MINUTES
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly
Monday, November 21st, 2011
Bache Auditorium, Malott Hall
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. Welcome, Guests & Introductions, 2 min.

E. Cortens called the meeting to order at 5:34 p.m.

Voting Members present: B. Alkemeyer, S. An, N. Baran, Y. Chen, J. Ciechlewski, E. Cortens, C. Ferkinhoff, Y. Izrayelit, J. Keach, A. Nash, R. Robbins, E. Smith, M. Tootill, M. White

Voting Members absent: K. Albert, A. Elliot, M. Hawkins

Voting Members late: R. Adra, C. Wilson

II. Approval of the Minutes

1. November 14th, 2011, 1 min.

The minutes from the previous meeting were approved with no objections.

III. Announcements

R. Robbins discussed the event, Dine & Discuss. This will be held Monday, December 5th from 6:30–8:30 PM to discuss graduate mental health and wellness. Those interested in attending should contact sbs258@cornell.edu.

IV. New Business

1. Resolution 7, Creation of an Ad Hoc Committee on the Teaching, Advising, and Mentoring of Graduate and Professional Students, 5 min.

B. Alkemeyer said he would like to start an ad hoc committee to recognize teaching excellence at the graduate student level. The committee would create an award to recognize a faculty member or multiple faculty members who exemplify certain ideals. The award would be presented in the Spring.

N. Baran said the committee would like to have a diversity of perspectives and contain graduate students from many different fields. This will reward professors for being good teachers.

D. Evensen said Cornell has been criticized for a lack of assessment of faculty members and learning outcomes, so this would be a good way to establish an assessment.

Y. Izrayelit asked if this would eventually be a financial award.

N. Baran said this is something the committee would decide. However, there probably won’t be a significant financial award. It will more likely be a plaque or something along those lines and a reception to formally give out the award.

S. An said he thinks the committee is a great idea.

N. Baran said those interested in joining the committee if the resolution is passed should contact either her or B. Alkemeyer.

By a vote of 13–0, the resolution was adopted.

2. Resolution 6, A Resolution Recommending the Graduate and Professional Student Activity Fee for 2012—2014, 80 min.

A. Nash said she thinks the Appropriations Committee has made good recommendations, so the Activity Fee should be passed as recommended.

C. Heckman said there are some potential implications of approving the current recommendations. Members of the Appropriations Committee met with the Slope Day Programming Board and it was confirmed that the GPSA would likely be ticketed. If the GPSA is comfortable with the possibility of being ticketed while still funding $3.50 out of the Activity Fee, the recommendation would be appropriate. He also supports the recommendation.

Y. Izrayelit asked if a number was proposed by the SDPB that would be acceptable to them in order to prevent the ticketing of graduate and professional students.

C. Heckman said the SDPB said $4.50 would be an acceptable amount to prevent ticketing. However, this would raise the Student Activity Fee.

C. Ferkinhoff asked how the Appropriations Committee arrived at the $3.50 recommendation.

C. Heckman said the amount they are currently offering is higher than the amount SDPB would receive if they only ticketed graduate and professional students and the GPSA doesn’t allocate any Activity Fee funds to them.

S. An asked if the SDPB said they would remove the representative from GPSA from their board if funding was declined.

J. Rau, Administrative Director of SDPB, said the SDPB would like to continue their relationship with the GPSA and wouldn’t like to move toward removing a graduate representative from their board.

C. Yao said her colleagues in the English department said they didn’t like that SDPB was asking for such a large increase in funding. Slope Day is not geared toward graduate students.

Y. Izrayelit asked whether Slope Day has ever ticketed graduate and professional students.

M. Walsh said Slope Day was originally solely an undergraduate organization, but eventually, the GPSA decided to help fund it in 2007.

N. Evensen said he supports the Appropriations Committee recommendation, and he thinks that voting members must consider the intrinsic value of Slope Day to the Cornell community at large.

C. Ferkinhoff said he considers the overall value of the Activity Fee to him, rather than just considering each of the individual groups funded by the Fee. He supports the Appropriations recommendation.

Amendment 1 (J. Ciecholewski)

J. Ciecholewski said he is proposing an amendment to the recommendation. He would like to increase the GPSA appropriation slightly.

C. Heckman offered three options to raise the allocations level.

J. Ciecholewski offered an amendment raising the Slope Day allocation from $3.50 to $3.61 and decreasing the GPSAFC allocation to $28.35 from $28.46, keeping the total fee at $81.00. The amendment was seconded.

J. Ciecholewski said he urges everyone to support this small increase in order to show how graduate and professional students want to remain involved with this event.

S. An said he supports the amendment.

Y. Izrayelit said he would like to raise the allocation even higher to $4.26, but at the same time, not taking money away from the GPSA Finance Commission.

Y. Chen said the amount of money it takes to run an event is the choice of the organization, so this is the only way to give an organization the opinion of the graduate and professional student committee to the way an organization manages its finances. Therefore, she does not support any increase in funding above the $3.50 recommendation.

N. Evensen said the Finance Commission does not currently run a surplus, but he thinks that J. Ciecholewski’s amendment is appropriate.

C. Heckman said he does not agree with the amendment because it is not rooted in any research the Appropriations Committee has conducted. He likes where the recommendation currently sits.

N. Evensen asked how $3.50 is justified over $3.61.

C. Heckman said the extra $0.11 was given to the GPSAFC.

N. Raps, the President of the SA, said Slope Day has been a partnership between the SA and the GPSA. She thinks there is no negative side to raising the allocations to $0.11 because the Activity Fee would not be increased at all. This would also show that the GPSA is still willing to come together with undergraduate students.

