• Representatives present • Katherine Bold, ACM • Peter Locke, ANT • Neven Fuckar, AOS • Sinéad Mac Namara, CEE • Sasha Meyers, CHE • Tyrel McQueen, CHM • Kellam Conover, CLA • Chris DeCoro, COS • Christiane Meyer, EEB • Ying Wang, ELE • Valerie Dionne, FIT • Tarje Nissen-Meyer, GEO • Angela Holzer, GER • Jeris Yruma, HIS • Dan Bouk, proxy for Sultana Banulescu, HOS • Chris Wyckham, proxy for Weifeng Cheng, MAE • Thomas Horine, MAT • Shin-Yi Lin, MOL • Aderemi Artis, PHI • Josh Friess, proxy for Annika Peter, PHY • Daniel Raburn, proxy for David Smith, PPL • Amy Shuster, POL • Karla Evans, proxy for Kim Montgomery, PSY • Levi McLaughlin, REL • Julia Belopolsky, proxy for Cori Anderson, SLA • Nicole Esparza, proxy for Steven Shafer, SOC • Newsha Dau, WWS •
• Delegates present • Fei Sun, proxy for Chen Wei, ACSS • Leslie Hinkson, Black Graduate Caucus (BGC) • Joshua Friess, BUT • Meredith Safran, OFF •
• Councilors present • Chair Nicole Esparza, CPUC, CPUC Executive Committee • Parliamentary Secretary Jack Tinsley, CPUC • Corresponding Secretary Shin-Yi Lin • Treasurer Jeff Dwoskin • Social Chair Aleksandar Donev • James Bickford, CPUC • Newsha Dau, CPUC Priorities Committee • Christiane Meyer, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee • Guillaume Sabouret, CPUC • Meredith Safran, CPUC, CPUC Executive Committee •
• Others present • Lisa Schreyer, Assistant Dean for Residence Life and Student Affairs • Beth McKeown, Community Programs Coordinator • Eric Adelizzi, CHE • Anita Adhitya, GEO • Colin Klein, PHI • Sujit Nair, MAE and ASAP •
• Representatives absent • Kevin Amonlirdviman, ECO • James Bickford, ENG • Andrew Moroz, ORF •
• Delegates absent • Heather White, Women’s Center (WOC) • Weining Man, CIGS • Lior Silberman, Graduate College (GC) • Marcelline Block, Hibben-Magie (HM) • Carolyn Mordas, LAW •
• Councilors absent • Press Secretary Christine Percheski • Andrew Moroz, CPUC Resources Committee • Sara Nephew, CPUC Governance Committee • Ian Parrish, CPUC Priorities Committee • Annika Peter, CPUC • Lior Silberman, CPUC, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee • Tauna Szymanski, CPUC Judicial Committee •
• Representative seats vacant • ARC• ART• AST• COM• EAS• MUS• NES• SPO•
• Delegate seats vacant • Millstone Apartments •
Chair Nicole Esparza called the meeting to order around 6:15pm.
Parliamentary Secretary Jack Tinsley seated new members to the Assembly.
Ms. Esparza presented the minutes from the previous meeting. She stated that there were no corrections. There was a motion to approve minutes. It was seconded and accepted.
Ms. Esparza addressed the Assembly briefly about what she sees as her role as chair of the organization. She commented that the controversy over new by-law amendments - primarily about graduate student body (GSB) representation - has allowed her to speak to people from the GSB about the GSG. She stated that she is involved in the budget task force, and other meetings because that is part of her job; however, she feels that it is necessary to stay on task and remember that we are here to advocate for students. She stated that while there is an officer who has the sole duty of parliamentary procedures, no officer has sole duty to advocate; there is an implicit agreement that every officer and representative has the responsibility to advocate for student concerns. She finished by stating that Assembly members should contact her about issues.
The Executive Committee met officially three times since September and has been busy with projects. Mr. Tinsley has put together a handout for new reps and helping update organizational chart of the university. Treasurer Jeff Dwoskin has been chairing the GSG’s task force on the budget. Corresponding Secretary Shin-Yi Lin has been updating the webpage to include our new committees. Christine Percheski, Press Secretary, has been contacting the USG to get them to come to one of our meetings and also writing a memo on interactions between GSG councilors and University administration. Ms. Esparza stated that she will be meeting with Mike McKay from University facilities about the GSG’s facilities requests. She also stated that she heard that about 20 apartments are vacant in New Lawrence and that the Health and Well-Being Task Force’s survey concluded that graduate students were very unhappy with the housing situation.
