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# Rethinking the GPSA

## Details

**Authors** Tyler McCann

**Year** 2023

**Publisher** Medium

**Kind of work** casestudy, blog

**Discipline** Business & Management

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

**Applied** false

[Read it](https://medium.com/@tymccann/rethinking-the-gpsa-vmcl-systems-analysis-for-better-engagement-b79c216005a4)

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To diagnose why members of Cornell University's Graduate and Professional Student Assembly engaged with it as a funding mechanism rather than as an advocacy body, and to propose a redesign of the organization using the VMCL framework.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

Cornell University's Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, a shared governance body for graduate and professional students, analyzed on the basis of the author's participation and research conducted in 2017, together with a small pilot implementation.

### How they did it (methods)

A practitioner case analysis applying the four VMCL components to an existing organization. The author restated the organization's vision and mission, identified missing capacities, and specified learning mechanisms, then implemented parts of the redesign on a small scale. Proposed capacities included an internal wiki and an external website for resource management; proposed learning mechanisms included member satisfaction surveys and tracking of advocacy issues.

### What they found (results)

The author concludes that the organization's central dysfunction was a missing linkage between its stated advocacy mission and the capacities and incentives members actually faced, observing that most members were participating out of strategic compliance to ensure their funding eligibility rather than with an eye on the larger student community. The redesign restated the vision as "Every student, every conversation" and the mission as to inform, advocate and support, and recommended using non-voting members as communication bridges to constituencies. The author reports that full implementation did not occur because of competing priorities, and that a small pilot showed promise, with increased member participation, faster decision turnaround, improved external relationships, and positive comment from university administration.

## Commentary

### In short

A practitioner case analysis that applies Cabrera and Cabrera's VMCL framework to a university shared-governance body, using it to locate a broken link between the organization's mission and its capacities and to specify a redesign.

**Added** 2026-10-01

**How to cite this** Tyler McCann (2023). Rethinking the GPSA. Medium.