Agenda
1. 5:45 pm – FOOD (thanks Jess!)
2. 6:00 pm – Welcome with Introductions
3. 6:05 pm – Announcements (Justin)
i. Minutes from 1/5/2011
4. 6:10 pm – Vote for New Appointments (Justin, Angelina, Stephanie)
i. Yichuan Ding to fill Engineering Seat
ii. Fanuel Muindi to fill At-Large Seat
iii. Constitutional Council
iv. NomCom
5. 6:30 pm – Funding (Krystal)
i. Sarvodaya
ii. Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Stanford
iii. BioAIMS
6. 6:45 pm – Programming Update (Addy/Joanna)
7. 6:50 pm – GSPB Funding Approval (George/Krystal)
8. 6:55 pm – GCC Update (Justin)
9. 7:00 pm – ASSU/SSE Update (Angelina/Kelsei/Raj)
10. 7:05 pm – Special Fees Bill (Michael C.)
11. 7:15 pm – ROTC Discussion (Tom)
12. 7:25 pm – New Business
Attendance
Attendance sheet did not go all the way around.
Minutes
Listen to this segment
Bill to Reduce Bureaucracy in the Special Fees Funding Process
General Body Meeting
January 12, 6pm Havana Rm of the GCC
1. 5:45 pm – FOOD (thanks Jess!)
2. 6:13 pm – Welcome with Introductions
3. 6:15 pm – Announcements (Justin)
i. Minutes from 1/5/2011
4. 6:10 pm – Vote for New Appointments (Justin, Angelina, Stephanie)
i. Yichuan Ding to fill Engineering Seat – passes 8-0-0
ii. Fanuel Muindi to fill At-Large Seat – passes 8-1-0 (in favor, opposed, abstained)
iii. Constitutional Council – Bill to have Brianna Pang replace Evan Cox due to his leaving Stanford. She did a great job during the original interviews in fall, so we want to appoint her. 9-0-0
iv. NomCom – Met to make new NomCom website that will look a lot better and work a lot better. Hopefully a week from now, we will have applications open for NomCom 11-12. We really would like help from the graduate student community to get on NomCom – this is the first step to getting grad students onto University committees. It is a paid position.
Kelsei – The NomCom process is extremely important for the ASSU to run efficiently. Please push this information out there so that there is a good NomCom that will start running as quickly as possible.
Joanna – Can we get a blurb?
NomCom rep – Yes.
Crystal – Can you explain what you do and how it would benefit grad students to be on it?
NomCom rep – We nominate people to serve on varying committees – you interact with people from all over Stanford and put them into positions where they can make an effect. It’s considered one of the most influential positions on the University campus. You get to meet wonderful people and go to meetings.
Ryan – The four individuals who are being nominated – can we read off who they are?
Justin Brown – The nominees for the judicial panel pool are Sjoard de Ridder, Regan Thomson, ?? Guarina, Elizabeth Rasmussen.
Passes 9-0-0.
v. Transfer food czar funds:
Justin – We also should discuss transferring food czar funds since Drew resigned. If people have ideas for the money…
Jess – I’ve been taking care of this, it’s a standing order, so I don’t feel like it should be a paid position. I asked for us to transfer funds.
Ryan – Beer
Addy – We could get some goodies for marketing, like mugs for marketing.
Erik – They slashed the budget for grad elections outreach, so we could have events at the GCC to get people interested, and that still involves beer so Ryan should be happy.
Justin – It could roll into general discretionary or programming discretionary.
Erik – Are we talking about the full-year stipend or pro-rated?
Justin – Pro-rated, so it’s $500.
Ping – I would suggest we put this into Programming discretionary, the reason being at the end of the year this will roll over to the reserve.
Ryan – You can’t switch from endowment pay-out to programming discretionary.
Raj – So, I’m not too familiar with the bylaws, but we both think that if it goes into a 3050 account that is funded by the endowment then it doesn’t roll-over.
Justin – So it’s down to marketing and elections.
Marketing – 1
Elections – 8
$500 transferred to elections outreach.
Raj – If this doesn’t need to be a paid position, it shouldn’t be paid. Can we review that yearly. Can I also request that I do my update now?
Jess – We review things every year – it used to be a hard job before we had the vender in the building. They had to drive everywhere. This year, we’re taking it out.
