GPSA COR Meeting Notes November 11, 2002

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

II. Open Forum V. Augusta wanted to give a follow up on the graduate dissertation grant criteria issue that she brought up at the last COR meeting. She said she went to the Financial Aid office to see how to resolve the issue on the east coast restriction. She was concerned that it appears to be an arbitrary policy. Financial aid said they didn’t feel like a resolution was needed but they will eliminate the requirement for next year.

T. McConnochie asked how people would feel about the Big Red Barn remaining open as a grad student center over the summer? He suggested that TGIF would happen at BRB.

J. Moriarty responded that the BRB is not open during the summer because the dining halls compete with each other to break even. It was open 2 summers ago but it didn’t turn a profit. If the BRB wants to stay open in the summer, someone needs to devise a plan to make it profitable. In addition, the manager contract is only for 9 months so something would have to be done about that too.

A student suggested that TGIF occur a few times over the summer and not every week.

III. Announcements and Reports GPSA Update J. Moriarty said that last week the main focus was a resolution in regards to restructuring GPSA elections. Right now the procedure is after COR has been elected, members for the GPSA are selected out of that 2 weeks after COR elections. Currently 2/3 vote is needed for President, Vice President, and Secretary and this policy is very time consuming and inefficient. Ideas for change were A) move to a majority system B) 2/3 requirement for a specified number of rounds and then switch to majority or C) status quo. A charter change is required so that is why this issue needs to be brought to COR and then the GPSA will vote on it.

B. Holmes asked why is there a 2/3 requirement in the first place?

J. Moriarty said that it is for the really important positions so they need strong support and internal legitimacy.

K. Dezfulian asked if there is currently a quorum requirement?

J. Moriarty said yes, and that is the problem because towards the end of the election meeting they are racing to finish.

K. Hueffer said that he thinks option B doesn’t make sense on the resolution because strong support is absent.

H. Wynder said that if there are 3 people running, then maybe change the charter to 50% + 1 vote?

B. Holmes suggested having a run-off instead.

General Committee Update C. Jirsa said that they met on Thursday and the main item/focus was the aftermath of the union elections and concerns. Dean Power wants to make sure that the concerns are met and wants to make sure that the grad schools are aware, listening and addressing these concerns. Dean Power wants to A) address the financial issue B) make sure students have a voice and that it is heard after finding out that some faculty members didn’t even know what COR is and they want to get the word out that GPSA/COR are available outlets and submit a statement to the school D) the idea of mentorship. They are concerned that the focus at Cornell is pushing undergrads to excel with graduate TA’s helping them do so. They want to shift the focus to being that graduate students are important on their own.

Iraq S. Flaxman said that the resolution brought forth at the last GPSA meeting was thought to be inappropriate. He thanked people who submitted/solicited commentaries and said to please contact him or Tomer Malchi if they are looking for a voice on campus about the issue.

Board of University Health Update S. Flaxman said that they had a meeting last Wednesday. At the last COR meeting somebody aired the concern on mental health care. University health services is aware of the issue and they have requested and received funds to address the issue. They have doubled the number of practitioners so there is more care available now. However, there is a huge demand and there is at least a 1month wait. On another note, the issue of course exchange going online has been resolved — he was informed that it will be online next semester.

International Student Visas Forum S. Adam said that about 10 students have been denied visas, mostly from China. About 20 students in total have been inconvenienced. President Rawlings is lobbying about the issue through AAU and Cornell’s lobbyist is lobbying through NAFSA. Dean Powers is also lobbying.

H. Wynder asked is it inappropriate to ask their constituents to do a letter writing campaign?

S. Adam said that Steve Johnson from Cornell is actively lobbying in DC right now and that the best way to help would be to forward case examples to the administration or G. Hurley or S. Adam.

L. Sekaric said she doesn’t understand what is going on with electronic confirmation and how you can be on the list and still need to be confirmed?

S. Adam said that the online version hasn’t been started up yet and right now they are in an intermediate step and they only know of people who contacted them.

Communications Committee G. Hurley said that the website should be used to communicate with ourselves and with grad students in general. They are looking at the discussion board’s lack of usage. An email will be sent out.

T. Bishop asked if anybody had any ideas or requests in regards to the website? Right now it looks informational for insiders and is not very open to outsiders.

D. Marques suggested having the bulletin board open to all grad students.

G. Hurley asked if there were any volunteers who wanted to serve on the committee?

A. Schpak asked where is the discussion board?

G. Hurley said to go to the current website, and there is a link for it in announcements.

IV. Business of the Day Employment and Benefits J. Moriarty said that they are going to talk about where we are after the election in regards to CASE/UAW. Both organizations are committed to improving the lives of all grad students and they are still very active and alive. The administration knows there are problems and issues and she encouraged people to approach them about how to best improve things. She said she reiterates her deep commitment to improving grad students’ lives at Cornell in response to the concern of a conflict of interest as President of GPSA and CASE.

