The great value of graduate student organizations lies in their ability to bring people together, promote democratic discussions, and conduct student votes on issues. The fact that most students are not aware of that is even more remarkable. It is critical to increase student involvement and thus develop a graduate community of people identifiable by their ideas, needs, and expectations. The administration has been great, and they have been waiting for the graduate Goliath to finally wake up. Amy thinks that to increase student participation it is important to describe the role of GSC in concrete terms.
Students get more involved when real issues are at stake and valuable information is available.
For instance, a pertinent issue this year is possible increases in some student fees, on which a referendum has been proposed by the undergraduate leaders. TAMU graduate students tend not to vote in the referendum process because they do not see it as their own. GSC will strive to educate graduate students to insure that if there is a referendum, they will see it as their right and responsibility to be informed and to vote. Instead, graduate education is decentralized into ten colleges, with approximately 85 different graduate programs and 85 ways of doing things. The university administration seeks graduate students' opinions, so students need to be able to speak with a unified voice.