• Agenda
• Attendance
• Minutes

Agenda

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GSC Agenda: January 31st, 2007: 6:15-8:15 - FOOD @ 6:00!
Graduate Community Center - Nairobi Room
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Quorum for this meeting is eight voting members.

1. 5:45 FOOD (thanks Matt!)
2. 6:00 Welcome with Introductions
3. 6:10 Announcements
i. Minutes from 01/24: Add Donna and Fen to the Agenda
ii. End of year BBQ at Rebecca’s house April 18th 7-9pm
iii. I-Gala : Request for volunteers for I-Gala. Meetings are every Tues at 6:30 pm at the GCC, Bogota Room.
4. 6:15 Funding (Adam)
Biversity
French Stanford Student Organisation
Mexican Student Association & others
Stanford Streetlaw
Persian Students Association
5. 6:25 Graduate Student Survey (Rebecca)
6. 6:35: EC Bill (Bernard)
7. 6:45 Legislative Action (Dirk and Maxim)
8. 7:00 ASSU Banking (Chris Elmore)
9. 7:30 Checklist (Jenny)
10. 7:20 New Business

Attendance

Kristina Keating*
Jenny Allen*
Maria Spletter
Song Li*
George Bloom*
Will Rowson
Jeff Laretto*
Niraj Sheth (Stanford Daily)
Linus Liang
Pedram Lajerardi
Fernando Gomez
Rebecca Kaplan*
Fabien Ferhani
Yana Hoy*
Matt Andrews*
Shireen Barday*
Alejandro Ponce-Rodriguez
Adam Beberg*
Cullen Buie*
Marcelo Worsly
Matt McDonald
Chris Elmore
Pijush Paul

Minutes

Announcements
Jenny – The minutes from 01/24, we needed to add Donna and Fen to the Agenda. Was there anything else?
Kristina – Shireen Barday had a proxy. Who was it?
Shireen - Brandon.
Jenny – Is there anything else? Are there any objections to approving the minutes from January 24th? (none) The minutes pass by consensus.
The end of year BBQ at Rebecca’s house April 18th 7-9pm. We will have a short meeting that day from 5 to 6 and then go to Rebecca’s. Please put it on your calendars.
There is a request for volunteers for the I-Gala. Meetings are every Tues at 6:30 pm at the GCC, Bogota Room. If you are interested or know someone who is interested please let them know.

Announcement about May Zhou. (Fernando Gomez).
Fernando – I am here as a friend of May’s and of the GSC. I know lots of things wouldn’t happen without the GSC. I found the email from Alex mailed to the GSC email list announcement very hurtful. We are planning a private small size memorial service for May. The other idea, as a larger thing, is a fellowship. To give the same as the SGF the endowment would need to be 1 million. We are looking to raise 1 million. It is a larger bay area effort. If we have to scale back we will move forward. I would like to thank for all the words of support . No matter what cost of death, I hope no one manipulates her death. She was amazing, the kind of person the world needs more of not less. The memories of May should be separate from other issues affecting her death.

Funding (Adam)
Biversity (No Representative present)

French Stanford Student Organization
We are volunteer students registered with office of student activities. We bring together people interested in French culture or of French heritage. We would like the GSC to help fund a few events this year. Regular events bring together around 80 people. The first is Mardi Gras, celebrate by dressing up and eating crepes. Tues February 20th in the GCC. We are asking for $350. The second event is a friendly get together during dead week. Wednesday March 15th, there will be about 75 people and we are asking for $250. The third event is an evening during which we will invite a wine expert to compare and contrast Californian and French wine. That event will be thurs April 12th and will be about 75 people. The last event is an end of year BBQ where we will meet one last time before summer, and say good bye to graduating students, we are asking for $370.
Adam – Any questions? The total is $1470.
Jenny – Are there any objections to funding the French Stanford Student Organization for $1470? (none) Then that passes by consensus.

Mexican Student Association & others
Adam – This is a second year event where 30 some Mexican associations get together
Rep - Last year we had Grand Fiesta Latina. There were lots of grad and undergrad associations involved. The idea is to have a big party with Latin music, a dj and live music, mariachis. We are looking for different sources of funding.
Adam – There was a large number requested for food and so we ended up spreading it out a little. The total is $4200. Are there any questions?
Jenny – Are there any objections to funding this event for $4200? (none) Seeing none that passes by consensus.

Persian Students Association
We are asking for funding for four events which we will have from now until the end of the school year. On March 20th we will celebrate the Persian new year, the first day of spring. The second event is a series of lectures we are asking people to come and talk about the challenges of start up. The first is on feb 24th you will see flyers on campus for this. The third is an alumni reunion we will have a mixer. The last event is a party in the spring.
Rebecca – How do you know the alumni are Persian?
Rep – We have a list of previous members.
Cullen – Is there a theme for the lectures?
Rep – I can’t remember I can tell you exactly what they are later.
Adam – You had events which were after July which we couldn’t fund. The total is $3775.
Jenny – Are there any objections to funding Persian Students Association
for $3775? (none) Seeing none that passes by consensus.

