GPSA Operations and Staffing Committee

Minutes
GPSA Operations & Staffing Committee — Charter Review Meeting # 1
November 8, 2010 — Big Red Barn

Attendance: Tom Balcerski (chair); Kyle Albert (Appropriations); Christopher Clarke (GPSAFC); Steven An (Communications); Nicole Baran (Events); Garance Choko (Student Advocacy); Cresten Mansfeldt (Ex-officio); Brian Forster (Ex-officio); Ben Heavner; Chris Heckman; Rebecca Darling; Mary Ann Krisa; Perla Parra; Toniqua Hay; Jolyon Bloomfield; Andrew Curley; Mike Walsh

The meeting was convened at 5:30 pm by the chair. Attendance was taken via a sign-in sheet (see above).

Introduction by Chair: the 5 voting members from the standing committee were asked to identify themselves; all persons present were given 3 minutes to speak; the voting members of the committee were given the first opportunity to speak.

Voting Members of the Committee:

Chris Clarke, Finance Commission (Voting Member, representing GPSAFC): Part of a working group to look at the charter of the GPSA; non-voting members involvement into the GPSA; integration of discussion body and voting body; charter relates to members and their responsibilities; enshrining the role of bodies

Steve An, Communications Committee (Voting member, representing Communications): How to get voting body and non-voting body involved; legitimacy in eyes of the administration; issues of size of the voting body; election of the voting body; focus: encourage consistency over the years; leadership changes year to year�what happens when leadership changes?

Nicole Baran, Events Committee (Voting Member): Member of the Working Group; see above; also, many non-controversial changes to make to clarify roles and expectations of members; regardless of structural changes.

Kyle Albert, Appropriations Committee (Voting Member): Why do we have the two chamber system? Gets in the way of representing students’ voices; larger body the way to go; not a very activist body compared to other student governments; how can we engage students more; possible recruitment of new members process; more direct e-mailing necessary, could eliminate need for some of the advisory body�direct communication; malleable

Garance Choko, Student Advocacy Committee (Voting Member): Adequate representation of every group at Cornell, minority and racial groups; various graduate students represented (�.); to ensure representation; possibility of adding a representative seat for each minority group and adding a voting seat for each group.

Non-voting members of the Committee

Rebecca Darling, CIPA, LGBTQ, GPSA Non-voting member: Excited and impressed by LGBTQ representation on campus; often under-represented or ignored by campus governance; often unseen, affiliations often go to other identifiers (the forgotten minority); voting position needed for organizations like the GPSA; lend important perspective to GPSA

Toniqua Hay, Advocacy Committee, BGPSA: Support a voting seat for representation on the committee; smaller numbers of population to general representative body; need representation on GPSA

Mary Ann Kris, Graduate Residence Manager for Hasbrouck, Hughes, and Thurston: Alum of Cornell University; desire to help students and family members; representing students with voices not heard

Perla Parra, Latino Graduate Student Coalition: Support representation for minorities on the GPSA; needs addressed under the various fields are different from those represented by minorities

Joylan Bloomfield, Physics Field Representative: Irony of using non-voting body as messengers; communication could be done much better; field representatives could be better utilized; trying to get involved, not feeling empowered by what is availability; Sustainability aspect of the GPSA

Ari Epstein, Assistant Director Office of Assemblies: Provides record keeping; interested in having processes that are easy to understand and follow; how to create processes that will be easy to maintain over time; are the most efficient ways to achieve a goal; various ways exist to represent various interests; frequent proposals in each of the Assemblies seem to crop up every few years; can we use existing frameworks where possible?

Ben Heavner, Voting Representative from Physical Sciences: Curmudgeon! Working Group: very active and new GPSA members who were fighting the two-body structure of the GPSA; habits and practices not part of the Charter; problems with the GPSA may differ from the Charter; diversity issues may be a problem of the charter or the outreach of the committees; representation does exist; outreach issues; lots of opportunities exist for dealing with problems that may not be Charter problems; leadership issues and training

Cresten Mansfeldt, President GPSA: Been involved on the GPSA for 4 years; implantation guy for the Charter; many ideas would be impossible to implement; some problems with existing Charter; specifying roles and responsibilities of specific Chairs

