MINUTES
Graduate & Professional Student Assembly
GPSA Discussion Meeting
Monday, November 26th, 2012
Bache Auditorium, Malott Hall
5:30–7:00 P.M.

I. Welcome and Introductions

M. Paine called the meeting to order at 5:32 pm.

1. Introduction of voting members, 1 min.

Voting members present:

N. Baran, A. Black, G. Danies Turano, J. Drewes, M. Dumas, A. Enders, T. Gandhi, J. Hill, M. Holden, W. Kreuser, H. Liu, E. Newbury, M. Paine, E. Smith, M. Tootill, X. Zhao

Voting members absent: A. Moore, R. Moore, E. Rager

Non-voting members present: E. Cortens, D. Evensen, K. Hubbell

II. Guests, 45 min.

1. David Skorton, President

2. Susan Murphy, Vice President for Student and Academic Services

President Skorton thanked the GPSA for their efforts throughout the semester and stressed the importance of the administration’s continued collaboration with them.

T. Gandhi asked how the administration is addressing structural and normative issues for graduate students. There have been many issues in her department with students having to leave because their spouses couldn’t find jobs.

President Skorton said there have been many issues with dual-career families. There is no easy answer to solving these issues. In order to increase diversity, the administration is trying a new tactic. Instead of having one chief diversity officer for the university, this task will be distributed among all of the major university leadership. Everyone is accountable for the diversity goals of the university. One of the goals of this process is making sure that all members of dual-career families feel like they are succeeding on our campus. Because of fiscal realities, students often have to leave Cornell, but the administration is working to make sure that people are held accountable for supporting graduate diversity on campus.

C. Morris asked about career needs for the growing graduate student population. Is Cornell planning on addressing other career needs other than careers in academia?

President Skorton said he doesn’t think there has been a university-wide decree to increase these programs.

S. Murphy said that an increase in those types of programs has occurred in several departments, but not uniformly university-wide. Career services is trying to be attentive to this issue by increasing professional programs. They are trying to make graduate students know that programs such as career fairs exist for not only undergraduates, but graduate and professional students as well.

R. Moore said the Cornell Board of Trustees is now considering MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). What direction is Cornell heading on these?

President Skorton said it is too soon to tell, but he thinks that Cornell shouldn’t go too far in the MOOC direction. In terms of transfer of information, it is obviously a much more efficient way of doing things. He thinks that these decisions should fall to the departments. Email him at david.skorton@cornell.edu to add your input to this decision-making process. Students know much more about the capabilities and technology that would make MOOCs effective.

M. Holden asked if Willard Straight Hall is shifting its focus from a student union for all students to a more undergraduate-focused building. What is the big plan for graduate student space? Is it to move graduate programming more in the direction of the Big Red Barn?

S. Murphy said the closing of the ceramic studio in Willard Straight Hall was due to not enough student demand for such a large amount of space. However, the newly created Garden Room is available to both undergrads and graduate students for programming. The Bears Den will hopefully be a university-wide space as well. While the Straight tends to be viewed as an undergraduate-oriented building, it is intended to be used by everyone on campus. The vision of the master plan is to create a graduate student center on campus, but this will not be completed in the foreseeable future.

Dean Hubbell said the Straight is a place for graduates and undergraduates alike and he urges graduate students to go there and interact with the undergraduate population more often. The Concert Commission is gearing up to put on small shows in the Bears Den, making that space more welcoming for all students. The GPSA should get involved with the Student Union Board and represent itself aggressively in Willard Straight activities.

W. Kreuser asked how the administration feels about Slope Day.

S. Murphy said Slope Day is viewed as an end of year celebration for all students. It has a long history. She has worked for many years to make the event much safer than in the past and the administration is in a constant dialogue with students about how big Slope Day should get. She thinks it is at its upper limit at this time.

Y. Izrayelit asked about the administration’s vision for creating a sense of community for graduate and professional students on campus.

President Skorton said this is a challenge because, by definition, graduate students are more isolated than undergraduate students. It is important to have a central space for graduate students to gather together. However, due to economic issues, we have to concentrate on the best way to utilize the spaces that we currently have. He thinks it is important for shared governance for students to make sure their voices are being heard. The social scene is also very important for students to feel as if they are members of a community.

