GPSA candidates differ in approaches

GPSA elections are coming up, and Danny Hernandez has a challenger for the council chair seat.
Community and Regional Planning student Megan McRobert is also running for the council chair seat. The elections will be held from April 19-22.
McRobert said she will bring the experience she gained as a volunteer with GPSA to the council chair position if she wins.

“I got a different perspective because of my work as a volunteer with GPSA,” she said. “I’d like to bring my experience and abilities to this organization.”
Current Council Chair Hernandez, who is running for re-election, said he also has valuable
experience to bring to the organization.

“I’ve chaired lots of organizations over the years, so I have a lot of experience running a meeting, which means letting everyone have their say,” he said.
Hernandez said the council chair is not a position with an agenda, but instead relies on the chair’s skills at running a meeting.

“It’s a little different than being president, because the main reason to elect a council chair is because he can run the meetings the best,” Hernandez said. “My agenda is what the council says it is. I think this year we got that dialogue down really well.”

McRobert said that as council chair she would work to incorporate diverse groups into the GPSA Council.
“I think that the Graduate and Professional students are an incredibly diverse group of people,” she said. “We’ve got new people coming in not every year, but every semester. I think GPSA needs to be open to new ideas and perspectives.”

She said, if she wins, she will work to make it easier for graduate and professional students to navigate UNM’s bureaucracy.
“This is a really complex university. We have a very large bureaucracy. It can be an absolute maze — a labyrinth,” she said. “One of my goals is to increase transparency and also communication.”

Hernandez said he will work closely with the new Student Bar Association if its secession from GPSA is successful.
“I would like to push for giving the SBA two ex-official seats at the table, meaning they can attend and speak, but they cannot vote. I’m under the assumption their secession’s going to go through,” he said.

Hernandez offered another reason he will make a good council chair in his second term: his political connections.
“There’s something else I bring to GPSA. Until I got involved no (elected state officials) came to GPSA, and as soon as I got involved, I brought friends that are state representatives (and) state councilors,” he said. “I feel that’s important because UNM issues aren’t just UNM issues. They’re statewide issues. A lot of decisions made outside UNM affect UNM.”

Hernandez said he would work to include more departments in GPSA decisions.
“Now that I’ve learned the ropes, I’m going to spend more time outreaching to get more graduate student associations involved,” he said. “I feel confident we have reasonable representation. It’s just that every department isn’t represented.”

McRobert said she’s worked with various nonprofit groups in Albuquerque, such as Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico and Healthcare for the Homeless, and that experience will be valuable if she is elected GPSA council chair.

“I’m trained and skilled in crisis resolution,” she said. “There’s been a lot going on in GPSA last semester, so I think my skills as being a level-headed and neutral mediator will be valuable.”