Proceedings of the March 5th, 2008 GSC 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 (2/27/08).
iii. Need volunteers for Easter Egg roll on Saturday, March 22nd (first day of break).
4) 6:10 Funding (Polina)
i. Persian Student Association
ii. Romanian Student Association
iii. Iberia - Spanish Association at Stanford
iv. Undergraduate Product Design Student Association
5) 6:20 Approve funding for SurveyMonkey (Kristina)
6) 6:25 Go Pass Ballot Measure (Heather and Rachel)
7) 6:45 2007 Grad Life Survey (Kristina)
8) 7:15 Shuttle Funding Request (Mondaire)
9) 7:25 Funds for Election Workers and Update (Ivette)
10) 7:40 Programming update (Adam S. and Justin)
11) 7:45 Retreat Schedule (Melahn and George)
12) 7:55 New Business
Attendance
Voting members present:
At large 1: Maxim Afanasyev
At large 2: Hanna Muenke
At large 3: Kristina Keating
At large 5: Polina Segalova
Business: Rhyan Uy
Earth Sciences: Kyle Anderson
Education: Michelle Brown
Engineering 1: Melahn Parker
Engineering 2: Zeng Fan
Humanities: George Bloom
Law: Andrew Park
Medicine: Yana Hoy
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson
Voting members not present:
At large 4: Lan Wei
Others in attendance: Anwei Chai, Maria Spletter, Matt McDonald, Mondaire Jones, Alex Ene, Ivette Estay, Ryan Woessner, Tim (Go-Pass discussant), members of the groups receiving funding, Adam Beberg, Justin Brown, Adam Sciambi, Taylor Buley (Daily reporter)
Minutes
1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)
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Say our name and school and role today.
3) 6:02 Announcements (Kristina)
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i. Please be aware that all meetings are audio recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approved minutes from the last meeting (2/27/08) by consensus.
iii. Need volunteers for Easter Egg roll on Saturday, March 22nd (first day of break). We have some flyers, everyone should take some on their way out. Last year had 300 participants, and was very fun. Contact Fen if you can volunteer, or sign up on sheet going around during meeting. Students make sure kids are safe, “hide” eggs, sign people in, someone will be the bunny, some set-up and clean-up too. Will be about 3 hours. Yummy food catered at event.
iv. Tax workshop on March 24th (over spring break). Want 3 people to help set-up and clean-up. Event is from 1-6 in the Havana room, but really just need people at the beginning and at the end to set and take down the room. They had a workshop a month ago, and the room was very full. This workshop focuses on international students. Michelle volunteers for beginning and Maria can help if she’s in town. Maxim will be there, and George will be there, which should be sufficient.
4) 6:07 Shuttle Funding Request (Mondaire)
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Working on getting shuttles to airports over break times. Are trying to make this program self-sustaining, but have a little further to go. They have gotten closer on each trip though. Today’s bill asks for the GSC to fund half the cost, if there is a cost remaining after ticket sales for the spring quarter. Did have a number of graduate students on the shuttles in previous quarters. Last quarter, GSC did not fund shuttle, due to late request, so the graduate students who rode did so at the cost of the undergrads. The senate this time has stipulated that unless we chip in, grad students will be turned away from riding the shuttle for the spring break shuttle. In winter quarter, the bus ran at $4000 deficit. Realized afterwards that there was more demand for weekends than expected, so had not enough busses on those days, yet empty busses on the other days. Have not figured out exact days or schedule for spring break yet, though will probably have more weekends. Winter break bus cost $17,000 total, made about $8000 on tickets, rest was covered by leftovers from money approved the previous time (about $5000). For spring break, will only have one shuttle running to San Jose, because that was less popular previously, while there will still be 2 busses to San Francisco. 818 tickets sold in winter, with about 10% grad students (though we didn’t really advertise, since we didn’t pay for it). Concerns about why we would pay 50% when we have so many fewer people using it. Mondaire will come back next week with some firmer numbers about shuttle cost, ridership, etc, and to make a formal request for money. Email him any questions that you’d like him to address at that time.
5) 6:18 Funding (Polina)
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i. Persian Student Association – Celebrating New Year, on first day of spring, March 19. Have dinner and celebration. Need decorations particular to New Years celebration, 125 people for dinner expected. Recommended $1500. Giving $1500 passes by consensus.
ii. Romanian Student Association – Women’s day party, March 8, popular in Romania. Also having Easter party, trip to mass, gathering on campus afterwards. $770 recommended. Giving $770 passes by consensus.
iii. Iberia - Spanish Association at Stanford – Lecture by Spanish professor about the Basque conflict. In response to controversial talk on February 14th, desire to now see the other side. ASSU Speaker’s Bureau is co-sponsoring. Recommended is $1650, lower than requested due to honorarium cap. Giving $1650 passes by consensus.
iv. Undergraduate Product Design Student Association – Stefan Sagmeister Speaker Event. He is a well-known designer including magazine covers for Rolling Stones, etc. The talk is tonight. Also have a graduate student contingent, despite the name. Recommended $700. They apologize for missing the chance to be here last week and request the money, though they did advertise on Grad Events as necessary. Giving $700 passes by consensus.