A. Black said he disagrees with the amendment because he thinks the SDPB still wouldn’t find this increase acceptable. He thinks the $0.11 would be better justified in going to the GPSAFC. GPSAFC is doing more for graduate students than undergraduate students.

D. Kuhr, a member of the SA, said graduates in the College of Human Ecology said they don’t want to have to pay for tickets. Additionally, an $0.11 raise isn’t high enough.

W. Kreuser said he recommends a more substantial increase as well.

A. Moore said he doesn’t support the amendment because the $0.11 increase would only amount to about $700.00 more for Slope Day, which isn’t enough to significantly aid that event.

J. Mueller, a member of SDPB, said it is necessary to bring the GPSA funding to a near equivalent level with the SA funding of Slope Day.

The question was called. Seconded. No objection.

By a vote of 2–12, the amendment was not adopted.

Amendment 2 (C. Ferkinhoff)

C. Ferkinhoff proposed an amendment to raise the allocation to Slope Day from $3.50 to $4.26 and the GPSAFC allocation from $28.46 to $28.70, thereby increasing the Activity Fee from $81.00 to $82.00.

The amendment was seconded.

C. Ferkinhoff said this number is closer to the $4.50 that the SDPB would like.

C. Heckman said the SDPB didn’t necessarily say they would find $4.50 acceptable.

A. Black asked how $4.26 compares to other events.

M. Walsh said this increase in funding would be similar to funding for Orientation Week and he would prefer funding to go to something like Orientation Week.

D. Kuhr said it is important to factor those graduate students who attended Cornell as undergraduates into their decision, as they would certainly like to attend Slope Day.

C. Heckman said the increase to $82 would likely shock graduate students. Another option was moving money around from other groups to redirect to Slope Day.

C. Breen, a member of SDPB executive board, said he would accept the $4.26 allocation and would encourage the board not to ticket graduate students if the amendment was approved.

S. An said he thinks $3.50 is a good place to compromise. He doesn’t think graduate students will gain anything if the allocation is raised to $4.26.

N. Raps asked if there is a cap to raise the GPSA Student Activity Fee.

C. Heckman said there is no cap, but the President and Board of Trustees will need to approve any funding increases.

N. Raps said the SA increased their Activity Fee to $3.00 this year because students must take on this burden in tough economic times when the University isn’t funding organizations as highly.

N. Baran said she thinks the original $3.50 allocation is the best one proposed thus far.

J. Rau wondered why Slope Day is held to a different standard than other events that are highly funded by the GPSA.

A community member said Slope Day is a fundamentally different event for graduate students, so to ask for parity in funding from the GPSA and SA is unreasonable. Therefore, the $3.50 is an acceptable allocation.

J. Mueller said Slope Day has grown in size and the population of graduate students who attend has grown as well. He thinks that even if students attend for 30 minutes, they will still get their value out of Slope Day.

E. Smith said the $3.50 wasn’t an arbitrary allocation and this fee will be considered to be increased in the future and a higher increase sets a dangerous precedent that the GPSA is easily pressured into increasing their allocation to different groups.

A. Moore asked what a good quality Slope Day would be.

J. Rau said what is a good Slope Day for some students isn’t a good Slope Day for others. The SDPB has tried to accommodate graduate students more with a varied beer selection, screens to view the acts from afar, and so on.

C. Breen said the SDPB was created to create a free, safe, fun event for the entire Cornell community. The reason why the amount they are requesting seems drastic is because they aren’t receiving any financial support from the University.

A. Nash said comparing Slope Day for graduate students and undergraduate students is like comparing apples to oranges. Therefore, it is not currently seen as a widespread community event. The $3.50 reflects the fact that many graduate students do not have the option of attending.

There was a call to question. Seconded. No objection. By a vote of 3–12, the amendment was not adopted.

C. Breen said he hopes that there is a continued dialogue between the SDPB and GPSA after the resolution is voted on.

Amendment 1 (Reconsidered)

C. Heckman said he suggested the GPSA to reconsider $3.61.

There was a motion to reconsider the first amendment. Seconded. By a vote of 7–3, the motion to reconsider was adopted. There was a call to question. Seconded. There was an objection.

Y. Izrayelit asked whether the Finance Commission would oppose $0.11 being shifted from their Commission to Slope Day.

M. Tootill said an extra $700 would help fund graduate events. She opposes the amendment.

S. An said that by the end of the year, a lot of the Finance Committee’s money isn’t actually spent, so it might be worth it to shift money from the Finance Commission to Slope Day.

M. Tootill said the Finance Commission is very short on money this year, and will not be running a surplus. Even $700 would help.

There was a motion to call the previous question. Seconded. There was an objection.

R. Robbins said supporting this amendment shows that the graduate students want to be a part of the community at large.

There was a motion to call the previous question. Seconded. By a vote of 13–0, the question was called. By a vote of 6–9, the amendment was not adopted.

There was a call to question on Resolution 6. Seconded. By a vote of 14–0, the question was called. By a vote of 15–0, the Resolution 6 was adopted.

IV.Open Forum, 2 min.

B. Alkemeyer said he has created a mentoring program for graduate students in his department and is interested in spreading it to other fields. Those interested should contact him.

There was a motion to adjourn. Seconded. No objection. E. Cortens adjourned the meeting at 6:59 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,

Allison Bazinet