A new graduate student subcommittee met for the first time Feb. 14 at the University Judiciary Council general body meeting.
The subcommittee was formed in response to demands from graduate students due to the lack of representation on UJC Executive Board.
UJC Chair Mackenzie Austin, a fourth-year College student, cited the lack of graduate students elected to the executive board as the reason for starting the subcommittee.
“This caused a concern within the committee that there would be poor communication between the graduate students and the Executive Board, and that graduate voices would be excluded from decision-making,” Austin said in an email statement. “This was when we began looking at alternative options to represent the graduate voice at the Executive level.”
Second-year Law student Alex Haden was elected the new chair of the subcommittee at the meeting and spoke about the push for more graduate representation on UJC and what the committee will do.
“The purpose of the committee, as I see it, is to increase graduate representation on UJC, to better serve the graduate student officers on UJC and to make sure that graduate students’ voices are being represented both in election processes on UJC as well as in the fair trial process of UJC,” Haden said in an email statement.
Haden thanked the current Executive Board, the graduate support officers for his election and UJC’s Law School Representatives, Carrington Giammittorio and Madison Marcus.
Haden said UJC is constrained by due process requirements which result in slow change to the organization’s structure.
“However, the structures of the UJC now are such that certain groups — namely, first-years — receive specialized trials and judges, whereas other groups do not,” Haden said. “Another task I’d love to accomplish is to gain a better understanding of why these structures are in place and why similar ones do not exist for other, larger groups on campus.”
Austin emphasized UJC’s efforts to diversify committees as outlined in their December newsletter, an effort which played a role in the development of the new committee.
“We have always made an effort to create a diverse body of individuals in UJC,” Austin said. “Through subcommittees, focus groups and overall inclusion of minority voices at both the support officer and Executive level, we attempt to incorporate these voices in our decision-making.”
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