COUNCIL MEETINGS, ACTIVITIES, AND HISTORIES
For the first time in GPSC history, we filled every slot in the council, including the three At-Large positions. This is due to the efforts of the past and current officers in recruiting membership. We benefitted by the presence of medicine, law, and business because they have different types of programs and needs than the typical graduate student. There was solid participation and spirited discussion from everyone on La Aldea (see graduate housing), changes in the Graduate College related to numbers/representations of committee members, time to deadline to graduate, and administrative drop, the school of planning reorganization, student visa reform, the student fee, the UA strategic plan, increasing numbers of graduate students at the UA, GPSC/ASUA relationships, and tuition increases. We also discussed issues pertaining to individual colleges and programs that the council as a whole helped with.

Internal Committees:
Academic Affairs - developed a questionnaire about the advisor-student relationship, put on website
Administrative Issues - worked on constitutional changes
Strategic Planning - held discussions with ABOR about tuition increases, scheduled meetings with legislators for Jani and Veronica during Phoenix Showcase
Student Life/Outreach - planned phenomenal socials! Over 300 were present at a "Taco Bar" at Gentle Ben's, a couple hundred attended Javelina Cantina and O'Malley's socials. They also held discussions about childcare, graduate housing, health insurance.

TUITION REMISSION
The result of our discussions and lobbying for in-state tuition (fees) remission for the 3,000 TAs and RAs at the University of Arizona is contained in a March 23 memo from VP Powell. He mentions that to become more competitive with our peer institutions in recruiting and retaining the best graduate students the university will move to 100% in-state tuition remission by 2007-2008. We will go to 60% in 2004-2005, 80% in 2005-2006 and then to 100%. This will cost the university an additional 10 million plus, assuming tuition will not increase again (which it likely will), plus an additional few million to help cover the RAs that cannot be covered by grants. This is a strong and positive move in the direction of recognition of graduate students by the administration. We will still need to be vigilant about need-based aid to help non-GAs with tuition increases, and recruitment/retention monies for the graduate college, especially if the university decides that as part of its Changing Directions initiative it will grow the percentage of graduate students from 22% to 25%. This was all a result of open and detailed discussions about tuition increases and in-state tuition remission with President Likins, Provost Davis, VP Powell, and AVP Hixon throughout the year, as well as petitions to ABOR during their Tucson sessions and the tuition hearings in February. It also built on the hard work of previous GPSC presidencies and past Dean Pivo.

GRADUATE HOUSING/ CHILDCARE
La Aldea is the >300 person on-campus graduate student-only housing complex, improvements surrounding which are partially funded by Christopher City money (~1.2 million). Due to poor marketing and advertising and behind-schedule construction, many residents have complaints that are still not remedied. In addition, only 1/3 of current residents (60 people) are returning next fall (2004) and there are only 2 new graduate student residents for fall 2004. As a result, the university has allowed the company to accept upper class undergraduates for fall 2004 to fill their need to relieve debt (against the wishes of the GPSC and the graduate college).

Family housing was discussed at length throughout the semester with VP Saunie Taylor and Dean Melissa Vito. We decided as a committee that it is too expensive to consider building new housing at this time, because it would be impossible to make it affordable to low-income (graduate student) families, which is the purpose of the remaining Christopher City money (4.2 million). We decided with the help of Joel Valdez that we should set up a quasi-endowment (min 5 years) for money left over from CC which will yield about 2,000/year (at ~4.5%) to be given out to families as housing vouchers. The current plan is to give to about 90 families per year (CC had 86). It may also be possible to loan these monies out to other entities, for example the Park Student Union, only if they can give the same interest payments and guarantees on the funds. We agree that there must be an explicit set of directions for use of the funds (because these are long-term agreements), including memos regarding the quasi-endowment, opportunities for loans out of funds, and opportunity to purchase property within 5 years.

Saunie Taylor was instrumental in getting 50,000 last year from the All-Funds budget for childcare vouchers, but it is unclear whether this can continue due to budgetary difficulties.

LEGISLATIVE ADVOCACY
Outreach was done to state and federal legislators on a number of issues. I traveled to the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students (NAGPS) meeting in Washington, D.C. in November 2003. Along with ASU graduate student leaders, I met with Representative Hayworth and assistants for Representatives Flake, Renzi, and Franks, and Senator Kyl about the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, which would help students consolidate their loans and pay them off sooner, as well as student visa reform issues and the Dream Act. We left letters for other Senators and Representatives about these issues.

Veronica Diaz and I met with state legislators during February 2004 in association with the Phoenix Showcase event. We encouraged them to support the governor's budget request concerning funds for University of Arizona faculty retention and equity, and higher education in general. Many legislators did not approve of these requests, and were hard to convince of the value of universities in Arizona.

We sent letters in November 2003 and May 2004 to state senators and representatives of our region about supporting any student visa reform legislation that may come forward in congress. Many students are experiencing crippling visa delays, resulting in missing semesters of school or choosing to go to Europe or Canada. We supported the Yale student visa reform group's platform to decrease visa wait periods by starting the visa process in the US, and making the student visa equivalent to a work visa in stability (see www.visareform.net).

A letter was sent by the GPSC to Governor Napolitano supporting the nomination of Benjamin Graff to Student Regent (he is a law student from the U of A), which was successful.

