Syracuse University’s Graduate Student Organization met for the first time this semester on Wednesday to announce goals for the year and elect new senators.

GSO President Mirjavad Hashemi presented issues senators hope to resolve over the semester, including improving strained relationships between graduate research advisers and advisees. He also aims to create a system that allows online graduates to participate in the GSO Senate and increase the number of senators, he said.

“We started strong in our initiative for adviser-advisee framework. Students, especially Ph.D. students, report to us serious issues that lead to depression, anxiety or an abusive relationship,” Hashemi said. “We have the support from the graduate school, provost and hopefully the chancellor soon.”

Over the summer, the GSO leadership started coordinating with the Board of Trustees to create an adviser and advisee framework to provide clear rights and responsibilities of the two groups, Hashemi said. The Senate may create an academic affairs committee to participate in creating the guidelines.

At a later meeting, the Senate will also discuss what services online graduate students can use that GSO provides during the semester. Online students currently cannot serve in the Senate, according to GSO’s constitution. 

“We are trying to put a survey out to figure out how they want to be represented,” Hashemi said. “We need to clarify exactly what GSO is going to do for online students and what they can do for us.”

Nick Mason, vice president of internal affairs, said not enough academic departments elect senators to represent their department in GSO. Out of 150 graduate study departments, 22 have a senator representing them.

“When a senator leaves, there are supposed to be younger students in each department who succeed that position,” Mason said. “The problem is that there are academic departments who never send senators to us, so we want to encourage them to nominate and elect a senator to be a part of our discussions.”

GSO also elected six graduate students to the University Senate. GSO university senators represent graduate students at meetings and vote at Senate meetings. They serve on University Senate committees instead of GSO committees.

Shubham Khandelwal, former GSO President Jack Wilson, Manan Meghani, Sarthak Tandon, Jiayi Zhang and Aseema Ajgaonkar were all elected as university senators. One position remains open.

The GSO Senate also elected two at-large senators, Prithvi Kunder and Rui Gomes, who are expected to serve on a committee within the organization. Five positions remain open.

Sweta Roy, former vice president of external affairs, was elected as the new financial secretary, a position on GSO’s Executive Board. In her new position, Roy will assist the comptroller with finances and planning committee meetings.

The Senate also elected first-year graduate student Sam Azghandi as the recording secretary. Azghandi will keep meeting minutes and process travel grant applications. 

Published on September 11, 2019 at 11:07 pm

Contact Richard: rjchang@syr.edu | @RichardJChang1