Many concerns were brought to Penn State President Graham Spanier's attention last night when he attended the Graduate Student Association's (GSA) general assembly meeting.
The meeting, attended by about 40 people in 102 Kern Building, was a question-and-answer session in which graduate students asked Spanier about topics that ranged from Penn State's environmental concerns to graduate student parking spaces and transportation.
"The biggest issues we have this year are transportation and health insurance," GSA Vice President Brian Borawski said.
He said to remedy the health insurance concerns, GSA is informing the nearly 6,790 graduate students at University Park about the new plan Penn State adopted last year.
During the meeting, GSA President Abid Kazi asked Spanier if Penn State could have additional graduate student parking or could create a program for graduate students similar to "Ride for Five."
The "Ride for Five" program lets faculty and staff buy a transportation pass from the Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) Centre Line bus route for $5 a month rather than the normal cost of $49 a month.
Kazi said with the increase in on-campus buildings, it seemed parking spaces were being taken away.
"We do not have a decrease in the number of parking spaces," Spanier said. "If we ever take away a parking space, we make sure we have at least that many spaces replaced somewhere else."
Borawski said it is not practical for graduate students to drive a couple minutes from their apartments to the Bryce Jordan Center parking lot and then take the Campus Loop to where they study or work.
Spanier said the university gives CATA over $1 million for the loop service and added "a rule for faculty and staff members is their parking space is less than ten minutes away from where they work."
Another topic that was discussed were stricter changes to immigration laws for foreign students. Many graduate students told Spanier they are not receiving financial aid because of the new laws.
Spanier said he understood that it was difficult for foreign students to receive higher education in the United States because of current laws and pointed them to the Office of International Programs.
Following the meeting, Borawski said the session went well.
"It's good to have feedback both ways, between the president and grad students," Borawski said. "Almost all the comments were constructive on both sides."
Vijay Degalahal (graduate-computer science and engineering) felt the meeting was good, but that nothing would be acted upon by the administration.
"The higher the official, the less the details come out," Degalahal said.
