Minutes
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly
Monday, March 26, 2012
Bache Auditorium, Malott Hall
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. Welcome and Introductions

E. Cortens called the meeting to order at 5:32 PM.

Voting Members Present: S. An, N. Baran, Y. Chen, J. Ciecholewski, E. Cortens, C. Ferkinhoff, M. Hawkins, J. Keach, A. Nash, E. Newbury, R. Robbins, E. Smith

Voting Members Absent: R. Adra, K. Albert, B. Alkemeyer, A. Elliot, M. Tootill, M. White, C. Wilson

E. Cortens states the executive made the decision before the meeting to unseat R. Adra, who has two unexcused absences; the plan is to reseat her after this meeting.

II. Approval of the Minutes

• March 5th, 2012, 1 min.

There are no corrections to the minutes. Without objection, the minutes are approved.

III. Reports of Officers and Committee Updates, 7 min.

1. Executive Committee (E. Cortens)

• April 9: Voting member elections
• April 23: Officer/committee chair/UA representative elections
• Faculty award nominations due April 16th, see: http://award.cornellgpsa.com

2. Appropriations (C. Heckman)

C. Heckman is not here. There is no update.

3. Communications (S. An)

The first meeting with the diversity focus group took place two weeks ago.

4. Finance Commission (M. Tootill)

M. Tootill is sick, E. Cortens said there are two announcements she wanted to make:

• The GPSAFC annual budget seminar will be held on April 7th from 12:00pm-1:30pm in Goldwin Smith Hall, Room 132. Please come if you have any questions about the annual budget submission process.
• The deadline for annual budget submission and summer Special Project Requests is April 27, 2012.

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

• There will be a mixer this Thursday, March 29th at the Big Red Barn 7pm-10pm
• Grad ball tickets are planned to be on sale early April so stay tuned!

6. Student Advocacy (R. Robbins)

1. Presentation to Cornell University Council on Mental Health and Welfare, 15 min.

R. Robbins noted that this is the powerpoint deck that will be presented to the University Council on Mental Health and Welfare next Wednesday. The purpose of this is to give some insight on the findings and solutions being proposed.

To encourage dialogue, the committee chose to have an issue-focused event, rather than a town hall. For this iteration, the committee chose mental health as the focus issue. After dinner at the Big Red Barn, there was a short presentation from Susan Murphy, Vice President for Student and Academic Services. Graduate and professional students were seated at various tables throughout the Barn, and at each table there was a notetaker and a discussion facilitator. R. Robbins briefly went over the results of the qualitative analysis of these discussions. Based on the responses the following areas needed for improvement were found and noted from Dine and Discuss:

• Centralized resource for graduate students
• Need for more, better physical graduate space
• Access to health and wellness
• Events and programming
• Training
• Build a sense of community
• Strong, supportive learning environment
• Need for a joint effort

R. Robbins thanked everyone for their time and said to let her know if you have any feedback. The floor then opened to questions/comments.

J. Ciecholowski suggested a program that R. Robbins should look into at the Johnson school, which helps welcome and orient people to Ithaca, and the school. That may be a good place to start and look at what kind of programs are already running and introduce the community to them.

De Jeana Chappell asked about the concern about the fitness class schedule and wanted to know what time would be more conducive to people. R. Robbins said that she would look into it.

N. Baran asked if this presentation could be sent to the list serve, R. Robbins said yes. N. Baran also emphasized the importance of cultural differences when considering wellness and social programming for international students.

E. Cortens suggested that it would be useful to have a numeric breakdown of the qualitative analysis, so that we can see how many comments were made in particular categories. Furthermore, since many of the issues raised in the discussion overlap with points made in the Graduate Community Initiative (GCI) from 2007, it would be interesting to see in what areas progress has been made, and what remains to be done. He suggested that the committee prepare a written report of its findings, which the GPSA could then endorse in a resolution, and transmit the results to administrators, by way of follow-up to the GCI. Madeline Smith suggested that data on who attended would be helpful to see who attended from what departments.

