GSC meeting 2009-03-11
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009Proceedings of the March 11th, 2009 GSC meeting
Agenda
1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Shane!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions and Announcements (George)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are audio recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (3/4/09) with the following changes:
List out names of all eight judges for Grad Challenge and also specify that judging is almost complete, and judges should be turning in their ratings for the proposals.
iii. There will be no GSC meeting next week (March 18th) because of finals, or the week after that (March 25th) because of spring break.
iv. Any items for the spring Grad Bulletin (to go out before ASSU elections) need to be sent to Nanna by 11:59pm tonight (Wednesday, 3/11).
3) 6:05 Funding (Addy)
i. Asha for Education
ii. Cultural Interactions Club
4) 6:15 ASSU Update (Jonny and Fagan)
5) 6:20 Senate Report (Ryan and Shelley)
6) 6:25 Programming (Justin and Adam S.)
7) 6:30 Government and Community Relations (Larry Horton)
8) 7:00 Grad Challenge Presentations (Nanna)
9) 7:40 Tax Workshop Budget Modification (Aleksandra)
10) 7:45 Funding Committee Funding (Addy)
11) 8:00 Funding Request for Equipment Master (Nanna)
12) 8:05 Special Fees (Adam B.)
13) 8:20 Elections Commission (Etosha and Briana)
14) 8:30 New Business (George)
Attendance
Voting members present:
At large 1: Aleksandra Korolova
At large 2: Adam Beberg
At large 3: Nanna Notthoff
At large 4: Ryan Peacock
At large 5: Mary Van der Hoven
Earth Sciences: Justin Brown
Education: Shane Moise
Engineering 1: Polina Segalova
Engineering 2: Addy Satija
Humanities: George Bloom
Medicine: Maria Spletter
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Social Sciences: Hanna Muenke
Voting members not present:
Business: Rick Thielke
Law: Andrew Park
Other people present: Ping Li, Peng Shu, David Gobaud, Annemarie Baltay, Kim Shish, Ismsil Robbana, A. Danowitz, Matt McLaughlin, Dan Chang, Simone Manganelli, Adam Sciambi, Kyle Anderson, Daniel Bui, Donna Winston, Etosha Cave
Minutes
1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Shane!)
2) 6:05 Welcome with introductions and Announcements (Polina)
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 (3/4/09) with the following changes:
List out names of all eight judges for Grad Challenge and also specify that judging is almost complete, and judges should be turning in their ratings for the proposals.
iii. There will be no GSC meeting next week (March 18th) because of finals, or the week after that (March 25th) because of spring break. Next meeting will be April 1st.
iv. Any items for the spring Grad Bulletin (to go out before ASSU elections) need to be sent to Nanna by 11:59pm tonight (Wednesday, 3/11).
3) 6:08 Senate Report (Ryan)
Ryan wasn’t there, Matt reports it wasn’t that exciting, but was confused about some club sports numbers that Adam B presented. We’ll talk more about those later in the meeting.
4) 6:09 Programming (Justin and Adam S.)
Trying to nail down a band for formal, looking at cover bands mostly. Will start selling tickets first day of spring quarter. Tickets will start out cheaper, then get more expensive closer to the event. Starting price will probably be $25.
5) 6:11 Funding Request for Equipment Master (Nanna)
Used to have an arrangement with housing front desk downstairs in GCC in that they helped us check-out equipment for groups. They aren’t there anymore though. Mary has been getting equipment for groups this quarter, would like to continue that again next quarter, because it still seems to be the best solution for groups getting what they need. General discretionary still has $2500, would be an appropriate source of money for this. Want to take $250 from General Discretionary to pay Mary as Equipment Master for Spring quarter. Paying $250 passes by consensus.
6) 6:12 Tax Workshop Budget Modification (Aleksandra)
Tax workshop will be March 22nd 7pm in Havana Room. Will be focused on international students, because Aleksandra couldn’t find anyone who specialized in taxes for U.S. students. Requesting to move $250 that she gets for being coordinator of this workshop to pay for a representative from United Tax Service who is flying in from Washington state. Aleksandra did try to find US specialist, but felt that the people were giving wrong information, as evidenced by an event held at the Psych department, and that’s more harmful. Original budgeted $200 for the event will go towards expenses, such as a thank-you diploma for the local tax representative. Switching $250 to pay for the tax representative to fly in passes by consensus.
