• Agenda
• Attendance
• Minutes

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 (3/12/08).

4) 6:10 Funding (Polina)
i.GSB International Development Club
ii. World Peace Buddhists

5) 6:20 Programming update (Adam S. and Justin)

6) 6:30 Graduate Family Carnival Funding Request (Andy Hernandez)

7) 6:35 Elections Update (Ivette)

8) 6:50 Executive Slate Platforms (David and Greg, Priyanka and Jack, Fagan and Jonny)

9) 7:10 Survey Prizes Funding Request (Kristina)

10) 7:15 Ballot Measures Voting (Adam B.)

11) 7:25 Grad Night at Flicks (Hanna)

12) 7:30 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 (proxy Donna Winston present)
Engineering 2: Zeng Fan
Humanities: George Bloom
Law: Andrew Park
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Euan Robertson

Voting members not present:
At large 4: Lan Wei
Medicine: Yana Hoy

Others in attendance: Mondaire Jones, Nanna Notthoft, Adam Beberg, Rachmat Kaimuddin, Matt McLaughlin, Matt McDonald, Matt Sprague, Aleksandra Korolova, Etosha Cave, Anwei Chan, Norrapan Chadee, Maria Spletter, Josh Oeschlin, Members of three exec slates (Jonny/Fagan, David/Greg, Priyanka/Jack).

Minutes

1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Anwei!)

2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions (Kristina)

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3) 6:02 Announcements (Kristina)

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i. Please be aware that all meetings are recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approved minutes from the last meeting (3/12/08) by consensus.
iii. Thank you to those helping at the Easter Egg Roll. Thanks to Fen for organizing!
iv. We have a new flickr site, so you can add pictures of GSC stuff.

4) 6:04 Funding (Polina)

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i.GSB International Development Club
Co-sponsoring International Development conference with an undergrad group. Will be April 11th and 12th (Friday afternoon and Saturday). Bunch of panels and some keynote speakers, talking about public policy, public sector investment, technology, and general broad ideas. Expect 500 people, 200 graduate students. No charge for people to attend. Recommended $5095.97. Giving $5096 passes by consensus.

ii. World Peace Buddhists
Traveling exhibit called ‘From a culture of violence to a culture of peace: transforming the human spirit.’ Will be in Oak room in Tressider for three days. Will have opening ceremony with two speakers speaking about peace. Expect 200 for opening, up to 700 to come see exhibit. Recommended $577. Giving $577 passes by consensus.

5) 6:09 Programming update (Adam S. and Justin)

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Funding request for amount they ran over budget from formal. Spent $51,481.23 total, which means they’re $6411.23 over budget. Lost $500 deposit (only part of venue deposit) because cleaning took an hour longer and that was the charge for the time. Biggest areas going over were the cost of the venue, not selling as many tickets as planned, and also lost some money because the ticket office took $1 off of every credit card purchase. Don’t know how much is left in Programming Discretionary, so possibly vote to take whatever we can out of that, then take the rest from Reserves. Hard to budget formal completely, because guaranteed money from GSC is less than half of total budget, the rest of which then comes from other sources such as GSPB and ticket sales. Justin would recommend the Museum again in the future, with the plus of allowing outside vendors for food, but will probably pick somewhere original for next year, just for the new experience of it. Rhyan worries about the precedent of going over budget, but Justin reports that there still isn’t that much that can be done about it, as it’s always a gamble, and hard to plan everything completely accurately ahead of time particularly for that type of event. Rhyan would have liked to get awareness of going over budget ahead of time, but prior to the event, didn’t know what would be left after ticket sales. Considering approving $6412.23 from Programming Discretionary and Reserves if necessary. There is an objection, so we move to vote.
10 for, 1 against, 0 abstaining. Passes by majority.

Plug for busses this Saturday, leaving from the GCC to Pub Night in San Francisco. Need to purchase tickets ahead of time, so make sure you do that!

6) 6:25 Graduate Family Carnival Funding Request (Andy Hernandez)

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Have done this event for EV families for two decades, and have recently opened it up to all graduate student families. Have lots of fun stuff for kids, including train. Someone broke their leg on a jumpy castle, and cost risk management group $10,000 doctor bill, so don’t have that anymore. Will also have safety features by Palto Alto Fire Department and a health fair put on by Vaden. Have 500 kids in EV alone, many of whom are 0-5, the target age range for this event, which is younger than other area entertainment, so the kids really enjoy it. Total budget for event is $8500. Requesting $3000 from GSC. Also getting $2500 from GSPB, $1500 from VPSA, and some money from EV Family House Dues and GLO funds. GSC has a line item for $3000 in the budget for this event already, so don’t technically need to vote again, but Andy wanted to give us update as to what it was we were paying for. Event will be in EV courtyards on Saturday, May 17th.

