The Graduate and Professional Student Senate discussed a proposal that would request full tuition for doctoral students on assistantships, but decided to table the proposal to discuss further at their next meeting.

If passed, the graduate student tuition waiver proposal would request a full tuition scholarship for all doctoral students on assistantships from the Board of Regents.

John Mayfield, associate dean of the Graduate College, said he has been working on the proposal since January.

The proposal would maintain the current half-tuition scholarship for students on assistantships working toward master’s degrees.

Mayfield said the current proposal could provide full tuition scholarships to all doctoral students on assistantships without costing additional money to Iowa State or requiring additional money from the state.

“It works out financially,” he said. “The budget crisis doesn’t affect the proposal.”

Some money would be shifted inside the Graduate College and other money would come from external grants that support graduate students.

Other universities such as the University of Michigan, the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota provide full tuition scholarships for doctoral students on assistantships.

“Most of the competing universities provide full tuition coverage for Ph.D. students,” Mayfield said.

Mayfield said everyone is trying hard to get the proposal accepted and students have been very supportive.

“I’m concerned about the lack of support from the deans of the colleges and the administration,” said Dee Egdorf, GPSS president.

Mayfield was unable to attend the GPSS meeting due to illness, leaving many senators reluctant to pass the resolution for proposal of the tuition waiver.

“I would be more willing to support the resolution to pass the proposal when we can hear from Dr. Mayfield and be certain we know where all the money is coming from,” said Kersten Kappmeyer, GPSS senator for journalism and mass communication.

A motion was passed to table the resolution and GPSS will further discuss the resolution at their next meeting.

If passed by GPSS, a decision on the proposal would be made by the provost’s office by the end of the fall semester, Mayfield said.

More than 60 GPSS senators attended Monday night’s meeting to vote on the various bills.

The senate unanimously passed its bills for adoption of the 2003—04 standing rules, Graduate and Professional Student Senate allocation policies and procedures, and the March 2004 budget timeline change.

GPSS also passed the bill to revise the budget year specified in the GPSS bylaws.

“The budget timeline change and the bylaws allows us to make the budget shorter for next year, which will simplify procedures,” said Kristen Meyer, graduate student in mathematics.