Grad student paper shuts down

GAPSA eliminates publication because of a lack of interest The Graduate Perspective officially died Wednesday. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly passed a motion at its meeting Wednesday to "completely eliminate" the graduate student newspaper as it exists under GAPSA. GAPSA will reserve the $14,500 of its budget earmarked for the graduate student newspaper in case future students show interest in revitalizing the publication. If the paper returns, its funds would have to come through the Graduate Inter-School Activities Council – the graduate student equivalent of the Student Activities Council – instead of directly from GAPSA. The paper published a total of three issues last year, and only one issue so far this year, Graduate Perspective staff member and physics graduate student Judith Bush said. "Unless student government will push to get people involved, I can't see graduate students with enough time and energy to publish it," she said. Attempts to publish the paper this semester were thwarted by low student interest and the loss of key staff members, Bush said. Before voting on the paper's fate, extensive debate focused on exactly whose perspective it should be written from. Many students said they were concerned that the paper had been simply the voice of graduate student government. Bush said most people who have worked for the Graduate Perspective were also students involved with graduate student government. GAPSA Chairperson Patricia Khuly said GAPSA will begin publishing a newsletter to disseminate GAPSA information and resolutions now that the paper is officially gone. While some students discussed the possible creation of a computer newsgroup in which graduate students could read and write about their concerns for free, most believed a newspaper would reach more students. In other business, GAPSA tabled a resolution that would demand a lift on the city's taxation of graduate student stipends and fellowship money. A memo from the University's Comptroller's Office last month said beginning January 1, the University will begin withholding city wage taxes on all stipends to teaching assistants and research fellows who provide "any service" to the University. The resolution would also have asked the University to lobby on behalf of graduate students to halt the implementation of the new tax.