Christoffer Heckmann, Physical Sciences Voting Member: Likes to see what is going on in the GPSA; all voting members need to vote on this; ideologies of change: counter-weight against quick action and against overhauling action; bigger action, more justification required; happy to be here and play Devil’s advocate; takes word to convince

Andrew Curley, Secretary IGSA: Support initiative to diversify membership of the Graduate Student Assembly; working group met weeks ago to talk about issues; wants more structural ways to diversify graduate student body

Mike Walsh, University Assembly Representative: 6 years involved in the GPSA! VP of the GPSA; Student-elected Trustee; GPSA is charged directly by the President and Board of Trustees: 1) represent the needs and desires of Graduate Student body at Ithaca and Geneva and represent them to the administration; 2) set and distribute the Student Activity Fee; 3) “take care of its own House”, to write the rules of its own body; maintaining organizational structure; body should focus on 1 and 2 during the discussions.

Clarifying questions and Discussion:

Ben: appreciate issue of diversity: what are the existing structural limitations in the Charter? Currently, seats are available to everyone. Garance: Working Group met. Academic field representatives. Only academic affairs does not allow proper representation of Cornell body and population. Normal to have “minority member” in Executive Committee; different from ensuring interests of entire student body at Cornell; initiatives at Cornell, yes; to address in direct way, want to seat each American minority group; maybe we can inspire ourselves from the undergraduate Student Assembly minority group (LGBT and International students); Rebecca: lack of restrictions does not equal an enabling environment; very difficult to break into something like this if already disenfranchised; appreciation that organization does not change Charter willy-nilly; already need to prove why changes need to be changed. Ari: we need concrete issues to address; similar changes coming up every few years? Mike Walsh: I have been here 6 years; we do catch things!; First time minority student representation? In 2005, and historically, GPSA used to shy away from making seats available based on “identification”, allocated instead on the line of university demarcation, i.e., academic fields. “covered already” by field; masters seats necessary for voting members; this was considered in a previous charter change; masters’ students: undergraduates go by college; freshmen cannot vote in the spring; same idea for Masters of Engineering students; might not be able to vote for representative fields; comment: “minority” may be an amalgamated term, may not be satisfactory to all “minority” students; can think more creatively beyond what the university dictates down to the graduate students (is there a “natural community” among the fields?)�maybe “minority” representation in this assembly might be more representative within this assembly; minority groups are not affected in the same way by the priorities of the GPSA; interest within these groups to have purposeful representation because of the many ways they may be represented within; Perla: How does a white male in the GPSA represent needs of Latinas?; Mike: Historical member; representing a diverse community has been very enriching; student-elected trustee needs to keep needs and desires of every student; Cresten: what role do the different diversity organizations want within with the GPSA (standing student advocacy committee seat would be more appropriate?)�direct link into a powerful organization; remember, SAC is a fairly new committee; may be empowering to SAC chair to have a dialogue; Chris: Working Group�how does the GPSA allocate seats? Currently, by “area”, is there another way to allocate the seats available; 19 spots all filled; voting council could be expanded in this respect; is super-field represented? Garance: minorities have been involved; leadership may be changed; a need, an interest (and a lack) for involvement; speaks for itself; if she had not invited these folks�would white males be deciding the future of the charter of Cornell (and one female); we cannot say we are represented; needs to change; needs to have it in the organization;

Brian Forster, Counsel to the GPSA, VP-O last year: Wants to know the fields each member�why don’t we become the CIPA representative? May have nothing to do with the field and organization. “Just because” a member is in field, should the person go to some other field. No graduate or professional student is represented as a member of an organization; minority students may be represented by field; Jolyon has represented Physics, but has not brought issues of Physics to the GPSA;

Chair closes conversation on this issue and moves the conversation to the question of the structure of the bodies

