GAPSA modifies executive board structure, election process for fall 2020

Beginning in fall 2020, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Executive Board will operate through a new structure that divides its executive board into three divisions: programming, policy, and operations. 

Last year, the outgoing GAPSA President and Vice President focused their campaigns on restructuring the assembly and drafted the organization's spring 2020 restructuring amendment on Feb. 19. Former GAPSA President and 2020 School of Arts and Sciences graduate Gregory Callaghan said he believes the introduction of GAPSA board divisions will improve communication and account for members' specialized interests. 

“The idea of the restructuring was to create some more categories for the exec[utive] board to make it clear what everyone’s roles were,” Callaghan said.  

The programming division will include directors of both on-campus and off-campus event programming that will engage with the graduate student community. These directors will work closely with the University's Graduate Student Center and the Vice Provost of University Life. 

Callaghan said the programming division will allow there to be a clear difference in assigned responsibility for the new executive board’s Wellness Chair, who previously would have had a larger number of tasks associated with both the programming and policy divisions.

The future policy division will be managed by GAPSA's directors of equity and access, external affairs, international student affairs, and student wellness subcategories. Directors within these subcategories will be tasked with representing the graduate student body through specific initiatives, and with ensuring that the voices of students are heard by the University.

The council chairs will fall under the board's newly created policy division. They will also work with the GAPSA VP of Finance and Operations to manage the council’s budget and grants, as well as with the GAPSA Executive VP of Programming to organize events. 

The Chair of Professional Student Council, Chair of Research Student Council, and Chair of IDEAL Council — which provides representation for ten groups, including the Black Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the Latin American Graduate and Professional Student Assembly — together form the council chair positions. 

The executive board's operations division will be managed by the directors of fund management, public relations, and logistics. This division specializes in maintaining communication between GAPSA, the Executive Board, and Penn administrative departments so that all funds and initiatives directed toward graduate students reach their intended destination. 

GAPSA's new amendment also reformed the group's election process by splitting the voting for council chairs and division managers — President, Executive Vice President, and Vice President of Finance and Operations — over three days.

“Before everyone was elected in one night, in person, as you can imagine this can be very very long because you have 14 positions to go through, so people would end up staying until midnight or later,” former GAPSA Vice President and rising fifth-year Nursing graduate student Matthew Lee said.  

Over the span of of three days, the GAPSA General Assembly elected its council chairs and division managers, who are selected to oversee the directors. Now, GAPSA's newly-elected division managers will appoint directors under the programming, policy, and operations divisions through this improved application process. 

“In future years, we envision inviting certain candidates to an interview and that interview time and information will be made public for general assembly members to attend if they so please,” 2020-2021 GAPSA President and Annenberg second-year Kelly Diaz said. “And they are welcome to give feedback on the application.” 

In the fall, Diaz will serve alongside GAPSA Executive Vice President and rising second-year Engineering graduate student Anastasia Neuman and the group's Vice President of Finance and Operations and rising fourth-year Dental School student Kristen Leong.

"It is my hope that this [restructuring of the GAPSA board] will provide a more efficient structure. I personally have heard a lot of good feedback from people, especially people who applied for the positions that they would not have applied had things stayed the same,” Lee said. “This will hopefully lead to a more coordinated board.”