Dear Editor:

This letter is in response to Nichole Boyd’s guest column that appeared in the Oct. 1 DAILY EGYPTIAN. I take issue with several of Ms. Boyd’s comments. The first issue is her statement, “Having SIUC on my diploma isn’t going to get me anywhere …” SIUC has many distinguished graduates, including Astronaut Joan Higginbotham, who will be here for homecoming. If a degree from SIU can get Joan into outer space, surely Ms. Boyd can get somewhere with her degree.

The second issue is funding guidelines of GPSC. When GPSC funds an event, its main guidelines are whether the event is the type of event in which graduate students will attend and how many graduate students are likely to attend. In other words, GPSC determines if the program is a “good” event and what is GPSC’s share of expenses. GPSC considered Ms. Boyd’s request for programming and felt that it was a “good” event that graduate and professional students would attend. Thus, the council decided to fund the event. These are fair guidelines.

However, I would have to agree that the actual funding for the event was inequitable, but not as Ms. Boyd stated. The event was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Graduate students comprise approximately 20 percent of the students on campus, and GPSC voted to allocate around 40 percent of the expenses for the event Ms. Boyd is speaking of. However, Ms. Boyd did not even request money from USG for this event. GPSC funded a disproportionate portion of the event because it felt that the event was a “good” event according to our funding guidelines. It is unfortunate that Ms. Boyd feels the need to slam SIU and GPSC because she did not properly plan the funding for her event and therefore did not receive the required funding. Furthermore, it is very inequitable to ask graduate students to disproportionately fund an event because of lack of planning.

Sara Samson JD

GPSC vice president