IV. Unfinished Business

1. Second presentation and voting on R. 12, Updating the Role of the Appropriations Committee (C. Heckman), 1 min.

This is the second presentation of Resolution 12. At the previous presentation, there was little discussion and no controversy. E. Cortens asked if there was any further discussion. Seeing none, he asked if there was objection to moving to a vote. Seeing none, the resolution is voted on. With a vote of 11–0, Resolution 12 is adopted.

2. Second presentation and voting on R.11, Amendments to the Eligibility and Obligations for Byline Funded Organizations (E. Cortens), 25 min.

E. Cortens briefly outlined three possible options for the language in the Slope Day section of Appendix A of the Byline Criteria. 1. Slope day needs approval before changing anything. (This is the current wording as amended at the last meeting.)

2. Slope day shall try to keep it free, but it they can’t, they shall charge no more than $x.xx. (This was the original wording, before the amendment at the last meeting.)

3. Slope day shall provide free admission to all graduate and professional students. This raises the possibility of the Slope Day Programming Board (SDPB) turning down GPSA funding.

E. Cortens displayed a graph prepared by W. Kreuser, showing that if they charged $10 for tickets and received $3.50 from the activity fee, they would end up receiving more money than the $6.00 initial activity fee request.

E. Cortens discussed an e-mail from Noelle Cornelio (Chair of SDPB) that stated that $7 is the maximum that they would seek to charge for tickets.

S. An called for point of information, asking if the SDPB would still be taking the $3.50 in addition to the $7. Melissa Benhaim, who is the Vice Chair of SDPB, is here to answer any questions. She responds to S. An, stating with $7 tickets, they would still take the $3.50.

C. Ferkinhoff asked a question about W. Kreuser’s graph.

M. Hawkins states that he did an impromptu survey of people in his department and they don’t want to pay any money for Slope Day tickets. Therefore, he moves to strike the amended language and implement the third language option: “The Slope Day Programming Board shall provide free admission to all graduate and professional students.”

Seconded by N. Baran. There is no discussion. Vote on those in favor of the amendment 7–3, the amendment is adopted. Formal debate on the resolution then resumes.

Veronica Prush, to give another graduate school perspective. She estimates that about half of her field (Geological Sciences) attends Slope Day. At a recent field meeting, she asked people if they would still attend Slope Day if they had to pay, and the near unanimous consensus was no.

R. Robbins spoke on the resolution.

E. Cortens agreed that it was useful to have the debate in precise terms. He clarified that if the SDPB rejects the $3.50 from the GPSAF, they’ll seek to charge the $25 alumni rate. This would affect Slope Day in 2013 and 2014, but NOT 2012, which is already paid for. If the SDPB then chose to reapply for GPSAF funding in the future, they would be treated as a new group, and would have to collect signatures from 10% of graduate students (roughly 680 signatures). The soonest this would happen is Fall 2013.

E. Smith: Has the SDPB executive considered the possibility that rejecting GPSAF funding and charging $25 will cause them to lose money? (If fewer than 14% of graduate students attend, they will receive less revenue than they would have with the $3.50. The survey indicates that roughly 10% of graduate/professional students might attend.)

Melissa said that it is a concern. For financial questions, she referred people to Jon Rau, SDPB administrative director. Melissa said it would be the preference of the executive not to charge $25.

E. Smith stated that the SDPB would be shooting themselves in the foot by rejecting the $3.50 and seeking to charge $25.

W. Kreuser clarified that the percentage of SDPB’s revenue that comes from the GPSAF is fairly small.

E. Cortens added that the total activity revenue from grads and undergrads is about $250,00, and, with $3.50, grads would thus contribute a little under 10%.

A. Nash: She supports the (just passed) amendment. It is a community event and is supposed to bring people together and if we think it should be a free university-wide event then we need to say that.

Veronica Prush: Is there any way we can poll the graduate students to see how they feel about paying $10.50 as opposed to $3.50? E. Cortens said that we did a rigorous survey of a random sample of all graduate and professional students (65% response rate) in Spring 2011. The soonest we could send out another “big” Buzz email is three weeks from now. Guessing based on click rates in previous Buzz issues, he estimated that a survey sent in this manner would likely get a very low response rate (maybe 5%), and wouldn’t be representative of the community: we’d get the people with the most extreme views (those most in favor, and those most against Slope Day).

