GPSA Operations: September 8, 2010 Minutes

In Attendance:

Thomas Balcerski, Vice-President Operations, ex-officio member, Chair of Operations & Staffing Jennifer Swartz, Executive Vice President, ex-officio member, Communications chair Nicole Baran, Events Committee Chair Kyle Albert, Appropriations Chair Bobby Hartshorn, GPSA Financial Commission Chair Michael Walsh, GPSA UA Representative Brian M. Forster, Counsel to the GPSA, ex-officio member

Meeting started at 7:30pm

1.Committee Logistics & Future Meetings

Each member present introduced themselves and their role(s) in the GPSA.

T. Balcerski reviewed sections of the GPSA bylaws which explained the function of the Operations & Staffing committee to staff graduate students to GPSA and university committees and reviewed the procedure for selecting and voting graduate students into committee positions.

Any vacancies that exist following tonight will be announced at the upcoming business meeting (9/13/10) and will be filled on a rolling-basis by the executive committee in coordination with the committee chairs.

There will be 1 Operations & Staffing meeting this semester (this evening) and a second one in the Spring to reconvene all the committee chairs to review the issues being discussed in committees and staff positions if needed.

2.Committee Websites, Meetings and Monthly Reports

T. Balcerski reviewed the committee pages of the GPSA website (maintained by the Office of Assemblies). Committee chairs were asked to maintain their websites with current information, specifically any documents the committees produce along with their meeting schedules, agendas and minutes.

N. Baran asked how to the committee chairs were to update their sites. T. Balcerski informed the committee to send material for posting to the Office of Assemblies (staff@assembly.cornell.edu). B. Forster recommended that in their message, they state the page they want edited by providing the URL. Committee chairs were also asked to make sure that the membership information posted on their sites are maintained and up to date. Committees should meet once a month and post agendas and minutes were applicable.

T. Balcerski will maintain the past tradition of the VPOs and have each committee fill out a committee report form. The form consists of basic questions asking whether committees met, what issues are being discussed and if any feedback from the GPSA is needed. T. Balcerski said the reports would then be discussed by the Executive committee prior to the next GPSA meeting.

Committee reports are due at the end of each month, beginning on October 31st, 2010. Either the chair or their designate is to return the form via email to Tom (gpsa-vpoperations@assembly.cornell.edu).

3.Staffing of Committees

T. Balcerski reviewed the staffing website from the Office of Assemblies (https://assembly.cornell.edu/staffing) and how he can officially “staff” a graduate/professional student to a committee. Note that the Operations & Staffing committee must staff (a) GPSA standing committees, (b) University committees receiving support from the Office of Assemblies and © University committees receiving not supported by the Office of Assemblies. The site shows all the graduate applicants for each committee. The committee chairs were emailed ahead of time all the applicants and can log onto the staffing website to review the applications.

Prior to this committee meeting, T. Balcerski reviewed the committee system at the 8/31/10 GPSA Discussion meeting of the advisory body. He distributed the list of committees open to graduate students and asked for GPSA members to check off committees interested. These GPSA members were contacted and sent the application. While chairs were given the names of individuals who were interested in a committee, they were not staffed at this meeting if no application existed for them.

M. Walsh verified that the meeting would be operating under executive session, to allow for more open discussion of the best candidates for each position. T. Balcerski indicated that the committee will function in executive session.

4.Staffing of Committees

GPSA Standing Committees:

• Each committee chair was asked to determine how many members of the committee they wanted. The initial committee sizes were as follows:

Appropriations: 5 Events: 10 Communications: 5–10 Advocacy: 10 Finance Commission: 10

Since the student advocacy chair was not present, B. Forster since serving as a previous advocacy chair suggested the committee size.

• The committee then reviewed the number of applications for each committee one by one and revised their initial sizes of the committee.

(1)Appropriations�revised committee size: 5, 1 vacancy

• K. Albert made a motion to accept all the applicants for appropriations. N. Baran seconded. There was unanimous consent.

