After weeklong voting for GPSA president, Buckner Creel, a fourth-year graduate student, defeated his opponent, Vicente Vargas, by 173 votes.
Raising the organization's visibility on campus is something out-going president Aaron Kugler said he worked on during his term.
"We have increased our visibility and credibility on campus as well as our participation," Kugler said. "I hope Buckner can continue to bring further visibility to help GPSA decide the hard issues."
Creel is a graduate student in the Physics and Astronomy Department. He has fulfilled all requirements for a Ph.D. with the exception of a dissertation, which he said will give him more time to dedicate to GPSA. His one-year term begins May 14.
As president, Creel said he plans to have office hours and attend meetings of every graduate student organization on campus to see what people have to say.
This summer, he said he plans to work on developing a dispute resolution program for graduate students and possibly even undergraduates. He also plans to work more closely with the Associated Students of UNM.
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Voting took place Monday through Thursday and included six amendments to GPSA's constitution. Five of the amendments passed.
Graduate students had the option of casting paper votes or online votes.
The addition of an online voting option resulted in three times more votes than last year. Creel said this is what made the difference in voter turnout and he said he hopes GPSA will continue using the online option in future elections.
The number of paper votes was consistent with past years.
One forum was held for the candidates, but two were canceled because they did not adhere to advertising guidelines in the elections code. Kugler said those forums did not affect voter turnout.
Creel said the canceled forums were a bump in the system that needs to be worked out.
Kugler said most student elections do not have a very high voter turnout, but this one was an exception with 661 votes.
"We have 6,500 graduate and professional students and this election had over 10 percent turnout," Kugler said. "I have been in student government for five years and have never seen 10 percent participation."
All graduate and professional students can be members of GPSA. Each graduate department chooses a council representative who attends meetings based on student enrollment.
"For the last five years, we've had professional students as presidents, which is a good thing," Creel said. "I am more of a traditional graduate student and I think I have a different point of view to bring to GPSA."
