The University of Maryland’s GSG has seen a more than 47 percent decrease in the number of representatives within the body since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the 2019-20 academic year, the Graduate Student Government had 73 representatives. It has just 38 representatives to begin this academic year. The GSG assembly currently has about 200 vacant seats, according to the body’s operations director Keegan Clements-Housser.
Each member of the assembly represents one graduate department at this university. Programs are eligible for another representative for every 100 students enrolled.
Clements-Housser said the COVID-19 pandemic is largely to blame for the high number of vacant seats.
“During COVID, we all felt kind of disconnected and cut off from our communities, and student government is definitely a community,” the journalism studies doctoral student said.
The number of representatives in GSG’s assembly has been steadily decreasing over the past several years. Filling vacant seats is a priority for GSG this year, according to president Varaa Kukreti.
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“Representation helps us connect with students that we do not directly hear from,” the cybersecurity graduate student said. “Every person brings something very different to the table.”
When there are empty seats, some students do not have voting representation, according to GSG’s legislative affairs vice president Divon Pender.
While all students can attend GSG meetings, they do not have voting privileges to enact change, Pender explained. It is “essential” to have more representatives, the graduate student studying higher education, student affairs and international education policy added.
In addition to certain departments losing voting power, having fewer representatives also poses a technical threat to GSG operations, Clements-Housser said.
To maintain quorum, which allows the body to vote on bills, more than one-third of eligible members of the representative body must be in attendance, Clements-Housser noted.
“One of the most important things we do is build relationships,” Clements-Housser said. “When we don’t have very many representatives, we don’t have a lot of that networking.”
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Clements-Housser and Mikol Bailey, GSG’s financial affairs and student fee matters vice president, are co-chairs of the body’s elections committee. The committee is designed to hold special elections to fill open seats throughout the year, Bailey, a history doctoral student said.
To elect a new representative during the school year, a program with a vacant seat or a student in the program must submit a request to hold a special election, Bailey added.
Clements-Housser said the elections committee then sends out a call for nominations for the vacant seat.
The nomination period for the upcoming special elections closes on Oct. 10. The 13 seats that are currently open for nominations will have representatives sworn in on Oct. 25.
Moving forward, Clements-Housser emphasized the importance of departmental representation in GSG.
“If you don’t have someone advocating for you, if you don’t have someone in your corner, you’re gonna get ignored,” he said. “It’s that simple.”
