Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Minutes

Big Red Barn Greenhouse February 24, 2003 5:30–6:30 p.m. Attendance: 2002–2003 GPSA Members 8/26 9/30 10/21 11/25 1/27 2/24 3/24 4/21 Shaffique Adam P P P P P P Daniel Dadoyan P A A P A E Gerod Hall P P P P P P Gavin Hurley P P P P P P Lauren Mangiola P P P P P P Kurt Massey A P P P P E Timothy McConnochie P P P P P E Andrew Miller A P P A A A Joan Moriarty P P P P P P Bryan Preston P A P P P P Daniela Raik P P P E P P David Schmale III P P P P P P Andrew Schpak P P P P P P Nab Sharif A P P P P P Ariana Vigil A P P P E P Robb Willer P P A P E P Heather Wynder A P A P P P Others present: C. Taylor, K. Gutson, S. Berger, J. Sabia, Jessica, R. Robles, S. Allen, P. McPheron, T. Tsui, T. Bishop

I. Call to Order J. Moriarty called the meeting to order at 5:40pm.

II. Approval of Minutes J. Moriarty said that due to technical difficulties, they are unable to have minutes today to approve.

III. Committee Reports A) General Committee J. Moriarty said that they met last and discussed Dspace a lot. They are moving forward with Dspace and conveyed that the GPSA is on board with the project. They also approved two minors, one being information technology and she couldn’t remember the 2nd one. In addition, they also saved a grad student.

H. Wynder asked is the minor for grad students?

J. Moriarty said yes.

N. Sharif asked if the minors were associated with any major programs?

J. Moriarty said yes. She said they want to increase the number of minors offered but it is difficult and annoying to do so because the state legislature needs to approve them.

B) GPSAFC R. Willer said that a lot of stuff is going on. He knows he needs to give a report on the GPSA trust fund and will do so soon. They are playing with the idea of having the Johnson and Law School GPSAFC funds be given to a more localized processing procedure.

C) Pay and Benefits Committee L. Mangiola acknowledged the committee members and thanked them. She said they will be passing out packets to COR members soon and it will include a petition, a survey, a fact sheet, and an instruction sheet. There were some objections to the petition and survey being distributed together. The survey has gone to the human subject’s committee and they decided to uncouple the survey and the petition. They will be putting the survey on the web now and give the petition to COR members based on results from the survey. They will send out an email about the survey. There will be a mailing of the fact sheet. They want to give out the petition ASAP because they want to walk it out by hand. They are waiting for human subjects approval. They will wait 2 weeks to get the petition signed and want to get this done by April because the administration is already looking at bids. They thanked B. Preston for information on the web survey.

D) Leadership Meeting D. Schmale said that 2 things were brought up with President Rawlings at the UA meeting. The first issue was a potential seat on the Board of Trustees for a grad student. The 2nd was letting the UA know about things before major decisions are made, i.e. the dissolution of AAP.

J. Moriarty just wanted to point out that graduates are getting a 7% pay raise for next year.

IV. Business of the Day A) Iraq Resolution J. Moriarty said that the resolution was discussed in COR last time so now they are going to vote on it. The debate will be structured into 2 pieces: whether or not it is appropriate for the GPSA to vote on such a resolution, and then looking at the resolution on its merit.

D. Schmale asked if we are voting if it’s appropriate?

J. Moriarty said that’s what we’re thinking.

S. Adam suggested that there be a time limit to debate, i.e. we vote after X minutes.

J. Moriarty said she is uncomfortable about that but we can try, like 10 minutes on the first question.

M. McGuire thanked everyone for surveying their constituents and forwarding comments to him. 100 cities have passed this resolution. He has received emails expressing concern about whether this is the collective voice of all CU grad students and that the majority should be given greater consideration. He responded that it is a symbolic vote and they can change the word “unilateral” if desired. A lot of people said that the resolution wasn’t strong enough. The majority of departments’ constituents have said that it is appropriate.

A. Levine said that they discussed the appropriateness of the clause on the military draft and decided that we need to use it as a tool with an anti-war tone to it. So they decided to keep it in because it will affect people

J. Koppell said that it came before the SA and they debated and voted for it. She said they are elected by the students and the students approached them and felt strongly about this issue so they felt an obligation to vote for it because they need to listen to what the students want.

A. Schpak asked if it would be inappropriate to do a straw pull to see how people feel?

J. Moriarty said they should wait and see the comments before voting.

H. Wynder said that we need to work on other stuff right now that are more relevant and she doesn’t like seeing this resolution being the first thing on the agenda.

D. Schmale said that the mission statement in their charter is very vague and he read it out loud.

A. Vigil said that in regards to Heather’s comment, other people have done the work already — we only need to spend a small amount of time on it. It is a relevant issue and students need to make a decision on their own in a crisis period.

B. Preston said that voting on this sets a dangerous precedent. This body is already too taxed with issues of students and our time is limited. We need to be spending time on stuff that is within our jurisdiction only. This will send out a signal that anybody with a cause will want to approach this body and might open floodgates.

