Editor,
My name is Danny Hernandez. I am a Community and Regional Planning and Public Administration combined master's degree student, and I am running for the position of Graduate and Professional Student Association president.
My qualifications are my professional experience, my long record of making positive changes and my distinct vision for GPSA.
As chairman of the regional bicycle advisory committee in the late '80s and early '90s, I put bike racks on Albuquerque city buses and planned for trails that are just now being built.
As a member of the Middle Rio Grande Water Assembly, I organized public meetings and helped write the regional water management plan. As University Heights Association president, I got dozens of trees planted, helped direct local development and organized voter-registration drives.
As the GPSA SRAC chairman, I brought in volunteers from various departments on both sides of Lomas Boulevard to help applicants and to process and evaluate grant proposals on a timely basis.
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I then successfully lobbied for more funding when the SRAC allocation couldn't satisfy the unusually high demand.
As a duly elected governmental official on the flood control authority and a former business owner, I bring to the office years of experience running a governmental agency, a business and an office with paid and volunteer staff.
I have always felt my role in life is to help people and to work for the betterment of my community. Since I became aware of GPSA, first as a reporter for KUNM and later as a graduate student working at the front desk, I have come to see that GPSA needs to become a full-fledged advocacy group for all UNM graduate students, regardless of color, gender or on which side of Lomas you study.
I strongly believe every graduate student who walks through the door of the GPSA office should be helped with every graduate student-related issue she or he is concerned about.
That concern could be as simple as how and where to get grants, and as complicated as how to deal with a problem with an adviser, boss or professor.
If that solution doesn't exist, it is the responsibility of GPSA to create a solution, find funding and change the rules so there is a solution for the next person who comes through that door with the same problem.
Graduate students have an immense capacity to research and solve problems. If GPSA were to bring in a diverse group of graduate students from wide-ranging disciplines together, we can address a wide array of issues.
Among the issues I would tackle are better benefits for all graduate student employees, recognition that older students and students with families deserve respect and understanding, and training and workshops for all graduate students.
In addition, I would bring to the office multi-dimensional diversity to the organization.
For more information, go to dannyhernandez.org
Danny Hernandez
UNM student
