GSAS Student Council Elects New Officers Amid Election Accessibility Concerns

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Student Council announced Jessica W. Chen — a second-year Ph.D. candidate studying Virology — as its new president on Thursday, temporarily setting aside a motion raised for a new, universal voting system.

The GSC, which facilitates student funding and programming, consists of divisional and program student representatives from GSAS, the largest graduate school in the University. In addition to Chen, the GSC elected Aden Solway, an Art, Film, and Visual Studies student, as its vice president.

“My vision for the presidency is to amplify the voices of students on different issues,” Chen said.

Outgoing President Zachary Lim lauded Chen for her dedication to the GSC and her reliability.

“During this past year, we’ve worked very closely together, and Jessica has been an absolute bedrock for me,” Lim said.

“I think she’s very well positioned to continue to lead the team going forward next year,” he added.

Along with the president and vice president, council members also voted for a treasurer along with six chairs for advocacy, events, recognition, research, technology, and support.

Four division representatives across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences and four at-large division representatives for international students, master’s students, and students in the Allston and Longwood campuses were up for election as well.

Voters had the option to abstain from voting, and candidates were elected via simple majority, Chen wrote in an email.

Six positions will remain vacant — the support chair, the division representative for the humanities, a division representative for the natural sciences, and at-large representatives for international students, master’s students, and Allston students.

According to Chen, these vacancies will be open for election during the next open meeting, and if they continue to be vacant, they “would be advertised until the positions are filled,” per the GSC constitution.

At the time of voting, only one nominee stood for each position, save the vacant positions and the support chair position, whose two candidates were the two previous support chairs.

Before the election took place, however, Program Representative for Physics Sarah Y. Hoback raised a motion “to set aside the order of the day so that we can discuss the resolution for the universal vote, which gives all GSAS students the right to vote in this election.”

The proposed voting system would allow each GSAS student “to cast one vote,” Hoback said.

“Voting can be done in-person on the day of the election in April or online within a designated time frame no less than 72 hours after in-person voting takes place,” she added.

This proposal was made in part due to perceived exclusivity in the GSC election process, according to Hoback.

“There are 4,850 GSAS students and about 130 representative seats with voting power, and yet only 60 representative seats are actually filled,” Hoback said.

To discuss and clarify the language of the motion, a “two-minute recess” was called, which ultimately lasted for more than 20 minutes.

However, this motion to suspend the usual order of business in favor of discussing the changes to the electoral procedure was not passed because it failed to receive a two-thirds majority vote, with only three students voting in favor of the suspension.

Program Representative for Sociology Aaron B. Benavidez, who was nominated for vice president, advocacy chair, and social studies division representative, withdrew his candidacy from all three positions, citing what he said he believed to be a lack of student access to the election process.

“I’m looking forward to an election — elected by my peers. I would like for myself to say, I had been elected by 25 percent of the student population,” Benavidez said.

After the election, Benavidez motioned to hold at least one additional meeting later this month to “discuss the ramifications of today’s resolution,” which was passed unanimously excluding abstentions.

“I would suggest that we wait. We take as much time as we need and include as many stakeholders as possible,” said Solway, the vice president-elect. “I think we should have as many of these meetings as we can between now and the decision-making process.”

—Staff writer Andrew Park can be reached at andrew.park@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewParkNews.