The Council of Graduate Students wants you.
Numerous delegate positions on the council remain unfilled. The CGS is the student government for about 10,000 Ohio State graduate students.
“This is something that happens every year,” said Alistair Fraser, a delegate for the geography department. “I know several graduate students who do not want to be a delegate.”
The existence of a competing organization might be a reason for the open seats, Fraser said. The Graduate Employees and Students’ Organization at OSU also represents graduate students.
GESO wishes to represent about 4,000 graduate assistants, Fraser said.
According to GESO, the group’s focus is on the working conditions of graduate assistants at OSU. The distinction is that they are concerned about those graduate students who have research or teaching assistant positions and are considered employees of the university.
However, the CGS represents all 10,000 graduate students.
“But maybe some graduate assistants feel that GESO may be better for them,” Fraser said.
Graduate students’ busy schedules are the reason for the open delegate seats, said CGS president Jamie Depelteau.
“Graduate students are typically more focused on their research and/or teaching responsibilities and sometimes don’t have the time to participate in other activities,” he said.
“Also, many graduate student advisers, programs and departments discourage their students from participating in extracurricular activities such as CGS,” Depelteau said.
The size of the graduate programs at OSU is another reason for the open delegate seats, said William A.T. Clark, associate dean of the graduate school and CGS’ advisor. “There are more than 120 graduate programs at OSU spread throughout a large campus.”
CGS placed an ad in The Lantern informing graduate students of the open seats.
“It’s hard to communicate such positions to a large community,” said Clark. “There are a lot of positions to begin with, and it’s very difficult to fill all of them.”
Clark said GESO isn’t the reason for the open delegate seats.
“These are very, very busy students,” he said. “Graduate students probably have more work than the typical undergrad. It just becomes more and more difficult to find time to volunteer.”
Although there are more than 70 open delegate positions, CGS is still a large group, Clark said
“GESO has a small amount of people in their group,” Clark said. “They have just been making a lot of noise lately, which has brought them a lot of attention.”
CGS is very good at representing the needs of graduate students, Fraser said. “It’s just that some students aren’t active.”
The open delegate seats do not require the rest of CGS to pick up the slack, Depelteau said.
“The council is appropriately represented throughout the university,” he said. “I don’t feel that the delegates have to make up for the unfilled delegate seats since non-delegate graduate students are also involved with CGS.”
