MINUTES
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly Council of Representatives
March 9th, 1998
Big Red Barn Graduate & Professional Student Center Greenhouse
5:00 P.M.

I.Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 5:15 PM by Vice President Cheryl Heinz.

II. Open Forum

Larissa Minicucci, Vet Medicine, requested that information regarding budgets be sent out earlier. She also asked that the information sessions be held at an earlier date because the Vet School has an earlier due date for its clubs. This year, these sessions were held at a very inconvenient time because finals were given in the same week.

L. Minicucci inquired about the status of the club insurance policy. Bonnie Bailey said she had called Allen Bova, Director of Risk Management, and was told that a written policy was not yet in place for the graduate and professional students since the policy does not take effect until next year.

Mark Parsons, Art, stated that he had spoken with Telephone Road, a telephone company, in regards to setting up an alternate plan graduate students could use for international phone calls. He noted that international phone calls are very expensive, and that CIT has been informed of this concern. M.Parsons stated that he had informed CIT of this alternate plan, and it was noted since this plan uses a 1–800 number, students may have trouble accessing that number. The explanation given was that since CIT uses several trunk lines for outside phone calls, the company cannot identify the caller and so the call may be routed back to CIT. However, M.Parsons noted that he had used this alternate plan before and he did not encounter this problem. M.Parsons stated that the telephone rates of this company are very reasonable; for example, the cost for Germany is $0.19 per minute. However, there is a $5 charge on the account if one’s telephone bill is less than $50 a month. He requested that any interested members see him after the meeting for more information on this topic.

III. Announcements

A) Council of Representatives Spring Elections

C.Heinz stated that April 13 will be the last meeting for the 1997–98 COR. After that meeting, the 1998–99 COR will meet to elect GPSA members from each cluster, and to select the three at-large representatives. She asked members who will not return for next year to attempt to find a replacement. At the April 27 GPSA meeting later the same month, the officers will be selected. The UA representative will be elected in May.

On a related topic, C.Heinz noted that there is one empty seat from the Business School on the GPSA that needs to be filled. She stated that a replacement had been found for the Law School, but no one from the Business School had asked for their seat. Therefore, the COR needs to select a new at-large member to attend the last two meetings of the GPSA.

Stefan Hames, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, volunteered to fill this seat. As no other nominations were placed, the COR voted unanimously to elect S.Hames to the GPSA.

IV. Business of the Day

A) Transportation Committee

Katrina Ellis, Management, distributed a list of the changes that will be made for next year. She noted that there are two main reasons that the Committee made these suggestions: 1)they believed that it was important to improve the flow of information between the Office of Transportation Services(OTS) and graduate students and 2)they believed that pilot programs should be recommended to OTS. Thus, several suggestions were made and the list is composed of the actual changes.

The first improvement is a brochure which is geared especially towards graduate and professional students. Information will be included on parking and public transportation. K. Ellis noted that this new brochure will contain more information than the old one and it will come out in the fall of 1998. Included in the brochure is an alternatives section. K.Ellis stated that currently she has only seen the draft of this document.

K. Ellis stated that there will be several new programs in the fall; however, students will not know about these programs until they arrive because the pre-registration form will have already been printed and sent out to them. This problem will have to be addressed when students arrive on campus.

Bus schedules will be placed at bus stops and the committee has seen prototypes of these. Currently, OTS plans to place the schedules at the bus stops during the summer of 1998.

K. Ellis stated that there will be a new permit next year for graduate students that would allow them to park in both the “A” and “B” lots. OTS believes there is enough room in these lots to accommodate students. The price of this permit will be the same as a “B” lot permit, which is currently the most inexpensive. Accompanying the permit will be a free campus bus pass for the whole year.

K. Ellis stated that Omniride services will also be expanded. Students will be able to purchase a booklet of one day passes for the “A” or “B” lots. The price of these booklets will hopefully be less than the cost of a metered parking space. Also, the emergency ride service will be extended to students. If a student has an emergency, then they can ask for a ride to the place that they need to go. Currently, this is only offered for faculty and staff.

Carpool services was also addressed. Information on carpooling will be made more available; for example, the new brochure will include this topic. Unfortunately, it is still not possible to carpool with faculty or staff because the computers are not capable of handling that. Also, students will have the option of purchasing the booklet of one-day permits, but they will not have the emergency ride service offered to them.

K. Ellis noted that the permit booklets will also be available to the occasional commuter. Therefore, a student can purchase the booklet to use for those rare occasions that they need to park on campus. The Transportation Advisory Committee will discuss these options at the next meeting.

Unfortunately, maps will not be made available because it is too expensive. However, TCAT has a web page that has maps of all the bus routes that students can access.

K. Ellis stated that these changes will probably be approved by the committee. However, she stressed the importance of continuing to propose such changes to OTS. Because both she and Stacey Kenyon, Vet Medicine, will not be here next year, volunteers are needed to take over this committee from them.

B) Committee to Review TA/RA issues

S. Hames stated that the graduate school has formed a committee to review policies regarding TAs and RAs. The GPSA has two seats on this committee, and these are currently filled by himself and John Schwarz, Government. They are holding an open forum meeting on March 26 at which the GPSA has asked for additional input on TA/RA concerns. These issues will be summarized and the committee will proceed to make a series of recommendations. S.Hames stated that he would like to hear from field representatives on issues related to TAs and RAs.

In response to questions by members, S.Hames stated that the committee will address such issues as: when the assistantship begins and ends, the conditions of work, the grievance process, and communication between departments and students. The committee will also look into the policy of requiring [unpaid]teaching volunteers that a few departments have. The committee is concerned with having campus-wide standards. Such standards could make assistantships more problematic for some students, but on the other hand, they can prevent students from having an awful assistantship.

C) Campus Store Committee

S. Hames stated that this committee has already met several times and members have received information regarding store issues. However, the role of the committee in the decision-making process is not well-defined and so this problem will be addressed at the next meeting. Also, some facts about the Campus Store are unknown; for example, it is not known if the store is profit or non-profit.

S. Hames reported that currently the Campus Store is working on electronic delivery of textbooks and other course materials. The Campus Store will also design web pages for every course on campus by using a software package.

Regarding the issue of books; S. Hames stated that the Campus Store has contracts with booksellers for selling and buying used textbooks. The store attempts to get the highest price for books when selling them and the least expensive price when purchasing them. On the issue of computer equipment; S.Hames noted that the prices for Apple Computers may start coming down to the suggested prices rather than being sold at the relatively higher prices. Hopefully, this will be done for other computer brands as well.

D) Insurance Review Committee

C. Heinz stated that the GPSA has joined NAGPS and that they have received the NAGPS newsletter. This newsletter will be mailed out to all students in order to let students know about NAGPS. An introductory letter will be mailed with the newsletter and distribution “pick up” for future newsletters will be outlined. These newsletters are bimonthly.

C. Heinz stated that NAGPS has health and dental insurance options that need to be examined. Therefore, a committee is being formed to address these options and to compare it with the Cornell plan. She asked for volunteers from the COR to join this committee.

J. Schwarz stated that he will join this committee. Linda Yannone, Floriculture and Ornamental Hort., also volunteered to join this committee, adding that she will recruit people from Gannett once the relevant information is available.

V. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned by C. Heinz at 5:55 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Stephanie Tinsley, student clerk