In the spring of 1965, during a period of student unrest at college campuses across the country, the Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW) and the Graduate School established the Joint Committee on Graduate Programming (Joint Committee). Graduate and professional students had come to constitute a sizable portion of the student body, but previously lacked an effective means of communication with the administration as well as the existing student government.
The Joint Committee was intended to address this deficiency. It consisted of eight students appointed by the deans of various schools within the University as well as two faculty members and a representative of the ASUW. In an effort to establish contact with students on the departmental level, graduate program advisors (GPAs) were asked to appoint graduate students to serve as representatives to the Joint Committee. The Joint Committee undertook a number of projects but was plagued by a series of fundamental difficulties: communication with departmental representatives was poor, and communication among graduate students was essentially nonexistent. Furthermore, the purpose and role of the Joint Committee had never been well-defined and its budget was limited.
In 1966, it was decided that a conference of departmental representatives should be held to establish the goals of the Joint Committee more clearly and to determine its identity. In January of 1967, such a conference was held at the University of Washington Pack Forest Conference Facility. The graduate students at the conference passed a resolution calling for the formation of an independent, representative graduate organization. That organization was the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS).
The Senate was originally formed as a subdivision of the ASUW, however, in 1967, the student body approved the ASUW constitutional amendment which designated the GPSS as the representative body for graduate and professional students and the ASUW as the representative body for undergraduates. At the same time, graduate students retained the right to belong to the ASUW and to participate in ASUW activities.
Since then, the GPSS has become a significant presence on the UW campus. Historically, the Senate has been most effective in dealing with issues directly related to student concerns. It has addressed problems such as tuition and fee increases, the need for increased programming around diversity, equity, and inclusion, access to childcare facilities at affordable prices, and state residency requirements.