Proceedings of the November 14th, 2007 meeting
Agenda 1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)
3) 6:05 Announcements (Kristina)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (11/7/07).
4) 6:10 Funding (Polina)
i. Organization of Arab Students in Stanford
ii. Chinese Women Collective at Stanford
5) 6:15 Spotlight purchase request (Melahn)
6) 6:25 Request for Discretionary Programming Funds (Melahn)
7) 6:30 I-Center Presentation (John Pearson)
8) 7:00 Cupertino Shuttle Update (Song and Zekai)
9) 7:15 GSC Retreat Recap (Kristina)
10) 7:35 Reserves Committee Update (Euan)
11) 7:45 Thanksgiving Dinner (Zeng)
12) 7:55 ASSU Update (Hershey)
13) 7:58 New Business
Attendance Voting members present:
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
At large 3: Kristina Keating
At large 4: Zeng Fan
At large 5: Lan Wei (proxy Yan Yan present)
Business: Rhyan Uy
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker
Engineering 2: Marja Mullings (proxy Adam Beberg present)
Humanities: George Bloom (proxy Matt Turk present)
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson
Voting members not present:
Law: Shireen Barday
At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev
Education: Michelle Brown
Others in attendance: Alex Ene, Maria Spletter, Justin Brown, Muhammad Aldawood, Adam Sciambi, Wenxie Ma, Shibing Wang, Anwei Chai, Polina Segalova, Song Li.
Minutes 1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Euan)
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3) 6:03 Announcements (Euan)
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i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Minutes from the last meeting (11/7/07) are approved by consensus.
iii. Undergrad business fraternity stops by. Have a discount card fundraiser. $10 each, get you discounts at local places. Valid till Nov 30th next year. Website theessentialcard.com.
iv. Updates from Hershey –
- Tim, part of Executive Cabinet, working on cost of living issues.
- ASSU has $20,000 arts grant, so will be funding projects. Will start giving out grants in winter, forming board now.
- Airport shuttle has 500 people signed up. This covers the amount of money we put in, still working on getting up to full cost of program.
- Big Game week is planned, but keeping it somewhat secretive, so others won’t crash the parties.
- Had dining meeting for Axe and Palm yesterday, talking mostly about food quality.
4) 6:08 Funding (Polina)
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i. Chinese Women Collective at Stanford – New group starting out, reaching out to new members to be a part of this community. Events are:
- Dinner with female professionals, one each quarter.
- Public seminars talking about work-life balance, job hunt issues.
- Skill set development series.
Recommended $2470.
Kristina recommends them getting in touch with stress management team. Hanna will send them info. Also, recommendation to get in touch with other women’s group, which Maria organizes the umbrella organization for.
Giving $2470 passes by consensus.
ii. Organization of Arab Students in Stanford – Arab and American-Arab students on-campus. Want to do some cultural events.
- Arabic Bazar including food, sometime in winter probably.
- Spring distinguished speaker. Development in Arab countries
- Arab movie night series. Arab movies in English, or English movies about Arab issues.
Recommended $1600.
Rhyan concerned about the current tentativeness of plans, so more details of the planning so far are shared, but the events are not until winter or spring.
$1600 passes by consensus.
5) 6:15 Spotlight purchase request (Melahn)
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See previous meeting (11/7/07) for some background on this. Melahn would like to purchase track lights to be installed in the GCC downstairs. They would brighten the area by the pool table, which is where performances happen. The lights cost $321. Most of the concern is about setting a precedent for the GSC to be funding operations in the GCC, such that we would be asked to do so in the future as well. People seem to agree that it would be appropriate for a GCC operations budget to pay for this, rather than us, but think that they would take too long to make a decision, or refuse. The GCC operations committee will be meeting tomorrow (Thursday 11/15), and has agreed to discuss this request. Justin is on this committee, and thinks they might consider it if pushed. There has not been regular student presence on the committee, so this may have stalled progress for a budget for these sorts of improvements. While the committee will discuss the lights tomorrow, in the interest of efficiency, Melahn would like us to vote preemptively on approving the cost, and if the GCC operations committee approves, then he’d use their money instead of ours.
Adam suggests considering mobile lights, because those could also be used for parties and such, and would be easily accessible to Comedy Club, since it’s already in the GCC.
Melahn would like to continue with the current proposal of purchasing fixed lights for $321 for the GCC, contingent that the GCC does not approve money for this tomorrow.
There are objections to consensus on this, so we move to vote:
7 for. 2 opposed. 2 abstaining. Giving $321 passes.
