MINUTES
Graduate and Professional Student Assembly
Monday, April 20, 2009
Big Red Barn Greenhouse
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. Welcome

M. Leinfelder called the meeting to order at 5:37 p.m. She apologized for the technical difficulties and thanked everyone for their patience. Since the meeting packet is wrong, M. Leinfelder asked members to reference the documents she sent through email previously or reference the projection screen. She thanked both out-going and in-coming members for coming to the last meeting of the year. She said in-coming members would have officer elections at the end of the meeting.

II. Open Forum

C. Mansfeldt said the Faculty Senate voted on the resolution regarding the academic calendar. Based on their resolution, classes will start on Wednesday of the fall semester. Their first choice would be to have no classes held on Labor Day. Their second choice is taking the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off.

J. Kupferschmidt said the byline funding applications were originally due this coming Monday, 4/27. Based on the new funding policy criteria, new student groups could send a letter of intent by the deadline and then could submit the application by Sept 11, 2009. He explained this change would allow the new groups to have the entire summer to work on their applications and to get familiar with the new policy.

K. Capossela thanked Amy O’Donnell and the Events Committee for making the grad ball a smashing success again this year. She said she would be interested to receive feedback for next year. M. Leinfelder suggested getting a venue for next year’s event soon.

III. Old Business

1. Approval of Minutes

M. Leinfelder projected the minutes from March 23rd meeting on the screen. One friendly amendment was suggested by A. Richter. N. Evensen motioned to approve the corrected minutes. B. Forster seconded. With a vote of 14–0−1, the minutes passed.

2. Executive Updates

M. Leinfelder said the graduate representative on the UA’s Sustainability Committee, Fred Cowett, contacted the GPSA executives requesting ideas for action. M. Leinfelder said that if members had any issues to contact him. M. Walsh suggested looking at student organizations’ decisions that affected sustainability. E. Gutierrez mentioned recycling in every building, going paperless and energy efficiency. More ideas could be directed to fdc2.

M. Leinfelder said VP Susan Murphy is looking for a grad student rep to serve on the newly formed Student Enrollment Task Force. The Task Force will look at positive as well as negative impacts of the increased enrollment of both graduate and undergraduate students. They want to have an initial report submitted by July 1, 2009. They are looking for someone who could meet or at least have conference calls in the summer. If anyone is interested email M. Leinfelder.

M. Guerrero said they received a response from the president saying they’ve already acted on R.10. M. Guerrero is part of the search committee with Dean Hubbell to fill the Director of the LGBT Resource Center and to work with development staff to find more resources for the center. Also, member organizations will be free to move from the Office of Student Support to the LGBTRC. M. Guerrero said they are thankful for the administration’s support. M. Guerrero also mentioned that the Graduate School agreed to help the GPSA communicate with graduate students once a month. Currently, they are working on guidelines, so no action will take place until the next academic year.

D. Rose thanked everyone for their committee work this year. She encouraged next year’s assembly to do the same.

3. Committee updates:

• a. Student Advocacy Committee

B. Forster said that a couple weeks ago they met with officers from SAGES, and they said they were willing to help with the Ivy Summit in the Fall that will be held on campus. B. Forster said, as requested at the last CoR meeting, he sent out the Town Hall Meeting results to the CoR list and to the appropriate administrative offices. He reported he has already gotten feedback from a couple offices. Housing is the only unit they have not yet heard from. Lastly, B. Forster said there would be one last advocacy committee meeting in May. He encouraged new committee members to come since the meeting will mainly be about setting up next year’s work.

• b. GPSAFC

N. Evensen said the Finance Commission will have its last meeting this weekend. This is the meeting where GPSAFC allocates funds for student group applications for next school year. There have received 167 applications. They will be working from 12noon until 5 p.m. and any volunteer for any amount of time would be appreciated. Food will be available. S. Murugesan asked how often does GPSAFC meet and allocate funding. N. Evensen said the group has to apply a year before it plans to get funded.

4. R.9 Regarding Charter Revisions and Recommendations

Submitted by: A. Richter, C. Mansfeldt, and Charter Review Committee

M. Leinfelder outlined some rules for the discussion.

• Charter-

There was a brief discussion, and 1 friendly amendment made to the Charter.

• Bylaws-

There was no discussion on the Bylaws.

