Graduate and Professional Student Assembly Minutes

Big Red Barn Greenhouse January 27, 2003 5:30–6:30 p.m. Attendance: 2002–2003 GPSA Members 8/26 9/30 10/21 11/25 1/27 2/24 3/24 4/21 Shaffique Adam P P P P P Daniel Dadoyan P A A P A Gerod Hall P P P P P Gavin Hurley P P P P P Lauren Mangiola P P P P P Kurt Massey A P P P P Timothy McConnochie P P P P P Andrew Miller A P P A A Joan Moriarty P P P P P Bryan Preston P A P P P Daniela Raik P P P E P David Schmale III P P P P P Andrew Schpak P P P P P Nab Sharif A P P P P Ariana Vigil A P P P A Robb Willer P P A P A Heather Wynder A P A P P Others present: C. Taylor, T. Tsui, T. Bishop, P. McPheron

I. Call to Order J. Moriarty called the meeting to order at 5:35. She hoped everybody had a good break.

II. Approval of Minutes J. Moriarty said that they will circulate the minutes and review them at the end.

III. Committee Reports A) GPSAFC R. Willer was not at the meeting so there was nothing to report.

A. Schpak asked when will the packets for group funding be coming out? He remembers they came out around this time last year.

L. Mangiola said they should be coming out soon.

IV. Business of the Day A) Payment and Benefits Committee J. Moriarty said that they approved the resolution at their last meeting creating the committee to give out a survey about insurance coverage. She announced the names of the committee members. They will need approval for the release of funds because it will exceed $500. The co-chairs of the committee are L. Mangiola and C. Taylor.

L. Mangiola said that they are getting together the survey and the fact sheet detailing other college’s dental and vision insurance coverage, and they are working on the petition.

C. Taylor said that they handed out copies of the survey and the intention of it is to answer students needs, like the cost of coverage. She doesn’t want to discuss the merits of the survey at the meeting because it is time consuming and can be discussed in a committee meeting. She asked the members to fill out the survey before the end of the meeting.

J. Moriarty said that the fact sheet will be either standard or legal paper sized, front and back. The front of the sheet will show the pricing of different dentists (10 of them) that they have questioned over the price of different procedures. It will have the minimum pricing, the maximum pricing, and the median. The back will be a chart of a comparison to other schools, like what is covered, how much is covered, or if they have an option of a buy in plan. It will also be compared to Cornell staff and faculty.

K. Massey asked how were the schools determined on the fact sheet?

J. Moriarty said that Cornell compares themselves to 13 schools and they added a few other schools with good plans.

K. Massey asked if they incorporated discount offers?

J. Moriarty said that 2 dentists provide 10% student discounts and they were incorporated.

D. Schmale asked how is this going to be distributed?

L. Mangiola said that each COR member will get a packet at the next meeting with relevant copies of things and will be responsible for sharing them with their constituents. Missing COR departments will be contacted by COR members who are present. They will all gather the data and put out a report and bring it to the committee meeting and then draft a resolution.

D. Schmale asked what is the target date?

L. Mangiola said they plan on having a resolution by the end of March.

J. Moriarty said that Cornell is in the process of selecting a health plan for the next 2 years so they need to get things done ASAP to be able to give input to Cornell.

B. Preston asked if they are going to give out hard copies or use the web?

L. Mangiola said that time doesn’t allow using the web to work out.

A. Schpak asked what happens if you represent a lot of constituents?

C. Taylor said that they will spread out because they are not trying to survey every student.

J. Moriarty said they are trying to be representative. They will divvy up the departments to COR and CASE.

K. Massey asked how will they be tabulating the results?

B. Preston said that the business school has software that can tabulate and he will talk to them about it after the meeting.

J. Moriarty said that she is concerned about the response rate if it were an online survey.

G. Hurley asked what is the wording of the petition?

C. Taylor said that it goes something like “If SHIP is provided by Cornell, then dental and optical should be covered by Cornell as well.”

B. Preston asked if the petition and survey are being given simultaneously, won’t this skew results?

C. Taylor said that they will hand it out simultaneously. It was a legitimate concern, but it would have doubled the amount of workload.

B. Preston said he is concerned that people will think themselves to be activists if they are handed out simultaneously.

J. Moriarty said they thought about doing the survey at department grad meetings and they having the petition signed after the survey was filled out. They are not doing the survey online because they want to increase perceived efficacy of COR/GPSA.

K. Massey said they should make sure that the two documents are perceived as separate if it is simultaneous.

C. Taylor said that in regards to the budget, they are asking for around $1400. They want to hire an undergrad for data entry and are offering a good price so that it will be done.

