The Graduate and Professional Student Senate held elections to decide who would serve on its Executive Council during the 2017-18 academic year at its monthly meeting Monday.

Running unopposed, current President Vivek Lawana was reelected.

Lawana said that a benefit of his re-election is that he has established relationships with members of the Iowa State University administration, which he said is the “biggest challenge” that is faced by the president.

“You will be meeting with them every week, or even more, and creating that trust from both sides is the first and most important part [of being GPSS president],” Lawana said.

Regarding his agenda for his next year as president, Lawana said he hopes to increase diversity and inclusivity in GPSS and the Graduate College.

Assuming the responsibilities of the vice president is current VP Ashton Archer’s husband, George Weston. Archer attested to Weston’s experience in Student Government.

Weston had been involved in GPSS before but was not involved this academic year, as he was involved in supporting the sociology department following the death of department chair Chester Britt.

“I don’t believe in nepotism. I think that he is highly qualified for the position regardless of his relationship to me,” Archer said. “I think he would be a really good representative for [GPSS] and would work really hard as VP.”

Weston said one of his goals is to make GPSS meetings more efficient.

“I was on the Rules Committee last year in which we implemented a lot of the time changes about how long certain things were allowed to go,” he said, “so I’d like to find ways to continue that efficiency of your time you spend here on Monday nights.”

Maria Mantilla-Perez was elected as treasurer after running unopposed.

“I really enjoy being here and I like to serve,” Mantilla-Perez said. “And what I’d like to do is to be able to serve our community of grad students as treasurer.”

In the most divisive contest of the night, Nadia Jaramillo was nominated to run against current University Relations Legislative Affairs (URLA) chair Michael Belding.

An initial vote resulted in a near tie, with neither receiving the required majority vote, but after discussion and the votes of GPSS members who abstained in the initial vote, Belding was re-elected with a 56 percent majority.

While current Chief Information Officer Huanjiao Dong was defeated in her re-election bid by Gaurav Kandoi, Dong will remain on the Executive Council after being nominated and subsequently elected as research conference chair.

Kevin Natukunda, who has served on the Professional Advancement Grant (PAG) Committee, was elected as the new PAG chair.

In addition to elections, GPSS members were paid a visit by Reginald Stewart, vice president for diversity and inclusion, during their open forum.

He spoke about Iowa State’s strategic plan, specifically about one goal, which is to provide an experience to the Iowa State community that is inclusive and provides support to faculty, staff, students and visitors.

He also spoke about the importance of the upcoming climate survey and how beneficial it is to implementing change.

“The last campus climate survey was in 2004. Who was here in 2004?” Stewart asked. “If you only take your pulse checks every 13 or 14 years, you’re missing a lot of the experiences and what’s happening to people.”

Stewart said that the core element of the study is to look at how the university is performing in regard to diversity, inclusion, equity, safety and security, sexual assault, special incident preparedness and environmental health.

Upcoming events were also discussed during Monday’s meeting, including Knowledge on Tap, which is an “interdisciplinary off-campus event where graduate students discuss research over beers” at Torrent Brewing Company, according to Anna Prisacari, a former GPSS member and president who spoke during the open forum.

The next Knowledge on Tap will be on April 19.

Also upcoming is the fourth annual Graduate and Professional Student Research Conference, which will take place April 12 in the Memorial Union.

Meeting minutes and other information can be found on the GPSS website.

The next and final GPSS meeting of the academic year will take place April 17.