Column: GPSA candidate has eye on change

The economic crisis has struck UNM on several fronts. First, it will drive tuition increases by more than 5 percent for New Mexicans and around 10 percent for out-of-state students. This is only one more jump in the price of education for students; we have seen the cost of tuition rise at UNM since 2002. It will also prolong the end to the hiring freeze on campus, adding additional stress to the quality of education that students receive at UNM. Finally, it has driven hard lines between groups on campus, between faculty and the administration, graduates and undergraduates alike.

This is why student government cannot operate as usual. We need to take a page from the Obama campaign and learn how to organize for ourselves, for our University, and for our community. B. Lee Drake has been at the front of these efforts, helping to lead College Democrats to an unprecedented organizational level on campus. Both College Democrats and the Obama campaign managed a 12-hour-a-day, get-out-the-vote effort for weeks, leading a volunteer base of hundreds of students. This is precisely the kind of organizational muscle that we need in both GPSA and ASUNM.

Drake, in running for president of GPSA, is promoting three key ways to hone these organizational skills. First, he wants to create a joint policy council composed of leaders in both GPSA and ASUNM to coordinate on shared goals. This will give students more power in coordinating a response to the economic crisis. One of our chief weaknesses in the past has been working in two opposite directions.

Second, he wants to start an internship program through GPSA that will make student government more relevant. This will expand GPSA's ability to function and provide a unique new type of education at UNM. To begin with, this can open new ways for students to help UNM and the broader community by creating a strong incentive structure for service projects. Whether it is working up in Santa Fe to learn how the legislative process works or helping in homeless shelters and soup kitchens in Albuquerque, it will take the walls from classrooms and give students firsthand access to a full education. One of the most important opportunities is in Albuquerque, where students can make a huge difference in their education and in the lives of those living in poverty by focusing on literacy and math.

Third, Drake aims to streamline GPSA's Standing and Ad-Hoc committees by combining those that overlap in function. GPSA has 18 total committees, seven of which deal with finances and allocations. By combining these seven committees, there will be money left over to hire a part-time financial director for GPSA. This individual will have set office hours and be able to help advise grad students applying for the SRAC, GRD or other grants offered through GPSA. This same movement toward efficiency will create an online process for GPSA applications and also create a month-to-month deadline for SRAC/ST that will make it easier for grad students to apply when they need to.

There is a difference between GPSA as a group and GPSA as a movement. And for the coming year, we need the latter in facing the challenges at UNM. Drake is the best candidate to offer that change.

Joseph García is a Ph.D. student in Latin American Studies and former GPSA president.