The 69th Senate of the Associated Students of New Mexico State University convened on March 5 to pass new resolutions and bills, sparking debate over graduate student funding.
Bill 272, proposed by Sen. Gage Anderson, suggested adding two new Senate seats to allow representatives from the Honors College to participate in the Senate. If passed, the two seats would be added by next year – bringing the total amount of constituents from 30 to 32. The bill passed with an unanimous (25-0).
Anderson went on to propose Bill 331 which was a recommendation from ASNMSU’s Attorney General Rahaf Ben Ali. The bill, brought forth by the Graduate Student Council (GSC), requested the wording in their contract with ASNMSU to be changed to get rid of the cap placed on how much funds they can request.
The GSC said they run out of funds every year and have already run out of funds for this semester.
“For the past few semesters, and at this point a few years now, the GSC has continuously run out of funds for multiple reasons,” Sen. Shashank Dharba said. “…Now do we think there should be a cap for equality? Yes. But at the same time, the requirements of the different colleges are different.”
A GSC member said that graduate students tend to need more funding because they are often required to attend conferences in order to graduate. Senators were divided over the bill because removing the GSC’s cap may be deemed as unfair to other councils.
“This is not preventing funding from graduate students,” Anderson said. “…We’re just making the bylaws fair…There’s no special treatment anymore for these councils.”
The bill was denied with a (8-16) vote.
Despite the failure, senators reviewed the bill and decided that the GSC’s cap would be no more than $1,000 per organization and $10,000 in operating funds. Upon revision, the updated bill passed (16-5), though ASNMSU hasn’t yet announced what the GSC will receive for academic year 2026-2027.
The remaining bills all supported funding for various students. Sen. Diego Carillo proposed Bill 357 to fund students applying to the Supply Chain Management Conference.
Bill 309, proposed by Sen. Katelyn Peach, supported funding for the National Collegiate Soils Contest. Both passed unanimously.