Stanford Streetlaw
We are a group of grad student, 40-60. We visit juvenile detention centers. We meet with the students to talk about their rights. We teach them how to better interact with the system so that they can better interact with the system when they get out.
Adam – The rules more lax because they are a social welfare group. The total is $3055.
Jenny – Are there any objections to funding Stanford Streetlaw for $3055? (none) Seeing none that passes by consensus.

Adam – anyone from biversity? (none)
Jenny – Don’t forget to post on grad events.

Jenny - We’ve noticed that some drinks are missing from the office between weeks. Please let Matt know that we need more drinks if you are taking them.
Matt A – if you are having meetings in there and drinking drinks please send me an email.

Rebecca – I have a question about funding. Once the groups get funded how to we check up on them?
Chris – if you wait I am talking about it at seven.

Graduate Student Survey (Rebecca)
Rebecca – There is a budget which should be distributed. In order to do survey we need to pass a budget. I am almost finished. I still need to send out the survey need questions from diversity and international. I looked into using consulting companies but they are all very busy. So it looks like we will use survey monkey. If we send out to different schools at different times we will not crash survey monkey. We are charged 5 cents per respondent over 1000. I can’t properly project the number of respondents so the mins and maxes are based on the total number of students. The publicity at a max will cost $300. The minimum total cost will be $850 and the maximum will be $1228.65. Basically my budget proposal is for $1228.65 but it’s not going to happen unless everyone responds with in one month. At the most it will likely be $1150.
Alex – did you already speak with the GSPB about survey monkey?
Rebecca – I don’t think that Mulan has the professional level account. Were you the one who said we should pay? And Alex recommended survey monkey.
George – Is it possible to offer more incentives?
Rebecca – I think that makes a lot of sense. One big gift/100 respondents. I have no idea how many people are going to respond.
Cullen – How long do you think we will have it up?
Rebecca- At the max a month but that’s the way maximum. If we space it out and send it to the GSB for a week and other schools for a week then it will take longer.
Cullen – Are we going to say that we are giving away 1 video ipod. We could just you could win an ipod. We don’t have to say there are five ipods we are giving out.
Jenny – I want to thank Rebecca for all her work. I think there is some thought of increasing promotional materials. Are there any proposals on the table?
Rebecca – I’ve contacted HR people but I think that they take 2 weeks to respond. We could up the publicity.
Alex – I think lots of little prizes.
Kristina – I disagree.
Jenny – How long does the survey take?
Rebecca – It depends on how well you know your finances. Some things are easy, some things are difficulty.
Fen – How long?
Rebecca – Around 60-70 minutes. 25 minutes if you are quick. You don’t have to respond to every question.

Elizabeth – I like that every hundred person gets something. What about $100 per 100 people.
Jenny – That brings the max up to $2770?

George – I think its’ important to everyone so we should try and get as many as possible.

Matt – It doesn’t matter what you offer. All colleges we survey we have only get 10-15% respondents.

Jenny – With the additional incentives that brings the maximum to $2800 are there any objections for funding the survey for $2800? I think it will come out of reserves.
Rebecca – We are doing $1 per respondent.
Jenny – Are there any objections to funding the survey for $2880? (none) Seeing none that passes by consensus.

EC Bill (Bernard)
Bernard – The applicants were both strong candidates. Both had innovative and new ideas for increasing turnout I asked about helping increase turn out amongst graduate students and they had some ideas.
Jenny – Are there any objections to approving applicants? (none) Seeing none that passes by consensus

Jenny – Is biversity here? (no response)

Adam – Their event is not next we so we are ok.

Legislative Action (Dirk and Maxim)
Dirk - Every year the GSC sends a committee to Washington and to the State Legislator to effect legislation that will make our life’s better. Every year we have one shot to make a difference. The climate is now right to push something through. In Washington they are worried about national security and alternative fuels. They are waking up to education. In the state of union Bush spoke about education. The National Academy of Sciences is saying the US is falling behind in productions of scientist and engineers. China is increasing their output. There is a sentiment that we need to make some change. We can use this to our advantage and be objective in stating our goals. One is tax relief. The second is research. we look around this room or anywhere around Stanford. The US relies on international students been a problem lately because of restrictions on international students. The second thing we need to emphasis is making life for international students easier. We will have a two pronged strategy of tax relief and lessening restrictions on international students.

