The Graduate Student Senate made changes to its constitution and bylaws involving the availability of interdepartmental representation.

Currently, GSS has representatives from several departments within all of the colleges.

The changes to the constitution and bylaws, which were proposed by Amber Denton-Johnson, graduate student in evolutionary biology and ecology, were approved unanimously and will allow students in interdepartmental majors to have senate representation.

“It just simplifies it because in the past there were at least two different rules that allow interdepartmental majors to be represented,” Johnson said.

Formerly, representation for interdepartmental programs was dependent on whether senators declared their department when they declared their majors.

“The way that it was written before, it was relatively confusing,” said Danelle Haake, graduate student in forestry. “I don’t think it has been followed to the letter.”

Haake said that representation wouldn’t change much.

“The way we’re writing it, it’s pretty much how it’s been done in the past,” said Haake.

Johnson said other majors may not ask the student to declare a home major for years, and it’s possible that those students may miss out on having representation.

According to the constitution, each graduate department, interdepartmental and graduate program may elect one senator for each fraction of 50 graduate or professional students, with a maximum of five.

“We found that it was confusing and hadn’t been followed in several years,” Johnson said.

Having interdepartmental majors represented, she said, may result in some double-representation, but that might not be a bad thing.

“It’s really hard to get senators to fill open spaces,” Johnson said. “We spent lots of time making things more consistent.”