Not so long ago, we had a discussion of the movement towards a ‘Graduate Student Senate.’
Graduate students have been endeavoring to part ways with Student Government and form their own representative body. I support this move (for reasons mentioned on the earlier post), and I have just discovered that graduate students now have a petition to help them on their way to full autonomy:
“Recognize the EMU Graduate Student Senate”
I paste the wording of the petition below, tho you should visit the site yourself and see what it is all about.
” We, the undersigned graduate students of Eastern Michigan University, petition the Board of Regents to recognize the Gradate Student Senate as the sovereign student government of the Graduate Student Body of Eastern Michigan University.
We, the undersigned graduate students of Eastern Michigan University, support a democratic, efficient, and responsible Graduate Student Senate to represent, lead, and unify the graduate student body, while promoting a common understanding between graduate students, undergraduate students, faculty, and the administration, as well as protecting the individual rights and needs of graduate students.
We, the undersigned graduate students, envision that the Graduate Student Senate will improve the quality of the graduate experience at Eastern Michigan University.
We, the undersigned graduate students, charge the Graduate Student Senate to serve the Graduate Students of Eastern Michigan University by acting as the liaison between the general graduate student body and the university administration to help ensure all the voices of the graduate students are heard and taken into consideration by the university administration.
We, the undersigned graduate students of Eastern Michigan University, understand by signing this petition we support the Graduate Student Senate in obtaining the approval of the Board of Regents to recognize the Graduate Student Senate as the sovereign student government of the Graduate Student Body of Eastern Michigan University. We also agree that the Graduate Student Senate is the Student Government Body for the Graduate Student Body of Eastern Michigan University.”
As much as I love the idea of having graduate students form their own body of representation, this “power” split is exactly why the student government (undergrad) at UM-AA has much less shared governance and student solidarity in the daily workings of the university than EMU’s student government does here.
Essentially there is the potential for us all to lose what little legitimate power and voice the current student government has built up over so many years. However on the other hand, the two groups working together could strengthen the voice of the students, but it is a scary risk to go back decades in student shared governance with fights over who has the share of representative power.