Members of the Graduate Student Organization reviewed a resolution to amend its constitution and discussed its budget for the 2018-19 academic year at the first meeting of the fall semester on Wednesday night.

Nick Mason, GSO’s vice president of internal affairs, presented a resolution to amend pronouns used to refer to senators and members in the GSO constitution.

The motion was made by the executive board to eliminate all individual pronoun usage, including he or she. Mason said GSO and its constitution should be free of discrimination and remain inclusive to all members, regardless of their gender identity or preferred pronoun usage.

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Mason said the organization will vote on the motion at its next meeting on Oct. 3.

Jack Wilson, president of GSO, also discussed concerns about how names of graduate students appeared on Orange SUccess and MySlice. Wilson said students are concerned about how their legal names and preferred names both appear on the websites and may be publicly viewable.

This could be an issue for students whose preferred name is no longer or never was reflective of the gender they identify with, he added. He said he has not heard an update about getting this issue fixed.

Comptroller Joshua Fenton also reviewed the budget passed at GSO’s final meeting in spring 2018. This year’s finance committee has not yet been determined.

According to Fenton’s report, more than $173,000 was allocated to service providers such as Student Legal Services, Graduate School Programs and Graduate Career Services, who lobbied GSO for more funding in the spring semester.

The GSO budget, which includes operating expenses, executive board compensation and grant programs, dropped about $3,000 to roughly $154,000. The student organizations’ budget fell to $82,220, almost $4,000 less from last year.

GSO also held elections for the upcoming year for the following positions: financial secretary, recording secretary, five university senators and three at-large senators.

Several members expressed interest in how these elected members spoke about transparency between administration, faculty and students and the need to address problems related to students of color and mental health on campus.

Here’s who was elected to GSO Wednesday:

• Financial secretary: Yousr Dhaouadi, a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering
• Recording secretary: Taylor Sanders, a second-year graduate student in the higher education program
• University senators: Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, Sagnik Basumallik, Obi Afriyie, Jessica Posega and Daniel Kimmel
• At-large senators: Mirjavad Hashemi, Anthony Walker and Lori Pickering

Published on September 12, 2018 at 11:47 pm

Contact Micah: mjcastel@syr.edu