6) 6:25 Go Pass Ballot Measure (Tim)
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Want to put a proposal on the ballot such that all graduate students vote on funding the CalTrain Go-pass via a mandatory fee applied to all graduate students. Euan wishes to clarify that we’d be paying for it not as part of our tuition, as is currently stated on the proposal, but through a separate fee on our University Bill. University has asked if CalTrain would be willing to reduce their rates, given the potential large increase in population, but no response yet. Logistics would need to be worked out, such that students leaving in the spring and the students arriving in the fall potentially “share” the pass, such that the University doesn’t need to pay twice for them. Need to add a statement such that it’s clear that all graduate students get a Go-pass, and that all graduate students will be charged for it. Clarifying that there is a year gap, and that students would start getting billed in Fall 2008, and be able to get a pass in January 2009. Rhyan asks whether there is any recourse if we don’t approve putting this going on the ballot. Ryan needs to look this up, but apparently it can be done with 15% of the population petitioning, but this hasn’t been done in the past. Adam B. states his opinion against the Go-pass in general, given the limited number of students who currently paid for one at the same price, however, we turn the discussion back to whether we put this on this ballot, and thus allow students to vote for themselves. Adam B. is concerned that if we put this highly contentious issue that we will have angry voters for other issues, including Special Fees. However, it has repeatedly gotten a majority of the vote, just not supermajority, which would hopefully mean that it would get people interested in voting, but not be a negative draw. Also, we put out voters guide before the election, which helps create informed voters we hope. Fen wonders why last year we required an additional petition step after the vote, the response being that this was put in place because we had a whole population voting on something just affecting the off-campus students, so we wanted to be extra careful that current off campus students wanted it. Rhyan asks why there’s no requirement that at least 50% of students pick up the pass, as was the case last year, as a requirement for continuing the pass the following but this seems to be unnecessary, as if students had already been charged for the pass, it is very likely they would pick it up. The revote every couple of years is perhaps sufficient monitoring of student interest.
In sum, the four changes to the original proposal:
1) First sentence says that all students will be charged and all will get it
2) Fourth paragraph change billing from being part of tuition to being part of University Bill
3) In the fifth paragraph, describe the program as restarting, rather than continuing, which emphasizes that it will be different, and that there will be a gap year.
4) Final sentence in that paragraph – Add that Go-Pass will be available in January 2009.
Need to vote on this: 11 for, 2 opposed, 1 abstaining. Passes.
Tim will send Kristina updated version of the document, based on these changes.
7) 6:47 Approve funding for SurveyMonkey (Kristina)
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We created a professional SurveyMonkey account in order to run the Graduate Life survey last year, and have needed to keep it running to continue having access to the data. Also, upcoming follow-up survey will also be run from that account. It costs $20 per month. GSPB already has account, but Fen is concerned that too many people have access to that, and that we are asking sensitive information that should not be so widespread. The account has been open for 14 months so far and need 3 months more, so need to approve $340 total. Would come from advocacy discretionary, where there is money. Using $340 from advocacy discretionary for this purpose is approved by consensus.
8) 6:49 2007 Grad Life Survey (Kristina)
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A full report has now been put together! Kristina sent us all a copy last night to look at, and got some emailed responses from people who couldn’t be at the meeting. Points made are in bullet form below.
- Because we aren’t using this survey for published research, using comments would be okay, but Donna expressed concern both about confidentiality and usefulness of them. Kristina is happy to summarize the comments, and it seems that other members of the GSC would prefer this as well.
- Luke, via email, asks about labeling for tables, but that’s more of a preference thing, and the current version is also fine, so not really worth changing.
- Comments that H+S should be separated into the different subsets, but we didn’t ask students about this at the time, so can’t do anything about that now.
- Luke would have also preferred not needing to switch back and forth between different parts of the survey, but this was a conscious decision to have the separate summarized highlights and recommendations, which actual questions available separately for those interested.
- Also concerned about second recommendation of the Community section (that the GSC work with University to educate the general population on the importance of graduate student diversity within academic institutions for academic achievement and progress), wondering to what extent that comes from the results of the survey. Kristina will add something to community section reflecting that the recommendation came from comments that many people added.
- Luke also commented about the finances section – the survey found that 28% of PhD students don’t have summer funding, but it’s not clear whether this percentage includes people who get outside jobs over the summer, and enjoy the opportunity to do so. It’s true that we didn’t ask specifically if students wanted summer funding, however, we still think that some students would want it.
- Luke also took exception to the wording of the housing recommendations, saying that perhaps students like being off-campus and are willing to pay more for those benefits. Hanna feels that the fact that survey found that off-campus housing was more expensive is plenty reason that the University should continue to have affordable on-campus housing for those who want it. Suggestion to change second point to say something like: The University should strive towards making on-campus housing as affordable as possible. For the first point, could perhaps specify the example of Munger, to make sure University offers inexpensive housing as well, when adding this more expensive option. - Euan has concerns about broadness of recommendation of finances, for example specifying “financial concerns” rather than general concerns. General suggestion that we make sure the recommendations put forth clearly reflect concrete survey data; advocacy chairs can obviously set their own broader goals or priorities, but that is not the goal in this case.