5. Raj – SSE
Endowment – Just so you guys know, the endowment is rising as the economy gets better. We’re going to try to reallocate some of the funds in our investments as our endowment becomes larger than our liabilities.
Goals: I came in with 3 goals: Make employees happier, start a new business, build a new store. Store construction is going ahead and we’re working on a cell phone store or tutoring. The employee experience – my contract ends in June – we’re looking for high potential candidates, please share it with your friends.
Addy – What are the alternative investments for SSE?
Raj – It can be private equity, as an example.
Justin – Can publicity work on pushing advertisements for new positions like NomCom.
6. 6:42 pm – Funding (Krystal)
i. Chinese Women’s Collective at Stanford – Our group basically consists of Chinese women and our goal is to improve the experience of Chinese women – welfare, health, etc… as well as integration with the local community. Our event is dumpling night for the lunar New Year. We’re expecting ~60 people. We’re requesting funding for food and some programming expenses. We are also co-hosting the ACSSS New Year’s event, and we are in charge of getting funding for costumes and decorations.
Krystal – In total, this group requested $1,260. The recommendation was for $1,040. We had to chop $20 off food (originally $600) as it was above the cap. They requested for $160 in programming expenses, which we thought was fine. They wanted sparklers, which we had questions about as far as liability, so we recommended it contingent on SAL’s approval of this aspect of their event. They requested $500 for ACSSS co-sponsered New Year’s gala, we did not recommend $200 for costumes, lanterns, and curtains which we consider capital expenses.
Addy – How much is ACSSS asking for the Lunar New Year event.
Krystal – They’re coming up next.
Addy: How many organizations will be involved?
Krystal – Only 2.
Addy – I propose voting for the two events separately.
Krystal – OK, $740 for dumplings then.
Funding for dumpling event at $740 passes by consensus. Lunar New Year discussion tabled until after ACSSS presents.
ii. Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Stanford – Goal is to enrich the lives of Chinese students on campus and cultural outreach. We’re expecting 1500 students and others, it will be held in MemChu. We applied for $1,900 in honoraria for some outside people and three on-campus groups.
Krystal – Originally they requested $2,200, we recommended $1,200. We scrapped $300 for paper and the money for honoraria was reduced by due to matching funds rule. They asked for $200 for each Stanford group, $400 for a magician, and $900 for a Fei-yan (sp?) group. The group assures us that they have matching funds from their own accounts.
Jess – Are those groups on-campus VSOs?
Krystal – They are not VSOs, but they are on-campus groups. We had discussion on this – we can’t fund people from departmental seminars, but this seems like it falls under something that wouldn’t be covered by departments, so we were fine with it.
Jess – I guess I just don’t see why we should be paying a student group.
Erik – I disagree – if a student is a professional performer being paid as a performer, I don’t see why she should be paid any differently just because she goes to Stanford.
Crystal – I’m very impressed that this group is trying to promote the culture. I see why they have groups from so many different areas – in previous years, when they have smaller performances, it’s not really for the purpose of promoting Chinese culture to people from other cultures. This year they are really making an effort.
Addy – Just want to point out that this is bigger than grad formal and one entertainment provider for grad formal gets $650. $200 for one provider is fairly reasonable.
Erik – Just for future guidelines, we might want to talk about how to ensure that VSOs looking for student groups to perform are advertising widely so that people aren’t just giving money to their friends – I don’t think that that’s at all the case here, but I think it would be prudent for us to think about in the future if we’re willing to do this.
Funding ACSSS for $1,200 passes by consensus.
i. CWC – Untabled- $300 for decorations for Lunar New Year. Passes by consensus.
iii. BioAIMS – We’re a group of biosciences grad students who are focused on career building and retention for URMs. We’re focusing on the DARE fellowship and NIH fellowship. We normally get 60-80 students, and this one is geared towards older students. We also have monthly meetings where we have recent biosciences grad students give talks about non-academic careers. For example, we have a recent grad talking about working at a global health NGO.
Krystal- This group requested $1311, the recommendation was for $231. The difference being that the winter quarter workshop seemed like it would have high attendance with a lot of turnover. The winter quarter meetings which totaled $1080 were not recommended because this group sees ~50% of the same people over and over again. Based on the $30 soft-cap per student, we had already given this three times over.
Tom – This seems really focused on biosciences.
