GPSA Student Advocacy Committee

In Attendance

• Brian Forster, Chair, GPSA Student Advocacy Committee
• Briony Horgan, Student Advocacy Committee Member
• Jay Worley, Student Advocacy Committee Member
• Melissa Hardstone, Transportation Advisory Committee Member
• Mario Roman, Student Advocacy Committee Member / President’s Council on Alcohol and other Drugs
• Betsy Romero, Student Advocacy Committee Member / President’s Council on Mental Health & Welfare
• Kate Capossela, Chair, GPSA Events Committee

Meeting began at 5:40pm

Committee Business

Finalized Budget: B. Forster reported that the committee final budget is as follows:

Working Procedure for Student Advocacy Committee:

The committee went through the Working Procedure which B. Forster will be presenting the voting assembly of the GPSA on January 26th. No corrections were stated at the meeting. (Following the meeting, J. Worley presented grammatical changes to the working procedure which B. Forster made before submitting to the Office of Assemblies).

R.5: Charter Changes Re: Student Advocacy:

The committee went through Resolution R.5, which requests charter changes regarding the GPSA Charter. By R.8 of last year, the committee must present this resolution on January 26th to the GPSA voting assembly. B. Forster explained that we were adding a paragraph to the charter, explaining how the group membership is defined and what committee representatives become ex-officio advocacy committee members. J. Worley requested an addendum to R.5, stating that we should indicate that monthly meetings are to be held during the academic year. Therefore, the following change was made to R.5 prior to submission to the Office of Assemblies: “�shall meet at least once a month during the academic year�”

Old Business

Contact Sheet:

B. Forster and B. Horgan met with in November with Deans Brenda Wickes and Terry Plater of the graduate school to go through the Student Advocacy Committee’s contact sheet. B. Horgan made all the corrections. As of right now, B. Forster is trying to work with the Office of Assemblies to have an HTML version of the Contact Sheet posted on the Assemblies website, so it can distributed to the graduate and professional student community. Once it is posted online, the link will be distributed to the Council of Representatives (CoR) and Assembly members.

Health Care & Insurance:

Andrew Davis and B. Horgan met with Sharon Dittman (Gannett Associate Director for Community Relations, Health Promotion Coordinator) in November to discuss the Geneva situation, which B. Horgan believed it is on its way to being fixed. SAGES has put up a section of their website devoted to health care which Gannett is currently reviewing. Currently, the Student Advocacy Committee members with S. Dittman are trying to make sure faculty and departments are aware of health care insurance and options for Geneva students. They are still working on modifying all of Gannett’s publications.

(Note: At this 1/19/09 meeting, the committee discussed R.6, a resolution on bike safety and R.7, a resolution on mental health care- both of which were to be presented at the Jan. 26th GPSA meeting. However, due to a long agenda for the Jan. 26th meeting, the bike resolution will not be presented until Feb. Therefore, the resolution titles were changed on 1/22/09: R.6 became the resolution on mental health care and R.7 became a resolution on bike safety).

Transportation Committee:

M. Hardstone reported that the next meeting of the Transportation Advisory Committee would be held on January 23rd, 2009, which will be again be discussing bicycle issues. M. Hardstone then presented R.6: Regarding Bicycle Safety on the Cornell University Campus in Ithaca. She briefly explained that this was a summary in that Student Advocacy Committee was backing up the Transportation Advisory Committee in their efforts along with the university to improve bike safety & access on the campus. B. Forster informed the committee that Michelle Leinfelder, GPSA President, had a comment on the resolution, which the committee discussed. M. Leinfelder asked for clarification on the statement “�continue promoting bike usage and to continue discussing ways of improving bicycle access �” Both M. Hardstone and Student Advocacy Committee listed several examples on how we could expand that statement. As a result, the following statement on R.6 was altered to say: “�continue discussing ways of improving bicycle access, including: (a) increasing the number of bike racks available on campus, (b) ensuring bike racks are protected from the elements of weather, © increase bike lanes on campus, (d) improve lighting on roadways, (e) investigate the development of a bike-share program�”

Mental Health:

B. Horgan and B. Romero presented their resolution, R.7: Regarding the Mental Services for Graduates. The first draft was read in its entirety. The committee then went back and discussed each “whereas” statement and “be it therefore resolved” statement. Some of the topics discussed and was edited into the resolution: (a) definition of split-care, (b) stating that the whereas clauses discuss non-emergency mental health care, © including statements regarding the Empathy, Assistance & Referral Service (EARS- via the Office of the Dean of Students), (d) discussion on who should be members of the “Working Group on Graduate and Professional Student Mental Health and Welfare” (the group that R.7 calls for) and (e) the timeline of when the committee should be formed and when the first meeting must be held by. B. Horgan said she would work on the final draft taking the committee’s comments and resend it out to everyone. B. Forster said once the final draft was ready, he would submit all the resolutions together to the Office of Assemblies.

