To our graduate and professional colleagues,

Please see below for a weekly update from the Graduate and Professional Student Government, which you should also be receiving from your department representative or college senator.

Upcoming events and opportunities:

• GPSG meetings
  • - Tuesdays 6:30pm
  • - biweekly Wednesdays 9am
  • - Tuesdays 4pm
  • - Tuesdays 10am
  • Outreach Team - Tuesday 4:30 pm (as needed)
• The CU Regents are soliciting individual feedback on the CU System Presidential Search. Submit feedback
• Sign up for our weekly !
• Current open GPSG applications:
• Please continue to share any questions or concerns about campus COVID-19 policies via this .

Week in Review:

• Our Chief of Staff put together a list of services and amenities available to all students that are funded through your student fees. The list can be found here. See something that’s missing? Let us know!
• We met with Associate Vice Chancellor for DEI, Sonia DeLuca Fernández. We discussed structural challenges facing CU as relates to DEI initiatives. We will be meeting again before the end of the semester. Please let us know if there are any points you would like us to bring up.
• The CU Regents came to Assembly yesterday to discuss the system presidential search.

If any questions arise, you can reach out to your representative or contact us at gpsg@colorado.edu.

We hope you stay safe and have a great week,

Emily Jensen, Barra Peak, and Bobby Vondrasek

GPSG Executive Team

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To our graduate and professional colleagues,

Please see below for a weekly update from the Graduate and Professional Student Government, which you should also be receiving from your department representative or college senator.

Upcoming events and opportunities:

• GPSG meetings
  • - Tuesdays 6:30pm
  • - Tuesdays 4pm
  • - Tuesdays 10am
  • Outreach Team - Tuesday 4:30 pm (as needed)
• Pumpkin patch event on Saturday!
• Current open GPSG applications:
• Please continue to share any questions or concerns about campus COVID-19 policies via this .
• The Campus Culture Survey is now live! Check your email for your unique survey link. Participants will get $7 in campus cash or have the option to donate it. Please take this survey so we can have the most robust grad student results possible!

Week in Review:

• We met with the Graduate School administration last week. Topics discussed: the CUSG strike, communication among shared governance groups, consolidating dental insurance information and standardizing how it is shared with grad students, and plans for addressing the results of the Grad SERU and Campus Climate surveys with the student body.
• We are meeting with the new AVC of DEI to get to know each other and discuss goals this week.
• Chairs & Directors meeting last week was largely focused on (undergraduate) student retention and success. See /bus-lit 
• CU-System Regents will be joining GSPG Assembly Meeting on Tuesday November 2nd at 7:15pm to discuss CU-System Presidential search with all CU-Boulder students.

If any questions arise, you can reach out to your representative or contact us at gpsg@colorado.edu.

We hope you stay safe and have a great week,

Emily Jensen, Barra Peak, and Bobby Vondrasek

GPSG Executive Team

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GPSG will be hosting a forum with the CU Board of Regents at next week's meeting on November 2. The Regents are seeking student feedback on the search for the next CU system president. Like all Assembly meetings, this event is open to the public. You can find this and all upcoming GPSG events on our events page.

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Today, GPSG Director of Legislative Affairs Matt Harvey submitted the following statement to the Board of Regents requesting they take steps to provide security for our international students and their academic progress.

GPSG statement to Board of Regents

As we approach the Fall Semester, the Graduate and Professional Student Government (formerly UGGS) is concerned about the university’s plan to protect and preserve the well-being of our international students as an invaluable community within ����������. Although the ICE guidelines on international student visas have been rescinded, GPSG still has concerns about the university’s dedication to preserving the degree progress and funding support for international students. These concerns are compounded by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which raises uncertainty for our international student community, due to their financial dependence on university support in the form of teaching and research appointments. In essence, we at GPGS would like to Regents to speak to the steps taking to ensure our international students can remain part of the campus community, and have the security needed to continue their degree progress uninterrupted.

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Today, UGGS submitted the following statement to the Board of Regents requesting they take action against the recent rule from ICE restricting certain international students from enrolling in online classes. We recognize that international students make up an invaluable part of our campus community and will continue to fight for them.