Rep – Most of the people giving the talks are biosciences, but we have been working on outreach to other science departments.
Tom – This seems like something where there should be academic funding for this. Do you get any academic funding for this?
Rep – Not typically.
Krystal – I’d like to say something in support of this – the biosciences aren’t a department, it’s many departments so there isn’t really anyone they can approach for funding.
Joanna – Is VPGE running the DARE fellowship?
Rep – No.
Jess – Two comments – just to play devil’s advocate. If there wasn’t food, would this impact the event? I think you guys do need to figure out to coordinate with the department. Some departments have fellowship programs that you should coordinate with.
Rep – A lot of departments don’t though.
Addy – I just want to say that for a workshop that is headed by students, I think food does help bring people in. As a grad student who was applying to these, I’d rather go the department workshop, why woud I go to this unless it has food.
Erik – Just to follow up on that, as someone who’s been to departmental workshops, hearing about the process from a grad student who’s actually gotten the grant is way more valuable than listening to a professor who was probably a grad student before the grant even existed. That’s just my view-point.
Funding BioAIMs for $231 for event food does not pass consensus.
Goes to vote.
7-1-2.
Funding BioAIMS for $231 passes.
iv. AAGSA – AAGSA is the Asian American Grad Student Association, we’re doing Listen to the Silence. We’re holding a big event on campus. AAGSA is participating by bringing in Assembly woman Fiona Ma. She will be leading a workship on how Asian-Americans get more active in the political sphere.
Krystal – The group requested $150 for honorarium, we can’t recommend it because it’s mostly undergrad. Despite the 70:30 rule, I thought they should come and ask for the money because it seemed like a wonderful event and that we would get a lot of value for this.
All in favor of funding for $150 from grad student general fee. 8-1-0. Passes.
6. 7:15 pm – Programming Update (Addy/Joanna) – What do people expect from this party, and what are people going to do to help out? I know people talked about Slumber in Munger over retreat, but I’d like to get feedback about what people are looking for in this party, and how much time they are willing to volunteer. I think that should determine what kind of event we do. If people are getting burned out and can’t commit, then I’d rather not plan a huge party. We also have several huge parties this quarter. But if people really want to do it, then we can.
Imeh – I think we should do it, but maybe a smaller scale.
Justin – There’s $2000 allocated to this.
Joanna – Do we want a more chill party, or just a couple of kegs?
Erik – I was just going to say, I’m willing to volunteer, but we should get an idea of how many people are actually going to show up to their jobs.
Jess – I definitely think we should do this, on the weekend that we aren’t going to have the retreat. We’d also be willing to kick in $700 from chair discretionary.
Erik – If we had something here, would we expect more people here than the fire limit?
Justin – Maybe 500 people rolling through throughout the evening. 250 at any time.
Joanna – I’m still not set on whether we should have another kegger – do people have thoughts on that?
Jess – If we don’t do a party, what should we do, because I think we should have an event.
Justin – I like the idea of us doing a campus-wide event in February.
Erik – I don’t think Joanna’s saying we shouldn’t have an event – just that it doesn’t have to be a kegger. It might also be easier to get volunteers for something that doesn’t end at 2 am.
Joanna – I rarely have 15 people who sign up and show up to all of their shifts, and there’s not much I can do about that.
Imeh – Would you be willing to delegate authority to run the event?
Joanna – Sure.
Ryan – I think Imeh has a good point – I know the party coordinators are busy planning formal, so delegating can really help.
Joanna – If we do something like that, what sort of party do you want to have. We have a lot of keggers – would you rather have wine? Pizza? Or different kinds of entertainment? Something creative?
Justin – With that said, Jess, Imeh and I have thought about this and would be willing to jump in and spearhead this.
Joanna – Well, I e-mailed you and you didn’t mention this.
Justin – It happened in the last 24 hours.
Tom Spahn – I recommend we table this until next week. I’d love to think of some ideas, but we’re kinda on the spot now.
Erik – So we should all bring ideas to the next meeting?
Joanna – Sounds good!
7. 6:50 pm – GSPB Funding Approval (George/Krystal) – Requesting $375 lottery dinner for Zucca Ristorante, $250 for Grad Trivia Night (general byline), $250 for “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” (general byline), and $250 for a Grad Night Band Event (general byline).
All pass by consensus.
