The GPSA Council took action on only one agenda item Saturday but did meet one of UNM’s newest regents and heard standing committee reports — two of which indicated some positive news for UNM graduate students.
The Graduate and Professional Student Association council meeting began with a request from James Koch, one of the UNM Board of Regents’ four newest members.
He asked council members to give him as much feedback as possible about what qualities they would like the new University president to have.
Koch said he will not approve any finalists the search committee selects if he believes they are not qualified for the position.
The council’s only action taken Saturday was on a presentation by Brandt Milstein, a graduate student representing the UNM Fair Trade Initiative. Milstein’s group is seeking to build a coalition among student groups and representative organizations to raise awareness about and increase the availability of Fair Trade products.
The Fair Trade Federation is an association of wholesalers, retailers and producers who provide fair wages and employment opportunities to the world’s economically disadvantaged farmers.
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Milstein specifically asked for the council’s members to sign a letter demonstrating their support for the University’s food service provider, ARAMARK, to begin offering Fair Trade coffee on campus.
He explained to the council that coffee is the world’s second most traded commodity behind oil and that farmers who belong to the Fair Trade Federation enjoy price stability for their goods and increased value for their product.
“So coffee is the perfect place to start,” Milstein said.
Council members had a brief discussion about some of the issues concerning the organization’s request and councilman Jeff Peterson from the School of Communication and Journalism urged the council to get more information before endorsing a position.
After the discussion, the council voted to endorse the UNM Fair Trade Initiative and 14 members signed the letter, including Peterson.
The council also heard standing committee reports, including one from the chairwoman from the Student Research Allocations Committee and one from the Lobby Committee chairman.
Catherine Baudoin, chairwoman of the Student Research and Allocations committee, said that she has received 106 applications requesting funding — a number she said was about 25 percent higher than normal.
She added that the pool of requests was very diverse and representative of campus academic departments with the most requests coming from the Biology Department.
“I think more grad students are finding out about it and that’s good,” Baudoin said of SRAC funds.
Baudoin said this is the first period when graduate students can request the limit, $500, for both research and conference-related expenditures.
Lorena Olmos, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Association, said the council will probably not be able to award as much money to graduate researchers as it would like, but it may move some money from its unallocated fund to use at its discretion.
Glenn Butler, Lobby Committee chairman, reported that he was able to get UNM legislators to place a request by GPSA for $25,000 to be used for graduate student childcare on House Bill 2 as a single item appropriation request.
“Hopefully the governor won’t veto it or scratch it out,” Butler said.
The request, which can be vetoed by Gov. Bill Richardson, is the second time in two years GPSA has requested $25,000 for graduate student childcare.
Butler said that since now he is more familiar with how the state’s legislature works, next year he would like to get the same request as an annual provision.
“I’m hoping to get it as a line item,” Butler said. “I think that next year we’ll be more aggressive.”
The GPSA council will meet next Friday, April 11.
