GSG - Assembly - Minutes 2.11.2004

Minutes

I. Call to Order, Introductions, and Approval of Minutes

The Graduate Student Government held its regular monthly Assembly meeting on February 11, 2004, at Frist 309. Chair Leslie Medema called the meeting to order at about 6:08pm.

Nicole Esparza introduced one new Representative: Basak Surmeli (CHM).

Recording Secretary João Pedro Boavida proceeded to the minutes. He stated Jack Tinsley had proposed a minor correction, which he described. Sinéad Mac Namara moved to approve the minutes with said correction, there was a second, and the motion carried without opposition.

II. Some Reports

A. Chair’s Report

Ms. Medema reported that the Executive Committee had met three times since the previous Assembly meeting. She had also had the opportunity to meet with many Assembly members.

Ms. Medema added that she had appointed Jeff Dwoskin as acting treasurer, with the advice and consent of the Executive Committee [By-Laws, III.8.e]. The by-election of a treasurer to complete the current term [Minutes 11.12.2003, IV.A] would be held later in the meeting [see III.A below].

B. Graduate Student Life Initiative 2003

Ms. Esparza explained that the Graduate Student Life Initiative (GSLI) is a detailed document on the GSG’s activities. It has been published before in March 2001 and November 2002. The GSLI 2003 was being prepared. In the last meeting [Minutes 1.14.2003, III.C] there had been a call for reviewers. Since then, for each report there had been two volunteers that had already submitted their comments to the committees. Ms. Esparza listed the changes, and thanked the reviewers. She asked whether there were additional comments. There being none, she stated that all there was left to be done was for the Executive Committee to prepare the whole packet (including the executive summary). She moved to approve the reports for publication, and there was a second.

MOTION: to approve the GSLI reports for publication. CARRIED without opposition.

Mr. Tinsley asked for an estimate of when it would be ready. Ms. Esparza stated that it could take about a week. Meredith Safran stated that it would be linked from the webpage, and Assembly would be notified by email. She also noted that several administrators and offices would be contacted by email.

C. Social Chair’s Report

Ms. Mac Namara reported on the Valentine’s Day Dance. It would be the following Saturday (February 14) in the multipurpose room in Frist Center. The total budget will be about $3,500, of which the GSG will pay $400 to $600 and the Queer Graduate Caucus (co-host of the event) will pay $300. The GSG and the QGC got $1,000 from the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni (APGA) and a total of $1,800 from the Graduate School, the Office of the Vice-President for Campus Life, and the Frist Center. In practice, that frees some money from our budget, that we can relocate for cosponsorship. Ms. Mac Namara thanked Newsha Dau for finding volunteers to help run the survey, and stated that she needed an extra two or three volunteers to help clean up. Finally, she noted that the dance would start at 10pm.

D. Recording Secretary’s Report

Mr. Boavida stated that Tae Hong Park [Minutes 10.8.2003, VIII.B] had asked that some details of his funding request not be made public. Since then, Mr. Boavida had moved the page off-line until having occasion to consult Assembly as to a final arrangement. He had also contacted Mr. Park to find what exact details he didn’t wish to have published and to ask the reasons for the request (in order to be able to explain them to Assembly). Mr. Park had told Mr. Boavida that he had reservations only about publishing the artists’ fees to the world at large. However, he had no objections to such information being made available to members of the University. Based on this information, Mr. Boavida asked Assembly’s permission to excise the details on the fees from the treasurer’s report annexed to those minutes (including only the total). Alternatively, the report could be made accessible only from inside princeton.edu. Shin-Yi Lin moved that the details be excised, there was a second, and the motion carried without opposition.

Lior Silberman suggested that a notice (to the effect that details of the funding requests may be made publicly accessible) be added to the online funding request forms. Mr. Boavida stated that had been taken care of.

III. Some Business

A. Treasurer By-Election

As announced by email well in advance of the meeting, Ms. Medema proceeded to run the by-election for treasurer [By-Laws, III.8]. She explained that acting officers (appointed by the chair) have no vote in the Executive Committee, and that only Assembly can appoint an officer to fill a vacancy (and such an officer does have full rights in the Executive Committee). She asked whether there were other candidates besides Mr. Dwoskin. There was no one else, and she asked Mr. Dwoskin to leave the room. There was a motion and a second to appoint Mr. Dwoskin as treasurer. A vote was held, and there was no opposition. Mr. Dwoskin was called back to the room, and Ms. Medema announced his election.