V. Augusta said that at the meeting of Diversity Council and Childcare, It was brought up that all the Ivy VP’s who oversee diversity on campus held a meeting to exchange ideas. During this meeting Dartmouth brought up that they would be adopting an employee child care program modeled after Cornell’s great program. She said that it was great if you’re an employee, but it sucks if you’re a grad student. She talked with Lynette Chappelle-Williams but the talks stopped after the unionization campaign started. She has a meeting with Lynnette on Friday and is looking for people who are interested to join her, preferably those with children. She also wants to get an accurate count of how many graduate students have kids 5 years or younger an is going to send out an email asking students to accurately and actively pursue this count.

A. Schpak asked if professional students are covered too?

V. August said yes. She said that Cal Berkeley has a good program so there are good models out there. Her email is VLA2 if anybody is interested or wants more information.

Holiday Can Drive L. Mangiola said that she was thinking about how COR/GPSA can get the word out to being noticed. She came up with the idea for holding a holiday can drive and asking for donations. At the next meeting she will be giving out boxes and fliers and putting them in a central office, like your department office.

A student was concerned that a food drive doesn’t address the systemic issues, like why people go hungry so she believes that the food drive should also do something to bring awareness to the issues.

T. McConnochie asked what other organizations are doing a can drive?

L. Mangiola said she doesn’t know.

P. McPheron said that a lot of towns are hurting for food donations so this would be beneficial for the rural communities.

L. Mangiola said she needs volunteers to help design the flier and help collect cans.

B. Holmes asked when are the fliers going to be distributed? Because it might be too late at the next COR meeting.

L. Mangiola said she thinks it will be perfect timing because by then it will only be 2 weeks before the holidays.

Ice Time L. Mangiola said that a lot of people and organizations have ice time at Lynah rink. She was thinking, before the undergrads come back from their winter break, how about grad students rent out the rink and have ice time? Renting Lynah is $100–125 an hour.

J. Moriarty said she thinks that sounds like a good idea.

December COR Party L. Mangiola said a party was being planned for the Dec 9 meeting and she needs volunteers to get stuff together.

L. Sekaric suggested making it a fundraising event.

L. Mangiola said you can email her at LBM9.

Draft Resolution D. Toomey spoke about his draft resolution in regards to the recent grad unionization effort. He gave a background for his reasons for the resolution. He said people expressed concerns with the national affiliate of the union and that they didn’t have a voice. He is not bashing union organizers. People were concerned about how it would be an improvement if the process was more democratic in choosing the affiliation. The resolution requests this, that grad students have a voice in the decision making process. The resolution doesn’t have any real power. He asked how many people don’t think that students should have a voice?

A student said that he thinks they should first discuss the resolution before asking any questions.

A. Levine said that his worries are that the resolution takes out the initiative of any new group of students that want to organize something new. He asked if D. Toomey looked at any labor law books? And why does the resolution specifically cite science RA’s?

D. Toomey said it doesn’t need to be in there.

Sunil said that he is in favor of informing students but the resolution feels as if it’s trying to preempt something; the survey’s intent doesn’t feel like it’s to inform.

C. Taylor said that she feels it’s inappropriate for this body to tell new organizations how they should organize. The election itself was the students’ voice.

R. Willer says that it seems redundant with the collective bargaining process. If the intentions were to put a check on unionizing, then this isn’t appropriate.

K. Massey said he feels it is an inappropriate resolution for the GPSA to be voting on. The burden rests on the unionizers and it isn’t our place as an impartial governing body to place restrictions on them.

N. Lillie said he welcomes D. Toomey to go to another union to start his own union drive. The GPSA resolution is unnecessary.

A. Sfekas said it doesn’t strike him as constraining because future groups don’t have to abide by it.

L. Sekaric said she commends the GPSA for getting information out to the students and the resolution is going to bring about unnecessary fights and it is counterproductive; it is a waste of energy, time and resources.

J. Comeau said he doesn’t see any reason why the resolution isn’t in the best interest of the grad students. People were upset with the process and that’s why they voted no.

M. Gerner said he doesn’t think the “survey” should be considered negatively. He feels it would have been nice to have a voice and that was why he is personally against unionizing but the best thing to do is survey before doing anything if you want unionizing to work.

R. Willer said that they should let future groups decide if they want help. The students shouldn’t feel that UAW was thrust upon them; they got to vote no.

D. Toomey said that most comments are about if the GPSA should have a say in requesting organizers to make the process more democratic. Is it worth making the request? He is taking opinions to see if he’ll bring the resolution to the GPSA.

V. NEXT MEETING TIME & Adjournment

G. Hurley announced that the next meeting time will be 5:00 instead of 5:30 on December 9.

G. Hurley adjourned the meeting at 6:45.

Respectfully submitted,

Tyng Tsuei Office of the Assemblies