J. Moriarty said that they have about $13,000 left over in the budget so they definitely have enough because GPSA/COR spends about $2000 a year.

K. Massey said they should hire more people to enter data and double the amount of money or hire CAST.

J. Moriarty said that they looked into that and they are not quick enough for results and have other priorities.

K. Massey said they need more than one person entering data to reduce statistical error.

D. Schmale said they should let the committee solve the problems. He moved to increase the budget to $3000 total given their financial status and the importance of the survey.

S. Adam said they should keep in mind that the annual operating budget is about $2000 a year.

B. Preston asked what is the relationship between the petition and the resolution?

C. Taylor said that they will write a resolution based on the petition results. The resolution will provide answer to some questions not found in the fact sheet. A. Schpak asked if the $3000 is necessary?

J. Moriarty said yes.

K. Massey asked if they were restricted by line item?

J. Moriarty said no.

T. McConnochie said that $3000 is too much given they don’t know the budget so they should go smaller.

N. Sharif motioned to make it $2000 and it was found friendly.

J. Moriarty said they can always come back for more later if needed.

Unanimous consent was given to the $2000 amendment.

Unanimous consent was given to approve the $2000 request.

J. Moriarty said to please give C. Taylor any comments by Wednesday.

G. Hurley asked them to please circulate/email the petition.

B) Social Activities Update L. Mangiola thanked the participants of the food drive. They were able to donate 20 boxes full of canned goods and they received a thank you card. Ice Time was successful, there were about 300 participants. Students were enthusiastic about the event and want to know about other events. She proposes having another ice time because it’s cheap, in either early February or late March.

T. McConnochie announced that the Big Red Barn is having Ice Time this Friday.

C) Dissertations on D-Space Resolution S. Adam said that Robert Cook is trying to get space on Cornell libraries to collect research journals written by the faculty. D-Space wants to make most of these applicable to grad students. Grad students will have the option to put their dissertation on there, and it is entirely voluntary. He read the resolution.

J. Moriarty said that this isn’t in resolution format.

S. Adam made the motion for the GPSA to agree to stand behind the format given by R. Cook.

B. Preston asked what are the arguments against this?

G. Hurley said he doesn’t know of any.

B. Preston asked will it ever be compulsory?

S. Adam said it will never be compulsory.

G. Hurley said that they should approve it with the caveat that GPSA is re-consulted if the terms are ever changed.

B. Preston said that there is the potential for retaliatory remarks made by the journals who will be angry over this.

S. Adam said that copyright laws vary a lot and some allow students to publish online if published in a journal.

B. Preston asked what if a journal takes away access to their journals from the Cornell community?

D. Schmale said he needs to know more information before endorsing and approving this resolution.

A. Schpak said that people would feel undercut if this took away electronic journals.

S. Adam said that if repercussions are being felt, they can opt out.

K. Massey said that he is in favor of this resolution because R. Cook knows much more about this than we do and a lot of journals are published at university publishing houses so he doesn’t see any repercussions happening. He sees this resolution as important.

T. McConnochie said that they are not making good use of time discussing a hypothetical resolution. They should set it aside and discuss something more important.

S. Adam said that R. Cook wants the GPSA’s answer in endorsing his idea in current language. The general committee will decide what happens.

T. McConnochie said it seems more factual than a position.

N. Sharif asked if this is asking if we accept the invitation or not?

G. Hurley said that we can do this through the minutes by saying something like “S. Adam presented it to the GPSA and no negative comments were made on the resolution.”

A call to question was made and 2nded.

B. Preston motioned to table because he wants to talk to his constituents first, specifically the PhD’s.

S. Adam said that D-Space is on the agenda for Thursday so there is a time constraint.

D. Schmale asked how are we going to endorse? Through the minutes?

J. Moriarty said that they will tell the general committee that the GPSA accepts it.

The resolution passed.

H. Wynder made a motion to table approval of November minutes until the next meeting.

Someone seconded.

Motion was passed.

E) GPSA Executive Elections Resolution This item was tabled for the next meeting since there were not enough people left to vote.

F) Extension of meeting times for GPSA and COR J. Moriarty will write a resolution to propose that the meetings are extended to 1 1/2 hour because they need more time.

G) New Business None

V. Announcements T. McConnochie announced that the Big Red Barn is hosting an “Ice Time” and will send out an e-mail with details. VI. Adjournment

A motion was made to adjourn.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:20 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted, Tyng Tsuei

Office of the Assemblies