B. Interlude

At about this point, Mr. Silberman introduced Christopher DeCoro, who wished to be recognized as the COS Representative. Mr. Silberman was under the impression that, there being no Representative, any student in the department could be recognized for the duration of the meeting. Mr. Boavida checked the Constitution, and stated that in his understanding that provision applied only to non-voting Delegates, while Representatives always had to be elected [Constitution, IV.10 and IV.11]. Parliamentary Secretary Leonard Pease had informed the Executive Committee that there was more than one candidate, and he was planning to coordinate an election with the candidates. So, Mr. DeCoro could not be recognized. Of course, that was no obstacle to Mr. DeCoro’s participation in the meeting (for the meetings are open to all graduate students), and so Ms. Mac Namara welcomed him.

C. Early Funding Decisions

Mr. Dwoskin presented the funding requests together with his report on previous spending this fiscal year. He noted that, due to Ms. Mac Namara’s success in securing cosponsorship for GSG events, as well as to the absence of a Winter social event, we should expect a $800 to $1,000 surplus, that could be used for cosponsorship.

In the previous meeting Assembly had decided to divide the fiscal year into three four-month terms [Minutes 1.14.2004, III.B]. Jonathan Vogel asked whether student groups had been informed about the new procedures, and Mr. Boavida stated that that had been done two weeks before (the current meeting).

There had been two funding requests for the coming term (March through June). The details of those requests had been sent to Assembly members in advance of the meeting. (In the interviews below, the secretary will try to avoid repeating those details.)

Radhika Wijetunge presented the request for “Travelling Film South Asia ’04”, jointly organized by the Association of South Asians in Princeton (ASAP) and Drishti. She explained that ASAP was a recently created group of graduate students, post-docs, and faculty, and Drishti was a discussion group. The film festival they are organizing together will feature 15 documentary films from all over South Asia. Andrew Moroz noted that in a former request for a movie event [Minutes 11.12.2003, IV.A] there had been some discussion on what would be done with the movies after the event. He asked Ms. Wijetunge what were the plans in this case. Ms. Wijetunge stated that the collection has been travelling around the world, and so the films (in digital tape) will be borrowed and can not be kept at Princeton. The festival will be from March 22 to March 28. There will be an opening night reception in the first day. Some of the movie directors will be coming, as well as other speakers. Answering a question by Irina Marinov, Ms. Wijetunge described the details of the budget as well as the expected cosponsors (details included in the advance report). She added that the International Center and the Office of the Vice-President for Campus Life had requested (as a condition for cosponsorship) that there be an opening reception.

Jeffrey Johnson presented the “Earth Day/Cinco de Mayo” event organized by the Butler Committee. He stated that the date was not yet set, and would depend on the weather. As for the Earth Day part of the event, people would walk through the Butler grounds, and try to clear the litter. The committee was considering purchasing plants or trees. As the two dates (Earth Day, and Cinco de Mayo) are close, the event would celebrate both. All graduate student are welcome. Mr. Johnson took the occasion to thank the funding for the “Butler Chinese New Year Party” [Minutes 12.10.2003, III]: the event had been very successful, so much so that the food run out very quickly.

Mr. Dwoskin’s recommendation was to fund “Travelling Film South Asia ’04” at $200. Due to his involvement with the Butler Committee, he recused himself from giving a recommendation for the second request.

Ms. Medema explained that the Executive Committee had thought about the best way to conduct the informal discussion. Their conclusion was that a quasicommittee of the whole was the most expeditious way. For that to happen, there need only be a motion to discuss the funding in a quasicommittee of the whole. As soon as the discussion was over, or Assembly decided to close the (quasi)committee, the normal procedures were restored. Therefore, Mr. Boavida moved (and was seconded) to fund the events at amounts to be decided in a quasicommittee of the whole. The motion carried without opposition.