Chris: Voting Council is not in the Charter; voting members and non-voting members in the GPSA; the two bodies may not be interacting as much; what can be done inside and outside of the Charter; Mike: the GPSA since 1993 to 2008, operated under a quasi bi-cameral relationship; confusing relationship between the two bodies; elimination of the distinction of the two bodies; every person who is an elected member is now a member of the GPSA; two levels of membership, voting members and non-voting members; since then: requirements for the GPSA is to be involved in the process, to be on committees, to be a part of the process, either of the GPSA or the University as a whole; could/should be requirement of an elected member of the field, at least an expectation of membership; non-voting membership does the important step of the voting members; establishes who is going to be the leadership, who is going to take the time to learn the issues; Cresten: institutional knowledge may be fighting against us; in last Charter review process; description of voting and non-voting is itself a huge compromise; maybe there is some other descriptor involved; Ari: Mike provides a good historical perspective; the GPSA still has the same structure that it had in 1993; assembly a fairly small body (19 voting members) which does all the business of the GPSA; larger body of field representatives; non-voting members are also important to the process; different from the other assemblies because the other assemblies have direct elections (but it works pretty well); historically, GPSA vs. CoR was a structure that needed to be changed; other charter review processes for the other assemblies is going on; nature of representation in the University; try to find people representing every interest; blind spots exist in this system; Tommy Bruce says, people in the agency don’t know everything they need to know; the way they get informed is not by expanding their membership but by notifying interested parties through open hearing or written comments submitted; not enough emphasis on notice and hearing process; the GPSA may be faulty in this regard, though better than other assemblies�we should get to a place where public notice could go out to the graduate student community; GPSA not alone in doing Town Hall meetings; Kyle: question of non-voting members, still have not heard a good answer to what we gain by not having them vote; don’t feel that having a larger body would be hindered; Nicole: the chicken and the egg problem, the cost of people voting in a larger body is that people need to be informed how to vote; smaller voting body better guarantees more informed voting population; a legitimate risk; what about field reps who are not engaged in the business meetings?; Chris: small handful of people have tried to be involved and do not get elected; most do, few don’t; not convinced by expanding the electorate will solve the problem favorably; smaller steps towards the right direction; Steve: leaning towards the direction Ari pointed to; codifying the process of meeting with fields etc.; Chris: R.16 from last year; ended up tabling; there is a gradient of involvement in this process; Working Group has a flow-chart for a proposed discussion body in the GPSA; not every grad and prof student can have a vote; Ben: field system has concerns; roles of officers; Mike: emphasis on the question of the vote; GPSA has worked well when emphasis is put on discussion and consensus rather the act of voting; Janet was a great leader in the old days; GCI; never formally voted upon by the GPSA; consensus worked; should be mentality going forward; yes, we need some experienced people in place who understand the process for the various administrative duties assigned to it; but, as a body, ALL PEOPLE welcomed and part of the process, we are one of the most respected voices at CU; one of the more diverse bodies at Cornell; Garance: joined the GPSA for significance it has; in the realm of potential improvements; new paradigm and new solution could be improved; no clue/no desire to be a part of the GPSA; need to be forced part of their administration to be a part of it; extending the vote to attract more people; understands the possibility of extending of the vote.

Chair: members must read assigned documents, including Constitution, By-Laws, and FC documents (and meeting minutes)

Closing Comments by Voting Members of the Committee:

Nicole: No comment Steve: Heated debate has been great; lots of ideas Chris: Thanks the chair; what language can we use; the FC documents are up for grabs Kyle: Diversity issue had not been thought of before; glad it was brought up today; agrees something could be done there; struggling with the field structure system; “can of worms” vs. discussion worth happening; not an activist body (compared to other student governments); need more people involved to become more activist Garance: Very interesting meeting; diversity issue has been brought up!; new and fresh ideas to improve the GPSA to make it a more dynamic and up to date body; adding more seats, not a redesign; looking forward to more dialogue

Closing Comments by Non-voting Members of the Committee:

Jolyon: Consensus vs. vote; the power of the GPSA could be dispensed from some voting bodies into the form of committees Cresten: Exec. Committee looking for ways to improve Toniqua: Reiterate consideration to include structures in [diversity groups] areas Diversity on the GPSA speaks to the larger issues; crisis of legitimacy for minority students and all other fields; is representation representative? Ari: Diversity�a huge issue, very challenging and frustrating at every level; how to better issues of diversity in the university; everyone needs to see themselves as concerned with diversity; SA approach the model? Make sure to look out how it played out! Take a closer look at the model

Next meeting of the committee: Monday, December 6, 5:30 — 7:00 pm, Big Red Barn Greenhouse.

Meeting adjourned at 7:00 pm.