Graduate and Professional Student Assembly
Minutes
Big Red Barn
February 23, 2004
5:30–7:00 p.m.

Attendance:

Present:Larry Boyd, Harley Etienne, Brian Holmes, Gavin Hurley, Curtis Jirsa, Dan Marques, Timothy McConnochie, Mark McGuire, Anne McNeil, David Schmale III, Susannah Schmid, Cate Taylor, Ariana Vigil, Farbod Raiszadeh, Karen Trainor

Excused: Kurt Massey, Joan Moriarty

Unexcused:

Others Present: P. McPheron, V. Blodgett, A. Rachamim, T. Bishop, T. Tsuei, D. Nowak, R. Bhattamishra

I. Call to Order

G. Hurley called the meeting to order at 5:35pm.

II. Open Forum

There were no items for open forum.

III. Announcements and Updates

A) University Assembly
D. Schmale said the UA is working on the campus safety initiative. He asked the assembly to please identify three places on campus that need more lighting, better snow removal, etc.

L. Boyd asked if he can locate off campus sites?

D. Schmale said yes. He also said that they will be meeting with President Lehman soon, and will bring an update when that happens.

B) Call to Engagement
H. Etienne said the goal was to get as many people to speak to the President as possible. The committee is going to draft a letter to Lehman saying that they want individual students to respond and the representatives in GPSA and COR will try to encourage students to speak up. Please contact him if you have any questions or feedback.

C) Student Elected Trustee
G. Hurley said elections will be on March 8 & 9, including the trustee election. One of the disadvantages to grad students is that only 2–3% of grad students vote for the trustee. However, he feels this time it will be different because they are pushing for a new seat, and the candidates this year may be more attractive to grad students. He encouraged everybody to vote — it isn’t hard, it is done online.

B. Holmes said he feels graduates aren’t aware that elections are taking place. He suggested that an email be sent out, perhaps in a Big Red Barn daily email to tell graduates to go out and vote.

L. Boyd said he is interested to hear how many graduate candidates are out there.

G. Hurley said there is not a definite number yet but he is sure of at least one graduate student running.

C. Taylor asked if she will receive an email telling her she can vote, so she can forward to her department?

G. Hurley said yes, he will also be asking candidates to write something about themselves and email it out to the graduates.

D) Other updates
B. Holmes said that GPSAFC asked Loreen to set aside $50,000 and doesn’t plan on using that for allocations for next year yet. A member of the finance commission (Aron) has offered to help and B. Holmes would like to designate him to be vice-chair, which the chair has the jurisdiction to do.

G. Hurley said that at the leadership meeting they discussed the resolution regarding H.R. 3077 and academic integrity (from both perspectives).

H. Etienne said the faculty senate has been looking at H.R. 3077 from a different angle. Apparently Cornell benefits from the money and that is a red herring to the real issue: 10% cut from the budget. They have sent a letter to the President saying they are against H.R. 3077 for this reason. He has discussed this with A. Vigil and M. McGuire to further investigate the issue.

IV. Business of the Day

A) GPSAFC bylaws & Charter Amendment
L. Boyd presented the resolution establishing the new bylaws. He said nobody had anything to say about it in the last 2 weeks so he has nothing new to say in regards to substantive changes. This is a culmination of a year’s worth of work and bouncing ideas around and a vote is finally coming around. A vote needs to be passed today so they can move forward in their timeline. He went over the new changes that were made. The bylaws consist of four (4) articles and two (2) appendices. They cover how to run the GPSAFC i.e. GPSAFC membership, duties of each member, meetings, amendment procedures. Appendix A sets out guidelines and Appendix B is the actual numbers (funding maximums). He explained the rationale for new changes. For example, graduate students should be the leader of a club, irregardless of whether all the members are graduate students.

A student asked do the undergrads have a similar provision?

C. Jirsa said they might have some sort of rule, because he is the treasurer of an undergrad club.

L. Boyd said this doesn’t cover by-line funded groups, only groups that are funded by the FC.

B. Holmes said he felt it was important to include this rule because he is not comfortable taking graduate money to fund an undergraduate group.

L. Boyd said another change that was made was the academic year, from first day of orientation to Commencement.

A student from the Vet school said her school works on a different calendar, will they be affected?

