AGENDA
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly
GPSA Business Meeting
Monday, October 18th, 2010
Big Red Barn
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. Welcome and Introductions

C. Mansfeldt began the meeting at 5:31 p.m. He went over the agenda for the meeting.

1. Roll Call for the GPSA Voting Council

Representatives Present: Randa Adra, Kyle Albert, Steven An, Thomas Balcerski, Nicole Baran, Garance Choko, Christopher Clarke, Evan Cortens, Billie Gould, Benjamin Heavner, Christoffer Heckman, Yevgeniy Izraelit, Neith Little, Cresten Mansfeldt, Harya Sisca, Asia Sikora, Jennifer Swartz, Nantogma Yakubu Representatives Absent: Bobby Hartshorn,

2. Introduction of Non-Voting Council Members

Everyone who was in attendance but not a voting member introduced themselves.

II. Approval of minutes of the September GPSA Business Meeting

Minor amendments were made to the minutes. E. Cortens motioned to approve the minutes, C. Heckmann seconded. By a vote of 16–0−1, the motion passed.

III. Announcements and Reports

1. Executive Updates

• Ivy Summit Recap (C. Mansfeldt, C. Heckman)

C. Mansfeldt said there was a wide range of issues discussed. Some schools are better off than others because of structure and funding sources. There are some safety issues at Yale, Hell’s Angels is patrolling New Haven. Others focused less on institutional policy and more on social functions. The Strategic Plan here hasn’t been mirrored in peer institutions. Cornell’s TA program is highly developed compared to other schools. The benefit package at CU is one of the more comprehensive. Wine and cheese tastings are fairly popular.
C. Heckman said that Princeton, Brown, Columbia, Harvard, and MIT had surveys similar to the one the GPSA is looking at. The biggest is MIT and was 133 questions and 40% of people answered. There was a lot of talk about masters programs. Other schools have better success in bringing in masters students to student governance. The graduate student center is a large issue.
B. Heavner asked if there was access to other surveys to look at.
C. Heckman said that he can contact people for them.

2. Standing Committee and Liaison Updates

• Operations and Staffing Committee

Operations and Staffing committee has staffed the liaison to EA, Steven An. He mentioned other openings to reach out to fields. They currently have no representative to the Codes and Judicial Committee or the Athletics & PE Committee; there are openings in the Student Advisory Library Council and the Academic Integrity board in Biological Sciences (which is fairly low commitment level but requires you to be available in case a question comes up). Feel free to contact T. Balcerski if you or someone you know is interested.

• Ad-Hoc Mental Health Committee

The next meeting is Thursday in the Big Red Barn from 5:30–6:30 and they are meeting with VP Susan Murphy to discuss means restriction and incidents last year.

• Events Committee

Last Thursday was Grads Night Out. It was successful and the owner of the Westy was pleased with the turn out. The next event is the Zombie Pub Crawl. Official facebook invites will go out tonight, emails tonight and tomorrow. All the information is on the web and will be on Thursday October 28. They are working with the engineering grad student association for an interschool mixer. The goal is mid-November. There will also be November and December Grads Nights Out. They have moved forward on spa day, which is tentatively Sunday December 5th and she is in contact with Sartori, a spa salon in Cayuga Heights. They’re working on a fireside chat with Skorton, are looking into a bowling night at Helen Newman, and a museum event for grads and families probably at the Ithaca Sciencenter. Ski day will likely be in the spring semester.

• Communications Committee

Their October meeting is next Wednesday, 9am at Mann Library.

• Student Advocacy Committee

They’ve had 2 meetings so far and are planning to have bi-weekly meetings. It is overwhelmingly masters and first year PhDs. The issues they’re focusing on relate to first years and incoming students. Child Care, Orientation, and Minority representation were all issues.

• Appropriations Committee

They met Thursday and had a discussion of their role overseeing and reviewing the Finance Commission’s procedures and guidelines. They want to hear feedback on experiences. Please send them to K. Alpert so that he can forward it to the committee.

• Ad-Hoc Sustainability Committee

They met a week and a half ago. There are about 100 BYO mugs from last semester, and they will be selling these at the barn this semester. They’re putting out a sustainability survey to grads, possibly joining forces with the survey in tonight’s resolution. Campus-wide Sustainability Day is this Wednesday on Ho Plaza. The Lights Off Initiative is doing well. They turned off their 20,000th light.

• Finance Commission

The first Tuesday of the month the FC met for the first time, reviewed 24 annual apps and 11 special projects and appeals. 29,000 dollars was allocated and $92,000 is left for the rest of the school year.