8. 6:55 pm – GCC Update (Justin) – There’s been some talk about changing the rules for reserving rooms in this building. When this building closes down is based on when the Ray’s staff is locking up, but they will bend that rule if the event is being held here. We want to make it official that they are allowed to be open until 1 am on weekends.
9. 7:00 pm – ASSU/SSE Update (Angelina/Kelsei/Raj) – I have class starting at 7 PM tonight so I have to leave earlier than normal. I wanted to respect your time and the agenda, so I’m sending this email out as the Exec Update for the week. Please let me know if you have any questions or input. Also, thank you for the unanimous passing of Brianna Pang’s Constitutional Council Appointment. Please believe that she’ll add great things to the Constitutional Council in her term. All information for the update is listed below.
1) The Committee on Diversity, Tolerance, Equality has worked to bring together strong student representation from myriad backgrounds together to create the Diversity Advisory Board, which is meeting biweekly on Wednesdays. These meetings are productive and have brought about collaboration with various groups. The DAE is also advocating for diversity within faculty members and higher education/graduate studies, our graduate/undergrad mentorship program will begin in Spring. DAE is also expanding campus dialogue concerning socioeconomic diversity working with FLIP while also expanding dialogue with the police officers.
2) Below is what Women’s Issues is working on in the next couple of weeks.
The Facts Campaign
– The Women’s Issues team will be collaborating with the Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness to create an awareness campaign on relationship abuse and sexual assault on campus, particularly in light of the recent two reports of attempted assaults at Stanford University.
Assistant Dean and Director for Sexual Violence and Relationship Abuse Prevention and Response Search Committee
– The Women’s Issues Chair, Viviana Arcia, will be the undergraduate student representative of the search committee to find Stanford’s first Assistant Dean and Director for Sexual Violence and Relationship Abuse Prevention and Response.
3) Disabilities and Accessible Education committee is in the process of launching our pilot mentorship program. We welcome all to apply (students with mental, learning and physical disabilities as well as their allies). The application will go live tomorrow through email lists and the disabilities.stanford.edu website. Vivian will be coming in next Tuesday to tell you more about it, but until then, please forward the application to your lists.
10. 7:38 pm – Special Fees Bill (Michael C.) – I’m presenting a bill tonight that everyone should have a copy of. The bill is meant to reduce bureaucracy in the special fees process and reverses a bill passed last year. So basically, the bylaw to make sure that student groups get petition signatures to be able to go up more than 10% and get on the ballot – the previous bylaw made them petition to get on the ballot for more than interest. It didn’t work the way it was intended, it led to many groups petitioning around onto ballot and increasing student fees dramatically.
Ping – Because we don’t have very many graduate special fees, this wouldn’t really affect us.
Justin – Because this is in our joint by-laws, and it tends to not affect grad students, we’re basically voting on things that affect undergrads.
Ryan – To put it in perspective, it’s almost impossible for groups to get 15% grad signatures. And the GSC still votes if it’s under 10% of a budget increase.
Tom – So what’s the process if a group wants to increase a budget by 5% under the new law?
Michael Cruz – They come to the GSC, the UG Senate, and then the student body.
Tom – A lot of people of left, I would have to abstain since this is an important bill.
Justin – People should read the minutes and come ready to vote next week.
11. 7:15 pm – ROTC Discussion (Tom) – The Faculty Senate had a townhall meeting last night, attended by 50-75 people. Both sides had really good comments. I think the group was pretty split, and the Stanford Daily is having a poll right now that I encourage people to vote for. The Faculty Committee’s going to make their recommendation sometime in May.
Ryan – Did you get any sense of which way it’s going?
Thom – The faculty didn’t speak – they just listened.
12. 7:25 pm – New Business
Crystal – Big thanks for helping to make the new graduate event system together. Please check it out. There is also a BASES challenge deadline coming up, I’m putting up flyers and hoping that people talk this up. This is a VC competition, and it gets top 20 in the world.
Imeh – I was having lunch and ran into a student (haha) who was hit by a golf-cart. Pedestrian safety is a problem. Public safety has to be involved, because PT&T has no power over this. We should send a letter and encourage more enforcement.
Jess – The judicial affairs office review panel met with everyone last week.
Justin – Agenda items. Please send them if you have them.
Adjourned 8:08.
Tags: Minutes