Minutes

FOOD (Thanks Matt!!)
Welcome with Introductions (Jenny)
Announcements (Jenny)
i. Minutes from 9/27 (ammend to include Donna and Tom in the attendance).
Jenny – With those two corrections are there any objections to passing the minutes from 9/27? (none) The minutes pass.
ii. REMINDER: Don't for get to send Maria your submissions for the fall bulletin by Friday Oct 6th ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )
iii. REMINDER: Submit reimbursable expenses (with receipts) to Jeff Laretto for the GSC Welcome Party
iv. REMINDER: The following people need to pick up t-shirts from Donna: Jeff Laretto, Rebecca Kaplan, Zhuo Huang, Matt Andrews, Hershey Avula, Laura Graham, Cullen Buie and Shireen Barday. If they don't pick them up today, Donna will leave the shirts in the GSC room & they may not be able to find the size they need if that happens.
v. THANK YOU: All the volunteers at the Welcome Party (including Fen, Paul, Maxim, Kristina, Yana, Matt, Song Li, George, and Dirk)!
vi. REQUEST: Kristina is going to be away for the October 25th and November 1st meetings. Can someone volunteer to be secretary for those two weeks? (Kristina will send a reminder closer to the dates for whoever volunteers). Thanks! (Cullen volunteered to do the 25th and Jenny volunteer to do Nov 1st)

Additional annoucement (Fen):
The Stanford Concert Network would like to request assistance from the GSC. They are registered as an undergraduate group but cater to both graduate and undergraduate students. They put on bring performances to the university and were previously organizing the events at COHO. They have out grown COHO and so would like to bring the events to the 750 and host them in the Havana room. However, since they are an undergraduate group they cannot reserve the Havana room and were wondering if the GSC would be willing to sponsor the event book the room. They would also need access to the sound equipment. The even is four days during this quarter.

Paul – I think that this is something we can do without putting to a vote. Jenny and I can take care of it. Do you know if they’ve check to see if the room is available on the dates they are interested in?

Fen – I don’t know.

Parking and Transportation FAQ (Kristina and Aaron)

After Hannah graduated, the people she recruited to help with the parking and transportation committee moved forward with the transportation board. We have been working on a survey, you may have received emails regarding survey, looking for more ways to get funding for the Go-pass, and looking for ways to convince the provost to continue to contribute funding to the go-pass. The survey has been designed to obtain the GUP numbers (number of peak hour trips) from students who currently use the Go-pass as well as trying to discertain how much money grad students are willing to pay to keep the program running. We are looking into having a tiered system which charges students more depending on their location from Stanford. So far we’ve collected 650 responses to the survey request, about 450 are current users the remaining 200 are students who are interested in using the GO-pass in the future. So about half of the current users have responded. So far the numbers indicate that go pass replaces peak transit hours for the majority of Caltrain users which is very different from statistics from parking and transportation which attributes only about 10 peak hour trips to graduate students. I am meeting to discuss these numbers and the feasibility of using tiered system with Brodie Hamilton next Tuesday. We are also working to see if the combination of the effect of the GUP, the image/recruiting and money that we are willing to contribute as grad students may convince provost to continue to fund. In addition we are looking into finding alternate sources of funding.

Paul – What are people willing to pay?
Aaron - In the survey we gave choices based on where you come from. Locally people were willing to pay $80, more than half the respondants coming from San Francisco or San Jose were willing to pay $500. It’s still going to be difficult to set numbers based on these statistics to tell provost how much money we can guarantee from grad students.

Jenny – What about incoming students? Do you see a problem with having people pay the same rate in September?

Aaron – We haven’t thought about that but we should look into a pro-rated system.

Jenny – You should talk to the Deans about chipping in to support the program.

Aaron – Total cost of the GO-pass is $320 000. Even if the schools were willing to contribute per student in their school but might not make much of a dent, we we will ask.

Matt – I think you should be aware of the bias in the Go-pass survey. In the email that went out encouraging students to participate it says “you could save the go-pass”.

Aaron – We were looking to survey students who already use the Go-pass so we intentionally biased the survey

Matt – But perhaps, by including that bias, the student who responded would say they would be willing to say they would pay more than they actually would.

? – What other options are there besides the go pass.

Aaron – When we looked at the economics of other options there was nothing that even came close to the Go-pass.

George – Is the point of the program to have a benefit for off campus students or to promote alternative methods of transportation for students who already live off campus.

Aaron – It’s a combination of both.

Cullen – Has there been any thought proposing another fee that was small but also provieded benefits for on campus students.

Kristina – That’s what the previous measure tried to do, but it turned out that the benefits for on campus students ended up being the expensive and not comparable to the Go-pass for off campus students.

Paul – What’s your approach for provost?

Aaron – We want to meet with Brodie Hamilton before we meet with the provost, but we would like to meet with the provost.

Paul – What can we say to the provost to make things easier for you?

Aaron – Digest of what I’ve said. The numbers from our survey are showing different results than those from P&T, we are looking for support from the deans, and looking for alternate sources of funding. The Law school Dean already spoken up in support of the program.

Jenny – Have you already asked the Deans for money for funding?

Aaron – No. We’re asking for support now and will look in to getting funding at a later time. So far we have support from the Med school, SES and the Law school.

Linus – What’s the history of this program?

Jenny – It was offered in 2005 on a trial basis for free. This year it was offered at a $60 per pass, the rest was funded by the provost and the GSC.

