Graduate and Professional Student Assembly
Minutes
Big Red Barn
September 29, 2003
5:30–7:00 p.m.

Attendance:

Present: Larry Boyd, Sam Flaxman, Gavin Hurley, Curtis Jirsa, Dan Marques, Kurt Massey, Timothy McConnochie, Mark McGuire, Anne McNeill, Joan Moriarty, David Schmale III, Susannah Schmid, Cate Taylor, Ariana Vigil, Farbod Raiszadeh

Excused:

Unexcused: Robb Willer

Others present: T. Bishop, T. Tsuei, P. McPheron, V. Blodgett, J. Sebastian

I. Call to Order

G. Hurley called the meeting to order at 5:35pm.

II. Open Forum

There were no speakers.

III. Announcements & Updates

A) COR Update
D. Schmale said that the COR meeting on September 15 had about 50 people there. They talked about committee structure and discussed a proposal in extending library hours. D. Marques was elected to replace L. Mangiola and they went through the goals for the year.

B) Other Updates
UA Update
D. Schmale said they had their 1st meeting last week and are trying to sponsor a collective assembly gathering and meet with the president. It will probably occur in November. They brainstormed on ideas on larger issues to encourage unity and there were lots of goal setting.

General Committee Update
C. Jirsa said that they discussed TERP and making satellite programs for it. They also went over small revisions on the code for grad students, i.e. medical leave.

IV. Business of the day

A) R.1, Resolution on Executive Vacancy
B. Holmes said he took the language from the SA’s charter and added 5.12 because of the situation where there will be a meeting in November and then not again until January.

J. Moriarty asked to be reminded of the considerations?

B. Holmes said the secretary can opt to be VP or the VP can be elected if the presidency has a vacancy.

S. Flaxman asked do we first elect a replacement to GPSA or do we elect from the remaining existing members?

B. Holmes said he didn’t provide that provision.

G. Hurley said if they agree with the resolution as is, then they should vote now.

There was a motion to vote now and 2nded.

The resolution passed.

B) Secretary Election
A. Vigil and S. Schmid were nominated.

S. Schmid said that she believes the GPSA to be one of the most important organizations on campus and feels a need to increase their visibility on campus. She has lots of experience in helping the GPSA with trying to get a graduate trustee and will make sure that the website gets updated more often.

A. Vigil said she has an issue with representativeness because right now there are 2 scientists and no women as executive officers. She wants to increase visibility amongst minority groups on campus and brings to the table experience, since this is her 2nd year on the GPSA. She also has experience with working with the e-board.

Neither candidate reached 9 votes.

D. Marques suggested the candidates leave so the remaining members can speak about the candidates.

The GPSA went into executive session.

The GPSA voted for S. Schmid as new Secretary.

C) R. 2, Resolution on the GPSA Investment Account
B. Holmes explained the origin of the graphs and charts presented. He said he put together the information with the help of Loreen Geiger, Gavin just changed the fonts and put it into a PDF file. The GPSAFC trend has been of taking in more money than spent until a few years ago when the trend reversed. The money not spent rolls over to next year and the rollover kept increasing. Some rollover is needed. There was a lot of rollover so it was decided that a surplus of $100,000 would be put into a GPSAFC investment account, in the form of a mutual fund. He then went over the GPSA investment account information. He said they decided to invest in Fall ‘01 and cut the student activity fee from $17 to $15 so therefore income was down that year. Last year there were lots of cuts because of this aggregate downsizing and the “well” will be dry by January and then GPSAFC won’t be able to fund any more special projects.

T. McConnochie said he doesn’t understand the requirement to fund all people who meet the requirements at a certain level.

B. Holmes said that groups are used to getting a certain level of funding but it was never officially stated — now groups are not used to getting less. It is not fair to pick and choose arbitrarily.

D. Schmale asked what is the average request amount? Are we funding at a 50% level?

B. Holmes said they are frugal about spending limits but they don’t want to lower the limits.

L. Boyd said they are granting 1/3 of requests so groups are now requesting more than they need to get the money they really need.

J. Sebastian said that the total amount requested statistic is not a reliable indicator of anything because some requests that are factored in aren’t even legitimate requests. The big problem is the statistic that states money allocated but unspent — you need to look at what’s being spent. The problem is not being able to allocate more than you have even knowing there will be leftover money in the end. We need to educate groups to use what they apply for and vice versa.