(2) Communications�revised committee size: 7, 5 vacancies

• Three of the vacancies will be filled once the GPSA liaisons to the SA, Faculty senate and EA are identified. Two additional vacancies exist.
• J. Swartz made a motion to accept all the current applicants for communications. B.

Hartshorn seconded.  There was unanimous consent.  

(3)Events�revised committee size: 8, 3 vacancies

• B. Hartshorn made a motion to accept all the current applicants for Events. K.

Albert seconded.  There was unanimous consent.  

(4)Financial Commission�revised committee size: 10, 3 vacancies

• M. Walsh reminded the committee that ideally all graduate fields and professional

schools would be represented in the Financial Commission. Looking at the applicants, many of them were from the social sciences. B. Forster indicated that although many of them are in social science, they have previously served on this committee and bring experience to their position.

• Fields not represented include Vet, JGSM, Law, Bio, Humanities.
• N. Baran made a motion to accept all the current applicants for Financial Commission.
• B. Hartshorn seconded. There was unanimous consent.

(5)Student Advocacy�revised committee size: 7, 3 vacancies

• All operations & staffing committee members reviewed each of the applicants. It was noted that almost all of the applicants were in the masters program.
• N. Baran made a motion to accept all the current applicants on the condition that the Ph.D. and non-master professional students should be used to fill in the student advocacy vacancies. B. Hartshorn seconded. There was unanimous consent.

Liaisons:

Currently T. Balcerski and J. Swartz were working on identifying GPSA liaisons to the other assemblies (Student Assembly, Employee Assembly, Faculty Senate). B. Forster suggested that they speak to Amy O’Donnell about identifying liaisons to the Employee Assembly. Chris Heckman of the GPSA expressed interest in being the liaison to the faculty senate. As these individuals are identified, the GPSA executive committee will staff them.

University Committees:

• Committees with the number of applicants under the number of positions were agreed to be staffed by the committee. Several committees positions still remain vacant.
• M. Walsh suggested that between Multicultural Issues and the Diversity Council, that we try to staff a graduate student to the Diversity Counsel. T. Balcerski said he would check with the applicant from Multicultural issues to see if they would serve on Diversity Council.
• Committees with more applicants than positions were discussed. These committees included: Ad-Hoc Graduate Mental health committee, Faculty Senate Library Board and the UA sustainability committee.

(1)Ad-Hoc Graduate Mental health committee.

• B. Forster reviewed the background of the committee, which was generated based on a

Resolution R.6 from the 2008–2009 GPSA. This is the committee that was charged at the 8/31/10 GPSA Advisory Body meeting. B. Forster also explained that this was not the same committee as the Council of Mental Health & Welfare (CMHW). B. Forster recommended that all the applicants applying should be accepted, especially since many of them have previously served on either the ad-hoc mental health committee or the CMHW. There was unanimous consent

(2)Faculty Library Board (1 position)

• 3 graduate students applied for the position, including 2 graduate students who

previously served on the committee. B. Forster recommended that the graduate student who previously served on the committee for the GPSA should be reconsidered. K. Albert and N. Baran agreed based on reviewing his application. There was unanimous consent

(3)University Assembly Sustainability & SA Environmental Issues (2 positions each)

• M. Walsh explained that the UA is currently revising their charter. As for the

Sustainability committee, each assembly is being requested to send 2 members, to serve staggered terms. Although this section of the charter has not passed, the sustainability committee will be following this procedure. There were 3 applicants for the committee. B. Forster recommended that the current GPSA’s representative be allowed to continue serving in the 1-term seat as he would be graduating in a years. B. Forster also suggested looking at the SA Environmental issues to see if any overlap of applicants existed in order to spread our resources. The committee reviewed the applicants for both committees, taking into account how long each graduate student planned to be at Cornell and staffed them appropriately.

T. Balcerski said he would take the decisions of the committee and staff the committees. Graduate students will then be contacted of the committee’s decisions.

Meeting adjourned at 9:40pm

Respectively Submitted,
Brian M. Forster
Counsel to the GPSA

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