GSA election results: zero to two postgraduate heroes?

On Wednesday, the Union announced the results of the most recent Graduate Students Association (GSA) election. Kilian Frensch became the new GSA Chair and Yinka Bisiriyu is the latest GSA Treasurer. However the GSA Secretary post remains unfilled after both candidates withdrew midway through the election.

The GSA represents postgraduates at Imperial including PhD and Masters students, by voicing their concerns and needs to the Union, the College and nationally. However, the association has been non-existant since November when the previous Chair, Jon Matthews, resigned in dramatic fashion after Union Council rejected two of his reports deeming his work over the summer break unsatisfactory. His resignation left the GSA committee without any members. Postgraduate representation suffered further still last term without a permanent Postgraduate Co-ordinator staff member present within the Union.

Mr Frensch was the sole nominee in the race for GSA Chair beating RON (re-open nominations) 111 votes to 19. The contest for Treasurer was very closely contested, however, with four votes separating Ms Bisiriyu and her closest rival.

Turnout has increased slightly since the last election, going from 111 to 130 votes in the GSA Chair election compared to the last election. 211 votes were cast in the Treasurer election but with over 4,500 postgraduates at Imperial College the overall turnout remains very poor with less than 5% of the electorate voting.

Hopefully, if Mr Frensch’s ambitious manifesto is anything to go by, the GSA will bring some tangible change for postgraduate students. In it, he says he wants to “gain ‘student status’ for writing-up students” in order to waive council tax and to allow them to use College’s facilities, since PhD students in their fourth year lose swipe card access. He also states that he will campaign to “allow research students to keep income from scholarships that exceed standard paying rate” and to “regain pay taken from Mathematics PhD students when they were underpaid.”

Unlike his predecessor, Mr Frensch will have a Treasurer for support and with the recent appointment of a permanent Union Postgraduate Co-ordinator the GSA appears to be getting back on track. The Union President, Stephen Brown, told Felix that now the GSA has a core team from which it can build on, it will be left to its own devices and to find itself a Secretary to complete the GSA trinity.

If Mr Frensch achieves everything he set out to do, he will be one of the greatest student representatives ever. Even if he brings only his first promise to fruition he will have resuscitated the GSA, which has been flat-lining for a while. Defibrillate away Kilian!

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