UNM graduate student Sarah Coffey said she’s always had a knack for winning arguments.
“I’ve always been annoyingly argumentative,” Coffey said. “When I run into friends from high school from the past and they ask me what I’m doing, when I say ‘law school’ they say ‘go figure.’”
Coffey is the executive finance committee chair of UNM’s Graduate and Professional Students Association (GPSA) and is currently focused on passing the bylaws for the Graduate Scholarship Fund, the organization’s proposed student graduate scholarship, through GPSA.
GPSA began fundraising for the proposed scholarship last spring and raised $49,000 for the fund. The scholarship was created after Congress cut subsidized loans for graduate students across the country. Having paid for most of her college career through student loans, Coffey said the scholarship is financial relief that graduate students desperately need.
“This scholarship was kind of an olive branch to students, saying ‘We know you’re hurting,’” she said. “It’s a way to try to help those in need because those subsidized loans are no longer available.”
Coffey is currently co-editing the scholarship’s bylaws and qualifications with GPSA President Marisa Silva. In order to qualify for the scholarship, a graduate student must be a member of GPSA, within three semesters of graduating and provide a 500-word proposal. Coffey said a GPA requirement is still pending.
If enacted, students receiving the scholarship will be awarded $1,000. Coffey said she hopes to get the scholarship’s bylaws passed by the end of September.
“My fingers are crossed that it will get done in September. I think it will,” she said. “Everyone knows people need the extra assistance, especially with the economy in a downturn.”
Coffey’s interest in law began when she was an undergraduate student at UNM. Coffey said she was pursuing a major in sociology during her junior year when she realized she could make an impact on the community by studying law.
“I was like, yeah, I want to go into that because that’s just a way that I can make decisive change and that’s what I want to do. I want to affect the community in a positive way,” she said.
Her involvement with GPSA began in 2010, after working with the New Mexico Public Interest Research Group (NMPIRG) while she was an undergraduate student. Coffey said she wanted to join GPSA after receiving general help from the organization.
“This organization and the students that have been a part of it have always been helpful in my life and the students around me’s lives, and I just wanted to be a part of that,” she said.
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Coffey has moved her way up since joining the graduate organization. As tuition and fees chair in 2011, she fought to keep tuition down by raising awareness about a proposed recreation center that would have raised student fees. As a result, Coffey was able to pass a resolution in GPSA council stating that students can’t afford the increase.
“I think that it’s a really great thing, that if I can be a part of that, then I’m incredibly lucky,” she said.
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