The Graduate Student Council (GSC) elected new officers at its weekly meeting last night. The highest ranking positions voted on were those of GSC chair and financial officer, although over a dozen officer positions were filled.

Polina Segalova, an engineering student, and George Bloom, a humanities student, were elected as GSC co-chairs, defeating Melahn Parker and Fen Zhao nine votes to one. Bloom served as GSC co-chair last year as well, along with Kristina Keating.

One of the foremost issues discussed by the two pairs of candidates prior to the voting session was how best to manage and allocate the ballooning reserve funds at the council’s disposal — approximately $250,000.

“I don’t think we only should be talking about keeping things the same,” Bloom said in response to questions about his plans for the future. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t expand what we’re doing and try to get more of the graduate student community involved in the decision-making process.”

Nanna Notthoff, a first-year psychology graduate student, was elected to the officer position of financial officer, narrowly defeating Zhao six votes to five.

“I am used to dealing with things as they come to me,” Notthoff said, “and will be very efficient in terms of keeping things in order, compensating parties when necessary and all of that.”

Candidates for these two positions had to be drawn from the fifteen voting members of the GSC. The current council members were elected in the ASSU Elections two weeks ago.

All other officer positions, however, were open to everyone in the graduate community. Positions included funding committee chair, programming coordinators and secretary. Very few of these elections were contested, and a majority of them were filled by individuals who had served in that role the prior term.

Jonny Dorsey ‘09, newly-elected ASSU president, and Fagan Harris ‘09, newly-elected ASSU vice president, also addressed the council at the beginning of the meeting. They spoke of the importance of increasing communication and collaboration between the undergraduate and graduate communities.

“Ultimately, we represent you guys just like we represent the undergraduates,” Dorsey said to the council, “but we cannot pretend to know what you guys want or need as well as we do with the undergraduate community. So feel free to call us at any time and let us know what you want us to do or what you think we should be doing differently.”