Mr. Tinsley presented on parliamentary procedures. His first slide asked, "Why are you here?" The answer: Constitution Article II gives three good reasons - represent and advocate, discussion forum, support for social events. Mr. Tinsley then handed out and an information sheet for new representatives.
Mr. Tinsley reviewed some basics of parliamentary procedure from Robert’s Rules to help assembly work together better [slides]: motion and debate.
Mr. Tinsley described two projects he was working on.
Mr Donev reported that there was nothing major to report on, save that the GSG fall event, the Wine and Cheese Social, had been a success. He hoped that the remaining wine could be used at a future event.
Leslie Hinkson reported that the Ivy Summit, a meeting of all the Ivy League university’s student governments, was held last weekend at Columbia University. Mr. Tinsley represented the GSG, Mr. Donev represented the GSG and the Queer Graduate Caucus, and Ms. Hinkson represented the GSG and the Black Graduate Caucus. The main purpose of the Ivy Summit is for student government representatives to exchange information about life at their respective campuses. Ms. Hinkson distributed an ivy summit fact-sheet of data from all the schools, compiled by Yale. She offered a few remarks on her findings from the conference. Princeton’s GSG is doing a good job, since its only been around since 1999. UPenn gives free legal advice to international students, and supports a program to teach grant writing. She suggested looking at Duke’s website about time-to-degree programs. One great presentation from Columbia said that many professors still teach PhD students as if they are going on to be professors in Universities. The demand for travel funds has been increasing; however, the means by which the funding is distributed is not always transparent. Yale has instituted a policy that recognizes cohabitating non-married heterosexual students for the purposes of university housing and health care, and allows them to take parental leave in such a way that they get to retain their housing and health care although forgoing their stipends. Yale has huge graduate student center and a 14-day orientation program.
Erica Duke asked whether any action items had resulted from the conference. Ms. Hinkson replied that no action items had come out of the meeting. There was some discussion as to whether the representatives from each school would be able to cast votes on behalf of their entire organizations without consulting them first on specific issues, and while the Yale Assembly signed voting powers over to their representatives, some schools did not feel able to do that. Ms. Esparza noted that she was notified only one day in advance of the conference that the GSG would be asked to do this, and she did not feel that Assembly would have sufficient time to discuss the matter and so she did not pass on the request to Assembly and the delegation decided that they would not vote on items on behalf of the GSG. Ms. Hinkson clarified that the Summit chose not to write referendums/resolutions due to the heterogeneity of representatives. Instead, they focused on collecting facts for comparison among the Ivys. Ms. Safran clarified, as a member of last year’s delegation, that the Ivy Summit had lapsed for many years and that this was only the second year in a row that the meeting had been held; as a result, the groups are only getting to know each other’s composition and issues, and so it was not practical at this point in time to make action items but rather to concentrate on fact-finding. Ms. Hinkson added that eventually the Ivy Summit may draft action items to bring back to Assembly for voting, but that representatives at the Summit are not allowed to vote on them on behalf of Assembly. One advantage of the fact-finding is that an argument that tends to be effective when advocating for things with the administration is in comparison to our ’peer institutions’, since the Ivies are competitive amongst themselves. Beth McKeown added that administrators like herself and Lisa Schreyer were also in attendance at the conference, for similar reasons - to compare notes on what is happening at each others’ schools.
An Assembly member asked where the data on the sheet had come from, because she felt that the data was inaccurate at least as far as Princeton social science stipend amounts were concerned. Ms. Esparza noted that she had provided the data for Princeton, most of it taken off of public Princeton websites, but that when it came to stipends they had been asked to submit the lowest stipend amount, and so she had used the stipend paid to older students in her department, Sociology. Ms. Hinkson noted that UPenn has taken initiative to raise stipends to make them more on par with Harvard. Another Assembly representative asked how the divisions were broken down between natural and physical sciences. Mr. Tinsley attempted to explain, but because Princeton is unusually strong in engineering the divisions between natural and physical sciences seem counterintuitive, but that was how Yale wrote the fact-sheet.