7) 6:31 Elections Update (Ivette)

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Have 18 candidates total, now covering all the schools, as long as someone in both Psychology and School of Medicine runs for School of Medicine. Ivette is working on hiring the Elections Assistants, will talk to Euan to get details of paying them. Flyers for all the elections events are available, please pick them up and distribute them. Need more volunteers for tomorrow’s Meet the Candidates Pub Night, particularly someone who could go get ice to deliver at 7:30. Polina volunteers for that. Ivette also wants someone to go to the pubs to make sure that they’re honoring the wristband discounts, but may just ask a student who comes to the event to do this.

The Handbook guide, including pro-cons, all people running, etc, is on its way. Ivette is putting this together, and will talk to Adam B. to figure out details.

8) 6:38 Survey Prizes Funding Request (Kristina)

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Running follow-up survey from last year, this time focusing on student couple and families. Kristina requests funding for the following prizes: 2 iPods (80GB classic), 4 gift certificates of $100 to Amazon, and 6 $50 gift certificates to Whole Foods

Some people suggest cash, Kristina is uncomfortable with this idea, though maybe Visa Gift Cards or checks… Decide that given the variability in the population being surveyed, straight up cash may be a better incentive, so we will just give checks in the following amounts: 2 for $250, 4 for $100, 6 for $50

Will come from General Discretionary. $1200 total requested. Passes by consensus.
Kristina will start advertising the survey tomorrow in various ways, we should send it out to constituents.

9) 6:46 ASSU Update (Mondaire, the Matts)

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Letter from President Hennessy to Hershey approving last year’s constitutional amendments, with a few changes, which is why we need to approve it again before it becomes ratified officially. Of the three changes, the first two were things that we realized were incorrect after the fact and let President know to fix that, and the third part we proposed was a bit of a punt. We asked to remove the SSE unit from the finances that we report to the University, but that part was rejected, which was not entirely surprising. Needs 2/3 majority vote.
10 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining. Passes.

On-campus students (including grad students) got a pamphlet about successes of ASSU Execs and Undergrad senate. GSC didn’t have an update due primarily to confusion and missed deadlines on our part, but we did send out our own newsletter recently.

Housing recently made a decision about gender neutral housing which Mondaire can’t discuss at this time, but we should keep an eye out on the newspaper.

The Matts remind us about the SSE capital ventures, about which there was an article in the Daily today. They want help getting word to grad students, seem to have particular trouble getting engineers, but do have some submissions already.

10) 6:54 Executive Slate Platforms (David and Greg, Priyanka and Jack, Fagan and Jonny)

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Start with each of them giving a summary of who they are and what they’re about. There are a total of six slates running, have three of them here today.

Jonny and Fagan want to see ASSU work hard on deeper issues, such as mental health, sustainability, financial aid (including for grad students). New to ASSU, but have some other experiences. Jonny previously worked for the non-profit FaceAIDs, built a fundraising team, has good working relationship with administrators. Fagan has experience with Undergrad programming, would like to see some more synergy with grad events, get funding for GCC to do programming here as well as at Old Union. Have worked on diversity as well. Emails are This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Would like to mobilize on grass roots level to get student leverage to present to University.

David and Greg are co-terms. Have met with Chris Griffith, others. Want to increase stipends to take account of taxes, keep low cost housing options, have summer research funding, have grad dinner on quad, perhaps have spring formal for grad students as well, happy hours, homecoming tailgate. Gogo4grads.com is their website and has more detailed information about their platform. Interested in sustainability actions like recycling bins on campus, parties using recyclables. Would like to see Old Union open 24 hours, make Tresidder more of a welcoming space as well.

Priyanka and Jack are running as well. Priyanka is ASSU Senate Chair, gave her some experience as to what is going well, or needs more work in student life/government. Jack has worked with service organizations, Greek life, giving more of an outside perspective. Goal for grad students include improving 750 pub (lease is running out), have cultural and other programming events for graduate students. Keeping in mind that grad students have different desires for programming, not just overall events technically open to everyone, which tend to be Undergrad heavy. Were at our meeting where we discussed stipends, would also want to put effort into that. There are some groups that have grad and undergrad contingents, but they seem to have difficulties working together, would like to facilitate that collaboration.

Now time for questions:
Rhyan – would like more concrete statements about goals, and statements of how slates would differ from each other.
Priyanka/Jack – differ in their balance of perspective, with Priyanka having Senate experience, and Jack bringing opportunities from other social areas.
David/Greg – are grad students themselves, have been talking to grad students, have a timeline, have specific plan on their website, have met with Ira Friedman about dependent health care, so feel that they are presenting concrete plans. Don’t think that shared events with Undergrads necessarily work, so focus on making good grad events, let there be mingling if those events happen to draw Undergrads.
Jonny/Fagan – strategy would be most different. Talked to Fen/Donna about needs for funding for social sites, went to Hennesey’s assistant, who seemed unaware of that need, and is now reportedly looking into it. They do have experience running teams, non-profit organizations, building a team and get it done. Don’t feel that their lack of ASSU experience is a hinderance, because they have their own ways to get things done.