B. Holmes said that groups only spend about 75% of what’s allocated to them.

J. Moriarty said when a group applies for special funding, do you make sure they’ve exhausted their line items?

B. Holmes said yes.

K. Massey asked why is this happening? How are we having too much but still having a shortfall?

B. Holmes said there is less available funds to allocate than how much we gave out last year.

J. Moriarty said timing is the issue, because we don’t know how much groups are spending until at the end of the year, so therefore we’re not sure if we’re in the red or in the black until the end of the year.

B. Holmes said that special project request money can only be spent on specific requests.

A. Vigil asked if this is going to be solved if the groups just suck it up this year?

B. Holmes said they will have to ask for a great increase in the GPSAFC fund if we are to continue funding groups the way that they’re accustomed to.

L. Boyd said he is the chairman of the Finance Policy Committee and expenditures are not matching the income — they are spending more than they are bringing in. There is an inherent unfairness to being kept afloat by the rollover. Policy implications are that the future benefits from the past. The endowment is viewed as a way to consolidate excess and we need to figure out the purpose of the endowment rather than liquidate it. Is liquidating the answer? Do we want to dump money back to the finance committee? We run the risk of running out of money again due to irresponsibility. He says he sees no problem in groups receiving an increase in money, because they are spending it. The policy set this year should be in balance of what students are spending. He is not in favor of liquidating. An idea could be to have alumni donate to the endowment.

S. Flaxman said he agrees with L. Boyd. He doesn’t see this as a fairness issue. He thinks the issue of the purpose of the endowment as being important. Liquidation is a short term solution, what happens in 2 years when this happens again? He is in favor of finding a long term solution.

G. Hurley said the long term adjustments take into effect next year, as a point of clarification.

J. Sebastian said we need to raise fees sooner or later, this isn’t the solution but it is the easier solution. J. Moriarty is right, timing is the problem. A potential solution could be to encourage people to use their funds more responsibly. The special project request is a useful tool but it is what is killing us because groups know it’s there. We should limit its scope, it can’t be a free for all pot of money anymore.

D. Schmale said we need a revamping of the guidelines, we need to be more strict.

T. McConnochie said the purpose of the endowment is to reduce the student activity fee for the future. Currently we can reduce it by $1 per person. The trade off is not keeping the endowment can save more money in the future. So the issue becomes saving $3–4 in the next few years, or save $1 each year forever. He thinks the endowment should give back in the long term. Are we required to keep funding as much this year as last year? It is up to the finance committee to find a way to not spend as much money this year.

K. Massey said he sees this being 3 separate issues all at once: the student activity fee, funding for students, and the endowment. It is not wise to burn up the endowment to fix a policy error. Groups need to realize this is a tough year. We should keep the endowment to show fiscal responsibility for the future.

J. Moriarty said the endowment is a result of error to begin with. She supports liquidation. Is it possible for an alternative to reduce the endowment to $50,000 and put the rest of the money back into GPSAFC?

B. Holmes said there is no fee charged for early withdrawal before the recommended 3 years. The current value is at $95,000. This isn’t a savings account, we can’t withdraw from it regularly.

A. Vigil said we need to educate groups. She asked if Loreen Geiger has had any input?

B. Holmes said he was just going to ask for some money back. Loreen said that $50,000 is good to start with.

S. Flaxman asked if it’s possible to adjourn and discuss this later?

There was a motion to table.

T. McConnochie said if the end of the meeting arrives, there needs to be a motion to extend the meeting, and then we will discuss this next week anyway.

G. Hurley said we can use the last 3 minutes of the meeting to decide if we need to decide this right now.

L. Boyd said we don’t need to decide now. Right now the finance committee is looking at an unpopular situation and he is interested in seeing a new resolution for next time in regards to partial or full or no liquidation of the endowment.

B. Holmes said the next finance committee meeting is before the next GPSA meeting.

L. Boyd said groups have already been under funded.

B. Holmes said that the special project quests would have a deluge of requests.

D) Other Business
G. Hurley said it was brought to his attention that the pool room in WSH is being proposed by the Dean of Students to become a Kinko’s. The student assembly supports the Kinko’s proposal. He thinks this is bad stewardship. He wants to write a note to express concern to Dean Hubbell.

B. Holmes said that grad students, the Dean of Students, and Kinko’s made a presentation to the student assembly.

J. Moriarty said they are probably just trying to get rid of CU Printing because it’s union.

V. Adjournment

G. Hurley adjourned the meeting at 7:05.

Respectfully submitted,
Tyng Tsuei
Office of the Assemblies