In presenting his budget proposal for 2004-2005, Mr. Dwoskin noted that it had taken him a long time to reconcile the GSG books because he was dealing with the past two years’ numbers. He added that the account showed a surplus of $3,571.32 at the end of the 2003-2004 term because of groups that had been promised cosponsorships by Assembly but had not submitted their receipts by the three-month deadline; the Assembly would need to decide if they want to hear these groups later should they come looking for the funds. Some money that had been promised to the GSG by the Graduate School, $2000, and APGA, $254.02, had not yet been received, and Mr. Dwoskin couldn’t say whether that money ever would come into the GSG account. He had not included these funds in the budget he was presenting in the event that these funds never arrive. He noted that he had allocated $600 toward the endowment account per the by-law; the precise amount would have been on the order of $570, so he rounded to $600. He also added a new line item for the Ivy Summit; although the Graduate School has been footing the bill for lodging and transportation, the time will come when the GSG is asked to pay for it.
He reiterated that budget task force recommended actions will be discussed next month. Amy Shuster asked what is an early funding request, and opined that groups should be allowed to plan in advance by requesting consponsorship early. Mr. Dwoskin replied that this was a matter that the budget task force would be addressing next month.
Newsha Dau asked whether they had discussed ways that Assembly can better allocate co-sponsorship money. Mr. Dwoskin replied in the affirmative, but noted that this also would be a matter to discuss under the budget task force report. Ms. Dau pressed him a bit further on whether she was being asked to sign away her rights to ask for line items, for example mandating that a certain amount of cosponsorship money be earmarked for new student groups, since she observed that a lot of money got distributed to the same groups each year. Mr. Dwoskin clarified that the matter at hand at that moment was whether the Assembly would approve allocating the proposed $4000 for co-sponsored activities in general, without reference to whom they would be given, and that the next meeting they could discuss how to allocate money to new groups specifically. Ms. Safran responded to Ms. Shuster’s earlier question by clarifying what is meant by ’early request ’, that it is in fact a technical term that the GSG had adopted in the term system last year, such that in a four-month period, all groups holding events in that period would be asked to bring their requests to the first Assembly meeting of the term; these were the ’early requests ’. Groups could however come in any month that they chose, however early they chose, with their requests.
Aderemi Artis asked how much income the GSG had. Mr. Dwoskin directed him to the top line of the budget proposal, which consists of the $5 fees collected from each enrolled graduate student by the University, on behalf of the GSG. Josh Friess asked how much the endowment is; Mr. Dwoskin thought about $4500. Mr. Friess followed up in asking about interest and principal. Mr. Dwoskin responded that he did not know if the principal is automatically put back into the endowment. Mr. Dwoskin also affirmed that the GSG’s endowment is included in the university’s endowment.
Ms. Lin moved to not allow groups to come back and ask for money they never collected after the three-month period. Ms. Shuster asked Mr. Dwoskin to send a final email to all the groups who were in danger of forfeiting money, as they were past their deadline. Ms. Lin made a second motion to allow groups to ask for the uncollected money as specified in the by-laws, but that the GSG would not be required to contact them. The motion was seconded and Ms. Esparza called for debate on the motion. Ms. Safran noted that there is a procedure in place whereby when groups come to the Assembly to request money, they are notified that they must submit their receipts within three months in order to receive their funds, that this policy is also publicly available on the GSG website, and that Assembly may also hear cases of groups who are past-due with their requests, in the event that there are some special circumstances. Ms. Duke concurred that three months is plenty of time. Mr. Friess asked for confirmation that the deadline is three months from the date of the event, in which he was confirmed. Ms. Shuster asked whether Mr. Dwoskin had contacted all of the groups with outstanding requests, since some of these groups had requested money in 2002-2003, before Mr. Dwoskin became Treasurer. Mr. Dwoskin replied in the negative. He also could not say exactly how many requests were outstanding, but that the total amounts were $2,200 from 2002-2003 and $925 from 2003-2004.
There was then a restatement of the motion at hand: in order to help clear budget and move forward, we clear them from the current accounts, but if these groups wish to come to us in the future to get the money from past events per by-laws, we will hear them, on a case-by-case basis. Ms. Shuster offered a friendly amendment that Mr. Dwoskin should send these groups one more notification by email. Ms. Lin rejected this as a friendly amendment. Sinead MacNamara noted that, in her experience as former Social Chair, that quite often groups didn’t come to ask for the money because either the event did not occur or because they didn’t spend all the money that they had budgeted; and that groups were more likely to get the money first from the Graduate School, which in fact Ms. MacNamara noted that she suggested, and only then come to the GSG to collect money. The result being that sometimes the groups didn’t have to come back to the GSG for money. Ms. Esparza called the vote and the motion passed 20-2.
