The Graduate Student Council (GSC) passed the Joint Bill on Proctoring Following the Conclusion of the AIWG Proctoring Pilot at its Thursday meeting.
The bill, whose guidelines will be modified and monitored by the Board of Conduct Affairs (BCA), must be approved by all five legislative bodies before being enacted.
GSC treasurer Elena Vasilache, a fourth-year M.A. candidate, asked how the change would impact students with anxiety, raising concerns that proctors “always in the room, walking and just watching” might negatively impact students’ exam performance.
Xavier Arturo Millan ’26, one of the co-chairs of the Academic Integrity Working Group (AIWG), emphasized that the bill aims to minimize distractions such as pacing or hovering over students. Additionally, Millan pointed out that students with diagnosed accommodations have separate testing facilitated by the Office of Accessible Education (OAE), during which students are observed by a non-recorded, non-broadcast camera.
The GSC deliberated the bill at its meeting last week. During the meeting, Jennifer Poehlmann, faculty co-chair of the AIWG, emphasized the importance of proctoring to “achieve the learning goals in courses right now.”
In an email response to the GSC’s February resolution to clarify governanceand priorities for master’s housing, Vice Provost for Graduate Education Kenneth Goodson agreed with points made in the bill. While he wrote that it would be “both appropriate and important” to revisit the policies, he warned that “if priority shifts to one group of graduate students it requires another group to lose priority.”
“This isn’t necessarily like a dead end. It feels like a window of opportunity,” said Ruby Rong Zhou M.S. ’27, a GSC councillor and author of the original resolution. GSC co-chair Rory O’Dwyer, a sixth-year Ph.D. student in physics, agreed, saying that it would be important to get involved early in the conversation on graduate housing policies and to keep the next council informed.
The GSC also passed a bill calling for expanded gym hours, particularly at night on weekdays and earlier on weekends.
“You shouldn’t have to go in at 7 a.m. to have an open gym,” said Troy Harris ’27, a co-author of the bill.
The GSC also passed the Joint Bill to Establish the ASSU Due Process Guard. The bill officially creates an agency under the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) to provide trained advocates to students in the Office of Community Standards (OCS) process. Students will be able to apply to serve as advocates and represent students.
The GSC re-evaluated and later passed the Joint Bill to Submit a Constitutional Amendment Updating Procedures of the Constitutional Council, which failed to pass at its April 2 meeting.
Millan, who also serves as chair of the Constitutional Council, said the bill aimed to clarify the existing ASSU constitution. If passed, the bill would explicitly give the council the power to take remedial measures, like real courts do,” said Millan.
Undergraduate Senate (UGS) councillor Laila Ali ’28 presented the Joint Resolution Calling for the Re-Establishment of an On-Campus Election Booth and Expanded Access to In-Person Voting for Stanford Students, which passed in a vote by the GSC. The resolution advocates for the re-establishment of an on-campus election booth, which was not available in 2025.
Per Ali, the University plans to implement two voting machines at Tresidder Memorial Union to ensure efficiency on election day.