7) 6:15 Funding (Ping)
i. Asha for Education. Requesting money for their Holi event. Recommended $4000, out of their $8849.80 request, because they’re over the $8000 group cap, given an event in the fall. Had 3000 people last year, including 1000 students. It’s a festival in India, celebrated by throwing colors at each other. Major cost is the colors themselves, which need to be shipped from India because no one here makes the quality sand they need. All the money raised from this goes to charity. Events and labor charges for stage, also need police to close off roads and direct traffic. Have 20-25 people actively working on organizing this event.
They would like to request more than the current recommended, because they didn’t realize they would have a total $8000 cap when they applied for a fall event this year, which was the first time they had held that one.
Their Holi event has always been separate from some of the other groups also marking the occasion. Their event is March 28th, right before the new quarter starts. This is a fundraising event, and send the money to schools in India.
There are no objections to giving the recommended $4000, so giving $4000 passes by consensus.
Now considering whether to give them more money beyond the recommended.
Adam B. recognizes that this is a very large event, should perhaps consider it as if it were a joint event.
Mary thinks that we shouldn’t be making exceptions, that if they want co-sponsorship they should come with a group. Nanna agrees, thinks it would start a bad trend.
Polina says that when she ran Funding Committee, they did not do caps for community service groups, though at the time, none came close to the $8000 group cap. Ping, Addy and Lan decided to do same overall caps this year for them as for everyone else, especially given that the Funding Committee money for VSOs is on a higher spending rate so far than previous years.
Ryan concerned if the rules for caps on community service groups changed between when the group requested money for their first event and now.
Nanna asks for description of event at $4000, rather than more. Would probably do a smaller stage, cut some performances. Can’t negotiate on police or security. Last year ran out of colors, so don’t want to cut that lower.
About $4000 for labor and equipment rental, and $4400 for colors are what make up most of their requested budget. Also have Stanford ticket office handling their tickets.
Early bird tickets are $10 for students, and $13 for others. The event has raised $20,000 average over the last few years. That’s the money they use for their projects for the rest of the year.
Ping suggests they make the event shorter, which could reduce charges. However, most of the costs are fixed costs, so this might not have that large a function.
Donna asks about the separate co-sponsorship funds, which are now used up. Thinks that if FC has put caps on service groups, that we should stick with that.
Fen asks how many Grad students attended last year. They think that 30% of tickets were students, from survey they ran, think a high percentage (80%) of those were grad students. So, ballpark would be 500-600 grad students.
Polina thinks that the cost per grad student isn’t relevant here, since all service groups have the goal of working with a relatively small number of students to reach broader community.
Aleksandra asks about when decision was made to cap service groups. Thinks if it was after when the group came in the fall, then that’s not fair to the group, because had they known, they would not have made the fall request. There’s no written line saying that community service groups aren’t capped (i.e. actual rules imply that all groups should be capped), and they had been using discretion to previously not apply the caps. Decided to enforce caps for community services groups around December, so their previous request was before that.
George thinks they should be getting a higher return on their expenses, that they’re paying $10,000 total, to raise a total of $20,000. Suggests increasing price for non students. However, posters have already been printed, so a bit late for that.
Objections for giving $2000 more.
4 for, 9 against, 0 abstaining. That fails. The group does not get money beyond the amount recommended by the Funding Committee.
8) 6:47 Government and Community Relations (Larry Horton)
This is an office at Stanford, that is fundamentally a lobbyist for Stanford. Handle Stanford interactions with local, state, and federal government.
Federal Relations Issues:
- Research Funding (NSF, NIH, NASA, DOE, and DOD). Department of Energy is a big funder of basic science research. Stanford does not search for earmarks, some other top schools joining us in that, under the argument that the best science is done in a competitive manner.
- There are two registered lobbyists, travel frequently to D.C., but prefer not to hire D.C. people directly who don’t have the Stanford experience.
- Have alumni in Congress, and 7 in Senate. Work closely with Diane Feinstein, Anna Eshoo (our congressman).
- Work on policy issues (for example, stem cells) that impact research here, and work with coalitions representing group interests, such as endowment use.
- Work very closely on Immigration issues, which impact students.
- Deal with research involving human subjects, animals, national security. The latter is an issue with whether all students have access to the research going on here. Stanford used to do classified research, ended that after protests regarding Vietnam War, so now all research much be publishable. Government still sometimes tries to say who can have access to particular materials, or tries to get into what should be published.
- Previously hosted meeting with Nancy Pelosi and other congressman to discuss Democratic positions on science and technology. Overall, thinks current government will be good for science.
For states:
– Most of work is defensive, to avoid losing things, then trying to push for more.
– Constitutional prohibition on aid to private schools, which they had a court case about when state hospitals tried to pay Stanford to share space with some of their students. Aid to students goes straight to them, which is different, but even there, most of the aid money comes from Stanford itself, not government.