6) 6:25 Request for Discretionary Programming Funds (Melahn)
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There will be a comedy event on Dec 3rd, including a hypnotist who was popular in previous shows, for which they are requesting $750. This event was previously brought up in a meeting last year, and we approved $750, but the event ended up not happening because there was no space available. This time MemAud has already been booked. This event has already received a lot of money from other sources as well. The Programming Coordinators are supportive of using part of their discretionary money for this event.
There are no objections, passes by consensus.
7) 6:30 Thanksgiving Dinner (Kyle)
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The event is almost full, are currently working on a waitlist. Have hired two photographers for $100 a piece, and they will each work 4 hours. Some photos will be used to make a photobook for the Provost, because he funds this event.
Kristina, Justin, and Anwei have already volunteered, but more are needed. A lucky volunteer can dress up in a turkey suit! Will send out another email about this soon, so if you will be around campus for Thanksgiving, please considering helping for a bit.
8) 6:32 Random
Axe and Palm Update – There had been some meetings with students earlier over the summer, but they stopped for a while. They are continuing now, with the goal of getting more student feedback. If you have some, Kyle, Alex or Hanna can bring feedback to the committee.
Programming Update – if there will be an elections party for real in the spring, then may need to ask for more money. There is no time for real discussion.
9) 6:35 I-Center Presentation (John Pearson)
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There are many challenges for international students on campus.
First is getting here in the first place. Visa delays and denials have increased since 2001, and this affects some students each year. This is particularly worrisome because the decision to approve or deny a visa is based on a single person, and it is difficult to overturn this (though the I-Center tries).
Getting security clearance can also be another problem, particularly for certain countries (that the US isn’t friendly with) or majors (physical sciences). Some students need to do this every time they want to leave or re-enter the country, which is difficult. One positive change is that the majority of background checks seem to be going faster, though some still take a long time, approximately 9 months for one student this year.
Another problem is staying here during studies. Students must be in good standing with the University, including full enrollment in courses. Universities must keep records of international students, and always had to give them over on request, but now must officially report anything that changes about the students’ status. The I-Center gets notices about things that might be problems, and must look into whether they hold merit. The I-Center really does everything they can to make things easier for International students in this regard – while students are prepped on some rules in the beginning, the I-Center makes sure that everyone stays on track, and gets in touch with students if there seems to be any problem. The I-Center doesn’t send any negative status reports without first checking with the student and resolving the situation if possible. Essentially, the I-Center always knows about potential problems before Immigration does, so they have a chance to fix them first. A common problem while a student is working without authorization, and this is something that Immigration takes seriously. Students are allowed only 20 hours of on-campus work a week, but must be an official on-campus job (i.e. not starting a business from your dorm room).
It is also difficult for students to stay to work in the United States after they get their degree. For example, different types of applications go to various parts of the country, leading to delays. Most importantly though, it is difficult to get H1 visas, because only 65,000 are available each year, and typically are gone within a day of becoming available on April 1st. Also problematic is that these visas allow work starting in October, but the student visa may run out in June, and only extends temporarily. It is possible that the number of H1 visas available will be increased, or that the student visas will be extended longer, but both have pros and cons.
Some questions that are asked:
1) If you fall out of status, how long before you need to leave the country? This depends on why the “termination” happened. Could range from immediately to 60 days (if post-graduation). If you ignore this as an International student, and then leave, they bar you from coming back into the United State for a couple of years. Holds on student accounts do to delayed payments sometimes becomes a problem here, which can happen if sources of financial aid are delayed in being credited to the bill. This they might lead a student to be seemingly not enrolled, which is crucial for terms of being able to stay in the country.
2) Why are there different requirements (i.e. completing 4 year college, completing 5th year Masters) for applying to graduate school from different countries? This seems to depend on the level of preparation for Graduate level work, which may vary depending on the educational system and design. Judith Hacoo would be the person to talk to about this.
3) How are international families affected by the lack of health care for dependents? Since dependent aid was cut, students have been advised to seek health care from Santa Clara Healthy Families, which potentially affects future visa status in terms of having accepted government aid. John and also Ira Friedman (from Vaden) checked with Immigration, and it seems like signing up for particular parts of the program could be okay, but there are of course never any guarantees with the visa application status.
4) How does the I-Center take on the issue of domestic violence in international families? I-Center often does not get told about this, but they recognize it’s an issue and are working on addressing it. However, they are not really sure how to get this topic to be comfortable enough that people would come to discuss abuse with them. On top of the typical factors of domestic violence, international couples may also have trouble with visas if relationship status changes, putting perhaps extra pressure not to report the violence or to separate.
