Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA)!

(3) Budget and Constitutional Amendments

(Written by: Keshara Senanayake, Rexy Miao, Alexander Chmielinski, Shreyas Ramesh / Keshara Senanayake, Rexy Miao, Joelle Lingat, Jay Ortiz, Sereen Assi, Alex Chmielinski / Keshara Senanayake, Yumi Kodama)

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IDEAL Constitutional Amendment

• Codifies funding for IDEAL Council (and for Research/Professional Council) at $170k base allocation. Will grow as GAPSA’s budget grows
• This is the floor (not the ceiling for funding)
• Codifies the IDEAL Collaboration Fund and the IDEAL Affinity Group Leadership Development Fund (both of which are accessible to G12+ affinity groups to utilize)
• Codifies the list of IDEAL Groups, and provides them funding at the start of the academic year (some groups get funding in October, which creates issues for programming at the start of the academic year)

Grad Center Game Room Resolution (and constitutional amendment)

• $40,000 towards the creation of a Game Room in the Grad Center (where GAPSA/this GA will properly be credited)
• Codifies $30,000 in annual funding to the Grad Center (to be used for various initiatives and programming) to grow with our budget
• Main benefits: Increases the amount of free programming for graduate students (for students on a stipend, or taking out loans, increasing the number of free events is a priority). Also the capital goods bought can be utilized by graduate students throughout the G12+ (including affinity groups and student gov). Will help support new projects as well (e.g., printing, in a sustained way)

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Constitutional Amendments: IDEAL & Grad Center Funding

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Budget Amendment: Unpaid/Underpaid Internship program

Career Services Unpaid/Underpaid Internship Program

• Provides $700,000 from the reserve balance of $1.2 million to permanently create an unpaid/underpaid graduate and professional student internship program
• $500,000 to create an endowed funding line - the interest will support these internships in perpetuity — will touch generations of graduate and professional students
• $200,000 for immediate distribution (FY 2023 summer), with remainder going back to the endowed funding line
• Will create the first University-wide program to fund unpaid/underpaid graduate and professional student internships (the undergraduate version started from an alumni donor, but Career Services has been unable to find a starter one for graduate and professional students)
• Hope: Create a proof-of-concept, and spur more contributions/attract University-alumni support
• Calls on University to better fund these programs themselves - with an understanding that graduate and professional students cannot wait another decade for action. We must create our own momentum, the future is our responsibility

Will be available tomorrow 4pm onwards to talk!

Email: keshara@pennlaw.upenn.edu (I’ll send a zoom link)