H. Gibson said that this does carry a lot of relevance and the issue creates confusion for people. She asked when people indicated that they feel hesitation towards passing the resolution, what was their justification?

M. McGuire said that people said that they had family members in the military and voting against the resolution would be voting against them.

A. Levine said that in her own department, all 9 were a yes on both accounts and said that it is appropriate if the GPSA has done this before.

S. Berger said that this is an opportunity to make our voice present. Most fighters will be colored and poor and we are privileged to have a voice so it is important because this is an emergency.

A. Vigil said that this is a very big international issue and it is not just any issue. She is not concerned that it will open floodgates.

A. Schpak said he asked the e-board and they think this is a terrible idea for the GPSA to do it. Some are pro war, others are against it. They said that it is not within the scope of representativeness because we were not elected to vote on such issues.

S. Adam asked if every school (minus the law school) has overwhelmingly said it is appropriate? What are the numbers?

M. McGuire said he stopped keeping numbers because very few opposed.

R. Willer said we need to vote soon and thinks it’s within our jurisdiction based on the mission statement. We make statements for the most part and the majority has said that it’s relevant to vote on. D. Schmale asked how many people responded in total? We have 2300 grad students and we need to hear from all, or a representative sample, otherwise there is no confidence. Think of statistics. He motioned to postpone until the other resolutions have been dealt with. He is echoing Heather’s sentiments and believes they should work on other resolutions since there are only 10 more minutes left of meeting time.

There was a call to question and 2nded.

The call passed, 11–0.

Voting on appropriateness in voting: 7Y — 6N.

D. Schmale said he was motioning to postpone the resolution until the agenda was finished. It was 2nded.

N. Sharif said they just voted on the appropriateness to vote so he feels an obligation to vote due to the emails sent to him.

S. Adam asked if he could vote by proxy?

J. Moriarty said no.

S. Adam said he would like to cast his vote now before he has to leave.

G. Hurley said they should do what the constituents told them to do because the only issue was whether or not it was appropriate to vote.

J. Moriarty said she agrees and should do this motion first. First, because it was discussed at COR so there is no trickery in order. This is the most important issue being considered tonight.

R. Willer said he agrees with Bryan and David and Heather and wants to do the vote now.

H. Wynder said that TGIF has been on the agenda a lot, extension of meeting times, elections, all have been on the agenda before.

D. Schmale said that lots of people want to take the resolution clause by clause.

S. Adam asked if they postpone it will be indefinitely or just table?

J. Moriarty said that to table it requires a majority vote.

A call to question was made and 2nded.

The call to question passed 12–1.

A motion was made to extend meeting time by 30 minutes and 2nded.

J. Sabia said he supports the war and thinks it’s a shame how the GPSA body feels will skew results. He is upset by clauses that indicate that a position hasn’t been articulated. Diplomatic solutions being exhausted is incorrect, the 9th whereas clause is selfish, the 11th whereas clause is not necessarily going to include students and the 1st resolve clause is wrong because it is not unilateral because 20 nations are with the US. He thinks that it’s sad and the GPSA was always above politics. He believes the Cornell anti-war coalition is being selfish in using the GPSA.

Jessica said she doesn’t feel the voice represented is a majority. The main point is that many cities in the US support this resolution and although it is not their primary responsibility to talk about war, they felt it to be such an important issue that they would put the resolution on the table immediately. This is very important, it is a life and death situation. It is more important than health and dental coverage. She wants the majority of the CU voice to be heard.

R. Robles (AAP) said she asked students in her school (AAP) and only 1 didn’t think it was appropriate. When the breakup of the AAP resolution came, the GPSA went through it clause by clause and it made a big difference in her school so what we passed meant something and we shouldn’t lower our standing. The GPSA makes statements and they should mean something.

M. McGuire said he wanted to let Roberta’s comments be the last.

S. Allen said that his department (Chem) was split up. To reiterate A. Schpak’s comments, he was brought to the GPSA minus political views and there is too much political spin on this resolution.

H. Wynder asked a point of info — is the resolution on the agenda the same one that was discussed in COR and emailed out?

J. Moriarty said yes.

The resolution passed, 8Y — 4N — 1A.

J. Moriarty said they would have to postpone B on the agenda because they can’t vote since they lost quorum. They can vote on C the next time we meet. They need to have info on D by the next meeting.

G. Hurley said that they are looking to have TGIF over the summer and it will cost around $225 a week so now they must discuss how often or at all it will happen and how to fund it.

H. Wynder asked can we find an air conditioned building because the BRB is too hot and humid in the summer.

J. Moriarty said that she will try to schedule an “emergency” GPSA meeting for next Monday to finish the agenda.

VII. Adjournment

A motion was made to adjourn.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:30.

Respectfully Submitted, Tyng Tsuei

Office of the Assemblies