See the hand out on tax relief. This is a work in progress please look and let me know. Regan admin turned grad students stipends form non-tax to taxable. We will argue that this is regressive when pushing forward.



One bill stuck in congress is the higher education affordability and equity act. This is intended to make permanent and strengthen 2001 law. (see sheet for details).

Jenny - I’m in favor but we can debate if it is necessary.

Dirk – This is something we need to get behind. It seems like the climate is favorable for passing this. In 2006 Bush introduced an American competitiveness initiative goes some way to increasing funding for research and education.
This admin is favoring things in the national security interest and not everything. We need to push for the 2005 legislation to be passed.
Jenny – Thank you for going through and getting this information. Just to clarify they idea is that in March or April they are going to Washington. We are making sure that everyone is supportive. In the past there has been some debate. What dirk needs is to have our support. next time we will look at international issues.

Adam – In the last statement post doc should be post undergrad.

Dirk – I made a mistake in the statistics in the sixth bullet. I was comparing it to tax cuts given to top 1% of incomes. That should be within 5 billion within 10 years.

Rebecca – when you go to lobby are meetings already set up or are you required to set them up?

Dirk – We were going to go with national grad student association but they are meeting in two weeks. We were thinking that if we went at a later time there would be less grad students. We were thinking the California senators offices, e.g. Nancy Polosi.
Rebecca – In general do you have a sense if there is a lot of opposition to this?
Dirk – My own personal feeling is that if you look at the time there are a lot of indicators that it will pass. US is worried about losing its edge.
Linus – How did you come up with this topic?
Jenny – I think it’s been on the NAGPS’s radar for a long time.
Dirk – I actually think it’s been on agenda since 1987 when grad students got audited.
Matt – I’m not sure that all university graduate organizations are for this. We went in and lobbied for this but the teacher’s union (United Auto Workers) lobbied against it. You’ve got to look into what organizations are lobbying against this.
Rebecca – It makes it look like grad student are not workers.
Shireen – New York schools are part of UAW.
Matt – I think the UC’s are as well. We need to look at this. The other reason to go when all other grads are going is to network and report back.
Dirk – I was afraid we’d be too busy trying to set up meetings rather then networking with other graduate students.
Matt – They will actually teach you how to lobby.
Adam – We pay them dues but we don’t do anything with them. What do they do with our fees?
Jenny – So we can be part of the community.
Linus – Have you contacted them?
Dirk – It’s tough to meet with them face to face but easier to meet with their staff.
Linus – it may be easier to get face time if you go with the national group.
Student - Would it take time to get it enacted?
Dirk – It probably depends.
Alex – The 1986 bill, was not a bill directed to grad students it was a tax code overhaul.
Jenny – You can talk to Dirk in detail afterwards.
Fen – Is this only for scholarships nod not stipends?
Dirk – No both.
Jenny – Any other comments?
Dirk – Send me an email if you have questions or comments

ASSU Banking (Chris Elmore)
Main title is E groups.

Chris - For those who don’t know I work for capital group that Matt runs. after Adam gives money we take over from there. We move money from your account to graduate student group account. One of things we’ve done in last month is set up online student banking. (see web demo). This will make a lot of student groups lives’ easier. We’ve moved all forms on line. If you gave them money it will show up in accounts. There are all sorts of ways for them to get reimbursed, transfer money to different departments, or other student groups. It will make how we do oversight and monitoring easier. We have a staff that goes over everything. Sometime they are honest mistakes and sometimes we are catching groups. We are the enforcements. This makes it easier . We will be able to support the new funding. VSO initiative and collaborations, Stanford fund partnerships, and provost’s office. We are working on getting all on line so that there will be one place students groups can go for funding needs. Now you can track budgets on line. Sadly it is a revolutionary idea. If you were lucky financial officers from last year gave you something but probably not. This way you can look back and say what did we do last year. One other side project is where we monitor e-groups where we sell things like tickets for all groups. Those are our core services that we offer to student groups. We are enjoying doing it and I thought you might be interested in seeing a little bit of what we do. If you have questions/comments, email us. We like getting feedback from groups.
Rebecca – I had to reimburse someone the other day and the system was awesome.
Alex - I know some groups charge dues. At the end of the year if they don’t spend the money then they’d like to reimburse students.
Chris – We can do that.
Jeff- If I’m a student and I want to purchase something from e-commerce is there any way to do that without going to assu in tressider. Do you have paypal or something?
Chris – Student groups can come to us and set that up and then they can go online. i.e. of you want to register for the triathlon. The receipts have a barcode.
Jeff – What is the mechanism for getting money from account to student group?
Chris – Paypal.
Jeff – For some groups this is a painful process.
Chris – Get them to shoot us an email.
Alex – How much is the fee?
Chris – approximately 3% +$1. We hired a contractor to do site.
Linus – Are you part of assu?
Jeff – Is the software proprietary or open source?
Chris – Proprietary. If you have comments come by office, shoot us an email and let us know.