There was a motion to approve the budget. It was seconded and accepted.
Treasurer Jeff Dwoskin had sent his report in advance of the meeting.
Mr. Dwoskin noted that there was one request, plus one more that had been received past the two-week deadline but before the one-week deadline. He asked Assembly whether or not they wanted to hear the second request. There was a motion to hear the late request. It was seconded and the motion passed with one opposed.
The first request was from the Graduate Research Symposium (GRS) - requesting $400. Ms. Lin spoke on their behalf. She pointed out that this is the first time that the event is being held, and that it is an opportunity for students at Princeton to present their research to the campus and to the community at large; it is a way to foster good relations between students and public at large. This is a one-of-a-kind cross-discipline way to interact in such a way. She added that two speakers willing to speak for free: President of Woodrow Wilson Foundation and Nobel laureate professor. They have received about 20 abstracts and are still accepting submission even though the deadline had passed. Given the smaller-than-expected number, they do not need the full $400 originally requested.
The second request was for the ASAP Festival of Lights. A representative from the Association of South Asian and Pacific students (ASAP), Sujit Nair, spoke on behalf of this event. It is one of the biggest traditional events in Nepal, and Sri Lanka in November. The event will consist of music and ethnic art display, and a dance party. Originally the group has planned to hold the event at the Carl A Fields Center on November 16, but because that was a Thursday the group worried not enough people would attend so they had changed the date to November 12, and also had to change the location to the Frist Campus Center. As a result, their budget had increased considerably because of the fees that Frist charges if you want to have an outside caterer; their total budget went from $950 to $1200.
There was a motion to give the GRS $200. It was seconded and there was debate. One Assembly member said that in general, giving based on number of students is good, but quality of interaction also important and that the GRS has potential to be high-quality event. Another Assembly member replied that giving $200 would be about $4/student, far higher than the $2/student typical. Yet another Assembly member added that if the GSG does not give them the money, then the Graduate School will so it is not important to give them the total requested amount. Assembly discussion continued on the motion. Finally, the motion was back on the table and Ms. Esparza asked for a vote. The motion failed with only two members in support.
Another motion was made to fund the GRS at $100 and the ASAP at $250. It was seconded and passed (15-6).
Mr. Tinsley presented on the proposed election by-law amendments. He stated that he would like to tell the new members of Assembly why a proposal was put forth. He said that there were some issues with last year’s election. Mr. Tinsley projected a list of problems with the current By-Law III. He stated that there are seven officers positions, and if you don’t have quorum for at least four positions for two consecutive years, the GSG elections revert to parliamentary elections. Another problem with last year’s election centered on deciding who was the Press Secretary. He stated that Meredith Safran was Press Secretary and no one submitted application in the popular election; therefore, Assembly couldn’t fill the vacancy until April, a month after the March meeting, simply because the vacancy did not occur before the March meeting.
Mr. Tinsley continued that he had read a lot of emails from different people, concerning both sides of the argument. He said that there needs to be some thought and time to go through the proposed amendments due to the fact that there are eleven new representatives. He recommended against voting on it today and deferring it until next month. He concluded by stating that since he is Parliamentary Secretary, if Assembly would like to rewrite the by-law amendments, he would be willing to write them. He said that the best thing would be to bring a committee together, with him as chair, and redraft it for next month.
Mr. Tinsley stated that the proposed by-laws were written and submitted to Assembly by Eric Adelizzi, Joao Boavida, and Leonard Pease III. Mr. Tinsley said that he wasn’t involved because he was taking generals and Mr. Adelizzi and Mr. Pease had offered to write them. He then said that after the previous year’s election, people in Assembly said that they would like the issues with the election to be addressed.
Ms. MacNamara moved to reject the by-law amendments that were presented and have no redrafting committee. The motion was seconded by Mr. Artis.
Mr. Tinsley made a point of order that if we keep the existing document, then we can make changes -- no matter how extensive -- and vote on them in November.
Ms. MacNamara argued that the amended by-law, as written, does not address the principal concerns of the last election. She continued that the major flaws included: the right of recall by the graduate student body had been removed; a majority of the elections committee (only two people) can decide if a candidate is ineligible to run for office. She concluded that there were many other things that were problematic and in general the spirit of the by-law amendments are to restrict the graduate student body’s access to the GSG. Mr. Artis agreed with Ms. MacNamara’s assessment and he urged Assembly to reject the proposal.
