This story has been updated to reflect the most recent reporting.
The GLocals ticket took all 12 positions of the 12 on the ballot in the Graduate Student Senate elections Tuesday for the 2017-2018 academic year.
The ticket focuses on a holistic view of graduate students and thinks they are not “empty vessels that are coming to be filled.” The GLocals candidates also want to look beyond what’s happening at Ohio University and see how GSS is affecting the bigger picture.
All but three races were unopposed with only the senator races for College of Arts and Sciences, College of Fine Arts and the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs contested.
Maria Modayil, a graduate student working toward a doctoral degree in the individual interdisciplinary program, will be the next GSS president. As a woman and an international student who grew up in Kuwait, Modayil is looking forward to next year.
“I’m excited for the opportunity,” Modayil said. “I’m looking forward to working with everyone and collaborating.”
The rest of the executive council will include Christopher Glick, a graduate student studying political science, as vice president for legislative affairs, and Alec Koondel, a graduate student studying sport administration, as vice president for finance. Becky Salami, a graduate student studying communication and development studies, will be the vice president for communication.
“I’m so excited to get to work,” Glick said. “We’re obviously ecstatic about the voter turnout we got and that we won our ticket down the board. We’re really looking forward to the incoming administration.”
More students voted in the GSS elections this year than in recent years with 232 votes. The voter turnout was the highest it has been since the 2014-2015 election when there were 235 votes.
“I’m very excited by the voter turnout,” Jivanto van Hemert, the GSS Board of Elections chair, said. “I think … it’s due in part to co-location with Student Senate, which typically generates a couple dozen more voters. I think that was a huge part in what drew folks out.”
All executive council members and many college senators served on GSS during the 2016-17 academic year and hope to use that to their advantage.
“I'm happy to see candidates at each executive position, as well as many of the college senator positions,” current GSS President Ian Armstrong said in an email. “GSS has struggled in the last few years with filling positions, and the increase in participation really is breathing life into the organization.”
