GAPSA sets priorities at meeting

The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly is hoping to make a difference this year, Chairperson David Mestre said last night. At GAPSA's first meeting of the academic year, he and approximately 20 other students discussed issues ranging from establishing a graduate student cafe to creating a listserver for graduate students. "I hope that by the time we finish this year, we can look back and say that maybe we made a change," Mestre said. Students addressed the effort to establish a graduate student cafe, which had previously been called a pub. The issue has been raised several times in the past, and students hope the idea will get the attention it deserves from the University administration. Students also hope that the new name will make the idea more palatable to the University administration, according to GAPSA First Vice Chairperson Cheryl Neisser-Frankson. Neisser-Frankson, the graduate Nursing representative, noted that the cafe could bring together students from various University graduate schools. "There is no place for graduate students to go and to meet each other from other schools," she said. After several delays involving the University administration in the past, Neisser-Frankson wants the issue pushed forward. "This is an issue that we really, really want to rally around this year," she said. "We need to be a little more forceful this time." The establishment of a graduate student listserver is also an important goal for GAPSA this year, according to several of the group's representatives. Tom Timperio, GAPSA's vice chair for communications, said one positive aspect of a listserver would be the range of students that could be reached. "The beauty of the listserver is that it can reach anybody who has e-mail," said Timperio, who is also the Annenberg School representative to GAPSA. Also addressed at the GAPSA meeting was the re-establishment of the Graduate Perspective, a graduate student newsletter that has not been published in more than a year. Timperio said the newsletter could include the announcement of events, soundbites on various issues and minutes from different graduate school meetings. Finding an effective way to distribute the newsletter, though, arose as a potential problem. The meeting also included a presentation by Undergraduate Assembly Chairperson Dan Debicella, a Wharton junior, who spoke about getting graduate students involved in Project 2000, a policy paper being formulated by the UA.