Carleton’s Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) amended its constitution, filled elections board positions and reported financial aid had been distributed at a virtual meeting on Feb. 21.
Council voted to reword section 5.1.6.1 of the GSA constitution, redefining who could run to be an executive. Now, executive candidates must be members of GSA or show proof they will be enrolled in a part-time or full-time graduate program at Carleton University for at least two of their three semesters for the upcoming year.
Article 3.0 of the GSA constitution defines members as “all master’s, doctoral, qualifying year, graduate certificate and diploma and all other students registered as full-time or part-time students within the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs (FGPA).”
The change would prevent misunderstandings about who is eligible to run as a GSA executive, according to Vice President (Operations) Rae Landriau. Kimberley Keller, former vice president (operations) agreed.
“This was designed to fill a gap that we ran into last year,” Keller said. “We don’t need more gray areas.”
The constitution’s wording created confusion about who is eligible to run for GSA office last September. Hesam Farahani, who defended his master’s thesis in January of 2021 and was no longer registered with the FGPA last fall, resigned from his position as vice president (external) just hours before a meeting with his eligibility on the agenda.
Previously, executive members were considered members of the association if they were registered for at least two semesters during their term in office. However, section 5.1.6.1 constitution did not specify that executives had to be members of GSA.
Council also appointed Keller and master’s political science student Mason Rodney to serve on the GSA electoral board, which will hire an elections’ chief electoral officer (CEO).
President Chi-Chi Ayagolu and vice president (finance) Hemant Gupta were missing from the meeting. However, Landriau presented Gupta’s executive report that GSA had administered $7,000 in emergency grants to graduate students since GSA’s last meeting.
Fourteen of GSA’s 20 emergency support grants worth $500 each have been granted to graduate students at Carleton. Landriau said these grants were administered due to distress caused by protests in the downtown core.
GSA has not yet scheduled its next meeting.
Featured image from Screengrab.
