On Thursday, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) passed two conditional funding requests and planned a timeline to fill vacant positions on the Council.
After both sixth year PhD student Leslie Luqueño and seventh year PhD student Lorena Avilés Trujillo resigned from their respective roles as social chairs and Graduate School of Education (GSE) and Humanities and Social Sciences (H&S) chairs, the GSC planned to appoint new members to fill their roles. Additionally, the GSC prioritized filling several vacant roles, including a representative for the Stanford Student Enterprise and members for the Elections Officer Selection Committee, which interviews candidates for the Elections Commission.
Depending on the position and the bylaws associated, GSC councilors will either elect candidates or make appointments. The GSC plans to fill elected positions within two to three weeks of publicly announcing the vacancies.
Áron Ricardo Perez-Lopez, a third-year PhD student, was assigned to the Nominations Commission (NOMCOM), which appoints students to various University committees. The commission previously had no officially appointed members. David Sengthay ’26, Undergraduate Senate (UGS) Deputy Chair of Communications, added that filling the body is a lengthy process.
“I believe that the executive has to submit, for confirmation, seven folks … and then we confirm the seven folks to the nominations Commission. And then, the executive committee selects the chair within our internal meeting. So, it’s a bit of a lengthy process,” Sengthay said.
Artem Arzyn ’26 M.S. ’26 said that because the GSC has not approved the NOMCOM bill, no new members have been nominated to committees, apart from those serving in the GSC for a second year.
The GSC passed two funding requests for Voluntary Student Organizations (VSOs), conditioning the allocation of funding on clear communication that events are open to all graduate students. Co-treasurer and first-year PhD student Brion Ye emphasized that many VSOs are not taking adequate initiative to publicize events to graduate mailing lists, creating funding hurdles as the GSC only funds events open to all graduate students.
The GSC passed a motion to provide $500 for an anonymous VSO’s “Welcome Banquet” only if the organization’s leadership reschedules the event so it can be properly publicized. The council moved to instruct the VSO to apply for additional funding sources it had not originally pursued.
The GSC also passed a motion to approve $400 in funding for a parent-focused event on the condition the organizers change the event description, framing it as a broader celebration of mothers to ensure it is open to the entire graduate student population.
In the next Thursday meeting, councilors will detail plans to be implemented in the upcoming academic year.