B. Holmes said that the academic year will be the first day of Orientation for that school, all the way to Commencement for that school. They decided not to include the summer because they felt it would be unfair, since a possibility exists that the money will be burned during the summer before the academic school year began.

A. Vigil said her organization purchased books for libraries on campus, and feels it would be strange for the new bylaws to forbid that.

L. Boyd said he would argue that library funds should fund that, he doesn’t feel student activity money should be used to do that.

A. Vigil said the GPSAFC doesn’t pay for tax, why is that?

B. Holmes said those are Cornell rules, not GPSAFC.

V. Blodgett asked do we need to note Big Red Barn events?

L. Boyd said the BRB is through GPSA funding so it doesn’t pertain to these bylaws.

L. Boyd said there are currently 4 “buckets” of funding, and there is no miscellaneous. He went over the different buckets and the new rules. There will be no reimbursement if you go over in one of the bucket categories — GPSAFC will not permit transferring of money to prevent gaming the system. Club sports have their own special rules because they didn’t really follow under any other categories so a new one was formed specifically for them. The committee wanted more control over the purchasing of equipment so they decided to do it through special project requests. This allows the committee to have a track record of equipment purchases. Tournaments being held outside of Ithaca will not be funded. Hosting tournaments will be funded through the program category because it counts as an event.

B. Holmes said the club sport and publication rules were made because currently there are no maximum fee rules applying to them.

T. McConnochie asked about capital equipment, i.e. a surfboard

L. Boyd said they would have to apply under special projects requests.

P. McPheron said that it sounds like the committee has forgotten about advertising through Student Agencies. Where would that fall under?

L. Boyd said the committee didn’t think about it.

B. Holmes said since the publicity funding is so low, they aren’t expecting people to pay others for the labor of advertising.

L. Boyd said they didn’t want to be funding expensive advertising like radio airtime.

L. Boyd said that in regards to appeals, a group can appeal to the funding committee, and then go to the appeals committee, and then the body of the GPSA can make the final decision. This inserts a committee structure into the appeals process which originally wasn’t there. In regards to special projects requests, money will be reverted back to the FC if not spent within 30 days of allocation, so the money doesn’t get locked up.

A. Vigil said her club is going to give money for people to go to a summit and wanted to clarify if the GPSAFC will fund people to go to conferences? There seems to be a conflict.

B. Holmes said the biggest expenses in undergrad are conferences, and social is not funded. He feels the student activity fee shouldn’t be used to fund individuals to go to conferences to advance their own career advancements. They can find other sources of funding, like through your own graduate school. He doesn’t feel a mandatory student activity fee that all students pay should send students off campus at all.

L. Boyd said that funds can be transferred amongst line items within a category as long as you stay beneath the maximum. Co-sponsoring is straight out of the current handbook so he didn’t discuss it too much. In regards to Appendix B, he went over the maximum numbers and the rationale. There was some discussion about the lodging number, and he and B. Holmes were talking about upping it from $75 to $100.

A. Vigil suggested $150 so that lodging at the Statler can be covered since it is such a convenient place.

L. Boyd said they wanted to be conservative because the number can always be increased in the middle of the year, it just can’t decrease.

C. Jirsa said he is well acquainted with hotel prices and said Best Western is the cheapest place to go, which is usually around $90.

B. Holmes said the other thought was to not have a maximum for lodging at all and just let groups divide up the speaker money however they want.

D. Schmale said the biggest part of expenses for a speaker is housing and travel. We should try to find a middle ground of funding between being able to stay at the Best Western and the Statler. If the group wants to lodge their speaker at the Statler, then the department can kick in the rest of the money.

V. Blodgett said she may try to work with Catherine Holmes and work out speaker rates with the local hotels and maybe look at on-campus housing for speakers.

M. McGuire said he hopes that there might be some flexibility in convenience, i.e. religious observance and handicap.

L. Boyd said the response would be we will pay up to X amount, and you will have to make up the difference. He feels the Statler is a bit of a luxury so he feels uncomfortable funding the full amount of the Statler when there are cheaper alternatives.

T. McConnochie said if a club is willing to cut corners in transportation in preference for lodging, then no maximum is needed because the club will allocate funds and priorities themselves.