• GPSA Eligibility Criteria & Obligations for Byline Funded Organizations-

A. Richter explained some major changes on the funding procedure. She proposed to change under section 2.02 “have petition with signatures of 15%�” to 10%. Also to further reflect that amendment in section 2.04. Discussion followed. M. Guerrero seconded the amendment. The amendment was passed with a majority vote of 10–4−3. M. Leinfelder questioned the feasibility of the statement in section 5d) 3) “for counting and reporting purposes�” Discussion followed.

• Back to Bylaws-

K. Capossela said it would be better to specify the time and deadline in section 3. 08.c.i. A. Richter answered that it is defined in the section for the Operations and Staffing Committee.

Byline Allocation Procedures

M. Leinfelder said the voting procedure in section 4.01 doesn’t clearly define who can vote and what is a majority. A. Richter accepted it as a friendly amendment. A brief discussion and small edits were made.

K. Hermans motioned to accept R. 9 and the Charter documents. A. Sikora seconded. The Charter was approved with a vote of 16–0−1.

IV. New Business

1. Approval of 2009–2010 GPSA Calendar

A. Richter made an amendment to reflect the name change on the calendar based on the new charter. N. Evensen seconded. It was passed with a vote of 15–0−2. B. Forster asked a question about regular meetings and organizational meetings. A brief discussion followed. M. Guerrero suggested removing the last sentence regarding regular meeting and organizational meeting. N. Evensen seconded. By a majority vote, motion passed. A. Richter proposed to change the first Discussion Meeting to Aug 31 instead of Sep 7. Motion passed with a vote of 12–1−4.

B. Forster made a motion to accept the new Calendar. D. Rose seconded. 2009–10 GPSA Calendar is approved with a vote of 13–0−3.

2. 2009–2010 GPSA Officer elections

Incoming members are eligible to nominate others or themselves.

B. Forster nominated Nighthawk Evensen as President. N. Evensen accepted. There were no other nominations. B. Forster motioned to close nominations. K. Capossela seconded. Nominations were closed by majority vote. With a vote of 10–0−1, N. Evensen was elected as the new President of GPSA.

The meeting was then handed over to N. Evensen.

He opened the floor to nominations for Executive Vice President. B. Webb-Binder nominated Cresten Mansfeldt for VP. C. Mansfeldt declined the nomination. S. Murugesan nominated Erica Gutierrez for VP. E. Gutierrez accepted the nomination. N. Evensen motioned to close nominations for VP. C. Mansfeldt seconded. With a vote of 11–0−1, E. Gutierrez was elected the new Executive Vice President of GPSA.

N. Evensen opened the floor for nominations for Vice President for Operations. C. Mansfeldt nominated B. Forster. K. Capossela seconded. Nominations were closed. With a vote of 11–0−2, B. Forster was elected as the Vice President for Operations of GPSA.

The floor was then opened for nominations for committee chairs.

Events Chair: J. Dorando nominated Srich Murugesan. B. Forster seconded. S. Murugesan accepted the nomination. With a vote of 11–0−2, he was elected as the Events Committee Chair.

Student Advocacy Chair: B. Forster nominated Cresten Mansfeldt. C. Mansfeldt accepted the nomination. With a vote of 11–0−2, he was elected as the Student Advocacy Chair.

Finance Commission Chair: Sylvia Zhang nominated herself. N. Evensen nominated Asia Sikora. B. Forster motioned to close nominations. C. Mansfeldt seconded. A. Sikora was voted in as the Finance Commission Chair by secret ballot.

Appropriations Committee Chair: C. Mansfeldt nominated David Walden. He accepted the nomination. With a vote of 11–0−2, he was elected the Appropriations Committee Chair.

With committee chairs filled, N. Evensen opened the floor for nominations for UA representatives.

C. Mansfeldt nominated Ed Strong. B. Forster seconded.

Bernita Webb-Binder nominated herself. A. Sikora seconded.

Sylvia Zhang nominated herself. B. Forster seconded.

D. Walden motioned to close nominations. C. Mansfeldt seconded. All three candidates made brief statements about themselves. E. Gutierrez motioned to approve the three nominations for UA representatives. C. Mansfeldt seconded. All three were approved by majority vote.

N. Evensen asked everyone to go around the table and introduce themselves and what department they were from.

V. Adjournment

N. Evensen asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion was made by S. Murugesan and seconded by B. Webb-Binder. Meeting was adjourned at 7 p.m.

VI. GPSA End-of-the Year Celebration and Awards

Respectfully submitted,

Yezi Li
Office of the Assemblies