‘MINUTES
GPSA Advisory Body
Art Gallery,Willard Straight Hall
August 31, 2009
5:30–7:00 p.m.

I. Welcome and Introductions (15 min.):

a.GPSA Introductions: 2009 — 2010 Leadership, Committee Chairs

E Gutierrez welcomed everyone to the meeting. She asked everyone to pick up an agenda, the list of members, and please sign in on the sign in sheet. N Evensen welcomed everyone and said if you’re interested, you can talk to him afterwards or search on the website. E Gutierrez went through agenda briefly. E Gutierrez introduced herself. She is the executive vice president. She will be running these meetings, which there will be four of this semester. She wants them to be conversational. N Evensen introduced himself. If you have concerns, one place to go is your voting representative. He is the president. He has less of a role in these meetings, more in the other ones. B Forster introduced himself. He is the vice-president of internal operations.

b. Introductions of the Office of Assemblies staff and other friends of the GPSA: Dean Kent Hubbell,

Ari Epstein introduced himself and explained the purpose of the office. There was an orientation presentation which is now available online. It will help people learn how it relates. Amy O’Donnell introduced herself. Dean Hubbell gave an introduction. He is here to provide advice. The GPSA is increasingly valuable and important to university. He noted that it is important to remember that graduate and professional students represent 1/3 of the student population on campus. He welcomes advice and counsel. He will be their advocate. He also welcomes them to get to know and use their resources. Dean Hubbell ended by thanking them for all the good work and he is at their service.

i. Graduate School: Dean Sunny Power, Brenda Wickes

Brenda Wickes, the assistant dean for graduate life in the graduate school introduced herself. Her role is of mutual benefit and pleasure. She enjoys coming to meetings and being available. She has a few ideas for topics and her door is always open.

ii. Student Trustees: Mike Walsh

Mike Walsh introduced himself as one of the two student elected trustees. Asa Craig, the undergraduate trustee sends best wishes. Cornell is the only Ivy League school with two students serving as full voting members on the board of trustees. They discuss issues and have a bunch of committees. Some issues they’re stressing are Cornell’s climate action plan and the Re-Imagine Cornell campaign. N Evensen said that Mike Walsh will be presenting the sustainability plan at the September 21st meeting.

II. Background of the GPSA & Executive Updates (15 min.):

a. President: Nighthawk

N Evensen started off saying that they restructured the charter and some of the ways the body is run. The major changes are that there used to be a body called the Council of Representatives (that is essentially the current Advisory Body). They also changed and made this meeting of a time for them to talk. The finance commission is listening to organizations present on how much they should get and why. It’s good for them to be questioned. It is important to have good representation of graduate student interests. Another important change is that the finance commission receives 35% of SA fee can now create special funding for academic fields.

b. Executive Vice President: Erica

E Gutierrez runs advisory meetings and is recruiting representatives. Several seats need to be filled. If you’re here for the first time, email her so you can get on list-serve. As vice president, she is responsible for the Communications Committee. That is involved with GPSA information and activities. Finally, there is the Ivy Summit, an annual event at different Ivy League schools. The steering committee has been working on it all summer. It is happening Oct 8 and 9 and is a closed event.

c. Vice President of Operations: Brian

B Forster said that there is a website with information about the Ivy Summit. His job is to make sure everything is staffed. He is passing around list of all committees open to graduate and professional students. The top is ones who have already contacted the GPSA. On the bottom are ones typically staffed, but have not been contacted yet. If you are interested, fill out an application. Check off if you’re interested in a committee. N Evensen added that people could let their friends know.

III. Election of four Assembly Seats (15 min.):

Must be given to master’s students. One must be from engineering field. People eligible are people who are reps of their field. If you were or have recently been elected or appointed, you can run. Responsibilities — 2 meetings a month (voting council meetings, too).