Having concluded its business, the (quasi)committee raised to report: Mr. Boavida’s motion was to be amended so that “Travelling Film South Asia ’04” would be funded at $200 and the “Earth Day/Cinco de Mayo” would be funded at $150. Mr. Boavida made a final comment: the quasicommittee of the whole was meant to be informal. So, no minutes were actually taken, except for any information that Assembly wishes to preserve about the decision process. So, he asked whether Assembly wished to include any additional information in its report. It was noted that the total amount requested was well within the budget for the term, and so not only it was possible to grant the full amounts requests, but also a substantial amount could be saved for future requests during the term. It was also noted that in future funding we may wish to require that any equipment bought must be available for any future graduate student events.

Ms. Medema put the motion to a vote:

MOTION: to fund “Travelling Film South Asia ’04” by $200 and “Earth Day/Cinco de Mayo” by $150. CARRIED with none opposed.

IV. More Reports

A. Officer Elections Committee

Mr. Silberman reported that 25 distinct people had been nominated. As some people were nominated for more than one position, there were 39 distinct nominations. However, most nominations had been declined. The candidates were as follows: Aderemi Artis, Ms. Esparza and David Gordon running for chair; Mr. DeCoro, Christine Percheski and Mr. Tinsley running for parliamentary secretary; Mr. Boavida running for corresponding secretary; no one running for press secretary or recording secretary; Mr. Dwoskin running for treasurer; and Aleksandar Donev running for social chair. Mr. Silberman stated that the campaign statements would be posted in the website, and a global announcement would be sent. The actual election will take place in early March [see plan in Minutes 11.12.2003, V.D]. Before that, there will be a “Meet the Candidates” night. Jessica Clark asked that Representatives ask their constituents to take a minute to read the statements and participate in the election. Later in the meeting she insisted in the importance of voter participation and of achieving quorum [see Minutes 3.12.2003, IV.A and By-Laws III.5.h].

Mr. Donev asked whether it was possible for current candidates to run for a different position, so that the vacant races wouldn’t be vacant. It was pointed out that the deadline for nominations and candidacies was past. Mr. Boavida noted that the vacant offices would be filled by Assembly, and it was only a matter of making sure interested candidates would show up in the meeting. Mr. Boavida moved to empower the Elections Committee to run such elections in the March Assembly meeting, barring any constitutional objections. In answer to a question, the Elections Committee stated that the results of the election by the Graduate Student Body would be known before the next meeting.

MOTION: to empower the Elections Committee to run a By-Election for the vacant offices in the March Assembly meeting, barring any constitutional objection. PASSED without opposition.

B. Campus Relations Committee

Brigitta Lee reported on the recent activities of the committee. She stated the committee is preparing an email to be sent to post-docs, with information about mailing lists on current events and webpages of student groups. Lin Ferrand (associate dean of the faculty) agreed to send such an email. If it successful, she is willing to send similar emails every six months or so.

Ms. Lee then circulated a flier on the Graduate Student Research Symposium. The event will be open to the whole University community, and geared to non-specialists. The goal is to give the campus community an idea of what graduate students are working on. Ms. Lee was seeking volunteers to help plan the event. There were some questions after Ms. Lee finished her report. Ms. Dau asked whether it was open to all graduate students (as opposed to only Ph.D. students), and Ms. Lee confirmed. Ms. Dau asked what were the target dates, but Ms. Lee stated it was not yet decided. Ms. Marinov asked what was the estimated time commitment, and Ms. Lee stated she imagined two brain-storming sessions would be enough.

Ms. Lee further reported that the committee would start investigate student groups with mixed (undergraduate and graduate) membership, to try to understand what problems emerge, what is successful, and whether help is needed and for what. She closed her report by stating that the committee now had it's own page, which could be reached from the main GSG site following “Projects” and then “Campus Relations”.

C. Proposal for Committee Structure

On behalf of the Executive Committee, Ms. Safran presented a proposal to rearrange the GSG’s committees. She noted that, in spite of frequent calls for volunteers, there are very few people serving on GSG committees. The Executive Committee had been thinking on ways to target specific issues (as opposed to open ended calls), identifying what works against the success of the committees, and finding how the GSG can be more successful with less effort.

