Draft Minutes
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly
Council of Representatives Meeting
Monday, November 3, 2008
701 Clark Hall
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. Welcome and Introductions (2 min.) M. Guerrero called the meeting to order at 5:32 p.m. and introduced the executives.

II. Open Forum (5 min.) A male member from the Events Committee said they were looking to publicize events through Facebook. He asked people to join “Facebook GPSA.” M. Guerrero asked everyone to share this info with others, and he will send this via list-serve.

D. Rose said a few grads from the Government Department mentioned they have had unpleasant treatment experiences at Gannett. B. Forster said he would let the committee know.

M. Walsh said he would be hosting a carbon neutrality event next week. He emphasized this would be a student-focused event, but it was open to the community. He invited all to attend.

Reports III. Executive Updates (10 min.) a. President (Michelle Leinfelder)

i. Ivy Summit

M. Leinfelder said 5 members of GPSA went to Ivy Summit at Harvard last month. The Ivy Summit is a conference for all Ivy League GPSA groups. They went to sessions on funding, mentoring, events, etc. She said it was helpful since CU will be hosting next year. She said if anyone wants to help plan for next years’ conference, to please email her, she would appreciate the help.

ii. Mtg. with President Skorton 

Last week, they had a discussion with President Skorton about the budget. In the campaign, approximately $300 million is being moved from facilities to student programs and $25 million out of $300 million will be going to graduate fellowships. She said the President plans to send out monthly updates on the budget from now on.

iii. Assemblies Leadership Breakfast Meeting

At the last Assemblies Leadership Breakfast, the Director of Project, Design and Construction gave an update to the group on recent and current campus construction projects. J. Kupferschmidt asked if there was any mention of the graduate center and M. Guerrero said there was not because the presentation was on current projects.

iv. Housing Contract Meeting

M. Leinfelder said she would be attending a meeting on grad student housing. Since she does not live in grad student housing, she said she would greatly appreciate receiving comments from people who do live on campus prior to the meeting.

She also went to a meeting with the officials who were in charge of the Slope Day this year. A brief survey will be out soon, she encouraged the members to participate as this will help to add grad interests to Slope Day.

b. Vice President of Operations (Deondra Rose)

i. Committee Report Form

D. Rose said they created a new form to streamline the reporting process. The report gets sent out once a month and only one committee report is sent out for those who are on multiple committees.

ii. Child Care Services Committee Rep.

D. Rose said the Childcare and the Slope Day Steering Committees each have 1 opening.

c. Executive Vice President (Mario Guerrero) M. Guerrero asked everyone to make sure to sign in. He also said there was also a CoR list circulating and he asked everyone to check to see if their info was correct. He said he was looking for representatives from various fields and asked the GPSA members to encourage people they know to get involved.

ii. Minutes

M. Guerrero asked the members to look at the minutes. He said they do not approve minutes, but he still wanted people to look at them and make changes as needed.

i. Ad Hoc Committee: Review of Charter M. Guerrero said the Ad-hoc Committee will start working on the charter soon. CoR members are welcome to be involved, he asked people to let M. Leinfelder know if they were interested in participating.

IV. Committee Reports (10 min.) a. Student Advocacy Committee (Brian Forster & Mario Roman) B. Forster said the next meeting with Gannett would include Geneva students via conference link. The next step will be to improve communication between Geneva students and Gannett. He also reported that last week, the Advocacy Committee met with Gannett regarding mental health issues. There will soon be a Mental Health Committee.

M. Roman had updates on the “Safe Ride” program. The initiative is to help address drunk driving on campus, Cornell’s hazardous geography, and walking home alone at night. This would supplement TCAT and Blue Light services, which are insufficient and do not address all the concerns of students. The proposed plan would create vans driven by student volunteers that would have trained volunteers to drive and supervise. A Card ID console would check the person’s student status and address so it would not become a shuttle service. Grad students would be able to use the service if they live on campus. Currently, the funding for this initiative is unsecured.

