GAPSA to discuss Walk committee

Graduate students will introduce a proposal calling for increased graduate student representation on President Sheldon Hackney's Locust Walk committee at today's meeting of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. The committee, formed last spring to examine ways to diversify the residential student population on the Walk, is composed of four administrators, seven faculty members, one trustee, one alumnus, six undergraduates and one graduate student. The GAPSA resolution says that one graduate student cannot adequately represent the whole graduate and professional student population. The resolution also criticizes Hackney's statement this semester that any plan for diversifying the Walk will not include the displacement of fraternities currently housed on Locust Walk. It says that by not considering removing fraternities, the president has "severly limited the committee's ability to function productively." The resolution urges the president to add two graduate or professional students to the committee, to be chosen by GAPSA, "so that the spectrum of [graduate] views can be fairly represented." The resolution says one professional and one international student would be selected. One GAPSA member, who asked not to be identified, said this week that if GAPSA passes the resolution tonight and the president does not put additional graduate students on the committee, a proposal could be issued to withdraw graduate student participation from the committee. Graduate students expressed support for the resolution this week. "There is extreme under-representation," American Civilization graduate student A.T. Miller said. "There is only one graduate student representative, and no one to represent professional and international students." And Wharton doctoral student Michael Goldstein said that the committee has "a fundamental problem." "Just look at the distribution of members," Goldstein said. "There is only one graduate student, and the largest constituency within the University community is graduate students." He added that "the committee doesn't adequately represent the people who use Locust Walk everyday."

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