Formerly known as Graduate Student Association, the newly renamed Graduate Student Senate will look to inform students about academic integrity in the fall semester, according to Patrick Schuneman, GSS president.
“We held a symposium earlier this semester to address the issues of cheating and academic fraud,” Schuneman said. “The feedback from it was great, so we want to narrow the scope of that symposium and individual address plagiarism.”
Schuneman said the previous event was helpful for the UT community but was too broad. He said that GSS would try to address the issues with select groups such as faculty and students individually.
While the symposium was a major accomplishment for the GSS, Schuneman said the establishment of free health insurance for graduate teaching assistants this next year was a huge step for the organization. It wasn’t fair for students making a minimal amount of income to have to pay for insurance they really didn’t need, GSS member Chad Toney said.
“As a whole, graduate assistants are younger and don’t need coverage for things like cancer,” Toney said. “Most of the time injuries are minor, so we worked with the administration to outline a plan that would cover GA’s needs for free.”
Schuneman said the new plan showed that the administration was willing to help students in need. Addressing student needs is something Schuneman hopes to do this next year. He said under his leadership, GSS would try to help both undergraduate and graduate needs.
“You can see we are trying to do that already,” Schuneman said. “Plans like the health care system will benefit undergrads as well because it will attract more, and better GA’s to Tennessee. With better GAs, students will receive an overall better experience in the classroom.
“That’s one of our focuses as an organization.”
The senate decided to change its name after students questioned its purpose. The former title was too closely related to a student club and not student government, Schuneman said. He said he hopes students will come to the organization if they have issues and that graduate students shouldn’t be left out of student government.
“Now we are more in line with the other legislative student bodies,” Schuneman said. “We are just as much a part of student government as the Faculty Senate and Undergraduate Student Senate, and this will help students see that.
“We are excited about the next year.”
