Graduate and Professional Assembly
Council of Representatives
February 11, 2008
701 Clark Hall
5:30–7:00 p.m.

I. Welcome and Introductions

M. Leinfelder called the meeting to order at 5:36pm.

M. Leinfelder introduced herself as well as the rest of the executive board. She also gave a brief overview of the Council of Representatives.

II. Open Forum

A. Cowan said he is from the Codes and Judicial Committee which is in charge of the Code of Conduct. He gave a brief history of the issue with the Code of Conduct including the Krauss report.

A. Cowan said the committee wrote a recommendation to President Skorton; however, the president’s response was quite surprising. He apparently supports the right to remain silent, and the CJC’s recommendation of a right to council is not accepted because other university policies don’t include a right to council. A. Cowan stated that the UA’s charter is a presidential order and that the UA and CJC are going to have an emergency meeting to try to change the code so it is within legislative hold of the assembly.

S. Kong asked who’s in charge of the code. A. Cowan said generally the president is in control of most of the code.

S. Mittal at the Johnson school wanted to introduce a platform where students could sell skills to companies and also provide some sort of management services. He said the benefits are endless and it gives students real work experience. A lot of companies are willing to offer internships and students also get feedback from companies including ratings. S. Mittal said they are also offering free resume review services. For more information e-mail S. Mittal at sm474.

M. Walsh is currently a graduate student representative on a committee formed to help formulate a plan for Cornell to go carbon neutral. He said they had a retreat recently to discuss sustainability at Cornell. M. Walsh said it was a really great workshop and invigorating to see so much passion in many of the staff at Cornell for sustainability issues. M. Walsh said they are hoping to try and get more student involvement, especially graduate students.

M. Walsh said it has been one year since President Skorton signed for climate neutrality at Cornell. On Feb 28 at 11:30am, there will be a one year anniversary celebration in the Duffield Atrium with light refreshments. M. Walsh said President Skorton will be speaking at noon and they will be showcasing what we’ve been trying to do for sustainability throughout the atrium.

M. Walsh said there is a carbon neutrality packet and it has many ideas. He said they are working on getting it into a public list right now. There is more information on the web as well.

III. Executive Updates

M. Leinfelder said there were a few students that attended the student leadership institute last Saturday put on by the dean of students office. She wanted to thank K. Hubbell for that. M. Leinfelder said it was an opportunity for students to get together to do brainstorming and attend workshops on leadership. She said the COR is going to have a workshop on leadership on March 10 and a director from ILR is coming to lead us for the leadership workshop.

M. Leinfelder and M. Walsh have been attending the Slope Day Steering Committee meetings. M. Leinfelder said the SA is trying to move forward on ticketing graduate and professional students on Slope Day. They have been trying to reason with the SA and talking about logistics, but at this point they don’t know what is going to happen. She said the SA is adamant on ticketing graduate and professional students. M. Leinfelder asked the COR to continue commenting about Slope Day and she would like to get some positive comments on what we would like to see from Slope Day to make it more for graduate and professional students.

M. Leinfelder said a photographer and reporter from the Sun is currently at the meeting.

Y. Yu gave her first update on the GCI working group. She said they met several days ago and the subcommittees gave preliminary reports on what they wanted. Now it is up to the university to see what they can fund and how many years are required. Y. Yu said the working group is waiting for the administration to give a response, which may take up to 2 months. She said the specifics are online and people can still leave comments online or e-mail gpsa@cornell.edu.

Y. Yu said she has been contacting the Geneva Station, and students there want to strengthen their relationship with us. Hopefully we can send COR members to the Geneva station and participate in social activities. She said the Geneva Station would also like to send representatives to our meetings. E-mail Y. Yu with times we should meet with them, ideas, etc.

Y. Yu said the final proposal on collaboration with the Weill Medical school is sent out. She said she hopes to have a resolution with support on this.

Y. Yu said there is a March trustee meeting on campus. She said the GPSA and SA are invited to give a report to the board. Y. Yu said if they have any issues that are essential and want it to be seen by the trustees to let her know.

A. Richter said to go to www.gradschool.cornell.edu/gci to find more information about the GCI.

A. Richter said she is still working on compiling a PDF of committee reports. She said if there is a specific committee you’re interested in to her know. A. Richter explained she did not create a January compilation of committee reports because she assumed people did not meet in January. She said to please send February committee reports to her.

A. Richter said there are several committee openings that need to be filled. She listed the committees that currently have available spots. A. Richter sent a list around the room so people can sign up for committees.

IV. Academic Integrity Discussion

a. Special Guest: Charlie Walcott, Dean of Faculty

C. Walcott gave a brief introduction of issues/history related to academic integrity. He explained that while academic integrity was becoming a big issue, the campus code of conduct/Krauss report issue came up. C. Walcott established a small committee with some SA members and a GPSA member, 2 faculty members from the educational policy committee, and a person from the Tatkon center. C. Walcott said they talked generally about the problem and various ways of attacking it. He said the committee agreed that we need to do better about communication about what is expected about academic integrity at Cornell.

C. Walcott mentioned that UVA has an honor code and apparently it does make a difference but doesn’t reduce the problems of academic integrity to zero.

C. Walcott thinks academic integrity is of particular importance to graduate students. He said the problem does not only involve students and graduate students but faculty and staff as well.