– In state government, almost 50% of proposed bills become law (as compared to 1% for Federal), so need to be aware of what’s being considered and how it might impact us.
For local community:
No coalition here, it’s just us interacting with jurisdictions. There are six of those. Land use permits dominate efforts. Much of Stanford is Santa Clara, 1/3 of land in San Mateo (SLAC, Jasper Ridge), some in Palo Alto, 1% in Menlo Park (Stanford Park Hotel, parts of Sand Hill Road), Woodside has housing, and Portola valley is empty right now.
Adam B. asks about medical self-insurance, and where that process is. Have hired a firm to help figure that out, including a Stanford alum. What they’re trying to figure out is whether Stanford is allowed to self-insure, and whether it would want to be it’s own insurer rather than use Aetna or another outside provider.
Adam S. asks why we aren’t our own jurisdiction, given that we predate the other areas for the most part. It is sometimes a challenge working with the town. They regard Stanford highly as an educational institute, health care provider, job provider, force in the community, but 50% of locals are not happy with traffic and use of open space. Also give terrible marks for Stanford as a housing provider, despite the fact that 1/3 of active faculty live on campus, as do virtually all Undergrads, and over half of the grad students. In general, Stanford has good reputation in community, but they don’t always forgive the negative impacts, which is a challenge with City Council. For example, Sand Hill road didn’t used to go all the way through to El Camino. Stanford wanting city to pay for some of the road, they wouldn’t, eventually Stanford just paid for it, but city still took awhile to approve the plan. Next big contentious thing will be Hospital expansion, despite the fact that Stanford is paying completely for it.
When Stanford started, there wasn’t any Palo Alto, there was Mayfield, which had saloons and such that Stanford didn’t want to be associated with, so built up Palo Alto. If we were our own incorporated city, then would have a hard time running the place without conflict of interest, since most of us and faculty get paid by Stanford.
Ryan tells about his and Fen’s NAGPS trip, points out that many of the same issues apply, wondering what role Stanford lobbyists could play in helping the students lobby. Larry thinks they could help set-up useful meetings, but thinks GSC needs to maintain some of its independence. Thinks that GSC and Stanford overall interests might not always match up exactly, and the lobbyists do represent Stanford’s interests on the whole.
9) 7:21 Grad Challenge Presentations (Nanna)
Groups submitted proposals, judged by eight people. Got 5 proposals, majority of judges voted to put 2 on shortlist.
Groups will do short presentations, then we can ask questions and then vote on funding amounts. There’s a max of $5000 for events, $10,000 for capital improvements.
First up is committee from Lyman. Coming from Lyman CAs, also worked with Housing and ResComp.
Problem is that Lyman has limited informal social common areas. They do have Lyman Atrium, but it’s CA and reservation only, so not a space to just hang out. CAs did a survey of current students about proposed changes, got high support from residents.
Have plans for changes in a few rooms:
- Old study room is dark, just a few lamps. Want to take out the furniture, replace it with a ping-pong table (requested in survey), some board games.
- For computer cluster, have 5 computers very spaced out, one large table that doesn’t get good use. Would like to move all five computers to one wall, use the rest of the space to set up a big screen and some easily rearrangeable furniture to meet with groups.
- Don’t use the CA office, so would like to clear out the old things and put in a foosball table.
- For TV lounge, would like to put in a new TV, a Media Box, DVD/VCR, Game Cube and DDR, where people can have their own little move-nights.
Proposed timeline: Recreation lounge, TV lounge and Break room to be done in April, and Multimedia group study lounge to be done at end of June, after students are done with classes.
Proposed budget is broken down by room, a total of $9980 from us in end. They also secured additional funding from Rescomp (~$19,000) for technology upgrades and furniture contingent on us giving money.
Adam B. thinks that housing should be paying for more of this, things like carpeting, thinks that’s their job, not ours. Thinks it’s not serving as many students as this challenge is intended for. Lyman group reports that Housing specifically said they will not fund student initiated projects. Carpet is being requested because it would need to be ripped up to get the old computer stuff out. Housing does not want to replace it because it’s not at the end of its life cycle.
Justin recognizes that students at Lyman are separated, and thus don’t have access to the GCC and such. Points out that housing has funded reasonable requests from us for the GCC, including lights, whiteboards, etc to meet student needs, and that more attempts should be made with them for renovating parts of Lyman. Thinks parts of the request would bring Lyman in line with what other areas have, like Foosball and PingPong. Thinks other requests like the nice TV and media supplies might be a bit excessive. Justin asks about access for non-Lyman residents to common space. Right now they’re key operated, which they think that others should be able to get if someone applies.
