Proceedings of the May 23rd, 2007 meeting
Agenda 1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (George)
3) 6:05 Announcements (George)
i. Approve minutes from 5/16/07
ii. Thanks to Marja for taking minutes today!
iii. Who did you find to be the GSC cheerleader?
4) 6:15 Funding (Adam B.)
i. Stanford Bridge Club
5) 6:20 Legislative Action Committee update (Fen)
6) 6:30 Chris Griffith visits
7) 6:45 Approve money for GSC survey prizes (Euan)
8) 6:50 New business Attendance Voting members present:
Law: Shireen Barday – proxy Donna present
Humanities: George Bloom
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings - present
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson - present
Business: Rhyan Uy - present
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson - present
Education: Ryan Williams - present
At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev - present
At large 3: Kristina Keating – proxy Josh Oechslin present
At large 4: Zeng Fan - present
At large 5: Lan Wei - present
Voting members not present:
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Additional attendees:
Andrew Valencia, D.C. Jayasurdera, Anwei Chai, Thomas Lee, Maria Spletter, Justin Brown
Minutes 1) FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) Welcome with Introductions (George)
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3) Announcements (George)
i. Minutes from 5/16 pass by consensus with no changes necessary:
ii) Goal of recruiting a GSC Cheerleader / PR person possibly? Their general goal would be the publicity of the GSC and its events. The plan is for Donna and George to write of a job description for a PR person, including potential compensation for fulfilling this role.
iii) Donna asks about the proxy situation for the summer--
4) Funding (Adam B.)
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There is no funding to discuss today, as the expected group, the Stanford Bridge Club, requires no funding yet. Adam reminds us that this year’s budget ends June 30th.
5) Money for GSC survey prizes (Euan).
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We had originally budgeted $2700 for prizes (i.e. 80GB iPods, gift certificates to area restaurants and stores) in a raffle for people completing the GSC survey. However, prizes ultimately had an increased cost of $3300. Because this discrepancy between budgeted and actual was greater than $250, must ask for increased funds today. Prizes must be delivered by next Monday and Tuesday. Reasons for this discrepancy not clear, perhaps due to greater than expected responses and more prizes needing to be purchased. Request for $700 funding for survey prizes passes by consensus.
6) Updates from GCC committee and GSC finance committee.
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Neither committee has activity to report. Euan will send out an email about finance committee and George will do the same for the GCC. Tom suggests holding a meeting of GCC committee during the summer because administrator schedules would be more open.
7) Visitor
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Ime (sp?), who is the President of the Graduate School of Business Student Committee, is observing at the GSC meeting tonight. Has the overall objective for the business school to become more integrated into the graduate community.
8) Protestors
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Naked protesters around the region of the President’s office of concern:
- Is the GSC implicated in this stance?
- Undergraduate Senate has already discussed this issue.
Tom: protest was for the President to sign on to support Sweat-Free Stanford apparel.
Rhyan: Cautions about discussing this issue when no representatives are present.
George: Discussion about the Daily article
Tom: ASSU might be implicated…troubling
9) Chris Griffith, Director of Graduate Life Office (GLO), visits:
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Some recent activities of the GLO are as follows:
- Working with the GSC on the new graduate student orientation. They are waiting for final confirmation about budget, but are looking to hire four orientation coordinators, and are seeking out people who are interested.
- Faculty-student interaction (faculty lunches) from a broad range of disciplines. Positive feedback about these lunches.
- GCC facility improvements - Kristina attended GCC operations meeting and discussed creating the budget for the GCC.
- VPGE meetings-collaboration for GLO programs. Pilot year for the NGSO
Questions?:
Q: Rhyan: NGSO brings up the point that some schools will start classes before others
A: Grad School 101: 40 1-hour session to accommodate these students.
Departments take an interest in being flexible with respect to orientation.
Q: Andrew: How will orientation change?
A: Chris Griffith: Three solid orientation activities include Hennessey welcome, GOALIE, and GCC open-house. There will be more opportunities for continuing students to interact with new students. Graduate student organizations to plan dinners to invite new students. Planning tours and conversations with ethnic, women, and sexual orientation community centers. Also planning a VPGE, VPSA barbeque.
Q: George: How will continuing students be recruited for orientation?
A: Chris Griffith: Website for sign-up proposed. There is funding for someone who has this expertise. Griffith will send out welcome letter to new students that introduces many things including NGSO.
Q: DC: What about conflict with international student orientation?
A: Chris Griffith: Scheduled cleared to accommodate.
Q: Maxim: What about international students? How do you ensure that sufficient number of international students work with orientation? Issues with paying international students.
A: Must be intentional about recruiting these students. Must work closely with Bechtel I-Center and GSC to take care of this challenge. We must meet the needs of International graduate students.
10) Legislative Action Committee update (Fen).
Fen is absent, so the agenda item will be postponed until next week.
11) Update from Hershey Avula
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- Op-ed written by Avula and Jones to turn the ASSU Sweat-free. Stanford Store is the only sweat-free store on campus. Letter sent to Hennessey: open to input.
- Tom Massey making FACES for undergraduates and graduates to address issues of intolerance to educate people during orientation. Donna and Hershey describe act of intolerance at Harvard. The school needs to work toward understanding that intolerance issues still exists on campus.
- Meeting with social programming about Big Game Week committee formation.
- Meetings with Roger Whitney about housing with respect to gender-neutral housing.
- Meeting to reform Dean of Student Offices, etc. Frustration with publicity request with Dean of Student Offices and informational sessions, which could harm certain student communities (e.g. ethnic community centers).
Q: Stanford Daily: What is FACES
A: Hershey: FACES in the community to represent the diversity of the Stanford community.
12) New Business:
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i) George: Lance Choi Career Development Center (CDC): feedback from GCC to start mentoring programming. George asks for input for the GCC about this.
Q: Maria: Can CDC connect with all the other offices who are interested in doing mentoring? A committee should be formed with all these entities
A: George/Adam B.: Agreement with question and comments.
Comment: Hershey would like his academic chair to be cc’d on these emails/ correspondences.
George: How do we form these communities to discuss mentoring? Should we form an ASSU committee to address this. Hershey asks for clarification about type of mentoring. It should be mentoring for graduate students to prepare for industry. Hershey suggests that the mentoring program as it stands is too dispersed and decentralized.
Q: What form would you like the mentoring to take place? Sanctioned by VPGE, advisor, off-the record?
Send George email response.
ii) Justin Brown: Legislative action: Student lobbyists to discuss graduate student issues. Works with NAGPS to speak with politicians to get a list of graduate student issues. They work on items such as international student rights and health care. Shoot email to Fen with any additional action items.
Tom: Vaden says that non-profits like Stanford cannot self-insure—this keeps health insurance costs high as Stanford must seek outside vendors. Must find graduate student with family to advocate this issue.
Q: Rhyan: How will you ensure that issues are well-reasoned and well-argued and representative of all Stanford graduate students? How will you choose between Student groups with opposing issues?
A: George: GSC will decide.
Q: Maxim: How will you determine which issues will be voiced?
A: Justin Brown: Getting student input. Finding people who are interested in this issue.
ii) Hershey: Elections commissioner. We need a graduate assistant commissioner. It is a paid position ($1500.00). This person cannot be a voting member of the GSC. This person must be found ASAP, as needed by the end of the quarter!
7:10 PM: Meeting Adjourned. |
