Christina Muehlberger is looking back at her year as president of the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) with feelings of accomplishment and hope.
“As a team, the GSA exec and staff this year have really strengthened the means of the graduate community,” Muehlberger said. “We’ve put on a lot of events this year that were political but we also did a lot of social events.”
Muehlberger said the new health and dental plan for graduate students implemented this year was a success.
“It’s been great,” she said. “We have not gotten any negative feedback really. People are really excited about the expanded coverage and our relationship with Green Shield has been really great.”
Muehlberger mentioned the new GSA website as another success as it aimed to get graduate students more involved in the community.
“It’s really become a mobilizing tool where we can use it for our campaigns and different actions we’re doing,” she said “It’s much more interactive and also it just seems like a hub where people go to get a lot of information on what grad students are doing.”
Almost a year ago, Muehlberger told the Charlatan the GSA and the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) didn’t always meet eye-to-eye but could still work together.
Looking back on that statement now, she said she still feels confident is saying the GSA did the best they could.
“There have been opportunities throughout the year where we have been able to partner with CUSA service centres and clubs and societies,” Muehlberger said. “We’ve partnered with the Womyn’s Centre, Aboriginal Student Service Centre, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Centre (GSRC).”
The GSA has been in a legal battle with CUSA for the past three years. In October 2012, the association filed a lawsuit against CUSA after the undergraduate student union withdrew from their joint health plan with the GSA.
In January 2013, CUSA sued the GSA over three years of unpaid student service centre fees, also known as the Unicentre fee.
Muehlberger added the GSA’s relationship with Carleton’s administration has seen some challenges over the past few months.
“We’ve been given very clear mandate on a lot of key issues like tuition fees and the university centre fees, and when the administration is actively working against those interests, there’s going to be moments when we butt heads,” she said.
Muehlberger pointed to the anti-tuition rally the GSA organized, which shut down a Board of Governors meeting in March.
“That was in direct response to the task force report that does recommend a tuition fee increase increase again by the legal maximum amount,” she said. “It also complete ignored what it’s like to live with debt and pay the excessively high cost of tuition fees in Ontario and across this country.”
Looking back on what she wishes she had accomplished, Muehlberger mentioned an online blog for the GSA and a greater influence on the tuition fees vote set to happen later this month.
Muehlberger said the implementation of a student-supervisor advocacy service to train graduate students on how to solve conflicts with research supervisors was on her to-do list as well.
“We’ve done a lot of research leading up to doing that but it’s going to be a big change,” she said. “It’s not something we can do in a year, but we’ve definitely started the initial steps and we’ve talked to the incoming executive.”
Muehlberger said her experience with the GSA was beneficial to her growth as a leader, an organizer, and an activist.
“I’m actually really sad about leaving,” she said. “They’re going to have to pull me away from my desk. I loved this job, I loved the people I got to work with, and I loved our members.”
