Proceedings of the June 27th, 2007 meeting
Agenda I. Welcome with introductions
II. Announcements
a. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
b. Approve minutes from the last meeting (6/6/07)
c. Thanks to Polina for taking minutes today!
d. New server for the GSC website. We’re faster now!
e. July 4th BBQ is next week. GSC members are encouraged to volunteer.
III. Funding
IV. Stress relief workshops
V. VPGE website
VI. Fourth of July Party
VII. Cupertino Shuttle Update
VIII. New Business Attendance Voting members present:
At large 1: Kristina Keating
At large 2: Zeng Fan
At large 3: Hanna Muenke – proxy Josh Oechslin present
At large 4: Lan Wei – proxy Song Li present
Business: Maxim Afanasyev – proxy Polina Segalova present
Business: Rhyan Uy – proxy Maria Spletter present
Education: Ryan Williams
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker – proxy Avi Tuschman present
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Law: Shireen Barday – proxy Donna Winston present
Voting members not present:
Humanities: George Bloom
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Additional attendees – Alexandru Ene, Wenwei (Leo) Zheng, Debanti Sengupta, Emma Seppala, Mondaire Jones, Hershey Avula, Adam Sciambi, Justin Brown, Cullen Buie Minutes I. Welcome with introductions
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II. Announcements
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a. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
b. Approve minutes from the last meeting (6/6/07) – No changes to minutes. No objections to passing. Minutes are passed by consensus.
c. Thanks to Polina for taking minutes today!
d. New server for the GSC website. We’re faster now!
e. July 4th BBQ is next week. GSC members are encouraged to volunteer.
III. Funding
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One group (Chinese Christian Evangelical Fellowship):
The fiscal years starts on July 1st. This group (CCEF) asking for money during that time to run four events
a) Annual bbq - always a big successful event > 70 students coming we have increased communication between graduate students and will have some relaxing activities
b) Interpersonal relationships - Speaker from Cornell taking sabbatical here and is a very popular speaker (Charlie Lee)
c) Time management – popular topic. UCSF also hold seminar for each quarter with much success.
d) New student welcome party – Huge event and quite successful. There will be attendance >70 people.
Explanation of funding committee - Groups can apply for funding from committee. Bi-weekly summer meetings are at noon in the Clark Centre. During the funding committee meeting budgets are reviewed and compared to funding committee guidelines. This week Polina Segalova, Adam Beberg, and Leo Zheng were at the FC meeting. There is no limit of the number of events per quarter, just a cap on funding. In addition, Normally just snacks are approved for speakers. There was an understanding with this group that for the rest of the year they may get less money. Events are on July 7th (seminar), July 14th (bbq), August 18 (seminar) and September 22nd (new student welcome party).
Group asked for $1355 and committee recommends giving $1255. No objections. Funding passes by consensus.
IV. Stress relief workshops
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Idea came out of a meeting with President Hennessy, who is very aware of the current grad student mental health situation. Current options are either signing up for a yoga class or going to CAPS. There is not much in between. Art of Living Foundation offers stress relief workshops, which have gotten rave reviews. Similar workshops are held on campus, but the grad student community needs to be made more aware of them. There will be a workshop in Palo Alto in July. There is a $200 fee for the long, 20 hour work shops. The shorter workshops are free. Check out www.artoflivingsfba.org/yesplus. Will use grad events to advertise, and will try to work with GSC to have event on campus.
V. VPGE website
##2007_06_27/2007_06_27_5_VPGE Updates
Chris Golde is the Associate Vice Provost from the VPGE office. A little history: Back in the day there was a graduate education office handling grad affairs. Through some re-organization around 1996, that office was dissolved. Now that office is back! … and they have a website. Now they’re trying to figure out what to put on that website and what’s the best format. Some suggestions are:
a. When do grad students get paid? Based on RA, TA, fellowship, etc.
b. Link on how to do taxes
c. List of sources for money to go to conferences
d. Information on who/how students can get “bonus” money for going TRG early
e. When you’re TGR, you can still take 3 credits per quarter
f. Have a student wiki featuring restaurant, cool places to go, etc.
g. Updated map of campus
h. Graduate housing is hard to navigate, need to have this information in an easier format
i. Advising issues – how do students deal with problems/changes?
j. What is covered by insurance but now provided by Vaden?
k. FAQ’s by topic, like housing, insurance, etc.
l. Advising wiki – rate your professor seems more appropriate for the GSC
m. A forum for students to get advice from other students
n. Section on transitioning for new students what to do in the first few days at Stanford
o. Information on CAPS, yoga, etc. for stress management
p. Needs a place for university and department policies
q. Are there on-campus party policies
Stanford Graduate Summer Institute –
Questions: did people know about these? If they knew and didn’t do anything, why?
Answers: Yes, you were well-publicized. The entrepreneurship workshop is a long-shot for most research students because of the time commitment. Some feel that the non-entrepreneurship workshops were not that well advertised. The application questions were identical for all workshops, even though the workshops were really different. People are interested to see more offerings.
Note: Faculty members were recruited to do workshops they were interested in. The courses are non-credit to avoid a lot of the university tape. VPGE office is in building 310, close to Memorial Church – come visit!
VI. Fourth of July Party
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Sign up to be a volunteer! There will be two 85-pound pigs to roast. Not much advertising yet. Suggestions for entertainment include slip ‘n’ slide, limbo contest, hula hoop contest. Contact CAs for more help with the BBQ.
VII. Cupertino Shuttle Update
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The shuttle has been in service since the beginning of the year (winter quarter), with service to two Asian supermarkets and a mall. Average ridership is about 40 people per week, which is not as high as expected perhaps because the first-year students (who are believed to be the major users of the shuttle) are getting cars. There is interest in having the shuttle for the fall quarter, but funding is an issue. The I-Center is interested in funding the shuttle with help from the GSC. For the spring quarter, the shuttle cost $3,500. There is support in the GSC for funding the shuttle. There are some thoughts to make the shuttle a special fee item. It would be great if the average ridership is 100 people per week. If this fails, can get carpooling programs to get people off-campus?
VIII. New Business
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What to do about grad students who move in at the beginning of the summer to welcome them and make they don’t starve? Update form the ASSU – the name for the eatery in the Old Student Union is coming soon. Hours of operation have been suggested to be as late as 3am. Menus have not yet been selected. All ASSU offices have been moved to the Old Student Union, but the building is not yet open to the public. The ASSU website is up and running, so check it out at www.assu.stanford.edu. There is also a class rating website in the works, which would feature a textbook market place. ASSU airport shuttle sold 400 tickets, which means 400-450 people rode the shuttle.
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