Academic senate appointment fill vacant grad studies seat

During the USUSA Academic Senate meeting on April 1, the senate appointed Jamie Parry as the new senator for the School of Graduate Studies. Five members voted yes, one voted no and one abstained from voting.

The seat is an elected officer position, but after the elections earlier this semester, it was left unfilled. There was one person who was running for the position, but they dropped out of the race before voting began.

Academic senate consists of one senator from each of the colleges at Utah State, including the School of Graduate Studies, and is chaired by the USUSA Executive Vice President, for the 2023-24 school year it was Aly Cinq-Mars. They meet every Monday at 4 p.m., and meetings are open to the public.

According to Article 3 Section 4 of the USUSA constitution, to be eligible to hold an office within USUSA, a student must be “a fully matriculated and enrolled student at the appropriate campus or Service Region and program and/or college for the entire term in office, excluding concurrent enrollment.”

Parry is currently finishing her undergraduate degree in political science. She will start as a graduate student in the fall in the master’s program for anticipatory intelligence program. She was accepted into the program in March and became a fully matriculated graduate student on April 1, the day of the appointment.

Parry ran for student body president in the Executive Leadership Board elections, held on Feb. 28 and 29. The election for grad studies senator was held on March 4 and 5.

When asked over email if she would have considered running for grad studies senator in the election, Parry wrote, “Per the USUSA bylaws, I am also unsure if I would have been eligible to declare since I wasn’t an officially matriculated grad student until this week.”

According to the USUSA elections bylaws, a student must be fully matriculated at the corresponding campus and admitted to the appropriate college to run for a position.

USUSA President Abe Rodriguez was at the senate meeting to present Parry’s name for approval.

“If we weren’t certain about her eligibility, we wouldn’t have considered her name in the process from the beginning,” Rodriguez said.

He explained the process he went through to appoint a new grad studies senator.

“With this particular scenario, I obviously wanted this process to be the most appropriate process possible,” Rodriguez said. “So I decided that, well, because this is someone that will be serving next year for the 2024-2025 academic year, I thought it’d be most appropriate to involve our president-elect and our executive vice president-elect in this process.”

According to Article 3 Section 5 of the constitution, it is up to the USUSA President to nominate someone to fill any vacancy in a USUSA office. The nominee must meet the eligibility requirements for that position.

Rodriguez said when deciding how to go forward in the process, he followed what former USUSA President Clara Alder did when she had to appoint a College of Engineering Senator in 2022. He also reached out to her for advice.

In order to choose a nominee, Rodriguez gathered a committee consisting of Matt Richey, the USUSA 2024-25 president; Brooklyn Ward, the USUSA 2024-25 executive vice president; and Kevin Webb, one of the advisers over USUSA.

Rodriguez said he chose Webb for the committee because he directly advises the grad studies senator.

The committee came up with two names as options, and Rodriguez submitted them to Richard Cutler, the vice provost of graduate studies, who approved them.

“We knew we were considering two. We had received recommendations from the vice provost of grad studies, or received the green light, as it were,” Richey said. “And then we called them in for an interview. And then we were just kind of equals in the deliberation process, all three of us discussing what we were looking for.”

The fact that the senate would be voting to approve the appointment of the new senator was not in the agenda prior to the meeting.

Maggie Eguko, the USUSA chief of staff, sends out the agendas every week for Academic Senate, Executive Leadership Board and Executive Council.

“We send out the agendas every Friday,” Eguko said. “Every senator and every officer has the opportunity to email back and amend the agenda as they see fit. So if they email back and amend the agenda, those agendas are re-sent out before the meeting on Monday.”

Senate meetings are divided into the following categories: public forum, president’s report, unfinished business, new business and council updates.

According to Eguko, if the appointment for the senator position had been done during public forum, it would not have needed to be on the agenda. But Rodriguez presented the name for approval during new business, and anything in that section needs to be on the agenda.

Cinq-Mars did pass a motion to amend the agenda and add the appointment to new business at the beginning of the meeting.

Before the senate voted, there was discussion between the senators. Questions were asked about the nomination process and why Parry was chosen.

College of Science senator Jaxton Winder started the discussion by asking why specifically Parry was chosen over the other candidate.

“When we asked specific questions like within the charter itself, she already knew exactly what she would do looking forward. She really did do her homework with the charter itself,” Rodriguez said.

Winder said concerns he raised during the meeting were not against Parry but rather out of concern that the person representing graduate students is the best person for the job.

“Being a graduate student adds a whole new host of issues and things to work with, especially when you’re going to be seeing a lot more non-traditional students, you’re going to be seeing a lot more international students,” Winder said. “The majority of graduate students are in this weird middle ground where they’re kind of employees of the university, especially if they’re getting any stipends or research assistants, TAs and whatnot.”

Parry has been enrolled in a few graduate level courses during her undergraduate education.

The current grad studies senator Sarah Pope also spoke up during the meeting, saying that in the future, she thinks it would be beneficial for the committee to talk to the person currently holding the position, because the charter isn’t always exactly what the position entails.

Pope said she was told who the committee was considering, but no one ever asked her about the position, what qualities they should be looking for and what questions they should ask.

“I feel, I guess, slighted in a way,” Pope said. “I don’t think I should choose. I don’t think I should have a vote in that because it’s not my student government, but I do think that at least speaking with the person in that current position, regardless of the position, really should probably be consulted on the interview, or at least in terms of questions and qualities and things like that.”

All three students on the committee to appoint the new senator were undergraduate students.

Pope has been the grad studies senator for two years. She said the position is different from the other senator positions because of the nature of grad students.

“I think it’s kind of unnecessary to have the full grasp of it,” Parry said. “Every grad student is going to have a different perspective.”

In the senate meeting, Winder asked, “How are you personally reconciling with the fact that the proposed candidate is not currently a graduate student and doesn’t have the experience of the graduate student?”

Rodriguez responded, saying even in his position, there were things he did not have personal experience with, but he was willing to listen, learn, see what the issues were and what was going on and do his best to advocate for students who have had different experiences. He added it is like that in every position.

“The graduate study senator also has a counsel from a graduate student from each different college. So with that counsel, I’m hoping to include lots of different perspectives to help fill in the gaps that maybe I don’t have that full experience,” Parry said. “Utilizing what my perspective is already, but also ensuring that my graduate studies council has diverse enough perspectives to fill in what those concerns are, will enable success with how I run this position.”

Parry was not at the meeting and didn’t know she was chosen for the position until after the senate voted to approve her.

The USUSA officers for 2024-25 school year, including Parry, officially started their term after being sworn into office at inauguration on April 19.