As the 2025-26 Internal Vice President of the GSA, I intend to help elevate student voices and help coordinate communication across the campus, centering graduate students’ needs, interests, and concerns. The duties of Internal Vice President largely include coordinating graduate students within Academic Senate and community-based subcommittees as well as soliciting primary concerns of graduate students to bring to the attention of administration. I intend to leverage this work to find cohesive requests, concerns, and feedback, and work to collaboratively find solutions and put them into practice. Additionally, the IVP has traditionally coordinated with various administrative teams to help disseminate information to graduate students. In the role of IVP, I hope to help address the ways in which the campus serves as a microcosm of the city of Davis, the state of California, and the entire nation. UC Davis functions as a touchpoint for various international cultures and communities, and the graduate student population is a key part in this. In 2025, we see not just the problems that have arisen globally but also the ways in which the world has come together. By addressing the concerns of graduate students on campus, we are able to better serve the various communities we are all part of, and help support global connections.

Having served as the GSA Secretary for AYs 2023-24 and 2024-25, I have been in the fortunate position to directly engage with graduate students and administration staff. As a result, I have seen and heard firsthand the ways in which graduate students are engaged and disengaged with the campus. I intend to continue the work I have done in amplifying concerns and working toward resolutions,  and getting student involvement more active in the community on-campus by helping to create a number of different communities that can come together. Historically, I have guided my work with the GSA under two different directives: answer questions before they have to be asked, and learn the rules in order to break them correctly. I aim to continue and expand on this work in 2025-26 by listening, addressing, and communicating. 

If there is anything that you would like me to be aware of as a member of UCD’s graduate student body, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at slerner@ucdavis.edu.