MINUTES
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly
GPSA Discussion Meeting
Monday, September 24th, 2012
Bache Auditorium, Malott Hall
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. I. Welcome, Guests and Introductions

The meeting was called to order at 5:39 pm.

1. Introduction of voting members, 1 min.

Voting members present: A. Black, G. Danies Turano, J. Drewes, M. Dumas, A. Enders, T. Gandhi, J. Hill, M. Holden, B. Kreuser, H. Liu, A. Moore, R. Moore, E. Newbury, M. Paine, E. Smith, M. Tootill.

Voting members absent: N. Baran, E. Rager, X. Zhao

Susan Riley, Associate Director of Residential Programs, and Linda Majani, Graduate Residence Manager, introduced themselves and said they dealt with programming for Hasbrook, Hughes, and Thurston, which are housing options for graduate and professional students.

2. Graduate Student Mental Health Update (R.16), (R. Robbins), 20 min.

R. Robbins said she was the chair of the Student Advocacy Committee last year. Last year, the committee hosted a town hall meeting and conducted surveys during GPSA meetings and then determined the biggest issues facing graduate students. Lack of structure, financial and academic pressures, less attention from administration, and low numbers of students attending counseling were stated to be prominent concerns. In their survey, 76 percent of respondents reported mental health to be of central concern. In order to relax, 57 percent of respondents owned a gym pass.

To address the concerns in the survey, the Advocacy Committee organized a “Graduate & Professional Dine & Discuss” at the Big Red Barn. Vice President for Student and Academic Services, Susan Murphy, came and spoke about the mental health wheel. Afterward, participants broke out into discussion groups. The discussion prompts included “how do you manage stress?” “what are obstacles to mental health”, etc.

The final product of the dine and discuss was GPSA Resolution 16, introduced last spring. The goals of this resolution were 1) to make preventative health behaviors more accessible; 2) education on graduate school; 3) promote use of health resources and; 4) collect more, better data. There is currently a lot of work being done on this resolution by the administration because mental health is a very important issue at Cornell.

E. Newbury asked if alternative ways of making preventative health behaviors more accessible are being developed by the administration.

E. Cortens said that more and better gym facilities have been discussed in the past and continues to be a subject of debate.

E. Newbury said she understands the gym aspect, but she was wondering about other options for preventative healthcare.

R. Robbins said their list focused mainly on exercise options. On gaining more and better options to gyms. There is also nutritional counseling available at Gannett.

T. Gandhi asked how the graduate student activity fee would increase if graduate students were to pay for their gym memberships through the activity fee.

R. Robbins said this issue will be addressed next year when the activity fee is set once again.

B. Kreuser said that many administrators are willing to push for change in the graduate student gym issue.

M. Holden asked about any recent discussion on fitness centers closing too early for graduate students’ schedules.

R. Robbins said gyms like Teagle have very flexible schedules, but the Advovacy Committee is still working to make sure that fitness centers accomodate graduate schedules as well as possible.

3. Ithaca Campus Space Utilization Study, 20 min.

Mary-Lynn Cummings, the Director of Space Planning, said she has been working on a space study for Cornell’s campus. Cornell worked with Bain Consulting in order to determine the status of Cornell’s use of space. So far, they have found that Cornell probably has enough space for its future needs. The study has been ongoing for the past few years and the consulting process is expected to be finished in June 2013. The approach to the study is to use peer benchmarks to determine how much space future facilities should take up. One of the scopes of the study is to evaluate the designated space (e.g., office, lounge) for graduate & professional students within acadmic program space. In order to solve some of these problems, she suggested hosting focus group sessions with graduate and professional students. This space study is under the oversight of the Space Use Advisory Committee. Contact cummings@cornell.edu for more information on the study.

A. Moore asked if the study is also taking into account things like climate control in air conditioning.

Cummings said that these types of issues are being discussed and she would like to discuss more important issues like this in focus groups with the graduate and professional community.

E. Newbury asked how the Space Use Advisory Committee would determine the sampling for focus groups.

Cummings said they would like to have a large population in the groups, but they haven’t decided on the format of focus groups yet.

II. Approval of the Minutes 1. September 10th, 2012, 1 min.

The minutes were approved with no dissent.

III. Reports of Officers and Standing Committees, 15 min.

1. Executive Committee

a) Ad hoc committee on the GCI Progress Report/Update (M. Paine)

M. Paine said the GCI Ad Hoc Committee will be meeting every other Monday evening at 5:30, place TBD. They would like to conduct research throughout the fall semester, then conduct town halls meetings in the fall, and write topic area reports in the spring. They plan on presenting at the Board of Trustees Meeting at the end of March. If a budget is passed for this group, food will be provided at meetings.

b) Committee Staffing (E. Smith)

E. Smith said the staffing committee filled most of their seats. 76 of 91 seats have been filled so far, but they are still working to make sure all of the seats are filled.

2. Appropriations (B. Kreuser)

B. Kreuser thanked everyone for passing the budget at the last meeting.

3. Communications (M. Cerroni)

4. Finance Commission (V. Pagay)

V. Pagay asked for special budget request applications to be submitted by Friday at 4:30pm. Allocation decisions will be announced next week.

5. Graduate & Professional Student Programming Board (K. Roosa & G. Danies Turano)

G. Danies Turano said they will discuss their charter next week.

6. Student Advocacy (Y. Izrayelit).

Y. Izrayelit said the first meeting has been rescheduled for next week.

IV. New Business

1. Resolution 4, Graduate Student Dining Options (M. Holden), 10 min.

M. Holden said this resolution outlines the inequalities in dining options for graduate students as compared to the options for undergraduates, faculty and staff. The resolution states the GPSA’s support for changes in the dining plan options for graduate students.

The amendment was passed by a vote of 14–0.

2. Resolution 5, Budget for GCI Ad hoc committee (M. Paine), 10 min.

M. Paine said the GCI Ad Hoc Committee requests a budget of $1000 out of the GPSA’s cash rollover in order to recruit members for the committee. This breaks down as $150 for food for five town hall meetings to discuss GCI issues and $250 for food for meetings.

E. Newbury asked if $150 is a sufficient quantity for food for the town hall meetings. She proposed amending the resoluton to $200 for food for each town hall meeting. The total budget request would then be $1250.

The amendment was seconded.

Y. Izrayelit said $150 does seem like it is on the low side, but no one knows for sure how many people will attend these meetings. So it might be better to err on the side of a little more.

M. Holden asked about advertising costs for the town hall meetings. He proposed including more money in the budget for advertising.

B. Kreuser suggested voting on the amendment and resolution and if more money is needed in the future, the GPSA could create a new resolution.

The amendment was passed by a vote of 13–0.

The resolution was passed by a vote of 13–0.

3. Initial presentation of Resolution 6, Changes to the GPSAFC Funding Appeals Process (V.

Pagay), 5 min.

V. Pagay said there are a number of groups who wanted to appeal their funding applications this year. The appeals process is something that wasn’t available on the GPSAFC website. Over the last five or so years, people were discouraged to appeal. The purpose of this resolution is to change the GPSAFC funding appeals process.

There was a motion to extend the meeting for five minutes. The motion passed.

V. Open Forum, 8 min.

1. Student Union Board (SUB) & the Bears Den (L. Ritter), 5 min.

This presentation will be made at the next GPSA meeting.

There was a motion to adjourn the meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:04 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Allison Bazinet