‘MINUTES
GPSA Council of Representatives
701 Clark Hall
Monday, April 6, 2009
5:30–7:00 p.m.

I. Welcome and Introductions (2 min.)

M. Guerrero called the meeting to order at 5:40 p.m.

II. Open Forum (5 min.)

A. Richter said the charter didn’t get approved at the last meeting because there were not enough voting members present. The next Charter Review committee meeting will be held April 9 in Hollister Hall. All CoR members are welcome for this final discussion. The charter will be voted on at the last GPSA meeting in two weeks. A. Richter asked both voting and non-voting members to participate in the meeting, as any change in the charter would affect all GPSA members.

B. Heavner said that TCAT would have another meeting regarding the recent route change. More information can be found on their website.

III. EARS Presentation (15 min.)

1. Introduction by Brian Forster

B. Forster briefly recapped R.6 Regarding Mental Healthcare for Cornell Graduate & Professional Students. He introduced Alice Green, advisor to EARS, to talk about their new graduate initiative program.

A. Green said with a 35-year history, EARS is one of the oldest peer-to-peer counseling services in the US. Every year about 250 students register for three different levels of the training program. Student who have been qualified in the end are certified to deliver the training to other students. Since EARS is funded mostly by the Dean of Students Office and the Student Assembly, 70% of all the calls and visits were made by undergraduate students. Currently, only two out of thirty people in the office are not undergraduate students. Their wish is to get more graduate students involved. The program requires participation with a minimum of two semester seminars for people to be qualified as counselors. They have sent out a special appeal this year and received some responses from graduate students.

Two graduate students who were in training as counselors shared their experiences with EARS and took questions from the members.

Reports

IV. Executive Updates (5 min.)

1. Academic Calendar

M. Leinfelder said the assembly passed a resolution in January about the academic calendar. The resolution expressed support to make the first day of fall semester on Wednesday and to take a day off in the semester. She asked members the preferences of which day to be taken off: Labor Day or the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. More people supported taking the Wednesday before Thanksgiving than having Labor Day off. M. Leinfelder proposed the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Break to be the first option, and said she would convey it to the Faculty Senate.

2. GPSA Celebration (April 20th)

M. Leinfelder said the new assembly officer elections would be taking place at the next business meeting of the semester, which is on April 20th. Since this meeting is also the last meeting of the year, a celebration will be held afterwards. All CoR members are welcomed.

2. Vice President of Operations (Deondra Rose)

D. Rose asked members to serve on committees next year. She said people with any questions on serving on university committees should come to her.

3. Executive Vice President (Mario Guerrero)

There were no reports from M. Guerrero.

V. Committee Reports (15 min.)

a. Advocacy (Brian Forster)

i. Town Hall Meeting

B. Forster thanked all those who came to the Town Hall Meeting last week. The reports on the meeting will be forwarded to the Graduate School and other officers. He gave an update on Ensemble, CIT’s new email account project. B. Forster said the Student Advocacy Committee will be working with CIT for the transition process and would like to hear feedback from students. At the end, B. Forster acknowledged the hard work the members’ had done this year.

b. Activities (Kate Capossela)

i. Grad Ball

K. Capossela said the Grad Ball is next Friday, April 10. She said tickets could be purchased tonight from her, in 109 Day Hall at the Assembly’s Office, or at the Big Red Barn.

c. GPSAFC (Nighthawk Evensen)

i. April 25 Funding Day Assistance

N. Evensen said the 6 people on the GPSAFC usually review around 200 student organization funding applications on spring funding day. He said spring funding day is set for April 25 in 304 Fernow Hall. Food and beverages will be provided. He explained it is a good opportunity to learn about how the student activity fee is distributed and to ensure the best possible funding allocations to all organizations and encouraged people to volunteer to help out.

d. Student Trustee Elections (Mike Walsh)

M. Walsh said the election of another student trustee seat is next week. He encouraged all students to go to the assembly’s website for information and to vote. He said there would be a forum at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, 4/7 in the WSH Art Gallery. Then, Tuesday April 14 the Daily Sun will be printing the candidate statements. Online voting runs from Tuesday, 4/14 at 8 a.m. until Thursday, 4/16 at 10 a.m.

New Business

VI. Elections (40 min.)

a. Caucus Leaders

i. Biological Sciences: M. Leinfelder

ii. Humanities: D. Rose

iii. Social Science: M. Guerrero

iv. Physical Sciences: J. Kupferschmidt

M. Leinfelder said there are 19 representative seats in the CoR and 17 of them would be elected at today’s meeting. Four caucuses were formed with four leaders. The meeting was paused for nominations, caucus discussion and voting.

Voting results were as following:

Biological Sciences: 1. Nighthawk Evensen, 2. Brian Forster, 3. Srich Murugesan

Social Sciences: 1. Mike Genkin, 2. Erica Gutierrez, 3. Asia Sikora, 4. Chris Clarke

Physical Sciences: 1. Jon Dorando, 2. Ben Heavner, 3. Cresten Mansfeldt, 4. Sylvia Zhang

Humanities: 1. Bernida Webb-Binder, 2. (Vacant), 3. (Vacant)

M. Leinfelder said B. Webb-Binder is the first Humanities rep in a few years. She opened up the two vacant seats from Humanities as “at- large” seats. The floor was then opened for nominations. There were no new nominations.

M. Leinfelder said at-large seat would be held, and in the fall, the assembly would hold elections of them and the two Masters student seats. Professional schools will appoint their own representatives.

M. Leinfelder asked for a motion to close the nominations. It was moved by A. Richter and seconded by J. Kupferschmidt. Elections were closed by a majority vote.

VII. Other New Business

M. Leinfelder said the officer elections will take place in two weeks. It’s important for both out-going and in-coming assembly members to attend, since out-going members will vote on the charter while new members will elect the new officers. The three executive members have to be assembly-voting members. The committee chair positions can be CoR members. A. Sikora asked whether people elected now would be double counted in the CoR. N. Evensen said according the current charter, an additional seat is open to the field if the rep is elected. A. Richter asked N. Evensen to make sure this part is clear in the new charter. Also, the UA representative positions will be elected at the next meeting.

VIII. Adjournment

J. Kupferschmidt motioned to adjourn the meeting. A. Sikora seconded. M. Guerrero adjourned the meeting at 6:49 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Yezi Li

Office of the Assemblies