There were questions about voting procedure.

a.Two Master’s degree seats

No on was interested in running for the Masters of Engineering seat which was open. There were two people interested in running for the other master’s seat: Myriam Gafarou from Real Estate and Mila Kundu from Animal Science Myriam said that she was in real estate, working for part of architecture and admissions. She has worked a lot with students and is also working on their arrival on campus, liaison between students and director and office staff. She’s not shy. Mila said that she is from animal science working specifically with reproduction in chickens. She presented a poster in Pittsburgh, and graduated in 2006. She worked before coming here and is an active member in graduate student assembly. She works at the Big Red Barn and will speak up. The winner of the election was Myriam Gafarou.

b.Two At-large seats

There were three people running for the two seats available at large: Mila Kundu, Ed Strong, Leon Schneider. Each gave a little bit of information about themselves. The winners were Ed Strong and Leon Schneider.

IV. Break-out Sessions/Presentations (40 min.):

a. Get into smaller groups/Survey (10 min.)

People broke into small groups to take the survey.

b. Discussion of topics for the year {including topics to be addressed at Ivy Summit} (20 min.)

Discussion was had in small groups about the topics for the year.

c. Group Presentations (10 min.)

The first group presented the ideas they had come up with. They want to document stating goals. They want to know how many are committed to climate change and neutrality. Topics they’d like to see discussed are how the cut of graduate assistantships have affected departments, how to proceed forward. Another is the re-imagining Cornell campaign and how graduate students could become involved. For improvement, they suggested a change of venue, or change of structuring of room. The second group discussed topics coming up at Ivy Summit. One is departments handling the economic crisis differently. Some are enrolling more students; some are pushing students out. What rights do graduate students have? They discussed sustainability and how it is different in different buildings. They rely heavily on the advisory body but most students don’t know what’s going on. The third group discussed how to increase participation and dissemination of knowledge to all graduate students so it’s not varied by field. Other issues raised were parking, on campus housing for graduate students, and how tight incentives both are. They also discussed graduate students starting 401k or other retirement plan via Cornell. The fourth group discussed how the GPSA and Cornell are structured as well as a lot of things which relate to the activities office and how things run and how funding is set up. The fifth group discussed technology. They had a comparison to some undergraduates and computer labs. They want to explore options. Graduate housing needs more information for incoming students. They have been networking between graduate and professional committees. They would like more networking and opportunities to meet people. They also would like to improve transportation and the bus system with more routes and more frequency of buses per route. They also want more student participation. The sixth group introduced two people from the Geneva station, Mira and Suivi. In terms of graduate housing they want things to be fixed and improvements with housing. They also want to foster more of a community environment, with more GCAs, more program initiatives, office life — cockroach infestation. They talked about funding, esp for masters of engineering. They would like to see student services offices give more pointers to funding and jobs on campus. The Law School and other professional schools have a division. They would like to see them come together. They also wanted a different set-up for these meetings.

V. Open Forum(5 min.)

Srich recommend joining the GPSA facebook group. If you have an event you’re planning open to other grad students, let him know, email the advisory body, so each field representative knows of your event and they can pass on information. N Evensen said that they discussed a lot of issues and don’t want them to disappear. Also, not all work happens here at discussion meetings. If there’s an issue you’re passionate about, talk to the officers. They could try and get involved with a committee, or you can work on issue itself or even work with voting members to sponsor a resolution. There are two new voting members: Ed Strong and Leon Schneider. At the next meeting, there will be a vote for one masters of engineering student. Maryann Chrisa introduced herself. She is the graduate RHD for Hasbrouk. Her email is Mck35@cornell.edu and she would love to hear from people. Brian said he will be sending out committee information. They will also send out information about how to contact body if need to. Please make sure to hand in committee form. The appropriations chair is Dave, Erica heads the communications committee, Srich heads events, Asia is in charge of GPSAFC, and Cresten is in charge of the Advocacy Committee E Gutierrez said that if you want to follow up with the survey, please leave them on table, or email her at eg57 if you’re passionate about something. She also said to make sure people sign in. The next meeting is October 5.

VI. Adjournment

Motion to Adjourn E Gutierrez motioned to adjourn. N Evensen seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 7:04 pm.

Respectfully submitted, Alexandria Sun

Respectfully submitted,
Yezi Li

Office of the Assemblies