Graduate Student Senate held its final meeting Monday night, passing multiple resolutions and swearing in the new executive board.
GSS passed a resolution that allowed Ohio University departments to elect their own representatives to GSS, rather than department representatives being appointed by the senate itself.
“Departments want to start sending representatives that they elect to us, which is awesome,” said Ed Gaither, outgoing GSS Vice President for Finance.
GSS also passed a resolution that changed the body’s election procedures.
“We brushed up our rules and procedures pretty much everywhere else,” Gaither said. “So we figured we would professionalize how our election runs as well.”
The resolution clearly lays out the specifics of GSS elections, including: election dates, candidate requirements, Board of Elections responsibilities, campaigning rules and how to appeal a result. Gaither said that these revised rules formalize practices that were already being followed.
The executive board stressed how important it is to have guidelines for the board of elections chairperson to follow. GSS President Joel Newby said that Adam Phillips, this year’s BOE chairperson, worked very hard, although some past people who held this position did not.
“I will say that this year’s election chair put in a good amount of time,” Newby said.
Following the passing of resolutions, the outgoing executive board gave their final statements before relinquishing their positions to the new executives, elected last week.
Andrea Harless, the body’s vice president of Communications, said that the job was much harder than she expected, especially considering that the executive board members came from different campaign tickets.
“I think we made a good foundation and we hope you will build off of it,” Harless said. “Joel (Newby) did a good job of following through on what he said he would do. I am proud to be in GSS and I don’t know if people would have always been able to say that.”
Newby said that he was glad he ran for the position of GSS President.
“If you thought it looked like I was stressed out and tired and agonizing over things, you were probably right,” Newby said. “If it looked like I was having the time of my life, that’s an understatement.”
Then, the executive board for the 2014-2015 year was sworn in, with Carl Smith taking the position of president, M. Hashim Pashtun taking the position of vice president for Finance, and Kazi Silmi taking the position of vice president for Communications.
Newby said that he has high hopes and expectations for next year.
“Now we’re serious about GSS. It’s not just ‘that other senate’,” he said. “It’s a serious institution with serious people and our members are going to do serious things.”
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