Mental Health & Alcohol & Other Drugs Appointments: B. Forster asked M. Roman if he wanted to serve on the Working Group on Graduate and Professional Student Mental Health and Welfare with B. Romero. He agreed. M. Roman did go on to say that he wanted to work only on 1 committee, and not continue with President’s Council on Alcohol and other Drugs. J. Worley agreed to take M. Roman’s spot on that council. B. Forster said he would check with Deondra Rose, Vice President of Operations, and the GPSA Operations & Staffing committee to see if the change in committee appointments could be made.

New Business

SAGES Visit:

B. Forster announced that he would like to see Student Advocacy Committee host the officers of SAGES in late April? SAGES would come to TGIF and then members Student Advocacy Committee would take them out to dinner. B. Forster said he would inquire with the GPSA how he can apply for funding for such an event (i.e. “special project” request). Members of Student Advocacy Committee seemed to agree that this was a nice idea.

Town-Hall Meeting:

The remainder of the meeting was devoted to brain storming ideas for how to host a Town Hall Meeting. Student Advocacy Committee decided to host this town hall meeting back in November’s meeting. Issues discussed include:

When?

Possibilities were late February or March. Discussion was held as to whether it should be during a TGIF event (where most of the grads/professional students would be) or some other night. It was decided it would be better to make it The committee seemed to agree that late March would be better (more time to plan, prepare, announce, etc�). A tentative date of Thursday, March 26th was set.

Where?

The Big Red Barn was decided since renting the barn is free, as long as the event is open up to the entire community (which in this case, will be)

How Long & Format?

It was decided to go no more than 2 hours. K. Capossela suggested that instead of doing a town-hall meeting, where people would have to sit through topics that they may not be interested in, perhaps Student Advocacy Committee could run it more as an open forum, with different tables covering different topics, each being staffed by Student Advocacy Committee members. The committee believed this to be an excellent format. To decide on what topics to focus on, K. Capossela suggested that a survey go out ahead of time. M. Hardstone agreed to set up the survey. B. Forster said that he was the person writing the Feb. 1st GPSA-INFO and could easily add the link to the message. All Student Advocacy Committee members were asked to provide questions for M. Hardstone’s survey. This survey is scheduled to be sent via GPSA-INFO for Feb 1st.

Food?

Catering (both from on-campus dining services and off campus services was discussed). The committee also discussed the possibility of alcohol being served at this event as well.

Advertisement?

K. Capossela and her GPSA Events committee are administrators for the Cornell graduate and professional student group on Facebook. She offered to post our announcements for us. J. Worley agreed to edit the posters, which would then be sent out via the GPSA Communications committee and the GPSA-INFO. Copies would also be distributed to all CoR and assembly members. Each member of advocacy (either at the meeting or afterward) signed up to poster a different part of campus in addition to just giving it out to the CoR. B. Forster will resend out an email with everyone’s campus location.

In summary:

in preparation of the town hall meeting, each person agreed to take on different responsibilities, as shown below. Everyone was asked to look into these things so they can be discussed at February’s meeting.

• Jay Worley
  • Redo the poster announcement for town-hall meeting
• Mario Roman
  • Help analyze results of survey
• Melissa Hardstone
  • Set up survey using everyone’s questions
• Martha Wilfahrt (decided after meeting was held)
  • Help analyze results of survey
• Betsy Romero
  • Food/Drinks
• Kate Capossela
  • Announcements through Facebook
• Brian Forster
  • Schedule the Barn
  • Send out survey via GPSA-INFO
  • Announcements thru GPSA-INFO
  • Send poster to all CoR and Assembly Members
  • Announcement on GPSA Advocacy Website

Meeting adjourned at 7:00pm.

Respectively Submitted,

GPSA Student Advocacy Committee
2008–2009