Your Student Governments have been going through many changes. Back in 2007, The Executive Council of Graduate and Professional Students (ECGPS) emerged as a governing body for graduate and professional students by forming a partnership with the undergraduate University of Iowa Student Government (UISG) under the Partnership of Shared Governments at Iowa (PSGI). While the partnership was not a perfect union, it helped each government realize that there is a lot they can achieve together despite the interests and goals for the two distinct student bodies being very different.  Thus, it is was difficult to work in unison on many issues.

As a result, in Spring 2009, ECGPS withdrew from the PSGI Constitution and emerged as an independent government representing graduate and professional students. By doing so, ECGPS and UISG no longer shared the Student Assembly Budgeting and Allocating Committee (SABAC), the committee charged with recommending how to spend the Student Activity Fee (SAF) on Student Organizations. UISG and ECGPS met in mediation to attempt to develop a jointly agreed upon system to allocated the SAF; however, by March, 2009, they had not reached an agreement.

At that time, the Interim Vice President for Student Services issued an interim policy describing how the student governments would recommend allocations from the SAF. This policy recognized three distinct groups charged with recommending allocations from the SAF: UISG would maintain sole control of the Student Assembly Budgeting and Allocating Committee (SABAC), ECGPS would maintain sole control over the Graduate and Professional Allocation Committee (GPAC), and the two governments would jointly share a Finance Committee that recommends SAF allocations to fixed-costs and to  "Collaborative Funding Organizations." Staring with all FY2010 budgets and supplemental funding periods, the two governments have been working under the Vice President's interim policy.

UISG and ECGPS want to address as many questions as we can regarding the structural change of the Student Governments at The University of Iowa (SG@UI). We created this website in order to: explain the status of our governments such as what we do and do not share, provide links to appropriate sites, and serve as a central source of information for shared committees (the Finance Committee, Nominations Committee and Student Judical Court).