GPSA Council chair elections begin

Daily Lobo: Why did you decide to run for office?

Michael Verrilli: I’ve been involved with GPSA for the past three years now and have participated in many parts of the government. This felt like the most natural next step in serving the student body.

Kris Miranda: I’ve found that I like working with groups of strong personalities, who all have distinct interests and viewpoints and skills. Council combines both of those interests on a large scale.

DL: What qualifies you for the office and what makes you stand out from your opponent?

MV: Prior to entering UNM, I had years of experience as … a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor in the State of New Mexico … and much of my time was spent facilitating groups. I see this as very similar to leading the (GPSA) council. It is important that all voices are heard and incorporated into the conversation, as well as to ensure that no one voice dominates it. I know my background has prepared me to do this.

KM: As a project assistant I’ve provided direct support to every executive committee and I keep all the chairs on the same page. I have a high level of familiarity with a wide range of GPSA services and capabilities, and I’m used to juggling the needs of many parties. My involvement with GPSA has allowed me to have a hand in many student-serving initiatives and to build working relationships with many people who will still be around next year.

In that respect, I would have less transition work to do if I’m elected, and so I’d also be in a position to help make the incoming president’s transition a smooth one. If the transition at the top is smooth, then the transition for the average grad student who needs GPSA’s services will be smooth.

DL: What are your three major goals for next year?

MV: I would like to see shorter council meetings. I feel that particularly with the two new legislative committees that there is no reason that meetings should ever run more than three hours.

Robert’s Rules requires that discussion be cut off if it becomes redundant. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this enforced.  

Beyond this, I want to continue to fine tune the changes that have been implemented this year. The new constitution that was implemented this year was a major step forward for this organization, as it made for a much more concise governing document. It will continue to take time to understand it. As someone who was on the committee that wrote it, I feel that I am in a unique position to help with those changes.

My third goal is the most important. I would like to see all people represented in council. I have seen council grow considerably these past three years. While this has been excellent for the student voice, there is still room to grow further. I was told that approximately one percent of graduate students actively participate in GPSA. Even a growth of 0.5 percent could improve the effectiveness of the organization and graduate student voice on campus. Increasing student participation was a goal I set for the College of Education this year and one at which I was successful. I know I could do the same for the University’s GPSA.

KM: I want to build a team. I mean “team” in the sense of a whole greater than the sum of its parts, not because the parts bleed together but because the parts are so different and distinct to begin with. I want to cultivate many strong links within council, help them decide on some shared goals and then see what happens when they have the support and the space to do their thing.

I want to build bridges. As a project assistant I’ve learned that GPSA’s best work is done in tandem with other organizations, and I want to use my experience working on things like the SFRB and Women in the Academy (a conference of women in academics) to develop stronger ties between council and other campus groups.

I want to make council work more personal. Many representatives see each other just once a month to go over a big agenda that they might not have had much time or incentive to look over, and although the Legislative Steering Committee and the Finance Committee have done a lot to get more people involved in the details, that still leaves many folks who don’t necessarily feel a sense of ownership of what council does for students.

DL: What would you change about the way GPSA is run?

MV: I don’t know how much more I would change. I feel that there have been some truly significant changes in the way that the GPSA runs from last year to this. While most of these changes have been implemented smoothly, there is still room to improve. I would like to see the social opportunities grow and want to point to the work that Travis McIntyre and Grace Lerner did this past week as a wonderful example of this. I encourage all graduate students who have time to either attend any of this month’s happy hours or the April 14 volleyball game to do so.

KM: I would want next year’s president and council chair to have much more frequent and more mutually respectful communication than this year’s. I would want to make council members more comfortable with coming into the GPSA office and with providing services to students outside of a strictly legislative format. In terms of my goals of making council a stronger team and making council work more personal, I’m interested in establishing a few informal working groups with end-of-semester goals determined by council.

DL: GPSA Council Chair Megan O’Laughlin submitted a contract to pay her own tuition from GPSA funds before the council had approved funding for the measure, but the Legislative Steering Committee found no wrongdoing in the subsequent investigation. Do you believe she intentionally did something wrong, or was it a miscommunication?

MV: I feel that we created the Legislative Steering Committee to deal with issues precisely as this and trust that the conclusion they came to was the correct one.

KM: I’m skeptical that there was any intentional violation of GPSA laws. Frankly, this late in the year I’d just like to move past it. If people want to issue formally written opinions publicly or internally, fine, but anything more concrete is an inefficient use of council’s time and energy.