UGGS statement to Board of Regents

Regents,

I am writing to you in regard to a proposed rulemaking recently announced by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Specifically, changes to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) that will require nonimmigrant students on F-1 and M-1 visas to return to their home countries if their school operates entirely online as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. 

I am formally requesting that The University of Colorado Board of Regents sue The United States Department of Homeland Security and Acting Director Chad Wolf on behalf of the students in the CU system affected by this decision. 

It is obvious and apparent to any reasonable person that this rulemaking is in clear violation of federal law. Specifically, the Administrative Procedure Act requires that government rulemakings be justified on the administrative record after notice and comment. A government rulemaking is arbitrary and capricious and in violation of federal law if, “the agency entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, [or] offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency.” Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Association v. State Farm Insurance 463 U.S. 29 (1983). 

The decision at hand clearly meets these factors. The Agency has failed to consider the massive implications of forcing students to leave their institutions of higher education and travel back to their home countries during the global COVID-19 pandemic. The Agency has offered no explanation for its decision, and the evidence before the agency clearly shows that immigrants students are an invaluable part of U.S. Colleges and Universities and we would be at a loss without them. There is no reasonable basis to require international students to leave the U.S. 

The Regents of The University of California just won a virtually identical case in the Supreme Court where the Department of Homeland Security made an “arbitrary and capricious” decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. A brief review of the DACA case shows that the government is attempting to take the same illegal action here and violate the Administrative Procedure Act. 

The implications of this decision are massive and far-reaching and if fully carried out, will be felt for years to come. The students of the University of Colorado system deserve to be protected from arbitrary government decisions. I hope that as the Board of Regents you will have the courage and determination to defend their interests. 

I look forward to hearing your reply.

Matt Vondrasek

President, United Government of Graduate Students

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Today, the Director of Legislative Affairs, Matt Harvey, submitted a public comment to the Board of Regents on behalf of the United Government of Graduate Students regarding the growing inequity of higher education funding in the state of Colorado. The University has a commitment to provide a quality, affordable education to graduate and undergraduate students alike - and CU's reliance on tuition as its primary revenue stream places a disproportionate burden on students, and limits access to the ����������'s vibrant student community. The full text of our public comment is below:

UGGS General Comment to the Board of Regents

Over the past several years, much attention has been raised regarding rising socio-economic inequality in the United States, and the role of civic and public institutions in perpetuating it. Our University is not an exception to this concerning trend. While the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated many of these social cleavages, it is not the root cause. Higher education has been perpetually plagued by systemic funding issues. The Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR), The Balanced Budget Amendment, and the Gallagher Amendment have placed a stranglehold on the state budget and Colorado's future. The antiquated tax structure caused by these and other legislations benefits large corporations and the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the public at-large. As a result, the University of Colorado has had to become increasingly reliant on funding from private sources, federal grants, and student tuition and fees. This, in turn, has a significant impact on student recruitment and the composition of CU’s student body.

The State of Colorado’s budget for higher education is limited, but that is because of our tax structure, it is not because the state is inherently poor. Colorado’s higher education system is held back by this regressive taxation system, which disproportionately benefits the wealthiest stakeholders within the CU system. On this basis, the Board of Regents and the Colorado General Assembly have failed in their mandate to provide an affordable, quality public education to its students. We see consequences of this action today, as the University is pushing for in-person classes and student housing this semester, in order to maintain the out-of-state enrollment numbers required to sustain itself - placing our most vulnerable student populations at a disproportionate health risk and funnelling responsibility for this difficult transition to colleges and departments on campus.

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During the April 17th meeting, the UGGS Assembly voted to approve a resolution to challenge the Regents naming Mark Kennedy as the sole finalist of the CU system presidential search. 

Resolution Summary

The purpose of this resolution is to express graduate and professional students’ concerns with the selection of Mark Kennedy as the sole finalist for the office of president for the University of Colorado System. The United Government of Graduate Students (UGGS) demands closer attention and an expansion of the vetting process to ensure the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado (the Regents) appropriately incorporates student input.

Click here to download the resolution

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