N. Baran agreed with A. Nash’s sentiments. While it is true that our contribution is a small percentage of the total SDPB budget, a rejection of this would be a very clear statement that our community is not valued. This is especially surprising because they would do it at their own expense.

Stephanie Masiello: One of the things grad school students feel very strongly about is building a sense of community, I think it would be sad to have the put a monetary value on being able to be one community. I agree with A. Nash’s statement.

W. Kreuser said Slope Day has greater attendance than, for example, Cornell Cinema, which does charge tickets. It is a little bit hypocritical to say that we’re willing to pay $4 for a movie ticket on top of the $11.05 we give them, but not pay for Slope Day in addition to the $3.50.

E. Smith reiterated that $3.50 from 100% of the grad/prof population is the most money that they are likely to get. Speaking strictly financially, this is the best offer we can give.

Alex Moore spoke on the resolution.

M. Hawkins moves to call question, seconded by N. Baran. There is no objection. (This Resolution requires two-thirds of the seated voting members, 12 votes, for passage.) Voting members vote on the resolution and with a vote of 12–0, Resolution 11 is adopted as amended.

3. Second presentation and voting on R. 10, A Resolution Altering the GPSA Committee Staffing Process (M. Hawkins), 20 min.

M. Hawkins states that he has altered the resolution in response to feedback. The floor opens to discussion and questions.

Matthew Holden calls for point of clarification on if there will be a link with the field funding from GPSA. M. Hawkins replies he decided not to link this to field funding at all. E. Cortens said that such a change would require an amendment to the Funding Guidelines.

S. An asked who will be enforcing this and keeping track?

M. Hawkins: It will be the executive committee.

Mitch Paine wondered what would happen for field organizations who elect their representatives in January.

E. Cortens said that this resolution doesn’t actually create this problem: committees are already staffed June 1 to May 31, so if a field representative is replaced on January 1, they already either have to continue serving on that committee, or find a replacement.

E. Newbury commented that she appreciates the sentiment behind this resolution, but wants to reiterate the incentive idea, and to think about what sort of incentives or enforcement to use.

W. Kreuser asked if preferential treatment was given to field’s whose representatives attend all meetings.

E. Cortens said no. (Only existing allocations can be frozen if there is a “sustained vacancy.”)

Veronica Prush noted that her department consists of two fields, and thus technically two field representatives, but they only typically fill one.

E. Cortens said that this results from the way the graduate school recognizes fields. If the GPSA were to want to do this differently, it would require an amendment to the Charter. (For example, fields could consolidate for GPSA purposes, sending only one rep, and having only one field organization.)

C. Ferkinhoff wants to speak against this resolution. He agrees finding a way to get increased participation is important, but believes there are ways to do that without adding more meetings to attend.

E. Cortens calls point of information asks C. Ferkinhoff if he has any specific suggestions.

C. Ferkinhoff: Yes, more regular meetings, trying to do more caucusing within the meetings.

N. Baran moves to call question, C. Ferkinhoff seconds this. There are no objections to vote on the adoption of resolution 10. (This Resolution requires two-thirds of the seated voting members, 12 votes, for passage.)

With a vote of 8–2, Resolution 12 is not adopted.

V. New Business

1. Resolution 13, A Resolution Regarding Big Red Barn Dining Options, (N. Baran), 20 min.

N. Baran discusses Resolution 13. She states, the Big Red Barn should be a place that serves the graduate and professional student community. Put together a resolution that asks the Graduate School to consider a Request for Proposal process that would allow an outside vendor to bid and provide the food service at the Big Red Barn.

Open formal debate on the resolution.

C. Ferkinhoff: Maybe add an amendment about having the Big red barn open year round since it currently closes on the summer or maybe have the advisory board look into it.

Darrick Evensen moves to amend line 60, to add “staff members.” Without objection, the amendment is approved.

Motion by N. Baran to extend the meeting by 5 minutes and this is seconded by M. Hawkins. Seeing no objections the motion passes.

This resolution requires a majority of those present and voting. Resolution 13 is voted on, with a vote of 9–0, Resolution 13 is adopted.

VI. Open Forum, 1 min.

No comments on open forum.

Motion to adjourn by C. Ferkinhoff. Seconded by M. Hawkins, seeing no objections the meeting is adjourned at 7:01PM.