GPSA is working to make University a better place

Editor,

One thing I have learned from my experience of community organizing and campus activism is that one person does not make an organization. GPSA is not about one student or leader, Joseph Garcia or any council representative or other leader.

We tend to operate with the myth that people act alone - that Rosa Parks wasn't a trained NAACP organizer working with many other activists, or César Chávez didn't have the help of thousands of organizers working with him in the United Farm Workers. It's not about "one of us," but "all of us."

It seems some people believe GPSA has only been dealing with the recall of the president and other politics. I would also like to challenge any notion that the GPSA council has been crippled by the recall or recent resignations.

Since December, the GPSA council has passed resolutions to support the Staff Council's efforts to align the UNM academic breaks with APS, encouraged better access for child care, adopted Internet etiquette for the GPSA listserv, funded graduate assistant positions, encouraged the Office of Graduate Studies to adopt an application waiver policy and funded projects of graduate students of color organizations, students of Latin American Studies as well as an upcoming event for the Women's Resource Center's Single Mother's Scholarship Fund.

In addition, work continues this week with a special session to address issues dealing with the upcoming contract for a new campus food vendor contract.

Also, since December, GPSA committee chairs and office staff have awarded funding for the GRD, SRAC and ST. The GPSA computer pod has also remained accessible for students to print and use the workstations.

GPSA is moving forward to make the UNM campus a better place for all graduate and professional students. I appreciate and respect the work the GPSA Council

representatives, president, office staff and committee chairs have done and are doing at the GPSA and department levels to make our campus more accessible and democratic for current and future UNM graduate and professional students.

I thank all graduate and professional students who are helping to move forward and realize GPSA is about all of us.

Christopher Ramírez

GPSA council chairman