We now go through section by section looking at the recommendations for action.
- In Healthcare section, concerns about the suggestion that Vaden keep a recommended dentist list, because Vaden probably can’t legally make a list of recommendations. Suggestion to change it to be a list of student recommended dentists, perhaps posted on the GSC website. There used to be a dentist bus, though doesn’t seem to currently be in operation. Maxim wonders whether it would be possible to set-up a dentist on-campus, but this is unlikely. Question about whether GSC can make recommendations about dentists, given that we already decided that Vaden couldn’t really. End this by saying that we’ll make the recommendation about GSC creating a list to facilitate more students finding a dentist and going regularly, but we’ll look into liability issues prior to implementing this.
- Approving the document with the discussed changes passes by consensus. Thanks to those who helped work on it, and in particular Kristina, who did lots of organizing and spearheading.
- Michelle asks what will happen next. This 15 page report and a cover letter will go to the various offices on campus affected by the document, including President, Provost, Vice Provosts, Parking and Transportation, etc. Will also be posted on the GSC website. Will have a separate online document of the complete survey, including the appendixes, with the questions, percentages response to each question, etc, for people who want to see those details.
9) 7:20 Funds for Election Workers and Update (Ivette)
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Ivette has flyers for us to hand out, which have information about what being a GSC member means, what people have to do to become a voting member, etc. However, the submission site referenced on the flyer isn’t quite working yet, so maybe hold off a little bit on putting up the flyers so that the candidacy site is live, which will hopefully be on Friday.
There will be an info session at Old Union specifically for potential GSC candidates, which Kristina and George volunteer to help at.
Ivette brings a proposal for hiring students to advertise elections on voting days. Decision to have elections assistants pass out flyers and such, rather than have actual computers with polling on site. Suggestion to post 11 students around lunch places (Linx, Bytes, Thai Café, Treehouse, Olives, Moonbeans, Cubberly, CERAS lobby, Law school, Abruckle, Alumni) from 11:30-2:30, and at the end of the day (5:30-7:30), catch people going home in prime walking areas (Moonbeans, Serra by oval, by gym, and 8 other high traffic areas). White Plaza will be covered by Elections Commission during lunch time on both days, so don’t need separate people there. Requesting $1100 to hire students for those flyering times. Euan suggests using general discretionary funds for now, because it’s to our benefit to use that money before using the reserves, when at all possible. Giving $1100 passes by consensus.
There were website glitches before, so people submitting statements of candidacy might not have gotten on successfully. Will put out announcements to that effect on Grad Events or Grad Announce if possible.
Elections Commission is working on elections promotional items currently, and may have their own funds for those things, or will ask us next week.
10) 7:35 Programming update (Adam S. and Justin)
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Almost have numbers for the total ticket sales, cost of the formal, and deficit that we need to cover, so probably next week they’ll ask for approval of the rest of that money. Also, would like to be moved up earlier on the agenda, after funding if possible, in future weeks. Hanna explains that it isn’t a slight that they’re later, but that things requiring votes get put first typically. We decide that we’ll put them earlier when possible, but that there may need to be exceptions.
11) 7:36 Retreat Schedule (Melahn and George)
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So far we only have 9 people signed up, which would make it a very expensive retreat per person. Everyone should want to come! Remember, it’s this weekend!
On Friday night, going out to dinner, and then undecided plans. Euan is having a party, so maybe go there.
Saturday, plan is to leave early (by 8am), would get there, have a quick lunch, then have 1-5pm meeting (specific business to be decided soon). Dinner would be buffet, and would have our own party, or go into town on Saturday evening. Sunday morning we’d make breakfast, then potentially go hot-air ballooning, spa, or other activities, which Melahn thinks it’s still in the retreat budget, otherwise, we may have to pay for those separately. Sunday afternoon will have 1-5 working session again. For people staying longer, Monday would be other things, such as skiing. There don’t seem to be many people who can stay Monday, but Melahn doesn’t think that we’d be able to rent the place for just Saturday night. Perhaps rent van to go up Saturday morning, and come back Sunday night after business meeting and maybe dinner. May have enough cars without that, so we’ll see.
Will need to bring cold-weather stuff for sure, sleeping bag stuff if you have it, though there should be clean bedding.
Purpose of the retreat is to prepare transition documents for new members, in order to create some institutional memory. Remember that we should all have transition documents from the last time around as a starting base. Will also make a document for each type of student (i.e. Engineering Rep) with practical things like who to contact to send out an announcement, etc.
12) 7:47 New Business
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Justin – GCC ops committee update - KZSU (joint special fee, had high graduate participation) would like to have a concert in Havana room this Sunday, administration seems to have an issue with it as a concert, and doesn’t want the Havana room used for that. We disagree. There shouldn’t be an issue, based on the guidelines we established before. Kristina would also like Justin to bring up the idea of adding recycling cans around the building, wants Justin to bring it up again.
Adjourned 7:49.
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