Ms. Safran pointed out that there were several new committees. While about one year ago there were six committees only (Campus Relations, Health Care, Housing, Information Technology, Parking and Transportation, and Post-Enrollment), since then the number of committees had increased steadily (with the creation of International Students’ Concerns [Minutes 7.10.2002], Library [Minutes 11.13.2002, 4.4], and Children and Dependents [Minutes 10.8.2003, VIII.E]). However, the number of volunteers was still reduced and the Executive Committee has taken the burden of staffing many committees. At the same time, some committees become distant from Assembly or the Executive Committee, and due to inefficient communication different committees start working at cross purposes. As many issues have a relevant historical background, there’s a steep learning curve for new volunteers. In practice, this means that there’s a limited number of people who know in detail what’s going on (e.g., the housing draw). As there are many top priorities, the members of the Executive Committee cannot be directly involved in all committees and cannot focus on their own positions.

Taking all that into account, the Executive Committee proposed a reorganization of the GSG committee structure. The goals were to promote long-term sustainability of the GSG as well as to match the GSG with the University’s structure.

Ms. Safran produced a slide listing four large committees, and the kind of issues that would be under their purview: Facilities (housing, dining, transportation, parking, hardware, planning and construction), Campus Relations (alumni and APGA relations, USG relations, post-doc relations, cultural interface, minority issues), Academic Affairs (post-enrollment, English Language Program, departmental committees, readmission, library, academic software), Health and Wellbeing (children and dependents, McCosh services, health plan, athletics and gym/fitness facilities, public safety, SHARE relations).

Each of the four committees would have a chair, who would not be a member of the Executive Committee. These committee chairs would be nominated by the Executive Committee and would have to be ratified by Assembly. Their role would be to identify projects and issues the GSG should pursue, to gather and circulate information, to recruit new members and to delegate. The four chairs and the Executive Committee would meet on a monthly basis, to coordinate efforts and assure the committee don’t work at cross purposes. When a new issue arises, the relevant committee chair(s) would ask Assembly to create a short- or long-term taskforce, with a specific mandate and a specific time frame. These taskforces would often be small groups, working on a short time scale (e.g., two months). In many cases, different taskforces working on related issues would have cross membership, thus distributing knowledge. All taskforces within a committee would meet on a regular basis to coordinate their efforts. The committee chair could thus provide an aggregate report in every Assembly meeting.

Ms. Safran concluded her presentation by noting the Executive Committee hoped that a system of this nature would allow for many for members of Assembly to be involved on a smaller scale. The Executive Committee had already discussed this idea with people in the committees, and was bringing it to Assembly for further discussion.

There were severals questions and suggestions. Annika Peter asked whether the committees would have members. Ms. Dau suggested that in the such a system, all Assembly members should be informally expected to join a taskforce. She thought the plan should be put to practice. Ms. Lee seconded the idea that the committees have members, for that would be a group a potential people that could be drafted for new projects. She also called for some sort of mission statements for the committees, that would help the committee chairs decide what is within their purview. Mr. Boavida pointed out that the Executive Committee didn’t think this proposal was in any way final. Rather, the intention was that Assembly members start thinking about it. It was also not intended as a revolution, but rather as an evolution. As there would be several taskforces, different approaches could be tried for different taskforces. Assembly should give itself time to experiment. Mr. Donev suggested that no final decisions be taken before the next Executive Committee take office.

James Bickford thought the number of committees proposed was appropriate, and asked what in the new system would help existing committees. Ms. Lee stated that it would help her run the Campus Relations Committee, for she would no longer need to be directly involved in all different projects and all small details. Mr. Bickford asked more specifically about the reasonable size for a committee, and how often a committee needs to meet. Ms. Lee stated that the Campus Relations Committee had about four very active members. Ideally, the committee would meet once a month, but in practice it meets some three times per semester. Ms. Safran stated she was the Executive Committee’s liaison to the Campus Relations Committee, and thought that committee was a case of success. She contrasted it with the Post-Enrollment Committee. This had been a very active committee in the past, but all its members had either graduated or got post-enrolled. Since then, the membership had shrunk considerably, and the committee was moribund.

Ms. Mac Namara echoed Ms. Dau’s suggestion. She listed out several accomplishments of the GSG in the past year, but add that only about ten people had been involved in most of them. Ms. Lin and Mr. Bickford asked whether there was disagreement with the general idea, and suggested that if it was not the case then Assembly could approve the idea. Mr. Bickford also noted that with this system Assembly meetings might be shorter, and it might be possible for the committees to meet on a monthly basis without taking any more time from anyone then the Assembly meetings were already taking.

