The second legislature of the Graduate Student Government Association (GSGA) convened Monday evening to approve a chartering and budget request from Emory’s Graduate Christian Fellowship.
GSGA voted to charter the organization as a Graduate-Wide Organization (GWO) with 12 votes in favor and one abstention. The legislators also voted unanimously to fund Emory’s Graduate Christian Fellowship the annual budget of $500.
The Graduate Christian Fellowship is a graduate student community that seeks to “bless the University” through “practices of spiritual formation; integration of our faith, studies and work and proclamation of the good news about Jesus in word and deed,” according to its Facebook.
To be chartered as a GWO, an organization must show a “graduate-wide benefit” through its mission and practices, include representation from more than half of the eight graduate divisional schools, ensure that “members from any one graduate division may not compromise equal to or greater than 50 percent of the membership of the GWO” and agree to an annual charter and monetary review, according to the GSGA chartering bylaws.
Out of about 36 total members, the Graduate Christian Fellowship has roughly 20 members from Laney Graduate School and 12 members from the Rollins School of Public Health, but also has members within the Goizueta Business School, Emory University School of Law and the Emory School of Medicine.
Graduate Christian Fellowship President Julian Hurtado (22G), Graduate Christian Fellowship Treasurer Danielle Winkler (19PH) and Faculty Adviser and Campus Minister Glenn Goldsmith represented the organization at the GSGA meeting.
Hurtado sought to charter the organization as a GWO to to “ease initial recruitment in the beginning of the year” and to “potentially ease [the process of] partnering with another organization,” he wrote in a Feb. 13 email to the Wheel.
Hurtado emphasized the importance of connecting various Christian students across Emory’s campus.
“The idea is to foster a community within the Christian organizations between all the different graduate schools,” Hurtado said. “That’s the vision.”
The organization will retain its GWO status for at least one year and is scheduled to undergo a standard review in Spring 2019.
The $500 budget from GSGA will be used for a Spring semester outreach event and a Fall semester welcome dinner, Hurtado said.
Executive Editor | cyan24@emory.edu
Christina Yan (21B) is from Monmouth Junction, N.J., majoring in business administration. She previously served as assistant news editor and news editor. She won a 2018 Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists in the General News Reporting category for her coverage of Emory Law Professor Paul J. Zwier II’s use of the N-word in class and also placed as a finalist in the same category for her investigation of the 2018 Student Government Association elections. Outside the Wheel, she is an academic fellow, QTM100 lab assistant and a member of Emory China Care's marketing team. In her spare time, she enjoys flexing on others with her ability to eat spicy food.
