MINUTES
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly
Monday, February 20, 2012
Bache Auditorium, Malott Hall
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. Welcome and Introductions, 1 min.

E. Cortens called the meeting to order at 5:30 PM.

Voting Members Present: R. Adra, K. Albert, B. Alkemeyer, S. An, Y. Chen, J. Ciecholewski, E. Cortens, A. Elliot, C. Ferkinhoff, M. Hawkins, Y. Izrayelit, J. Keach, A. Nash, R. Robbins, E. Smith, M. Tootill, M. White, C. Wilson

Voting Members Absent: N. Baran

II. Guests

1. Discussion with Elmira Mangum, Vice President for Planning and Budget, 30 min. Elmira Mangum gave a budget planning overview and in this overview she wanted to cover a couple of topics�the agenda consisted of the following:

1. Major budget policy issues and outlook

• Tuition and financial aid
• Endowment payout
• Salary Improvement Plan

2. Elimination of structural deficit

• Reduce administrative costs�streamlining program
• No new costs without funding or identified income sources

3. Budget model change

Elmira Mangum discussed the budgeted revenues for FY 2012, which was 3.24 billion. She went on to discuss the 5 year total capital plan which is 1.649 billion and this 5 year plan represents an 11% reduction in activity from the FY 2011 plan. Elmira Mangum then went over the cost savings results by initiative.

She went on to state that in terms of the outlook and where we are headed the focus remains on quality and access which is what individuals look at when they are deciding whether or not they want to come here. Quality and access include competitive salaries and benefits, program enrichment, undergraduate tuition and aid, state support, compliance, facilities/utilities, increases in security, supplies and materials. A major driver of the outlook of the future is trying to get to a balanced budget and the policies put in place are maintaining the efforts to get us to a balanced budget.

In terms of undergraduate peer tuition and mandatory fees, the Cornell policy has been to stay in the middle of the ivy group. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton are able to have a lower tuition because they have larger endowments. If you look at the ivy average of 2011–2012 we were actually below the ivy average of tuition. For graduate research there is no change since they are more market based. For the graduate school professional degree there is a 4.5% market based change set by individual colleges. In addition, there was a 3% graduate stipend increase was approved with the campus salary improvement program.

She then went on to discuss the graduate school tuition history, showed a graph and the graph highlights how the policy changed over the past several years. As demonstrated by the graph, the lowest lines were the research degree ones.

For the endowment payout policy the goal is for it to be steady and for predictable payout increase for operating budgets be smoothed for budget and planning purposes with sensitivity to change in market value. In the budget model change, we want a model that encompasses the following:

• More transparent, simple, data informed, and advance academic excellence
• Manage the cost pressures of the current environment
• Improve service, quality, and reduce costs
• Improve processes to respond to things such as
• Deep cuts in state appropriations
• Decreasing parental and student ability to pay tuition bills
• Severely constrained revenues
• Decline in fundraising investment income, and research grants
• Increasing operational costs, deferred maintenance and other capital

Elmira Mangum also shared that they have formed a policy building committee. She then concluded by going over the next steps and implementation. The next steps and implementation include:

• Undergraduate tuition and financial aid pooled and distributed�a lot of focus has been placed on this
• Space use�charging for space was a new idea introduced. A space study has been launched and the space use committee will be looking at this and identify ways we would be charging for space.
• Cost allocation methodology
• University support pool to fund central costs
• Facilities and administrative reimbursements — this is under development
• New York State Appropriation — this is under development
• Graduate tuition — no change
• Cornell abroad — moved to GP funding and CAM
• Endowed professorships�centrally held� has been moved to the Dean’s office

III. Approval of the Minutes

1. February 6, 2012, 1 min. — There are no objections to the approval of the minutes, seeing none the minutes are approved.

IV. Reports of Officers and Committee Updates, 8 min.

1. Executive Committee (E. Cortens)

R. 7 Ad Hoc on teaching/advising/mentoring of grad/prof/ students first meeting will be Wednesday February 22nd at 11am at Manndible

Next year: Interested in serving as an officer? Committee chair or as a voting representative?

2. Appropriations (C. Heckman)

C. Heckman states that in two weeks they will be presenting some changes to the byline procedures and then in 4 weeks we will be voting on the document. He will keep you updated on that.

