Recall due to mishandled money

by Buckner Creel

Daily Lobo guest columnist

I've stayed out of the GPSA's internal politics, but I would like to address some of the issues raised by and in response to the effort to recall GPSA President Joseph Garcia.

The recall is based upon the following reasons:

First, two years of representatives of GPSA students - the council - requested that our fees be increased to improve services to our community via the GPSA office. Those wishes have been disregarded by Garcia. The council requested hiring a staff member for the GPSA office to provide year-to-year stability and experience for such things as our grants, keeping our office open, maintaining our office and computer lab and arranging the committee chairs' and GPSA's efforts.

While past office employees have proven skilled, their primary roles as students have prohibited them from meeting the GPSA's needs as a staff employee might. At the September meeting, the council voted for the GPSA executive branch to hire a staff person on short order. Garcia responded the following week by hiring a personal friend as a student employee for the office. The council's vote at the October and November meetings for Garcia to begin the hiring process was rebuffed with unfulfilled promises and his view: "I disagree with council's decision." The same thing happened at the November meeting.

Second, Garcia has not addressed the council's concern that the entire GPSA office salaries and compensation funds have not been allocated or accounted for. If he's not spending as requested, how is he spending it? No one knows, though we've asked.

Third, one of the main ways GPSA meets graduate and

professional students' needs is through the grant processes, SRAC and ST. The untrained chairs chosen to run the grants this fall have not done their jobs promptly and effectively, in contrast to the previous six years. SRAC was three weeks late and bypassed checks and balances put into place to ensure fair comparisons of applicants. The ST chair has not been to a council meeting, and the process remains in limbo. Where is Garcia's oversight? Garcia has evaded answering these simple recall questions.

The proponents of the recall have been charged with resisting Garcia's anti-discrimination efforts on campus. It has been argued by some in council that being male and ethnically Caucasian inherently means you condone, if unconsciously, discrimination in our community. Essentially, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. While I'm astounded by the sweep of this statement, I'm not blind to the challenges facing minority individuals who wish to receive a graduate education, particularly at UNM. I'm also not blind to having been disenrolled three separate terms because my tuition waiver wasn't processed

in time.

These administrative problems are minor in comparison to those that have stopped many graduate students from obtaining their degrees. The 2006 Provost OGS Task Force - on which I sat - outlined steps by which these issues could be addressed. Some of these problems have been remedied but remain like graduate admissions, for example.

So, let's try to resolve the largest problems affecting all graduate students. I wholeheartedly support GPSA's efforts to address issues of diversity, among them retention of minority students. However, this effort has not been expanded to affect all graduate students. UNM does not track overall

graduate student retention in order to identify and address the prime challenges facing us. The fall 2006 Provost Graduation Task Force addresses undergraduate retention. No similar study exists for graduate students, let alone for minority graduate students. Why not? What are the other cross-campus, color-blind problems that affect a large number of us?

I'd like the University to make departments provide an effective orientation when we come into UNM. Mine was good, but many departments, especially smaller ones, don't have the resources to orient their students to what's required of them and advise them along the way. It would be nice to have GPSA push for training for professors in departments at UNM to know how to mentor my fellow students, so I don't have to watch my colleagues in other departments struggle to develop the skills they need, work endless hours, become disillusioned and bitter and leave UNM. Ditto for academic advisement, so we know what we have to do to get a degree. Ditto for: I chose to enroll at UNM in order to get an education, develop skills to be a professional in my field and, afterward, do something that satisfies my interests.

To a point, I can and should persevere and help myself. Beyond that, I hope GPSA would assist me with UNM problems while I'm at this University. I also hope that my colleagues in other departments should have the opportunities I've had.

To GPSA: Don't keep getting the council to agree on PR statements Danny Hernandez rushes off to newspapers at coffee break. Make change happen. Improve my degree and my life here

at UNM.

Buckner Creel is a graduate student and former GPSA president.