As the Graduate Student Government prepares for the upcoming academic year, it intends to improve collaboration between branches and re-energize senators with more face-to-face time with directors and involvement in planning the senate meetings. planning. They also plan to continue advocating for graduate student spaces at University Park Campus and Health Sciences Campus, including nap pods and lactation rooms. 

Janielle Cuala, the GSG director of elections and recruitment, said since the Coronavirus pandemic, the GSG senate has held its meetings over Zoom. While online meetings were beneficial for those who worked far from USC, Cuala said it limited the engagement of senators in meetings. 

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

“To get senators to speak up and whatnot and to incentivize them to be more involved has been a challenge,” Cuala said. “This year, I wanted to try different ways of structuring our meetings. For example, I’m actually planning to meet with each senator, at least by academic unit, one on one.” 

Cuala said she plans to ask senators how they want to be involved and how they want meetings to be restructured. The upcoming senate vote for new committees will also look different: Cuala said she plans to put senators into breakout rooms with the potential GSG committees to provide more exposure to different committees and face-to-face time with the directors. 

Shahd Bawarith, the GSG president, said she plans to have the three branches of GSG — programming, advocacy and administration — work together more closely than they have in previous years. Bawarith said the push for a more collaborative GSG was inspired by her experience last year, where it was very difficult to collaborate with the other branches.

“The threshold for getting people to do the work and work together was [seen as] so much higher than the benefit of working together, which is definitely not the case, especially if you have people who are interested in doing the work,” Bawarith said. “I’m so glad that the team this year is very open to it, especially all the [vice presidents].”

The emphasis on collaboration does not only apply to the GSG branches: Bawarith said she hopes to collaborate more with the Undergraduate Student Government to come up with initiatives that benefit the entire student body, rather than just a particular sect. 

“Over the past, [USG and GSG] worked together, but it wasn’t really collaborative. It was more, we came up with this, or they came up with that, versus just us putting our thinking hats on and brainstorming and working together as a team,” Bawarith said. “I really like Bryan [Fernández] and Brianna [Sánchez]. I think we’ll have a good time.”

Last year, GSG collected data on what spaces graduate students felt they needed and created action, social and needs teams based on their responses. Now, Bawarith said, GSG members will get to choose one of these three teams to be a part of. 

The action team will map the current graduate student spaces, write statements of support and bring liaisons for different graduate student groups. The social team will be responsible for relaxation spaces, coffee corners and nap pods. The needs team will focus on study spaces, lactation stations and food fridges on campus. 

“Last year, I was the vice president of advocacy. So this year, our entire e-board is going to advocate because, naturally, that’s what I’m interested in,” Bawarith said. “The people that are part of GSG this year are also very interested in advocating for the graduate student body, so it works out really well.” 

Aleyeh Roknaldin, the GSG director of operations, said she looked forward to seeing the improvements the organization would be making to graduate student spaces. Roknaldin said lactation rooms and accessible menstrual products had already made a big difference, and she looks forward to further improving graduate student spaces. 

“Ph.D. students usually have offices, and that’s where they’re able to do work. The master students have that lacking environment where they can go, and it’s all graduate students that are working in the space,” Roknaldin said. “It would be nice to have a place to go and have coffee and converse with grad students, or just a quiet place to do their work that isn’t a library.”