• Liaisons
  • Faculty Senate — C. Heckmann said that one update regards the academic calendar and they’re specifically speaking about the potential to extend the length of fall break.

Student Assembly — There was a discussion on a blog post about the number of resolutions. They’re working on FC revisions. E. Cortens asked about the executive compensation resolution. N. Evensen said that it was voted on, passed, and sent to President Skorton, who hadn’t looked at it yet, but said that it would be important for him to weigh the benefits of releasing the information for transparency against the balancing against privacy.

3. Student-Elected Trustee Update and Feedback (D. Evensen)

The only issue he had was that on Oct 28–30 is the next full meeting of the board of trustees here in Ithaca meeting in conjunction with Cornell Council. During that, there will be several committee meetings and one is student life, which he and Asa sit on. Every meeting one of them is asked to give a presentation on student life issues affecting student life broadly. It is his turn and he wanted to know from you if there are any non-academic issues affecting student life at Cornell, for instance anything from housing, dining, etc. He asks because he hasn’t heard one particular issue that’s come out. If you have ideas, please let him know via email or respond to the blog post.
C. Heckman noted that Cornell is the 2nd lowest Ivy with respect to how many grad students are housed on campus. They might want to look at it in terms of improving outreach to first years and students overall.
N. Evensen said that is apropos because Susan Murphy doesn’t have information now but there might be developments. There has been conversation about the future of Maplewood in 5 years, and whether the undergrad student population will be staying at its current cap of 3,150 per year and if that were to change what would be the implications for grad student housing.
G. Choko asked for a meeting to be organized between the student trustees, herself and Robert Harris.

4. University Assembly Update (E. Cortens)

E. Cortens explained the issues that the UA was looking at with respect to the Child Care Center. The opinion seems to be divided as to whether to immediately terminate the contract of the current company or not.
B. Forster noted that they should be looking to ensure there is childcare should their contract be terminated and making sure center doesn’t close. Additionally they should look into what happens with respect to the children should there be turnover.
B. Heavner said that his understanding was that a primary concern was expense of child-care and funding is a key issue. He hoped that the grad voice explained the concern for more affordable and better care.

IV. Business of the Day:

1. R.2: Creation and Funding of an Ad-Hoc Survey Committee (E. Cortens)

They didn’t have a good sense of what graduate students wanted with respect to the Student Activity fee. He explained the previous resolution last year which passed to allocate money for it. He explained the different ways to institute the survey and the price break down. They moved into informal debate.
A. Sikora asked what the benefit of going with the SRI option was.
Mike Genkin, former GPSA member, explained the pros of going with a survey from SRI as opposed to one through CIT or survey monkey. Response rate, credibility, privacy, and accuracy are all aspects that are obtained via SRI.
There was more discussion on pros and cons of each technique in addition to questions of clarification.

V. Strategic Planning and Adminstrative Updates

1. GPSA Charter Review (T. Balcerski)

T. Balcerski gave a timeline of the charter review and outlined the dates and times of the meetings. He stressed that this needs to be done by March. If it’s not, he is more comfortable letting the old charter stand. He encouraged them all to help participate in the process.

2. Administrative Updates (B. Wickes)

The graduate satisfaction survey administered by the grad school was last conducted in 2008, and she shared that last year. They had a pretty good response rate, almost 40%, which was a little higher than expected. Questions on the survey are different than the interests of those looked at in the survey discussed today. She explained updates from the university regarding the Barn and Graduate Student Life in general. Any input from graduate students is welcome.

VI. Open forum

1. Minority Student Representative Discussion (G. Choko)

There have been a lot of complaints that it was not easy to reach out to minority and international students. Her idea is to obtain a representative seat for the 4 minority groups on campus, to ensure there is representation in the assembly.
T. Balcerski noted that at discussion and business meetings people from all groups are welcome. The charter can be amended.
G. Choko said that it is true that the meetings are open to everyone, but few people take the time to come if they’re not full representatives.
Y. Izrayelit asked if she is looking for one seat or four.
G. Choko is looking for four voting seats.
A. Sikora suggested having 4 field positions and then one voting position.

C. Heckman said that there has been talk of acknowledging the integrity code upon matriculation. Let him know if there are opinions about that.

B. Forster mentioned that the SA Resolution 15 regarding pepper spray says “students” which is vague and they might want to look into the SA’s use of “students” in their resolutions.

T. Balcerski motioned to adjourn. A. Sikora seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 7:01 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Brittany Rosen