Fen asks about security of their proposed equipment. Reports that what she thinks were the same types of planned restraints did not prevent thefts in the studios previously. One function of the room set-up is that the LCD screen is in a corner that you don’t see unless you already have access to come in (can’t see from outside). Fen concerned that there are only 224 students living in Lyman, doesn’t think that it would draw new students there. Current EV spaces are not necessarily that plentiful, many students pretty far away from that, so it’s not that everyone else already has the resources they’re now trying to get.
Seem to be some concerns about the high infrastructure cost. Unfortunately, those changes are necessary to get ResComp to contribute there part. The multimedia lounge (where the high infrastructure cost is) is really what they find most important, would give up some of the TV stuff first if it’s a matter of total funding.
George wonders whether they could just unbolt the table and leave holes in the carpet, whether housing and ResComp would still give their money. They wouldn’t mind holes in the carpet, but not sure whether it would fly with those groups. Also asks about access for non-on-campus residents. CAs think that the housing person they have there already has a functional system in place for gaining access and would continue this. Lyman is close to academic areas, such as engineering and med school, where many of their residents are students in, and work on projects with other classmates not in Lyman. They do have big events like Pig Roast and wine tastings, and do get students from other areas for those.
Polina asks whether some of them will be around next year; at least one of them is, having just passed quals. Thinks that the number of students is reasonable, especially since this will continue to benefit students. Thinks that just because parts of EV don’t have good common space, shouldn’t mean that Lyman doesn’t either. Might encourage other areas to get good spaces too. Fen doesn’t want to put us in the position of others University offices thinking we’re going to keep funding these type of things.
Ryan wishes we had been working with Lyman previously to work on advocacy to get housing to pay for some of the things. Likes that they already have some money from ResComp, think we could get Housing to pitch in some money too, especially if it’s a partnership. Would want to see approving the rest of the budget without the $5550 for the Multimedia group study lounge, then talk to Housing. Housing is undergoing a reorganization, so Grad Housing will be distinct, thinks that will be easier to approach them with concerns such as this. Wants to get this to work, but wants to be sure not to set a precedent.
Mary thinks most of the $5500 cost for the multimedia group study lounge, not just the recarpeting cost, should be housing, so might as well work with them to try and get the whole amount, not just the carpeting itself of $4400. This part of the renovation won’t be done until the summer anyway, so have some time to try to get more money from other sources. Could always discuss this again in the GSC if necessary.
Maria points out, as Med School rep, that she really agrees that this benefits Lyman, and that right now, they really just have their rooms to hang out in. Think having these areas would help people hang out together, would lead to a better general atmosphere in Lyman.
Adam B. agrees that we should push on Housing, surprised they gave a no initially.
Will now discuss the second proposal, then vote on funding for both.
Annemarie and Lindsay are proposing three tours of wine country
Will have single day trips to wine country, with separate trips to Napa, Sonoma, and Russian River area. Will be all day trip, 9am to 7pm. Will charter 55-passenger busses and get to 4-6 wineries.
Think it’s a fun way to explore area near Stanford. Safer to not need designated drivers, and busses also mean that everyone can hang out. Will also have learning component, thinks it’s good for everyone to have some basic wine skills. Would sell tickets for $20 through SSE, which would include bus, picnic lunch, wine tastings, and tour guide.
Would take trips on Saturday or Sundays, one each in April, May, June.
Budget: $2200 for 55 person bus, $10 per person for lunch, $50 honorarium for organizer. Total is $2800 for 55 people = $51 per person. Tickets at $20 bring that down to $31 per person that we’d be paying. This is comparable to cost per student for other big events.
Fen thinks this is a great idea, EV CAs did a similar trip last year, charging $30. It was overbooked three times over at that price. They only got to go to 3 wineries that time, thinks 4-6 is perhaps overly ambitious.
Shane asks about other regions, like Santa Cruz or Monterey, which could still be considered, but Annemarie doesn’t think there are as many winteries there.
Donna thinks Santa Cruz would be good, maybe charge a bit more in order to have enough money for a fourth trip.
Ping wonders about people interested in the region but not in wine tasting. Annemarie thinks this trip will be wine focused, and that there really just will be time to be at the wineries, not general exploring. There will be a guide on the bus to talk about wine stuff, so non-drinking students could still enjoy that. Lots of other potential fun trips in the Bay Area not involving wine if others want to plan them.
Simone wants to put this in perspective of our concern with the first proposal that it won’t serve everyone, but it does take a cross-section of type of students. Fen thinks that there are more people that are interested in this, even if they can’t all get in. Polina points out that our concern with Lyman is less the total money per student served than what it is going towards, namely infrastructure items that we think Housing should consider.