Ms. Safran stated that as the Executive Committee is ending its term, and most current officers are not running, it will be Assembly’s responsibility to assure the idea is followed up on. As to the committee chairs, she pointed out that the Executive Committee had some people in mind, but the final decisions were up to Assembly. She suggested that members start thinking about potential committee chairs.

D. Other Reports and Other New Business

Ms. Medema asked whether there was any new business. Several issues were brought up.

Ms. Wijetunge reported that the following day (February 12), from 5pm to 7pm, there would be an information meeting about the high rise renovations [Minutes 12.10.2003, II]. She added that on February 13 there would be a new Lawrence open house, for students to see what the new apartments look like.

Han Liang introduced himself as ACSS president and recalled that the GSG had approved funding of the ACSS “Moon Festival Party” [Minutes 9.10.2003, IV.C]. However, as the ACSS had new officers since August, and the new treasurer was not familiar with the procedures to claim GSG funding, she sent all receipts to the Graduate School, assuming that the transference would happen automatically. The ACSS received its University account statement since then only in January, and only then they realized the GSG funding had not been transferred. They contacted Ms. Esparza and realized they should have sent the receipts to the GSG. At the time the GSG had no treasurer, and in the interim ACSS managed to get a copy of the receipts. Ms. Medema explained that what ACSS was asking was for the Standing Rule on the three months deadline to be waived [Standing Rule of Assembly III.4]. Ms. Mac Namara moved (and was seconded) to waive the rule, on the grounds that it had been waived for the House Committee [Minutes 12.10.2003, V].

MOTION: to waive Standing Rule of Assembly III.4 (on the deadline for reception of receipts), and grant full funding to the ACSS “Moon Festival Party”. CARRIED with none opposed.

Ms. Dau stated some students in her department were advocating for change in the academic calendar. The cost of two breaks in the Fall is high, and the idea would be to push finals to before Winter break. Mr. Bickford noted that she would need support of the undergraduate student body for any such change to have any chances. Ms. Safran suggested that Representatives ask around in their departments and contact Ms. Dau. Jonathan Eastvold asked whether it would be possible to include a question to that effect in the election ballot, noting that it was not binding. Ms. Clark believed it should be easy to do from the technical viewpoint. Ms. Safran and Mr. Boavida expressed skepticism about including non-binding questions in the election ballot. Mr. Boavida stated that before asking students whether they liked the idea, it would be better to have concrete proposals. He suggested that such an investigation could be a pretext to try a new taskforce under the Campus Relations Committee. At some point, Ms. Dau stated that she would like to take an informal poll in Assembly, just to have an idea of whether there was any point for her to pursue the issue. Only about seven people expressed an opinion, but most of them supported the idea.

Ms. Lin asked whether there were news about the survey questions on children and dependents [Minutes 1.14.2004, II.A]. Ms. Medema stated that Messrs. Bickford and Boavida and her had met to discuss the survey. They had incorporated those questions on the survey the Executive Committee had been prepared. All that was left was to set it up online.

Ms. Safran noted that the Ivy Summit [Minutes 11.12.2003, IV.D] was coming close. She stated that the organizers had asked for ideas for the agenda, and the deadline was the coming weekend. She asked that Assembly members should send suggestions to gsg@.

On a different note, Ms. Safran stated that the issue of transportation to Forrestal Campus [Minutes 1.14.2004, II.D] had been brought up with administrators. Although it doesn’t seem we can get the shuttle to go there soon, GMTMA (the Greater Mercer Transportation Management Authority, who manages P-Rides) suggested that they can help coordinate ride-sharing. Ms. Safran asked whether there was interest in that, and stated that the Transportation and Parking Committee can put any interested students in contact with GMTMA. Ms. Marinov noted that a practical problem would be that people need to get to Forrestal at variable times.

V. Adjournment

There being no further business, Ms. Medema adjourned the meeting at about 8:30pm. The next meeting will be on March 10, 2004, at 6pm, in Frist 309.

Submitted 3.1.2004,

João Pedro Boavida
Recording Secretary

Aproved 3.10.2004

GSG • Assembly Meeting • February 11, 2004

Outline and Summary

Attendance