Polina – grad student body is big, diverse, and there’s high apathy, leading to big issues getting some complaints, but no action, and students ultimately just dealing with it rather than making changes. How would slates get apathetic people to care?
Priyanka/Jack – grads tend to bond through departments rather than housing, so they would work through those units to up interest. Motivated people are those who are involved with groups, so start with them, and go from there. Also plan to offer opportunities for negative feedback about specific things, which might draw people in, because when they have a problem is when they care, so if you can help them address that, that may be the start of other involvement.
David/Greg – feel grads suffer from lack of knowledge of ASSU structure and dealings, which hinders involvement. Perhaps using Facebook polling to get information about how people feel on issues. Thinks ASSU and events websites could be updated and made more effective, because if those websites have more necessary information, people would be more likely to continue searching there for the info, and then also see other information.
Jonny/Fagan – Think good track record will help get people motivated, show people successes on issues like funding community spaces, might make people more likely to engage on the bigger issues like healthcare. Expensive to get things done like concerts and other events, so this makes people less motivated to do so. Might be better if there is funding, such as what they’re trying to get for the community spaces.

Kristina – Mental Health Care Task Force recently released its report, would like to hear what groups are doing that’s different than what’s being done already.
Jonny/Fagan – recent reports leading to task forces don’t necessarily represent actual follow through, and they see as their strength as being able to get things done. Mention grad lack of dorm community as a challenge with mental health, as there may be a less obvious informal option to get help. Need more outreach, think it’s an issue that Vaden/CAPS do turn people away at least initially due to insufficient counselor availability.
Priyanka/Jack – Bridge peer counseling service may be less known to grad students as a resource, and could help to promote it more. Jack is a counselor for that. Group is up for a special fees proposal, which would allow them the budget to get promotional items for grad students. Student groups, such as Mirrors, are working on issues such as eating disorders, and could help with the knowledge of this. Thinks that and other student groups should get more promotion, and also more clearly define the role of CAPS, especially as it undergoes its restructuring, so that everyone is aware of the options.
David/Greg – also part of RA staff. Thinks problem with student groups that provide counseling is exactly because it is students, and potential students who want help may know the counselors and not want that non-anonymity. Points out that grads may not feel comfortable with undergrad counselor. Also, CAPS has stigma of more serious disorder than may actually be the case. Also concerned about the policy by which people who express suicidal thoughts may be kicked off campus, may make people less likely to seek help if they see that as the outcome. Overall, options should be made clearer.

Slates offer us t-shirts. Get in touch with them if you want one.

11) 7:30 Ballot Measures Voting (Adam B.)

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An elections guide goes to grad students. For all items, it includes a pro and con list, including how GSC students voted. Reminder that our vote tonight is not “should this be on the ballot” but “on the basis of myself and my constituents, I feel this group should get money.” Euan would like the GSC to vote on the pro-con statements in the future to approve that they’re relatively equal in tone for each side. Too late to do that officially now, but Adam B. can send it out to interested individuals once it’s finished. Total on the ballot is about $90 in fees per student per year, $45 of which goes to GSC in some capacity, the rest of which gets distributed across the groups.
- Legal Counseling Office - requesting $117,000, which is about $7 per student per year.
10 for, 0 opposed 1 abstaining.

- ASSU Speaker’s Bureau – bring big speakers to campus - $161,000, about $11 per student per year. 9 for 0 against, 2 abstaining.

- ASSU Sunday Flicks – movies - $76,000, $5 per student per year.
7 for, 1 opposed, 3 abstaining.

- KZSU radio - $5 per student. 5 for, 3 opposed, 3 abstaining.

- Pacific free clinic, $2 per year. 6 for, 2 opposed, 3 abstaining.

- SOCA – arts related stuff, $2 per student per year. 6 for, 1 opposed, 4 abstaining.

- Stanford Club Sports - $8 per student per year. 8 for, 1 opposed, 2 abstaining.

- Stanford Outdoors – We had approved $2 a year, they successfully petitioned for $4 a year.
8 for, 2 opposed, 1 abstaining.

- Advisory referendum for Go-Pass, $106 per year per student. Reminder that this is for every student getting billed starting next fall, getting the Go-Pass in January 2009 for that calendar year. 5 for, 3 opposed, 3 abstaining.

Need about 1200 grads to vote yes on each of these for them to get their money, so make sure to get out the vote!

12) 7:43 Grad Night at Flicks (Hanna)

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Settle on having Grad Night at Flicks for ‘The Graduate,’ which is shown at the end of the quarter. Hanna will ask for volunteers closer to that time.

13) 7:49 New Business
No new business.