Syracuse University’s Graduate Student Organization elected a new president and approved changes to next year’s budget Wednesday at its final meeting of the spring semester.

Mirjavad Hashemi, a third-year doctoral student in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, was elected GSO president for the 2019-20 academic year with 25 of 31 votes. Hashemi is currently an at-large senator and ran unopposed for president.

Current GSO president Jack Wilson has reached the two-term limit set by the organization’s constitution. Wilson said he expects to graduate in June.

When addressing the Senate, Hashemi said he wants to improve graduate student employment and improve student-adviser relationships. Minutes later, Wilson proposed a motion to suspend the release of voting tallies in the meeting’s minutes that would be published on the GSO website. Senators rejected the motion.

Nick Mason was re-elected internal vice president, receiving 31 of 32 votes. He said GSO needs to be more transparent. Mason added that he wants to improve time-efficiency in his second year as internal vice president, respecting the time of the senators while still encouraging debate.

“I’m very critical of structures of power whose voices am I privileging versus whose time am I respecting,” Mason said.

Senators passed an amendment to the budget that increases the GSO president’s salary to $21,000 to keep with teaching assistant and instructional assistant salaries at SU. Wilson and Comptroller Joshua Fenton both said the increased salary is intended to make the position more attractive and compensate for the commitment that GSO president requires. The GSO president is not able to be employed by SU during their tenure.

Also added to the budget was a $1,500 service payment to SU’s Orange After Dark program that guarantees 25 tickets for one fall and one spring event for graduate students. OAD asked for $3,000, but Fenton said that wasn’t a good plan because the OAD payment is new to the budget. In the future, that number could increase, he said.

Graduate students were previously allowed to attend OAD events, but only after undergraduate students had an opportunity to purchase tickets. A motion to extend the number of tickets from 25 to 50 was rejected.

Other business

• Rui Gomes was elected external vice president. He said he plans to increase GSO’s social media presence on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, while redesigning the website and polling to change the GSO logo. He also talked about an increase in community service through other charity events.

• Current Financial Secretary Yousr Dhaouadi was elected as the new comptroller. She said one idea for improvement comes from keeping individuals involved in their reimbursement status.

• Joash Geteregechi, Rikki Sargent and Stephen Farnham were elected as at-large senators, while Seok Wun Au Yong, Daniel Kimmel and current Comptroller Joshua Fenton were elected as university senators.

Published on April 25, 2019 at 12:32 am

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