-0.

Officer Reports

• GSA President Nicole Robinson said some GSA committees are still looking to hire representatives. She also said GSA is planning to lobby on behalf of graduate students on issues such as student debt, tax reform and immigration at the upcoming Student Advocates for Graduate Education Coalition conference in Washington, D.C.
• Cody Trojan, vice president of academic affairs, said all GSA councils need to designate representatives to attend the Graduate Writing Center Oversight Committee if they haven’t done so already. He also said the GSA plans to continue challenging changes to UCLA’s leave of absence and in absentia policies during future meetings.
• Nina Drucker, vice president of internal affairs, said she did not have any announcements to make.
• Hope McCoy, vice president of external affairs, could not attend the meeting.

Special Presentations

• Trojan presented to the forum about the Report of the Taskforce on Competitiveness in Academic Graduate Student Support and about the proposed letter to Napolitano.
• Robinson presented to the forum about the revised 2013-2014 GSA budget. She said the GSA needs to consider relocating the GSA website to the UCLA server for safety reasons and will be spending $8,500 in special projects for a website upgrade. She also said the GSA may need to pull money from scholarships to fund the development of websites if they don’t have enough surplus money available throughout the year. Robinson added that funding for programming will be revised throughout the year.

Compiled by Hee Jae Choi, Bruin contributor.