Safe Rides exists currently at other campuses like Yale, Princeton, and UVA. Duke and UVA’s Safe Rides appear to be the most organized, and have been in place for many years. A sub-committee has formed to study, design and hopefully implement this program. The Advocacy Committee needs a grad student who can represent the GPSA. He said anyone who is interested could contact Brian or himself.

b. University Assembly (Nick Brideau) N. Brideau reported the UA had a presentation from CU Police on gorge safety at their last meeting. They are trying to come up with jurisdiction to prohibit swimming in dangerous gorge areas and promote areas that are safe for swimming. The SA reported there is a group called “Friends of the Gorge” to spread the word about using natural resources safely. The UA also had a brief update from Campus Planning about the sustainability of new buildings. Finally, S. Pardo is working to improve communication between the UA and the Board on University Health Services (BUHS).

New Business V. External Reports (35 min.) a. Cornell Public Service Center (Mark V. Albert) M. Albert gave a presentation on the Cornell Public Service Center. He said they could ask questions now, on the website, or be email. He said there were about 300 CU students involved in it, mostly undergrads, but grad student involvement is encouraged. He said the K-12 outreach is a really critical area. He reported that Ithaca school district teachers were receptive, but outside Ithaca, in the surrounding communities, the help is really appreciated. Students learn good leadership, communication and community services skills. There is one program especially for graduate students and the deadline to sign up is November 7, 2008.

b. Cornell Master Plan (Philip McPheron) P. McPheron introduced himself as the director of Campus Planning and explained the current stage of Cornell Master Plan. This two-year plan/project will help develop the physical campus for the next 30–50 years and beyond. This was a huge project that engaged staff, faculty, grads, undergrads, and community members. He also said the recently completed West and North Campus Initiatives were parts of that. He said on campus grad housing is not great for a number of reasons. In order to solve this problem, they hired a consulting firm to look at dining and another consulting firm to evaluate housing. He said these two plans will go with the Campus Master Plan and the Real Estate Plan.

In order for the consulting firms to do the best job, they need data and feedback, but they don’t want to over-survey people. Currently, they are looking for people from each field to participate in focus groups. This is a good opportunity for grad students concerns to be heard. He explained Campus Life is an enterprise unit, and so it has to make a profit since no tuition dollars come to it. He confirmed graduate housing is a priority, and there are no plans to grow undergraduate housing. The current “pause” in construction will affect things now, but this plan is for the future.

M. Leinfelder thanked Phil for being a friend of the GPSA for many years. She then encouraged people to get involved and voice their opinions in order to shape future projects.

VI. Other New Business M. Guerrero said this was the time to bring up issues, announcements, concerns, etc.

A male member said he felt like the university shuts down during breaks because undergraduates are not here. A. Richter said while there are many activities for undergraduate students, there are few for grad students during breaks. The Big Red Barn is open but only for limited hours, and closed all summer. Another member said it would be nice to have an email or website to refer to that had list of what is open, and their hours, during breaks. M. Guerrero said he would raise this issue at the next Leadership Breakfast with President Skorton and at the next GPSA meeting.

Another member mentioned he has seen an increase in the number of spam e-mails. M. Leinfelder said when the student email accounts are converted to another carrier, this will help reduce spam. In the meantime, she will send this to the Information Technology Committee.

A. Richter had concerns regarding mentorship between grads and advisors. She said there should be programs to help with this. B. Wickes said there are departments and programs looking at this now. The Grad school is working with faculty and student focus groups in order to provide help for incoming students in the future.

M. Guerrero thanked everyone for bringing up these issues. He explained for the Charter Review Committee, they needed to give out incentives for further participation from the broader community. Another issue was Bike-Sharing Program. He said they could help with programs like this by increasing the student activity fee or reallocating funds. He said he brought those two issues to stimulate discussions and in the future they could make some goals to add to the Charter.

VII. Adjournment N. Evensen made a motion to adjourn the meeting. C. Mansfeldt seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 6:56 p.m.