Student Council votes to pass graduate and professional student related legislation, bylaw changes

The legislation, titled “Graduate and Professional Program Transparency and Assistantship Support,” highlights student enrollment declines, cuts to research funding and more. The legislation, which passed, calls on schools, colleges and academic departments to “increase transparency and support for graduate and professional students,” provide “up-to-date statistics,” among others. It also calls for a university-level policy that would outline accommodations, such as excused course absences for the “purposes of conference, research or professional development related to students’ assistantships and degree programs.”

“There’s a need now, more than ever, for continued and expanded transparency of graduate and professional programs in regards to admission rates, types of funding, retention rates, timelines to degree completion, graduate rates and outcomes” Representative Cherish Golden said. “All of these factors are very important to graduate and professional students when they choose an institution to attend. Additionally, support in degree programs and assistantships is critical for persistence and retention”

An additional piece of legislation, titled "Enhancing Faculty Mentorship of Graduate and Professional Students," points to concerns in advisor-advisee relationships with regards to work balance, limiting time off, increasing requirements and more. The legislation, which was passed, affirms its support for mentorship training programs, including assessment of effectiveness using statistics from surveys and assessing the effectiveness of faculty participation in these training programs.

“The passing of the legislation presented tonight will help to propel continued advocacy efforts to ensure UW–Madison is adequately supporting graduate and professional students in their degree programs and assistantships,” Golden said.

Both pieces of legislation were worked on by the Graduate and Professional Student Committee.

Student Council also examined various bylaw changes, including for the Student Judiciary and the Graduate & Professional Committee. The first included amendments from representatives, while the latter did not. Both passed, but require another vote due to proposed alterations to the bylaws. Student Council also revisited bylaw changes that were passed in prior meetings for the Student Transportation Board and Student Advocacy Committee. Both were passed for the second time and are now official.

Furthermore, 84 operations grants were formally approved for Registered Student Organizations (RSOs). In addition, Student Activity Center allocations were authorized, giving space in the building to various different RSOs for 2026-2027.

The meeting minutes are available here. The meeting notes have not yet been formally approved, so changes could still be made.

The last Student Council meeting of the 32nd session will be held on April 22 at 6:30 p.m. in the Student Activity Center Hearing Room on the fourth floor. The agenda for this meeting will be available here closer to the meeting.