The cost of busses for the wine trip isn’t totally confirmed yet, they’ll get final prices, then set ticket prices accordingly.
Now voting on the two proposals. A reminder that we do have funds for both proposals, and they do not need to be pitted against each other.
For Lyman, seems to be consensus from discussion that we like the proposal, other than the multimedia expenses, which we want to see if there are other sources of funding first.
$4430 is total minus money for the multimedia group room, for now, with the idea that we can revisit this based on outcome of another discussion with Housing. There’s a GHAC meeting on Tuesday, and Nanna will bring this up then.
Rescomp wouldn’t be able to do any of their work until the table could be taken out, so can’t avoid needing money for that, but don’t plan on doing it immediately, so there’s time in investigate other sources.
Adam B. thinks we should take other planned furniture in Recreation Lounge like Lounge Chair and cabinet out and push on housing for that as well. Some others seem to think it’s worth keeping in, would make the area more inviting. Nanna proposes that we keep those in, to help this project move forward expediently.
Vote on $4430. There is an objection. 11 for. 2 opposed. 0 abstaining. Passes.
Moving on to wine country, request for $5000. No objections, passes by consensus.
10) 8:24 Special Fees (Adam B.)
All groups relevant to us (joint special fees) did not need to petition because they were not new and did not change their budgets much. However, now we need to vote to approve the amounts that were recommended by the committee who met with the special fee groups.
There will be a voters guide available to distribute prior to election, and also as a link during voting. For each special fee group, there will be a pro/con list, and the outcome of a GSC advisory vote.
Club Sports is special, because they don’t meet our 35% threshold of being a joint grad group. So, we pay for the percentage that we use.
Need to approve $114,669 for our part of Club Sports.
Backing up to explain umbrella groups – we give Club Sports money, then they distribute it separately to the groups based on what they need (each team submitted individual budgets to the Club Sports umbrella).
Approving $114,669 for Club Sports passes by consensus.
Below are the total special fee amounts for each of the joint special fees. We’ll be paying 56% of these amounts, though amounts will change a bit, reflecting adjustments for a refund buffer. First we’re considering whether we’re approving these to be on the ballot.
$174,412 ASSU Speaker’s Bureau – Big speakers on campus. No objections. Passes.
$78,900 ASSU Sunday Flicks – Weekly movies. No objections. Passes.
$66,021 Stanford Outdoors – another umbrella group. No objections. Passes.
$105,330 ASSU Legal Counseling – paid for by ASSU, can represent us against University. No objections. Passes.
$33,091 Pacific Free Clinic – University service group serves the community. They go off-campus and provide medical services. Mostly med students, some pre-meds. Serving low-income people in general Stanford regions. 2 objections, so we vote. 10 for, 2 opposed, 1 abstaining. Passes.
Now doing advisory votes, which will be put into the voter guide, as to whether we think our constituents should vote for this special fee or not. We are not voting to approve the language of the pro/con statements.
Club sports – 12 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining.
ASSU Speaker’s bureau – 11 for, 0 opposed, 2 abstaining.
Sunday Flicks – 12 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining.
Outdoors – 12 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining.
Legal Counseling – 12 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining.
Pacific Free Clinic – 6 for, 3 against, 4 abstaining.
11) 8:39 Funding Committee Funding (Addy)
Figures on funding for VSOs from Funding Committees over the last four years.
Annual budgets have been increasing.
05-06 – budget of $98,023, allocated $106,973
06-07 – budget of $120,000, allocated $119,447
07-08 – budget of $120,000, allocated $166,378
08-09 – budget of $145,000, allocated $144,894 so far this year.
At current rate, we’d be allocating up to $200,000 by the end of the year. Takebacks have been about 10% from allocated money traditionally, which is why allocated is higher than the budget.
Polina would like to see this update at the end of each funding meeting so we can keep track as we go, rather than making a final decision now about how much more money to put in.
12) 8:45 Elections Commission (Etosha)
David, Addy, Ryan deserve thanks for getting candidates to run. People running should send Etosha candidate statements by Friday March 13th. Still don’t have Education or Business person, but will probably try that again in the fall, rather than pushing for search now.
Ryan would like to clarify for future years which departments count to which schools, since there’s some overlap, like BioEngineering is both Engineering and the Medical School.
13) 8:47 New Business (Polina)
i. Stanford has a Founders day, at which both a Grad and Undergrad give a speech about what Stanford means to them. Shane, Addy, George volunteer to be readers on the committee to select those speakers, and Hanna will pass their names along to Chris Griffith.