3. Communications (S. An)

First time we got to inform and communicate all graduate professional students with the GPSA buzz, if there are any comments about it please let him know. If you have any ideas on how to get GPSA out there he will be holding a focus group.

4. Finance Commission (M. Tootill)

M. Tootill said that they had a meeting last week and looked at over 16,000 dollars of request and allocated $8,441.18. With that being said M. Tootill said that they are having another meeting in a couple of weeks and to get applications in by Friday march 2nd In addition, tentatively April the 7th she will be running a brief annual budget seminar and will go through the annual budget process, there will be confirmation some point soon on the date but during this seminar you will get to ask any questions you have on the annual budget application. April 27th is the deadline for the annual budget application.

5. Student Advocacy (R. Robbins)

R. Robbins said that they are in the final stages in analyzing the transcripts from last winter from the event they held and will be presenting the data to the University Council Student Mental Health and Welfare. In addition, they are thinking about doing another survey on quality of life.

6. Graduate & Professional Student Programming Board (Y. Chen)

Some upcoming events:

• March 7th�Speed Friending at the Big Red Barn
• March 9th�Second Nerd Night at Big Red Barn
• The Associate Real Estate Council is throwing a mixer on February 29th at the Big Red Barn, it is an opportunity to hang out and make friends.

Lastly, meetings are set every other Monday at 7 until spring break (Mondays when the GPSA is not meeting) in the Physical Sciences building room 403.

V. New Business

1. Approval of the GPSA President’s Annual Report to the Board of Trustees (E. Cortens), 10 min.

There are no corrections or changes that are raised. There is a call to question there is a second, there is no dissent and the report is voted on. In a vote of 17–0 the report is approved.

2. Initial presentation of R.10, A Resolution Altering the GPSA Committee Staffing Process (M. Hawkins), 15 min

M. Hawkins states that over the past couple years, they have been trying to encourage more involvement with the field representatives. As chair of the operations committee he was able to reflect on things we can do better and he thinks making it mandatory to have members of the GPSA serve on a committee of one internal or university wide committee is a way of doing that and is a great way to get people involved.

E. Cortens said that the resolution would be a charter change and a bylaw change. Since this is an amendment to the charter and the bylaws it requires 2/3 of voters to say yes and it also requires prior notice, which means there will not be voting on passage today.

Discussion on the resolution then begins.

J. Ciecholewski said we should give a survey to see how the field representatives feel about this and that the problem needs more investigation for passage.

R. Adra is concerned that there will be a deterrence effect and adding another requirement will make it difficult for someone to take that much more on. If it is required, then you’re getting people who don’t want to really put the effort in. Madeline Smith agrees with R. Adra. Also, she asks how will it be enforced? She goes on to say that she thinks people will sign up for committees and they will never attend.

M. Hawkins responds to these concerns. He states that by allowing the field representatives to have wide ranging choices on which committee they want to serve on will help address the issue of people potentially being disengaged. Also, one day from the academic year to serve as difficult because they are so busy they don’t have one day�he doesn’t really buy that. Everyone has his or her own responsibilities but to sit on a committee that meets 1x or 2x year is possible.

Y. Chen says that we as a body need to communicate how rewarding and fun it is and the opportunities there are. M. Tootill agrees with Y. Chen and says that they should be clearer about the time commitment. R. Robbins adds that we should increase communication on vacancies.

Chris says that another way could be to reward a field for joining a committee; if you do it your field gets $100.

E. Smith asked would it make sense to add in the resolution that someone from their field could go in their place instead. If you have representation in that field someone should fill that vacancy that way not everything is put on one person.

Elizabeth says that the committees are in a black box if you’re new to the GPSA. She mentions that she had trouble at first navigating where she could be more helpful. Therefore, she thinks that there should be a communication on where someone could be most helpful.

M. Hawkins withdraws the resolution and there is no objection to this.

VI. Open Forum, 5 min.

Elizabeth N. said during a coffee hour, she was discussing with people transportation issues such as the TCAT and parking. E. Cortens said there are committees that deal with these issues and it would be great to discuss it and figure these issues out.

Respectfully Submitted,


Melissa Arguinzoni