GPSA COR Meeting Notes October 7, 2002

I. Call to Order G. Hurley called the meeting to order at 5:35.

II. Open Forum L. Junker said that students in their field are concerned about parking.

G. Hurley asked if anybody from the parking committee was present?

A student from the committee said that there was a big debate in the UA about the rates and a letter was sent to the administration asking them to postpone increasing the rates until further debate but it was too late and the rate increase was already in writing and nobody knew about it.

B. Preston said that it was difficult to verify but a UA presentation said that there was a drastic increase in parking rates because there hasn’t been an increase in a while.

III. Announcements and Reports GPSA Update J. Moriarty said that last week the entire discussion was on the passed resolution on the dissolution of AAP that is included in the agenda. The resolution focuses on the process by which the action of the dissolution takes place.

GPSA Unionization Committee Update G. Hurley said that at the last meeting they decided to put up a website to update everybody on information. It is 99% complete and he expects it to be up in 2 days. He doesn’t want to open up debate yet because it is a contentious issue.

A student said that he read the language about who’s allowed to vote and asked if there is a phone number to call asking for eligibility verification?

G. Hurley said that they can request a challenge ballot and wait until the website is up because there is no person to call.

B. Holmes asked if the website will be fixed if there are errors?

G. Hurley said yes.

Other Reports SHIP L. Junker said this year the health care plan is up for bidding and there will be an increase in prescription benefits and mental health benefits. Vision and dental is being looked at to be improved. There will also be a comparison done of Cornell health care versus other universities.

R. Willer said that the GPSAFC will be meeting after the COR meeting.

IV. Business of the Day Iraq S. Flaxman said that last week the Ithaca City Council passed a resolution urging congressional representatives to not vote for legislation that would place more power in the executive branch’s ability to bring war because there is not enough information. Students feel like they have no power or voice because the executive branch is too powerful. It is our responsibility as citizens to take a stand because what’s going on isn’t democratic.

G. Hurley said that they would not be able to vote on the resolution until the business meeting of the GPSA.

B. Holmes asked what did it mean, that what’s going on isn’t democratic?

S. Flaxman said that the executive branch is rolling ahead and doing what it wants to do and is violating international law because there is not enough information.

A student said that the resolution may be outside the scope of the GPSA and feels awkward passing a resolution without polling the student body because passing it would make a bold statement from the “majority.”

A. Sfekas said he agrees with the resolution but doesn’t think that it’s addressing what you want it to address and the footnotes may not be necessary.

A. Schpak said that they are social representatives, not political representatives and has the GPSA done stuff like this before?

G. Hurley said the closest thing they can only think of is the resolution on the Kyoto Now protocol but that was asking Cornell to do something.

K. Hueffer said the GPSA needs to get a feeling for what the constituency wants and would it be a good precedent to set for when every time there is a political problem? He agrees that they cannot vote.

E. Peine said that it’s our job to find out what the constituencies feel about the resolution because it’s our responsibility as their representatives to vote on how they feel.

P. Martin said that none of us were chosen based on political ideals so it would be improper.

H. Wynder said that the strongest voice for the constituents to make would be to individually write to their representative.

B. Holmes asked where does the resolution go after it has been passed?

G. Hurley answered to President Rawlings.

V. Augusta said that maybe they could forward an e-version of the resolution to the constituents asking yes or no.

L. Mangiola asked if any other student organizations are involved?

S. Flaxman said not yet.

R. Willer said that every person in the US has a responsibility to say something on this issue.

B. Preston said that letters coming in from voters to DC have a larger weight than a collective body’s resolution.

Goal Setting G. Hurley said that it is difficult to cover all bases at meetings because they only meet once a month for an hour and GPSA needs to get more involved. Most things should be done behind the scenes. Last year the problem was that COR members didn’t feel like they had much to do. The resolution on AAP is a good example of COR members meeting with J. Moriarty to get something done. After the meeting G. Hurley will email the group the list of comprised goals and he asked the members to email him back if they want to get involved.

V. Augusta said she wants to do a dissertation and her studies involve traveling on the east coast and east coast traveling is a low priority when it comes to funding. She wants to remove restrictions on traveling costs and believes grants should be based on merit.

A student said that there is not much the university can do for people who want to seek treatment for mental illness. The University needs to do something about grad students who want to kill themselves and needs to focus on the issue and understand it.

G. Hurley said that Kent Hubbell is looking at the mental health of students this year.

V. Augusta said that there is a lot of stuff going on at campus at Gannett. The director of EARS is involved in counseling and it wouldn’t hurt for the university to delve further into the issue. Maybe they could make part of orientation education on mental illness and how to seek help.

S. Flaxman said that they couldn’t get quorum for a meeting at the Board of University Health to deal with issues. The university needs to recognize the problem and a resolution should be passed to encourage it.

B. Holmes said that he took for granted that health insurance included dental and vision at Cornell and he feels it should be included.

A student said that they need to think about premiums. She suggested it to the committee to get bids for what employees have in regards to dental and vision.

H. Wynder said that in ‘99 they had vision coverage and she wondered what happened?

J. Moriarty said that the university started paying for health care and then cut back.

H. Wynder said that the university will give out a list of dentists who voluntarily agree to give out discounts to grad students.

A. Schpak said he wants to see more involvement between the schools. He recently partook in a bowling even that involved law students and business students and he said it was successful.

S. Adam said that he noticed that different student services are offered to different students and he feels like it should be uniform.

T. Wall said that he wants better registration process for grad students.

G. Hurley said that the engineer grad student association put together a handbook on life at Cornell and it is written by students. This is something that the GPSA might want to look into.

S. Adam said that the GPSA composed a list of RA and TA abuses 10 years ago and made policy on the abuses. They are now looking to update the policy and to talk to different departments to document and make the policy and how to implement it.

S. Adam said that last year he worked on legal aid for grad students. It was offered 10 years ago and then the office disappeared. They need somebody to look into it, like finding funding. Legal aid is not just for housing/landlord problems.

H. Wynder suggested that they work through the law school because 3L students are allowed to represent in court if they are working with a licensed attorney. However, most students wouldn’t qualify for this because their salaries are too high.

S. Adam said that 3L students can only accommodate 5–6 cases a year because they take you through the whole process from consulting to the courtroom.

G. Hurley said that this is just a start and he will send out the email of the list of proposed goals.

V. Adjournment

G. Hurley adjourned the meeting at 6:30.

Respectfully submitted,

Tyng Tsuei Office of the Assemblies