Graduate and Professional students chose Amir Gilmore as GPSA president and David Silva as vice president for the 2018-2019 school year on Thursday night.

Gilmore and Silva ran uncontested, winning 436 of the 489 ballots cast for GPSA president and vice president.

Gilmore has been a part of GPSA for three years. He was the special elections senator his first year, director of programming his second and is currently the vice president.

Silva is currently the executive director for GPSA and has only been involved for a year. As vice president-elect, he said he plans to create a culture in GPSA that makes communication stronger.

He said there are important policy decisions to make and many problems to solve, such as conflicting ideas regarding travel grants. He wants to make sure the constituents know what is happening.

“We want people to think, ‘GPSA Senate, that’s where we go to get stuff done,’” Silva said.

Gilmore said seed grants are one of the ways he hopes to better involve senators with their constituents. GPSA will award money — he hopes about $750 — to a college, and the senators and the constituents will have to figure out how to utilize it. He said this is a great way for senators to empower themselves and build comradery.

GPSA, Gilmore said, is currently funding about 30 registered student organizations. He wants to give more support to RSOs by going to events and participating in them, he said.

Silva said he wants to improve relationships with college administrators to better inform graduate and professional students on issues that may affect them.

“I think that this year we have done a pretty good job, but we want to keep advancing that,” Gilmore said, “making sure that our voices are heard and we’re brought to the forefront of the table for Student Affairs.”

Gilmore said relationship building is one of the improvements he would like to make in GPSA. He also wants to stir conversation about what GPSA does, its purpose on campus and the services it offers.

Gilmore said graduate and professional students are underrepresented on campus.

“When we talk about students, we usually think about undergraduates first,” Gilmore said. “Grad and professional students are here. We do a lot of meaningful work and research and we teach students … we want to make sure we are definitely heard.”

Silva said he hopes to foster something similar to GPSA in other WSU campuses. He wants to make sure GPSA is not Pullman-centric, and that other graduate and professional students are not forgotten.

Gilmore and Silva said they were not planning to hold any celebratory event after their win.

“Are you kidding?” Silva said. “We’re graduate students.”

Gilmore also doesn’t have any celebratory plans in mind, for now.

“I have prelims, I teach,” Gilmore said. “When all this quiets down, maybe we’ll have a drink and celebrate to that.”

TEVA MAYER | The Daily Evergreen