The Graduate and Professional Student Senate rejected a resolution to provide funding for laptops during its monthly meeting Monday night.

The resolution called for GPSS to allocate $6,000 to buy new laptops for the Student Activities Center in the Memorial Union.

The $6,000 provided by GPSS would amount to roughly one-third of the $18,334.50 allocated to purchase 15 new Dell Latitude D630s for student checkout.

The Government of the Student Body unanimously voted to provide the rest of the funding earlier in the month, and plans to go forward with the purchase without GPSS funding.

GPSS defeated the bill with 15 senators in support and 36 against.

Mike McCarville, GPSS entomology senator and graduate student in entomology, raised questions about the equity of the funding, as graduate students do not make up one-third of the students on campus.

A few senators also said graduate students wouldn’t utilize the laptops to the extent that undergraduate students would.

“Most graduate students have departmental resources for things such as this,” said Becky Brown, GPSS treasurer and graduate student in entomology, “and most of them would not go to the MU to check out a laptop.”

Other senators didn’t think funding the laptops should be a goal for GPSS.

“I think that we have to keep in mind the mission of GPSS,” said Zach Ford, GPSS chief information officer and graduate student in educational leadership and policy studies. “The impression I get from the other graduate students I’ve talked to is that we don’t have the need. I don’t think that it’s a fair expectation that we should foot part of this bill merely because we’re the other governmental body,” Ford said.

Ryan Myers, GPSS at large senator, GPS graduate senator and graduate student in accounting, supported the resolution and urged the senators to “look at the big picture” and what is best for all students. He also noted that GPSS is not utilizing all of its funding.

GPSS was unable to pass the articles of cooperation and other amendments to its constitution for the second meeting in a row because two-thirds of GPSS senators are needed to vote on the amendments and were not present.

John Schmitz, GPSS president and graduate student in food science and human nutrition-Agriculture and Life Sciences, said many senators were not showing up to meetings, and that it could hurt the organization.

If GPSS does not pass the amendments at their next meeting, they could lose access to their funding, he said.