M. Dumas asked how graduate students play a part of the university’s overall strategy involving the tech campus in NYC.

President Skorton said the first matriculants in the masters in engineering program will be starting in January and the GPSA will have to represent these students as well. Whatever way the GPSA sees fit to interact with these students will be a great step.

S. Murphy said there would be a natural discussion between students studying at the Tech Campus and those studying on the main campus because there is an overlap of studies. For example, there are people studying computer science in NYC and in Ithaca.

E. Cortens asked about Cornell’s new budget model to make units more accountable and transparent. This budget model hasn’t been rolled out yet, but what kind of effect will this new model have on graduate students?

President Skorton said the new budget model is a method of responsibility-centered budgeting. It is a bit too early to know what the effect of this new model will be, but this will be a good issue for the Provost to come speak to the GPSA about. There is no single answer to how this model will effect various departments.

S. Murphy said the revenue streams coming in to different colleges and departments are rather different so there are multiple answers to this question. The administration needs to see how revenue and the budget align, but they also need to make sure that the university’s goals are being followed.

M. Paine asked what President Skorton and VP Murphy would like their legacies to be.

President Skorton said he would like his legacy to be an increase in student access to education because he himself was a first generation college student.

VP Murphy said she hoped her legacy would be that she made a difference in the quality of the educational experience at Cornell.

President Skorton said he recently attended an alumni event in Mumbai, India and it reminded him of the amazing international Cornell network that exists, in large part due to the vast number of graduate students from other countries and he thanked GPSA members for their efforts in improving the graduate and professional community at Cornell.

III. Reports of Officers and Standing Committee, 10 min.

E. Smith said there are still some slots available on committees for those interested in getting more involved with the GPSA.

1. Executive Committee (M. Paine)

M. Paine said the GCI Ad hoc Committee meets every other week. They have been focusing their discussions on 8 topic areas:

� Graduate community center � Career resources � Sense of community � Transportation � Housing � Diversity and International Students � Mental and Physical Health � Family Services

They have also been working to obtain input from the graduate community at GPSA meetings and at the recently held Town Hall Meeting. There is also an event tomorrow night at Hasbrouck Apartments to talk about family services. T he committee has also worked with administrators and will complete a final report by March. Everyone should get involved and join the committee and read over the documents related to GCI issues.

M. Paine then talked about how the GPSA has been operating this semester. He and some other voting members recently convened and discussed how only a few people have put forth resolutions thus far. They would love to have more resolutions from other members. Additionally, there hasn’t been much discussion of resolutions. People should feel that resolutions should be discussed in full.

N. Baran said people should feel comfortable offering amendments and voting however they want on a resolution. She has offered her services for those who would like resolution writing help.

2. Appropriations (W. Kreuser)

W. Kreuser asked whether people would be more likely to buy a bus pass if it cost much less, as in around $50 per person.

E. Cortens asked how much the activity fee would increase.

W. Kreuser said the activity fee would increase about $50.

3. Finance Commission (V. Pagay)

V. Pagay asked for funding requests to be submitted by Friday.

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

G. Danies Turano said the Programming Board will be hosting a Speed Friending Event on Wednesday at 7:00 pm in the Big Red Barn. Spread the word about this fun event. On Saturday, there will be a free Zumba class for graduate students at RPCC as well.

5. Student Advocacy (Y. Izrayelit)

Y. Izrayelit said there will be one more meeting this semester, so those interested in joining should come attend.

6. Award Committee (P. Mahanti)

P. Mahanti described how last year, the Award Committee created the criteria for nominations: “advising, mentoring, professional development, collegiality, leadership, responsiveness, teaching, and pedagogy development.” There were 25 nominees last year from various fields across campus and more than 100 pages of nominations.

The committee will be formed by early February 2013. They will invite nominations in March and will review the nominations and select award recipients in April. The award ceremony will be held in May.

IV. Approval of the Minutes

1. November 12th, 2012, 1 min.

The minutes were approved without dissent.

V. New Business

1. Resolution 11, A Resolution Calling Upon the US Congress to Support Higher Education

Funding (M. Paine), 15 min.