10) 7:19 Cupertino Shuttle Update (Song)
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Ridership is currently low on this route. Parking and Transportation says that 10 passengers have used the shuttle, but Song hasn’t been able to clarify with them whether that’s per day or per ride. P+T has still not put a schedule for the route up on their website, so this may make it more difficult for people to make use of this resource. Another problem is that the permit for parking the bus by the Indian food store is still not available, so the shuttle still cannot go to that store. Song has contacted the India student association for help, but haven’t made more progress yet. In the meantime, would like to post a schedule not including the India stop, just to get something going.
Part of the challenge in getting the shuttle up and running has been that the person in charge of Shuttle service is new this year, and also on the student side, Zekai is the new head of this initiative. Song organized last year, and will try to help out more.
The number of passengers would ideally be increased, so we brainstorm ways to make this happy. Should be posted on grad events every week, and grad announce every month, which Kristina will work on to have this happen automatically. Song has emailed student groups with focuses on Hong Kong, Taiwan, Chinese, and Korean students at Stanford, so they should have spread the message along their listserves. Suggestion to also contact the Pacific Asian American group, the I-Center, and Andy Hernandez (who can send it out to the EV family CAs.
11) 7:27 Reserves Committee Update (Euan and Melahn)
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The presentation is preceded by a brief discussion of funding for the elections party, and whether to have a big party for real. We will discuss this for real later, but there seems to be general assent to give money for a bigger party than the budget currently allows for.
The reserves group doesn’t have anything to vote on this week, so we’ll just think about it for now.
Possible ideas for reserves –
1) Competition for $10,000 to approve campus life or community. Possible examples to give people are programming event or capital projects, such as fundraiser, big party, Jacuzzi, golf carts, EV community center, Arcade, Car share. The idea is not to start something that will make money, but rather to throw money at an idea. Alex suggests getting in touch with other groups such as SSE entrepreneurship, Basis (Social E challenge), etc to coordinate with their existing efforts at soliciting student ideas for potential funding.
2) Group Special Large-Event Funding.
- Separate from regular group funding committee.
- Have people come and present for these specific large-scale events, which would prevent them from becoming dependent on the money (since these events would be above and beyond their usual events, so it should be seen as extra, not as something that necessarily would happen every year).
- Focus on large-scale events really open to all grad students (not just big events that would primarily appeal to the group members only)
- Separate from current discretionary funds (budgeted for non-student groups).
- Suggestion to get Polina’s input on this, and to form more particular ideas about what would be eligible to receive this funding.
3) General programming ideas:
- Funding pub nights via line-item, have GSPB organize
- GCC programming
- Lunar New Year (in addition to the smaller student group events).
- Monthly party (contracted privately, so wouldn’t need student volunteers.)
- Event on the Quad
- GCC Flat screen TV
- Green sustainability
- Convocation on the Quad
- In general, something to make the GCC a place that’s friendlier for everyone, not just partiers. Maria suggests making it easier for individual students to reserve space such as the Havana room.
4) To dos
- Contact groups already at their cap, to see if they would manage more programming if they got more money.
- Talk to other student governments
- See if CAs are interested in more parties
- Thing about how to divide reserves amongst different populations (international students, families, off-campus).
5) Self-sufficient ideas (that would be cool even though they may not spend much of the reserves)
- Zip car, car share (apparently coming to campus in January!)
- grocery store
- farmers market on campus
- day-care for grad students (intended to say day-care for graduate student children, but it’s funnier as written)
In the upcoming weeks, will go talk to others involved with funding, such as Matt of SSE and Polina. Will come up with options on how much we want to spend down each year, and suggestions for how to divide that amongst different ideas. Will have flyers for entrepreneurship as well. Will bring this stuff up for a vote later.
12) 7:50 GSC Retreat Recap (Kristina)
Moving to meeting after Thanksgiving.
13) 7:51 New Business
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i. Facebook advertising. Apparently no one saw it being posted as an ad, but 20ish people signed up anyway for grad events. Yay! Kristina has now created a grad events group on facebook, we should all invite our friends. This site will hopefully at some point have more than just a link to the grad events list sign-up.
ii. Proposal to consider having mailings more than once a quarter, but the cost and effort may not be worthwhile. A pro argument for more newsletters is that “they may not read it, but they don’t throw it away.”
iii. Undergrad senate had bike light handout thing. Grad students were turned away, which was sad. Perhaps have our own, with GSC logo on it, and turn Undergrads away. We weren’t asked about this event, and probably would have chipped in so that grad students could also get lights, but we didn’t have the chance to be involved, so we’ll see if we can do our own event instead.
Adjourned 7:56
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