Linus – No one paid I the original program?

Jenny – Yes, but it took years to get the program in place.

Linus – Have you explored the option of forcing all grad students to pay something?

Jenny – Yes but didn’t pass. The Provost said we needed to put on ballot in order to be willing to fund it for 2006.

Paul – This is an option we can try again.

Linus –Berkley has a similar program but it was $30. It’s not something that you can opt out of.

Kristina – Is it possible to create a fee that is only charged to graduate students living off campus?

Jenny – No, the way that the constitution works you can’t divide up a fee between on and off campus students.

Aaron – How often do you meet with provost ?

Paul– We meet with him once a quarter but we can set more meetings. We can mention it tomorrow and talk about what he needs to see to move the program forward and let him know that you will be wanting to meet with him.

Aaron – That would be great.

Jenny – Thank you for all your work.

Aaron – I will be keeping survey up as long as it needs to be up.

George – if the point was to get it passed why not have a fee where you either get a hundred dollars off a parking pass or a go pass?

Paul – That’s a great idea, especially if you could get some funding from the provost to bring the cost to students down and that way you’d get spend less than $100 but get something worth $100.

Funding (Adam)

Paul - Adam is not here. The constitution just say that the finance committee needs to report to GSC. Do we need him? Jeff could you act as the representative for the finance committee?

Jeff – OK but I don’t know what the requests were or how much the finance committee approved.

Paul – I think that he sent the information to Jenny and I. (checks computer)

Jenny – While Paul is looking for the requests, can we get an introduction from both the student groups?

Mexican Students Association (MSA)

The goal of our group is to bring the Mexican community at Stanford together and to promote Mexican culture to non-Mexican students. We have about 100 graduate students and about 80% attend the events.

Events: Comida de Bienvaneda, a reception BBQ and reunion for mexican students ($455); Pasada, a gathering at night where we break a pinata ($632); Rosa de Reys, traditional gathering after Christmas ($512); Cena Mexicana ($830); Carne Asada ($455); a Seminar on Political Changes in Mexico ($1050); and Fiesta de despedida ($830). We are asking for support from the GSC and will get some funding from other sources.

Request: $4764

Jeff – Are there any questions regarding the events?

Kristina – For Dirk’s sake – how many people are in your association?

MSA rep - 100 graduate students, about 80% attend the events

Jenny – Are there any objections to funding the MSA for $4764? (none) Seeing no objections that passes by consensus.

Indonesian Club at Stanford (ICS)
Event: Welcome reception in two weeks
Request: $250

Jeff – Are there any questions regarding this event? (none)

Jenny – Are there any objections to funding the ICS for $250? (none) Seeing no objections this passes by consensus.

GSC promotion stuff (Jenny)

Last week we decided on mint lip gloss but I found another company that makes chocolate so I’m going to look into that and we will discuss this again next week.
I looked into Bicycle fenders are out of our budget range

Alex – What about hooks for the back of the door?

Jenny – We’ll look into it.

Jenny – On the agenda there is a picture of a water bottle cages. What do people think aobut the water bottle cage?

Cullen – It seems like it would be difficult to have something written on the water bottle cage that people would actually see.

Donna – What about GSC underwear?

Kristina – I like the idea of laundry bags

Matt – What about reflectors? I’ve seen people walking around with them.

Elizabeth – What about umbrellas.

Jenny – I’ll look into that stuff. And report back again next week.

Retreat update (Jenny and Kristina)

The details of the retreat including a preliminary agenda have been handed out to those attending the retreat? Are there specific subjects or things not on the agenda that people want to discuss?

We have extra space if anyone else is interested in coming.

Linus – I’d be interested in attending but I need to check my schedule.

Elizabeth – My cousin’s wedding is that weekend so I’m taking off and won’t be able to make it.

Agenda for President/Provost meeting (Jenny and Paul)

Jenny – The agenda got emailed to everyone. Since you’ve had a chance to look at it is there anything that you would like to add?

Cullen – I want to know how much the VPGE can do. For example would the VPGE be willing to help out with the P&T issues or not?

Paul – I see this meeting as a time to put the GSC in front of the Provost and President.

Song – I have a question for the meeting with the provost: are you going to suggest extra funding to increase interaction between student groups?

Jenny – Yes, we want to have him support larger events like the Lunar New Year.

Paul – We want to know how he sees the interaction between the different departments going.

Healthcare Update (Kristina)

Paul and I met with Ira Friedman, the Director of Vaden Student Health Services to discuss the future of the Heath and Wellness Advocacy Committee. The overwhelming impression from the meeting was that Ira is committed to ensuring that students have adequate, affordable coverage and that all students are covered including dependents. We discussed the change in dependant coverage, we discussed the rising cost of health care, and we discussed wellness programming. We are still figuring out what we are going to advocate for this year.

Paul – What would be the best way to get information from families given privacy issues?

Matt –It would be best if Ira sent a staff person to go had someone go door to door.

Donna – We could also do this through CA’s for families as well as couples. There are couples without families who might not be insured.

Kristina – Ira also talked about getting a group together for a seminar on the drivers of the cost of health insurance. Who would be interested in attending?

(George Matt, Elizabeth, Cullen, Jenny, Paul)

Kristina – I’ve also gotten in touch with the NomCom and we are going to meet to discuss the relationship between the GSC and the NomCom.


New Business

Donna - The freezer is broken and needs to be cleaned/fixed.

Adjourn meeting