Sixteen graduate students are vying for seats on the Graduate Student Council in Friday’s election. While most candidates are running unopposed, some district representative positions, mainly within the engineering, natural sciences and medicine districts, have several contenders.
Though all members of the graduate student community are considered GSC members, only 15 are elected to voting council membership. Elected representatives attend weekly meetings to work on advocacy, programming and funding student groups.
Additionally, as one of the two legislative bodies of the ASSU, the GSC represents the graduate student population’s voice in some University matters.
The engineering district will have five contenders for two spots: Drew Kennedy, a graduate student in bioengineering, Kerensa Gimre in civil and environmental engineering, Tao Chu in electrical engineering, Joanna Lankester in electrical engineering and Yichuan Ding in management science and engineering. Kennedy is the only current GSC member of the lot.
Within the School of Humanities and Sciences, Fanuel Muindi in biology and Erik Lehnert in genetics are facing off for the natural sciences district representative position.
Running unopposed for social sciences district representative is Salvador Zepeda in management science and engineering and public policy. Praveen Shanbhag in philosophy is the only humanities district candidate.
Only three students are running for the five spots of at-large district representatives — Addy Satija and Ze Yuan in electrical engineering and Crystal Yin in management science and engineering. Satija is a three-year veteran of the GSC and is currently a co-coordinator of programming. Yin, also a current member, is secretary.
School of Medicine students Jessica Tsai in neuroscience and Krystal St. Julien in biochemistry are running for one spot as the medicine representative. Tsai is a current GSC member, serving as a co-coordinator of programming and Vaden Advisory Committee member. St. Julien is a member of the funding committee.
Ping Li, a business student, is the only candidate for the one spot in the School of Business district. Similarly, Justin Brown in geophysics is the only contender for the one position as Earth Sciences representative. Both Li and Brown are current GSC members, serving as funding committee chair and deputy funding committee chair, respectively. Brown is a three-term veteran of the GSC.
Currently, there are no reported candidates from the Stanford Law School or the School of Education.
Candidates had the choice of using public funds for their campaigns or donating the money to Get Out The Grad Vote (GOTGV) events. So far, Brown, Tsai, St. Julien and Gimre have donated; Satija used the funds for his campaign; and Lehnert remains undecided. The remaining candidates did not comment by press time.