E. Buhrer said she teaches a Freshman Writing Seminar right now and she feels like sometimes the university tries to squeeze so much into a FWS that it might be difficult to have academic integrity mentioned. C. Walcott said he thinks academic integrity needs to appear in all courses and it can’t just only be in one place but a variety of places. He suggested maybe FWS needs to talk about plagiarism more.

K. Proctor said she had sessions dedicated to discussing plagiarism but she always has students that plagiarize. She said there are too many loop holes so in the end the student only failed that one paper as a punishment. K. Proctor was told at the time to deal with the issue within the class. C. Walcott suggested to have a disinterested/neutral person part of meeting when the teacher accuses the student. Then the teacher should put a note into the student’s file so if it happens multiple times it gets discussed with the hearing board.

T. Pardo said she keeps hearing that the administrative red tape frustrates many graduate students and faculty concerning issues on following up with academic integrity. She said the key issue may be to have a way in which notes on students’ academic integrity can be kept with an academic integrity officer in each school to be in charge of how many notes have accumulated.

D. Proctor from chemistry said some faculty are having a course wide honor code. He said they have students sign an affidavit stating they will not cheat. C. Walcott asked whether this has worked and D. Proctor said no.

N. Evensen said at his undergraduate university people were required to write an essay about what they thought academic integrity was about and they had to sign papers concerning the honor code. N. Evensen said it is not stated in the honor code that if a student knows that somebody cheated it needs to be reported. C. Walcott replied, it is tough for students to squeal on other students

J. Sclarsic, Law judicial codes counselor, advises students in conduct and academic integrity hearings. Trying to figure out why people cheat. In advising dozens of students, only 4 people said they were innocent. Many students trying to deal with underlying cause of this. Suggest maybe needs more comprehensive approach of how to deal with students, why did they cheat? Unwritten policy in some school if people plagiarize they will fail the course�for some students maybe only plagiarize 2 paragraphs, don’t want to fail course, did fine on everything else. Perhaps not enough to fail student, try to think of alternative ways to help students. Academic integrity process different in every school.

N. Brideau suggested maybe trying to well prepare grad students/faculty - instruct them on what to do if people are caught cheating.

J. Justl, a law student said at his undergraduate institution, there was a big ceremony which all freshmen were required to attend. It was a formal occasion and everyone had to sign something and it was framed and publicly displayed. J. Justl said they also hired an investigator to find evidence and students get a notation on their transcript if they get caught violating academic integrity. He said that these tactics were effective in maintaining an environment in which the students are aware of their academic integrity expectations.

A. Richter agreed with N. Brideau that faculty members need to know the procedure and evidence to prove that students are cheating. She suggested having campus wide test or a way to gauge what plagiarism counts as to the university students. C. Walcott said Arts and Science used to have a web tutorial on what is plagiarism and what is not. He said this can be a particular issue now since there are more international students because some cultures have different definitions of academic integrity than Cornell. C. Walcott said Cornell needs to be clearer on what is and what is not acceptable.

R. Harbison suggested that if there is a minor plagiarism violation and/or more ignorance than malice, maybe there should be an equivalent of an alcohol education course

An assembly member suggested mandatory community service if a student is caught cheating. She said at her undergraduate university there was an orientation event about the honor code and it was helpful.

V. Committee Updates and Discussion

a. Trustee Nomination Committee: Deondra Rose

D. Rose said they are organizing an election to fill in the soon—to-be-vacant graduate student seat on the board. She said this is a full voting member position and they determine major policy decisions as well as maintain integrity of the university. D. Rose said requirements are to be a full-time registered student, and must be in Ithaca for entire length of term. The application materials will be available at 109 Day hall on March 10.

A. Cowan said he would like to urge the nominating committee to make sure all graduate students know that this is happening and to inform them on how and who can participate.

b. Grad Ball Update: Girija Gholkar

G. Gholkar said the venue for the ball has been changed to WSH (free venue) on April 4 not April 25. K. Hubbell is a new sponsor and tickets will be $10. G. Gholkar said we will get the whole entire main floor of WSH, the Art Gallery, the International Lounge, and the Memorial Room. She said tickets will be on sale first week of March.

c. Childcare Services Committee: Amy Richter

A. Richter said she is now chairing the childcare services committee. She said Cornell is opening a new childcare service center on campus. This committee wants to make sure that the entire Cornell community knows that this is happening. A. Richter said they are going to have some info sessions at the end of March. She said the childcare center doesn’t have a specific number of spots set aside, everybody has the same opportunity to have their children be part of it. A. Richter said there will be some part-time care available.

d. Information Technologies: Nick Brideau and Dennis Li

N. Brideau and D. Li have been attending meetings to discuss switching Cornell e-mail to a new e-mail provider. This is because the university noted that many students choose to use routing services sending their Cornell e-mail to another account. If we do switch, we will get twenty times the storage of what we currently have now, as well as productivity software. The university will also save about $1 million a year to switch services. But the major concerns right now are compatibility issues, data storage and privacy issues.

D. Li went to a meeting where they had a demo on windows live and gmail service provides which is not only e-mail, the companies are offering more. D. Li said they are getting rid of ads in the e-mails until you graduate. He mentioned there is a difference in priorities for graduates and undergraduates. Therefore they want to know what’s important to graduate students. D. Li said there are subtle differences between gmail and windows live and they have a number of test accounts available right now.

L. Diaz wanted to know transition time period. D. Li said the earliest is next Fall.

VI. Adjournment

M. Leinfelder adjourned the meeting at 7:03p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
YuhLi Tsuei
Office of the Assemblies