M. Paine said the Budget Control Act of 2011 put into place some automatic spending caps on federal programs. If Congress does not approve a budget by January, automatic cuts will occur across the board to every agency with few exceptions. If cuts happen, they will significantly affect Cornell’s federal funding. Resolution 11 is a policy statement against budget sequestration. The resolution describes how its co-sponsors will be traveling to Washington, D.C. next weekend to speak with legislators in order to prevent budget sequestration from occurring.

There were some minor grammatical amendments added to the resolution. These amendments were passed without dissent.

E. Cortens said the federal government does not heavily fund the humanities. Congress may attempt to cut the small amounts of funding given to the humanities. Therefore, we should call on Congress to maintain this funding at the very least and perhaps even increase this budget.

T. Snider said it would be a good idea to distribute information about budget sequestration and the efforts of the GPSA on this matter so that GPSA members can raise awareness among their friends and families at Cornell and elsewhere. That way, GPSA members can also use social media and word of mouth to get this information out.

E. Newbury said the best way to help this effort is for graduate students to actually call their Congressmen and women.

The resolution passed by a vote of 16–0.

2. Resolution 12, A Resolution to Amend the GPSA Charter to Ensure Representation of

Students at Cornell NYC Tech and Geneva Campuses (N. Baran), 15 min. N. Baran said this resolution is an amendment to the charter, so it will be voted on at the first meeting of the new semester on January 21st. While graduate students at the new Tech Campus will be represented officially by the representatives from their fields in the GPSA, there are specific needs for Tech Campus students that should also be represented in the GPSA. The same goes for students at the Geneva campus. The issue with creating an additional representative position for other Cornell campuses is that these additional positions create double representation.

D. Evensen said he presided over the GPSA when the GPSA voted down the creation of a Geneva field representative. However, there are other representational disparities in the GPSA and so it doesn’t make sense to take issue with these positions causing double representation. Rather, the vastly different circumstances of the Geneva and Tech campuses makes it necessary that they should each have their own, campus-specific representative in the GPSA.

There was a motion to extend the meeting by 10 minutes. This motion was seconded without dissent.

T. Gandhi asked whether the Tech campus and Geneva campus would send representatives to Ithaca every other week? How would this work logistically?

M. Paine said the GPSA would likely use Skype or similar technology to include these field representatives.

E. Smith said he is a Geneva student and he has been their unofficial representative for the past few years. Typically, students live in Ithaca for their first few years and then will move to Geneva. These students still pay the student activity fee although they don’t have access to functions funded by the fee. Due to issues like these, he strongly supports this resolution.

M. Holden said it would be good to establish what constitutes a Geneva representative because many of them take classes in Ithaca and conduct research in Geneva.

S. Masiello said she doesn’t view the creation of new field representatives as an issue of double representation because the Geneva campus food science students have a much different experience than she has had in Ithaca and require their own representation.

Y. Izrayelit wondered whether the GPSA should begin to discuss unique student experiences on campus and students that don’t receive adequate representation within the GPSA.

W. Kreuser said he doesn’t agree with some of the language about the attendance requirements of the proposed field representatives, but this language can be discussed further at the next meeting.

M. Paine said there have been suggestions to reach out to the Weill Cornell Medical School campus. However, these efforts have not been fully realized. This should be addressed in an additional, future resolution.

R. Moore said there are lots of recommendations for further resolutions, but he thinks it might be best to incorporate all of these into a single resolution.

A representative wondered whether field representatives are the best way to incorporate the other campuses into the GPSA because the GPSA frequently focuses on Ithaca-centric issues.

E. Smith said it is very much worth his time to attend GPSA meetings even though many issues discussed are indeed Ithaca-centric. However, the GPSA deals with the student activity fee that all Cornell students are required to pay, regardless of which campus they are from.

VI. Open Forum, 3 min

Dean Hubbell wondered whether the GPSA would like to contribute their recommendations to a committee on improving campus safety. The GPSA may like to add these recommendations to the list of items they are concentrating on in the GCI.

M. Paine adjourned the meeting at 7:16 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Allison Bazinet