I-Gala (Pijush)
Pijush – There is a proposal on a handout. The GSC already approved $3000 but need more money because other groups did not fund them. Thanks to GSC for supporting us so far. If you don’t know what the i-gala is it’s a multicultural event. Different country’s groups participate and perform. It’s always full. We estimate over 1000 students. This time we would like to call and invite alumni. The renting fee for the facility in the Alumni Center is $2600 and this year they are not sponsoring us. They are not going to expect $750 we need to pay more. To get extra money we went to GSPB, and international center. we have to pay the full renting fee and the logistics have increased we are thinking we are spending more than 12 000. right now we have over 11000.
The other thing we want is help planning. you guys are specialist in organizing events.
Adam – You don’t have money from u-grad senate.
Pijush – It is a grad student event so we can’t ask them for money.
Rebecca – Are you selling tickets?
Pijush – No we aren’t allowed. Next year we are going to get money from outside. That is why getting alumni to come.
Dirk – Have you thought about changing the location?
Pijush – It’s the best location.
Adam – They’ve been jacking up prices a lot this year.
Pijush – Stanford is thinking of moving to not charging students.
Rebecca – At the GSB we have a lot of international student groups that receive funding from the GSB. Maybe you could ask them.
Pijush – We haven’t in the pass.
Rebecca- This is a recommendation, you could ask them.
Jenny – Are there any additional questions?
Adam – That is an increase to $3000 from $2000 for this year.

George – Where is the additional $440 coming from? The difference between total and the budget is $1200.

Pijush -This is estimated not actual. we will ask EV as well.
Jenny – are there additional questions or suggestions.
Matt – Can someone lay it out clear?
Jenny – Last year we had $2000 and then they requested more funds. When they did we increased the budget to $3000. This year because of issues with alumni center they need more money.
Adam – It would have to come from reserves.
Pijush – We asked for money from GSPB.
Student – I noticed you asked EV and Rains, why was Lyman not approached?
Pijush – The Dean of students and Dean of graduate life said Lyman doesn’t have a lot of extra funds.
Jenny – Are there any proposals on the table?
Jenny – This would be a proposal to give $800 from reserves to fund their event. Are there any objections? (none) Seeing none this passes by consensus.
Jenny - Good luck with all your planning.

Checklist
Jenny – We are going to start just doing section each time. This time we will focus on advocacy.
VPGE – The second meeting is on march 1st and we are bringing in Maria to talk about advising and mentorship as well as suggest doing the town halls.
Linus - Can I go as well?
Jenny – I will contact you about that. Updates with the course list?
Linus – I talked to Mark before break and he was excited but then he went to India. I spoke with him recently and am trying for a meeting next week.
Jenny – Diversity application for committee; the application due on feb 1st.
Healthcare
Kristina – I have a meeting with the family CA’s next week and I have a meeting with the director of Vaden in a couple of weeks.
Housing
Yana - GHAC meeting got cancelled this week. I think we are meeting again next week. They are making announcement about what is being kept next year for grad student housing. The go-to student on GHAC is graduating so we are looking for someone new.
International student issues – I’ll follow up with Zhou and report back.
Go Pass
Jenny - Kristina, Paul and I met with Aaron discussed plans and approaches to go forward on that.
Kristina – I am focusing on reading the constitution but don’t think that we’ll be able have a special fee where we charge students on top of the special fee.

Chris – You can get around that by creating a general fee but you need to change the constitution. You’d have to define rules for creating a committee to disperse the fees. You can write it into the requirements to have a general fee that is renewed every year.
Stipends
George – I am working on survey and information stipend questions. If there is anyone who wants to look at stipend question let me know.
Jenny – We are trying to work more closely with nomcom. I’ve been in contact with nomcom to start doing something with that.

Thanks everyone.

Jenny – Is there any new business?
Elizabeth – The state of association going to be on Tuesday Feb 6th, at the senate meeting. I’ll give a speech on where assu is, where it has been and where it is going.
Jenny – are there any other announcements.
Rebecca - Someone called me about Jewish issues. A divestment is going on and they wanted to ask if students are being lobbied. I was pretty sure they hadn’t been. But if divestment campaign lobbies us they want to be aware so that they can lobby too.
Rebecca – When we have advocacy issues do we talk directly with committee chair or bring it to meeting.
Jenny – either what is it?
Rebecca – There is a new vaccine for HPV; I was wondering if any students had brought it up.
Kristina – Yes, it’s something I’m looking into. Some students in polysci brought it up. They were worried that it was not covered