GPSA to hold vote on Krebs question

Graduate students will have a chance to voice their opinions about UNM athletics and two University administrators in a GPSA vote.

After two hours of deliberation during its meeting on Monday, the Graduate and Professional Students Association decided to hold an online election to give graduate students a chance to vote no-confidence in Athletics Director Paul Krebs and Vice President of Human Resources Helen Gonzales. Students can also voice their opinion about the amount of student fees allocated to the Athletics Department.

More than 30 graduate and professional students attended the GPSA meeting in the SUB to discuss holding such an election.

The resolution passed with 15 council members in favor, five opposed and three abstentions.

GPSA Council Chair Danny Hernandez said several members of GPSA deliberately stalled proceedings. As a result, Hernandez said important details of the meeting didn’t get worked out. When and how the election will be held still has to be decided.

“The people who don’t want the GPSA members to vote on this election were able to stall the meeting,” he said. “By the end of it, all we were able to vote for was whether or not we could have a special election.”

Hernandez said GPSA will have to wait until the next GPSA meeting on Dec. 5 to work out the details of the election.

Hernandez said he and GPSA President Lissa Knudsen consulted many graduate and professional students about having an election regarding Krebs, Gonzales and athletics.

“The resolutions that were on the agenda were influenced by many graduate students, calling and e-mailing Lissa and I,” he said. “These items were consistently brought up.”

Sid Solano, elections chairman of GPSA, said he didn’t have enough time to talk to other graduate students to decide if they wanted to participate in a special election. He said GPSA members were trying to rush the issue and didn’t give graduate or professional students enough time to think about it.

“Anyone who has been through a few of our council meetings know that that’s usually how we proceed,” he said. “It takes us a long time to debate the issues and that’s kind of the whole reason I wanted us to have a four-hour council session to discuss the issues. That way we could do it completely and thoroughly instead of in a rushed manner.”