G. Hurley asked if he wants to propose that formally — striking any limit?

T. McConnochie said yes. It was 2nded.

L. Boyd said the major point is figuring out how much money we are willing to allocate.

A student asked if we should make different rules for long distance and short distance speakers?

A. Vigil said we should give graduate students the benefit of the doubt that things like that won’t be taken advantage of.

C. Jirsa said he has brought in “local” speakers and some want to go home immediately afterward, but some don’t want to drive after dinner and choose to have lodging, so it’s hard to make a rule about that.

H. Etienne said that there are various prices at the Statler so we don’t want to encourage local speakers to come and stay overnight in a $500 a night suite.

The limitless amendment failed via hands vote.

L. Boyd proposed $100 limit.

The amendment for $100 limit for lodging passed via hands vote.

L. Boyd said social will remain the same for now ($300) and they will see how it turns out. If it needs to be increased mid-semester, then they will do it.

A student pointed out that some exception should be made for handicapped people, because handicap accessibility might be a factor in whether or not somebody comes to Cornell’s campus.

C. Taylor said she’s not sure how big of a deal it is, but maybe some clause should be written in for exceptions.

L. Boyd said the committee views the Statler as a luxury and they didn’t want student activity fee to go to an expensive place just because it was the most convenient. If the Statler is necessary for any reason, then they should be tighter with their money.

A student said they don’t think it is fair.

L. Boyd pointed out that the GPSA was never meant to fully fund an activity.

G. Hurley read out the new amendment to include exceptions such as disability or religious reasons and it was 2nded.

B. Holmes said all exceptions will have to be approved by the FC.

H. Etienne said that if the exception includes religious reasons, then the exception may cover meals too.

L. Boyd said the meal numbers are university set.

The amendment passed via hands vote.

L. Boyd said the last thing he wanted to bring up was that first time applicants will be limited to $150 for social and $150 for one of other 3 other categories. The rationale is that the committee wants them to be established first. The new groups will not be restricted in special projects amount. This will stop new clubs from being too demanding with allocation.

D. Schmale motioned to approve the GPSAFC bylaws and it was 2nded.

T. McConnochie moved to strike Appendix A, Section 3, Part F and it was 2nded.

D. Marques said that he finds it odd that a significant portion of students will be around during the summer and the FC can’t fund them.

G. Hurley said they tried it 3 years ago and for practical reasons, they couldn’t get it to work out administratively.

B. Holmes said the Office of Assemblies is also closed for a month during the summer.

D. Marques asked if the “last day of classes” can be extended into June.

B. Holmes said this would make accounting a mess and there is the issue that people not present in the summer who has no say in how the money is spent during the summer.

D. Schmale said that the GPSAFC has done a pretty reasonable job and he is going to vote in favor as everything stands in the by-laws.

D. Marques said they do appreciate their work but it doesn’t deem the bylaws infallible.

C. Taylor wanted to clarify that the GPSAFC put that bylaw in because it wouldn’t work out logistically to fund during the summer.

L. Boyd said they added 5–6 weeks to the window of funding/spending.

The amendment in striking Appendix A, Section 3, Part F failed via hands vote.

There was a motion to previous question.

The GPSAFC bylaws were approved unanimously.

G. Hurley thanked the committee for their time and effort.

B. Holmes said this will not be the final thing so please keep them posted with any questions or concerns.

B) Ivy Summit funding request
D. Schmale said there are four (4) people going to the Ivy Summit next weekend. Two nights of lodging, meals and rental car are the costs for the trip. The grad school has given $400 for the trip. The group is requesting $781.92 from the GPSA. They are going on behalf of all the graduate students, and all the Ivies will be represented there.

G. Hurley said Cornell hosted one two years ago. He wasn’t involved but heard it was very successful.

D. Schmale said a lot of work has gone into this and knows it will be a very good event.

C. Taylor asked how was it decided who went?

D. Schmale said the invitation was sent to him, and then he approached the executive body, and then it went from there. J. Moriarty has participated in the past, so they figured it was logical for her to go there again.

The request was approved.

V. Adjournment

G. Hurley adjourned the meeting at 7:00pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Tyng Tsuei
Office of the Assemblies