Though the weather has taken its course, we’d like to wish you a warm finals week! This fall GPSA has worked hard to identify, prioritize and develop strategies for various issues that are important to graduate students. While we know you are all in the throes of writing and submitting papers and grades, we’d like to take a few minutes to share the work we have accomplished this semester, and what to expect moving forward.
Your Billing
As of today, your billing statement displays no separation between tuition and fees. Cost of education at UNM is unclear and confusing. At GPSA we strongly believe that access to information should be a priority in public institutions; this is why since early September we’ve been advocating for transparency in the way your bursar’s account displays your charges.
GPSA has dedicated many volunteer hours in order to build a case for greater transparency at UNM. We created an online mock-up to demonstrate what we think your bill should look like (see it at: gpsa.unm.edu/bursars/BursarsAccountMockup.html). In addition, we have met with administrators and the regents to reiterate the aggregate benefits of an open data model. Though we have had to battle to implement changes in your billing, we have found support in the Office of the President and we thank President Frank for joining student leadership to push this effort forward.
In order to make your billing transparent, we are working with personnel from the Bursar’s Office (student accounting/cashiers), the Provost’s Office (course/differential fee approval), and the IT department (yet another online billing platform, LoboWeb) to implement a new billing system in phases that are as follows:
Phase 1: By April 15, we will have a new online platform that explains charges and directs students to sources where they can find additional information about their charges.
Phase 2: The new platform, implemented by April 15, will be put to trial Summer Term 2014. Any modifications to the new model will be made during the summer and before Fall 2014 registration.
Phase 3: Students registering for Fall Term 2014 will have a platform that adequately explains tuition, student fees and course fees.
Grant Applications in Spanish
GPSA values the diverse graduate and professional student body at UNM and has efforts underway to improve the way we currently serve our Spanish speakers. UNM, being a Hispanic-serving institution, receives federal funding that should be dedicated to initiatives benefitting this community. At GPSA, we want to make sure we walk the walk. In this spirit, we will continue to place emphasis on offering our grants in Spanish. We have formed a working group to develop a process which we will fairly and seamlessly integrate a Spanish application into the current grants process. We hope to begin offering this added benefit to students as soon as the summer cycle. If you are interested in helping with this initiative please contact Council Chair Maria Elena Corral at Elena.gpsa@gmail.com.
Health Insurance
In November, we hosted a Health Insurance Awareness Week to inform students of their health care options under the new Affordable Care Act. These sessions were a successful opportunity to inform UNM students and we were able to enroll over 20 people in the new Medicaid expansion for free health insurance. This exceeded our expectations, and we have plans to place another session next semester. Also, please take note that, all TAships and GAships health coverage is effective until April 2014. We are advocating to keep this benefit in place past April, and are currently shopping around for an even better insurance plan for student employees.
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The State Entrepreneurial Economic Development (SEED) Act
GPSA is excited to announce that we will be approaching the New Mexico State legislature in 2014 in order to present our in-house created Statewide Entrepreneurial Economic Development (SEED) Act.
The SEED Act requests half of one percent (0.5%) of the total budget managed by the New Mexico Private Equity Investment Program to encourage the entrepreneurial efforts of New Mexico graduates.
If approved, this legislation would invest $1 million in equity annually in businesses owned or co-owned by recent graduates from research institutions in New Mexico. As part of this effort we are looking for students that are interested in starting a company upon graduation or already have a successful businesses venture.
Please contact the GPSA lobby Committee, unmGPSA@gmail.com.
We are grateful and honored for the opportunity to advocate for your interests with UNM administration and State legislators. We wish you a safe and wonderful holiday season.
Your GPSA Team
