Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Council of Representatives Big Red Barn Greenhouse February 14, 2000 5:00 - 6:00 p.m. Notes

Call to Order

Pat Carr, 1999–2000 GPSA Vice President, called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m.

Open Forum

Michael Cosh, Civil Engineering, announced that there are still positions open on the GPSAFC.  He requested that members let him know if they are interested in joining the Finance Commission.

Members were also informed that there is a vacant seat on the Transportation Advisory Committee.  This committee meets once a month to discuss transportation issues and the GPSA currently only has one out of two positions filled for that committee. Another graduate or professional student member would help ensure that this constituent group is fully respresented.

Tania Schusler, Natural Resources, stated that she would be interested in hearing about how other departments at Cornell support student funding during the summer months.  She stated that her department is currently only able to provide funding support for about half of the people during summer months and she is interested in how other departments handle this issue.  She requested that those interested in this subject contact her through e-mail at tms23@cornell.edu.

Jean Ahn, Human Services, stated that the official results of the health insurance audit performed by Gannett Health Services are now available.  The results are summarized below:

general population	international population	grad & prof. students

no insurance 8% 12% 14% did not meet at least one of the requirements to waive the SHP 35% 84% 28%

J.Ahn stated that one solution that has been suggested is to make the Student Health Plan(SHP) mandatory.  She noted that the University is very concerned with this issue since it involves liability for the University.

Members suggested that the University might want to consider checking the waiver cards to ensure that no one is lying.

Lidija Sekaric, Applied Physics, stated that the Codes and Judicial Committee is reviewing proposed changes to some of the procedures of Cornell’s judicial system.  Meeting discussions have occurred regarding allowing the Cornell judicial process to proceed even if there are criminal charges pending elsewhere. She stated that Cornell currently cannot hold its proceedings until after the criminal case has occurred.  However, because criminal cases can often take a while to reach a conclusion this can mean that the University is unable to try a person before they leave Cornell.  One concern is that if Cornell tries a case while a criminal case is pending that the Judicial Codes Counselor(JCC) could be subpoenaed for the criminal case and this could hurt a person’s chances in the criminal trial.  The lawyer/client privilege is not in effect since the JCC is not yet a lawyer.  L.Sekaric asked that members to contact her if they are interested in providing feedback on this issue.

Announcements and Reports A) GPSA Meeting with the Dean

Stefan Hames, GPSA President, informed members that he spoke with Dean Cohen regarding the authorship issues which had come up at previous meetings.  He reiterated that the Graduate School cannot do much about any particular situation unless the student files a formal complaint.  S.Hames noted that a student with such a problem may want to try speaking directly with the Director of Graduate Studies for the given field before bringing the complaint to the Graduate School.

B) Vacant Seat on the UA

P.Carr announced there is a vacant graduate seat on the University Assembly(UA) since Dennis Carlson recently graduated.  He requested that members consider filling this position. 

S.Hames asked if there were any members present that were interested in joining the UA.

Krysta Levac, Nutrition, stated that she would be interested in joining.

As no other nominations were forthcoming, nominations were closed.

The Council of Representatives elected Krysta Levac to the University Assembly by unanimous consent.

Business of the Day A) Secretarial Duties Charter Amendment

P.Carr stated that this portion would be covered in E) Feedback on Assemblies� Communication Issues.

B) Election to Replace Dennis Carlson on GPSA P.Carr stated that D.Carlson’s GPSA seat is also vacant. Dennis represented the field cluster of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Social Sciences. COR members from that cluster were contacted to see if anyone would be able to fill the GPSA seat, but none were able to do it. Based on the GPSA Charter, the seat was now being thrown to “at-large” and the COR will hold an election to fill the vacancy. P.Carr explained that the GPSA is the voting body of the COR and also holds monthly meetings. P.Carr opened the floor to nominations.

Krysta Levac was nominated.

As no other nominations were forthcoming, nominations were closed.

The Council of Representatives elected Krysta Levac to the at-large position on the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly by unanimous consent.

C) Feedback on CIT Services

P.Carr informed members that CIT is currently interested in getting feedback from the community in regards to the services provided by CIT.

S.Hames explained that CIT has traditionally had poor luck in getting feedback from graduate students.  He noted that he was supposed to have received a questionnaire from the committee, but he has not yet received that information.  S.Hames stated that he will post the questionnaire to gpsa-l when he receives it.  He requested that members distribute it amongst their fields.

P.Carr reminded members that CIT also covers telephone services, in addition to network services.

D) University Academic Calendar

P.Carr asked members to refer to the handout that had been passed out earlier in the meeting.  He explained that the GPSA had been asked in the fall semester to approve the academic calendar for the years 2002/03 and 2003/04.  He noted that the only issue the COR or GPSA brought up about the calendar during previous meetings was in regards to Labor Day.  Members had noted earlier that it would be nice to have Labor Day off since all the offices on campus are closed.

S.Hames stated that he believed the calendar has already been printed, even without assemblies approval. He noted there are two ways that the COR can look at this. It can do nothing and withhold its approval in order to support the SA, which had more concerns about the calendar. The SA had asked to have more holidays off. Or, it could vote on the calendar late.

Bill Bauerle, Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture, asked if it was always a good idea to support the status quo?

S.Hames agreed that the GPSA may not always want to support the status quo. In this situation he felt doing nothing was not the best action since this topic was not an issue of great concern among graduate and professional students anyway.

P.Carr asked the assembled members if they would support approving the Cornell Academic calendar.

The COR unanimously agreed to approve the Cornell academic calendar for the years 2002/03 and 2003/04.

E) Feedback on Assemblies� Communication Issues

P.Carr noted that improving public relations seems to be a priority for all of the constituent Assemblies.  He informed members that the GPSA would like to reach out to the graduate and professional community more and better publicize itself.  However, one problem with doing this is determining the best way to place such advertisements so they are seen.

S.Hames stated that the GPSA sometimes has trouble determining the feelings of the graduate and professional student population on various issues.  He stated that he thinks it would be a good idea to have a monthly e-mail newsletter that would summarize the issues facing the GPSA.  He asked members for their thoughts on this issue.

Members replied that one potential problem with e-mailing a newsletter is that things may get forwarded and therefore students might receive the same newsletter repeatedly. It was suggested that a monthly newsletter might be too frequent and that it might be better to have less frequent updates from the GPSA, such as once per semester.  Members also suggested that it might be beneficial to do a hard copy mailing to all graduate and professional students to ensure that everyone gets the information in at least one format since students do not all read the same publications and some do not read e-mail newsletters.  However, this would be expensive.  Another suggestion was to create a newsgroup or discussion forum that people could join.  It was noted that a newsgroup could not be restricted just to students, although it could be restricted to just members of the Cornell community.

K.Levac remarked that e-mail is probably the best communication method available.  She recommended that the GPSA not call the newsletter a bulletin in its subject line.  Instead, she suggested that the subject of the e-mail come from the content of the newsletter.  A relevant issue should be picked for the subject line to better highlight what the e-mail will focus on and therefore it would be more likely to be read.

Krista Mowry, Nutrition, stated that it may be possible to ask the Directors of Graduate Studies to forward the e-mails for those fields that are not represented.

Kevin Sherper-Walker, City & Regional Planning, stated that it may be useful to have periodic articles in the Sun and in the Chronicle.

It was also suggested that the GPSA include an info sheet about itself in the orientation packets that are sent to all new students.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned by P.Carr at 6:01 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted, Stephanie Tinsley