Graduate and Professional Assembly
January 21, 2008
Art Gallery, WSH
5:30–7:00 p.m.

I. Call to Order and Welcome

Y. Yu called the meeting to order at 5:34pm.

a. Introduce our special guests (President D. Skorton and V.P. S. Murphy)

Y. Yu introduced the assembly to President D. Skorton as well as to VP S. Murphy. The President and Vice President mentioned the status of the GCI Report and that the assembly will receive an interim report soon. They talked about the status of the Big Red Barn and they hope to have it back by April, or by the conclusion of Spring break. Hopefully the work they do now will buy the Barn 3–5 years, they are aware it’s not a long term solution.

K. Corda said the new temporary Big Red Barn will be at Trillium in the mezzanine area. There will be hot and cold food until 7pm. After 8pm the program will be downstairs in Trillium. There will also be free coffee and soda during the interim until we back to the barn. TGIF will be every Friday at Trillium except Feb 21. B. Wickes said this is a pilot program to have the food until 7pm.

Next, the assembly went to open forum.

II. Approval of Minutes from 11/26/2007

M. Walsh moved a motion to approve minutes. A. Richter seconded. There were no objections. The minutes were approved.

III. Executive Updates

a. Graduate Community Initiative Update (Y. Yu)

Y. Yu said they are working on a leadership workshop. She hopes to get feedback and suggestions for this coming semester to see what the GPSA should focus on. Y. Yu said she would also like suggestions specifically on how we could fundraise together to build the graduate student center. She plans to put this information on the GCI website.

b. Committee Reports and Events (A. Richter)

A. Richter said she is working on getting the committee reports and events into PDF format. She said Olin library is really interested in getting help from graduate students. A. Richter also said the assembly will probably see a new resolution concerning CU Lift.

c. Activity Fee and Communications (M. Leinfelder)

M. Leinfelder said the activity fee report got approved by President Skorton. She said the GPSA Info is still continuing and that they have been getting the Sun involved in the meetings. M. Leinfelder said there is an University task force getting in place right now thinking about possibly moving e-mail to a new server (i.e. g-mail). D. Li and N. Brideau will be serving on the committee.

d. Update on Big Red Barn (K. Corda & B. Wickes)

IV. Conversation with President and V.P./Open Forum

Y. Yu asked whether or not we could see a graduate student center earlier even though it is on the master plan. She mentioned some fundraising options. President D. Skorton said he wants to see the scope and what could be done first before considering asking the alumni for help.

President D. Skorton said we do not talk enough about graduate education since we always seem to talk about undergraduate education. He said they developed an alumni magazine on graduate and professional education. The magazine goes to all alumni who pay their dues.

A. Cowan wanted to know when the new code of conduct draft is going to be finished. President D. Skorton replied he is working on it right now.

A. Richter mentioned how there is a lack of mental help for graduate students. President D. Skorton said he has not gotten a chance to work on it yet. B. Wickes said it is part of the GCI and some ideas have already been drafted. An assembly member suggested having faculty trained to recognize distress�since grad students mainly interact with faculty.

M. Leinfelder suggested having a mentor/mentee workshop for faculty and other students rather than only limiting it to the science majors. B. Wickes said the graduate school is developing material and maybe streaming it on the web. They plan on handing out information concerning this during the next orientation in the Fall/Spring. B. Wickes said they are still synthesizing information on mentoring and they are hoping to kick it off for the next academic year.

Y. Yu wanted to know President D. Skorton and how he got to where he is now. She wanted some inspiration for the assembly to continue what they were doing.

V. Committee Reports

a. Funding Policy Committee (S. Kong)

S. Kong said the FPC is going to try and edit appendix B and fix the by-line funding issues.

b. Finance Commission (L. Chen)

L. Chen gave a brief review of what we did last semester. He said we still have $83,000 left in the account to be allocated next semester. L. Chen said to contact him if a group is interested in applying for funding. He also said to tell student groups to apply for funding since we still have more than half of our money left in our account. L. Chen said the next meeting is the first Tuesday of February�Feb 5.

An assembly member asked what the criteria are to get funding and whether or not it needs to be open to the whole student body. L. Chen said having it open to the whole student body is one of the criteria.

c. Events Committee (G. Gholkar)

G. Gholkar said the grad ball will be Friday April 25 at the Johnson Art Museum from 9pm-1am. She said two organizations are already willing to help fund the graduate ball. G. Gholkar said she has not found a DJ or caterer yet.

d. Pay & Benefit Committee (R. Zhang)

S. Kong read an update on behalf of R. Zhang since she was absent. S. Kong said the pay and benefits committee last semester worked with the GCI service committee and worked on lowering the price of health insurance.

VI. Slope Day Funding Request (L. Rappaport) and Resolution 5. GPSA Funding of Slope Day 2008 (M. Walsh) Debate and Vote

L. Rappaport introduced herself and her colleague Mandy. They asked for a donation of $4,000 for Slope Day which was the same amount as in previous years. To clarify, they were asking for a donation for this year’s Slope Day. L. Rappaport said Slope Day this year is May 2nd. There are also potential graduate seats to help with the planning, any graduate student welcome to the meetings.

M. Walsh asked the assembly to donate $4,000 this year towards Slope Day. He said if we provide this funding the GPSA has somewhat of a say in what the money can go towards. M. Walsh said this is a resolution because after a certain amount of money it needs to be done through a resolution.

S. Kong said we have $14,000 left in the account and there is still plenty of money to allocate.

A. Cowan moved to approve the resolution. A. Richter seconded.

16 were in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstentions. R.5 passed.

Y. Yu wanted to hear some comments or suggestions for this coming year.

M. Guerrero suggested that the minutes be sent electronically.

M. Walsh made a motion to adjourn the meeting early. A Cowan seconded.

VII. Adjournment

Y. Yu adjourned the meeting at 6:52p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
YuhLi Tsuei
Office of the Assemblies