GPSC / ASUA RELATIONSHIP
Discussions with J.P. Benedict (ASUA president), myself, Melissa Vito, Jim Drnek, and Carol Thompson occurred throughout the year, with the goal of improving the relationship between GPSC and ASUA and determining where we can pursue changes to the structures of each organization to do this. We had in mind that last year ASU's student governments split into two separate organizations, one graduate and one undergraduate, that are still under one student government umbrella (and thus have similar legislatures) but have two student body presidents and EQUAL space and money for each organization. Currently, the GPSC has only 1/20 the budget of ASUA, and no permanent space in the new student union. We have some office space in Old Main, and are using borrowed space in the Student Union to increase our profile on campus and benefit by positive interactions with ASUA and other students in the student union.
The committee (J.P., Melissa, Jim, Carol and I) decided that since our organizations already split 8 years ago, we did not need to rejoin each other, because that would bring us back to where we started and would lead to problems in passing budgets, etc., that existed before. I recommended in January that we remove the ability for graduate students to vote for the ASUA president, since we cannot serve on their senate and thus it is not representative government. I heard arguments that convinced me not to pursue this course, but at the end of the year I believe the January plan was a good one.

Arizona Students Association
One area of difficulty concerned the lack of graduate student representation on ASA, the Arizona Students Association, the statewide, regents-recognized student government organization that receives one dollar from every student every semester. Currently only ASUA can appoint students to directorships from the University of Arizona. I tried beginning in September 2003 to convince ASUA and ASA that there should be a seat for GPSC on ASA, but we were repeatedly denied this representation all year. In January we launched a campaign to tell graduate students to get their dollar back from ASA (and were joined with a similar campaign from ASU's GPSA), because of the lack of graduate student representation. In April, Alistair Chapman, the new ASUA president (2004-2005), came up with a solution that involved creating a fifth, graduate student-specific seat that would act as a liason to graduate students. I thought this was a fine compromise, and could eventually lead to that seat being GPSC in the coming year, so I supported it, and expressed this support to ASA. When the issue was voted on by ASA in the following week, Alistair and the rest of ASUA backed away from the 5th seat so it was declined for the University of Arizona. Northern Arizona University, however, voted in favor of this 5th seat for their own university. So currently there is graduate student representation on ASA for all Arizona universities except the UA. ASUA argues that since there is a law student currently appointed to the ASA board for next year (without a guarantee that this seat will be assigned to a graduate student in the future) this is sufficient representation for graduate students. In addition, ASUA feels that since graduate students can vote for the ASUA president, there is no need for other representation than ASUA on ASA. Thus the ability to vote for ASUA president is a handicap to our representation on the statewide organization, and I recommend that this vote for ASUA president be removed as soon as possible. This may require outside intervention, since we have no power within the organization except the ability to run and vote for ASUA president.

A letter about this situation was sent to the Board of Regents in May 2004, and several regents, including Fred Boice and Regent Stuart (incoming president), indicated that they are concerned about the situation and are interested in beginning talks to help ASA move in the direction of GPSC representation on ASA.

STUDENT FEE
A group of students under the advisement of Dean Vito of Student Life met to discuss the possibility of implementing a new student activity fee. This was intended for broad student use, and would help finance big name concerts, speakers, comedy acts, and films. A survey indicated that a substantial enough portion of all students, including graduate students, were interested in the possibility of the fee that I felt the GPSC should be present in the committee and consider moving this to an all-student vote. I felt confident that the group was fairly representative of students on campus, except that perhaps one more GPSC member would have made the student percentage more accurate. Our discussions were open and thorough, and members drafted a detailed set of bylaws by which the funds would be implemented. The final amount agreed upon by the committee was $15/semester. Eventually, the fee did not pass an all-student vote.

Several things contributed to the fee's failure, in my own opinion:
1. The Wildcat destroyed the credibility of the committee and the fee bylaws with their inaccurate and biased reporting. They misrepresented the membership of the committee, usually assuming there was no graduate student representation.
2. ASUA and other groups struggled for control of the fee, leading to infighting and decisions made by the ASUA senate that were not theirs to make. This was an all-student vote, not an ASUA vote, yet they undermined the progress of the school-wide, elected, representative student fee committee with their senate arguing and votes.
3. Perhaps the strongest reason of all: students were unwilling to pay more money in this time of rapid tuition increases.
The fee committee will continue to meet next year to consider other options and the possibility of it being welcome in the future. The GPSC needs to be sure to be a strong presence on the committee as graduate student representatives.

GPSC ADMINISTRATIVE RECOGNITION
I enjoyed open and honest discussions with all campus leaders this year. Through the past efforts of GPSC members and the administration, the GPSC worked on all prominent campus committees, including the Finance Committee, SPBAC, and the Faculty Senate. In addition, President Likins granted me the opportunity to sit on the stand alongside him and the ASUA President for the ABOR tuition hearings in February. This was a welcome gesture of recognition of our hard work and representation of graduate students. It turned out that neither of us sat on the stand :) since the hearings were organized differently, but it was the gesture that was important.

For the first time in many years (perhaps ever) in GPSC's history, the GPSC president was able to sit on the stand at graduation at McKale. This was another strong gesture in the direction of GPSC's representation of all graduate students. I appreciated the chance to applaud all the PhD students as they walked across the stand, and all master's students as they were recognized. I hope in the future the GPSC president will be able to make some remarks as the ASUA president does, since the focus of both talks is likely to be very different, and will reach both major populations of graduating students.