Graduate Student Association President Janine Santiago threatened to withdraw from Sub-Board I, UB's student-run service corporation, citing several complaints she has with the organization. According to Santiago, her constituency receives poor representation on the corporation's governing body and the corporation offers limited services catering to the graduate population.
In a letter submitted at the corporation's last board meeting, Santiago charged that undergraduates monopolize SBI's administration and that SBI's services mainly benefit undergraduates. The undergraduate Student Association holds six of the 14 seats on the board, while the GSA holds three. In addition, Santiago pointed to the fact that all three of the executive board positions are held by undergraduates - evidence, she argues, of SA's dominance on the board. Beyond registering her dissatisfaction with the status quo, Santiago voiced her intention to pull out of the corporation unless SBI changes its representative structure to include more graduate students. This threat was made without accompanying suggestions for viable reforms. So while her point may be well taken, her methods were inappropriate.
While it is true that undergraduates hold more seats on the corporation's board of directors than their graduate counterparts, that disparity reflects the disparate financial contributions of their respective governments. When SA's share of the seats is compared to its share of the financial burden, it is clear that, if anything, the undergraduates are underrepresented, rather than over-represented, on the board. The undergraduate SA pays for 83.5 percent of the student government contribution to SBI, while holding only 42 percent of the seats on the board of directors. GSA, on the other hand, contributes 13 percent of the total, while enjoying 21.4 percent of the total representation. Graduate students are getting a bargain; they are able to utilize the services of SBI at a lower price than would seem fair by the amount of money they pay into the system.
In addition to lamenting GSA's perceived lack of influence on the board, Santiago also claimed that many of the services offered by SBI have little appeal to the graduate population. She cited Generation magazine, WRUB radio station and the Ticket Office as examples of services rarely utilized by her constituency. Santiago conveniently neglected to mention the host of other SBI programs frequented by graduate students, including Group Legal Services, the counseling center, the pharmacy, the anti-rape task force and free HIV testing. The corporation also performs GSA's accounting, a service that would have to be obtained elsewhere should the government withdraw from Sub-Board I.
Santiago's constituents stand to suffer the greatest loss, should she follow through on her threat to leave Sub-Board I. The president of SBI has already announced that the corporation will no longer offer services to graduate students if GSA pulls out. GSA does not have the resources to single-handedly provide all these services to its constituency, and Sub-Board should not be expected to subsidize students not paying into the corporation.
An action as drastic as withdrawing from the corporation should not be made without a clear mandate from the general graduate populace - something Santiago does not have. If the latest GSA election had not been overturned on allegations of fraud, she would not hold her current position. The election winner, current Vice President Miguel Chacon, also signed off on the letter, but his victory was voided, making his accession into the presidency presumptive at best. Santiago's administration should not make a decision affecting all full-time graduate students without the informed consent of the graduate populace and a tenure affirmed by a valid election.
In spite of this, there is no question that Sub-Board I should revisit its decade-old bylaws, bringing them up to date with current university conditions. All student governments involved in the board of directors should take an active role in the redrafting. On the evening that Santiago addressed the board, the representatives of the Medical Polity and the Dental SA, two of the seven representative student governments on the board, were absent. Should SBI equitably modernize, every constituency it purports to represent should be actively involved in the process.
