KATIE MACDONELL AND KEVIN PURDY

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Graduate Students Find Their Place in NYSSA

UB's Graduate Student Association will elect two representatives to the New York State Student Assembly this Wednesday, the first in the organization's history.The GSA's ability to elect two representatives, one for each 3,000 of UB's 6,618 full-time graduate students, was only recently brought to their attention by SUNY Trustee George Pape, leaving some question as to who holds responsibility for informing a student government of its right to representation at the state level.Ritesh Patel, GSA programming coordinator and recently appointed Sub-Board I president, believes both NYSSA and the university failed to inform the GSA of its right to SUNY representation."The question is, is it that nobody [at UB] looked into it, or is it that NYSSA hasn't shown interest in graduate students?" asked Patel.Both Patel and Pape believe SUNY's graduate division was responsible for relaying information to the GSA regarding representative elections and conference details.At the March 6 GSA Senate meeting, NYSSA delegates will be nominated and elected by the 60 to 80 senators from graduate departmental, international and special-interest clubs.