Amidst almost a dozen boxes of pizza and refreshments, the Syracuse University Graduate Student Organization held its first meeting of the 2015-16 school year Wednesday night.

The meeting, which took place in the Life Sciences Complex, was held to educate members on the happenings of the organization, as well as to elect new representatives for this school year.

GSO President Can Aslan began the meeting with a general overview of the organization and its importance to SU.

“The GSO represents all graduate students at SU; we are mainly the bridge between you and the university administration,” Aslan said to the audience of graduate students.

Aslan discussed several initiatives the organization had undertaken since last semester. Some items of discussion were the Academic Strategic Plan Oversight Committee, the Student Affairs Advisory Board, the Syracuse Welcome shuttle service and the new university-wide health insurance policy.

Aslan spoke strongly on the health insurance policy, lamenting the fact that GSO was only given representation after important decisions about the policy had been made.

“I have been serving on the Health Insurance Committee since May, and we received representation on the board only after these decisions had been made in March,” Aslan said.

He mentioned that the organization has been receiving many emails from international students regarding the policy, and the group has been advocating to the university on their behalf.

Sam Sallade, president of external affairs for GSO, spoke after Aslan about recent events, such as summer orientations and a picnic that the GSO held this past summer. Sallade said in total, more than 800 SU students attended the picnic.

She also discussed the next event to be put on by GSO: a wine tasting on Friday, Sept. 18 from 8:30 to 10 p.m. at The Inn Complete, located on Skytop Road.

After she was done speaking, the organization voted unanimously to approve her appointment as vice president of external affairs.

Since nobody was elected as VP of external affairs at the final meeting of last semester, Sallade was appointed by the executive board. Due to organization regulations, a vote was required to approve her.

After Sallade, Vice President of Internal Affairs Sam Leitermann took the podium to go over general meeting rules, as well as prepare the group for elections.

There were 10 positions up for election: financial secretary, recording secretary, five university senators and three at-large senators.

After the room was made familiar with the election process, Leitermann started the voting procedure. Individuals were allowed to self-nominate and then give a brief, one-minute speech on their merits for the job.

Dimple Dhanani was elected as financial secretary, and Jasmine Vickers was elected as recording secretary. The five representatives elected to the University Senate were Yanira Rodriguez, Aditya Joshi, Nishtha Goel, Ruchi Ghatge and Anju Franklin. The three at-large senators elected were Peta Long, Rahul Goyal and Priyasha Mathur.

The next GSO meeting will be on Sept. 30, with meetings continuing every three weeks until the end of the semester.

Published on September 9, 2015 at 10:59 pm

Contact Matt: mjfel100@syr.edu