Mr. Freiss offered an amendment to the motion, to reject as now, but also provide suggestions for new proposal. Ms. MacNamara accepted it as a friendly amendment to her motion. Another member of Assembly, noted that some departments do not have representatives and parliamentary elections would leave them completely out. Also, some department representatives are not elected. The Assembly member urged new members to at least read the proposed by-laws before voting for or against them.
Mr. Tinsley stated that it would be better to wait until the new representatives had a chance to read the by-laws. Fei Sun suggested that the Assembly could still draft standing rules to plug the holes for this coming election until the new committee and by-laws were finished. Colin Klein, a student from the Philosophy department, urged Assembly to protect the GSB’s rights. He said that he wished that he had heard about the proposal from the GSG rather than from a non-Assembly member. Chris DeCoro interjected that it was his representative’s fault for not alerting him. Ms. Esparza replied that Philosophy did not have a representative at the time and this is a good reason why parliamentary elections would not work well with this body considering that not all the departments are represented. Mr. Klein continued that he thought the by-laws were written with good intentions, but that direct (or popular) elections are a very good experience for all involved. The student body can interact with candidates and Assembly, and it puts the GSG in the spotlight. He thought that it would be a negative step to enable parliamentary election laws and he supports the motion to reject the proposed by-law amendments.
Eric Adelizzi, one of the authors, stated that there is nothing hidden in the proposal. He stated that many of the criticisms he had heard regarding the amendment stemmed from misunderstandings of it. With regard to qualifications for office, for instance, the proposed amendment protected the rights of all graduate students to run for election; the Elections Committee was to be empowered to judge the qualifications for office because it was necessary for some body to judge whether a nominee was qualified, i.e. was a graduate student. He stated that the authors had attempted to define procedures for even unlikely scenarios that might arise in the future. He continued that there are lots of issues that we could discuss and the issues raised today can be fixed by amending the amendment. He asked to postpone the vote rather than reject the by-law amendments outright.
Tyrel McQueen stated that he saw little harm in postponing the vote so that new representatives can read the proposal. Another representative stated that he didn’t see any difference between postponing and rejecting, as either way, redrafting would occur. Mr. Dwoskin replied that the difference is that with postponing we can strike out everything, rewrite it, and vote on it next month. Rejection would force us to wait an extra month since we would have to reintroduce it and then wait a month to hear it. Mr. Donev added that we might not have quorum in November/December and this might be a possible an issue. Ms. MacNamara reminded Assembly that the proposed by-law amendments require conditions to be met in December and that we should reject them now because too few people involved at this time. Another representative stated that we need time to make a decision. Mr. Sun reminded Assembly that this is no rush to institute any major proposal this year, but standing rules could be used as temporary fixes. Mr. Tinsley reiterated that eleven people are new, so we should postpone.
Ms. Esparza placed the motion back on the table for a vote: reject the by-law amendments and make a committee to draft up new amendments. The motion failed to carry.
A motion was put forth to postpone voting and set up a committee to work on amending the by-law amendments. The motion was seconded. Mr. Tinsley asked to make a friendly amendment that he would chair the committee with a limit of ten members. His request was not accepted. Mr. Sun then asked that a record be kept on the vote. There was little discussion on the matter. Mr. Tinsley asked for a roll call vote. The motion passed (17-2-5). The results were as follows:
Yay: Sasha Meyers (CHE), Tyrel McQueen (CHM), Chris DeCoro (COS), Christiane Meyer (EEB), Valerie Dionne (FIT), Tarje Nissen-Meyer (GEO), Angela Holzer (GER), Jeris Yruma (HIS), Thomas Horine (MAT), Shin-Yi Lin (MOL), Josh Friess (PHY), Amy Shuster (POL), Karla Evans (PSY), Levi McLaughlin (REL), Leslie Hinkson (BGC)
Nay: Peter Locke (ANT), Ying Wang (ELE)
Abstain: Sinead MacNamara (CEE), Kellam Conover (CLA), Aderemi Artis (PHI), Nicole Esparza (SOC), Newsha Dau (WWS)
Mr. Friess made a motion that Assembly encourage the committee to make reasonable steps to make popular elections the default with low quorum, no automatic parliamentary, etc. The motion was seconded and passed (near-unanimous).
Mr. Tinsley announced that he would send an email to Assembly asking for volunteers. He asked to limit the committee, but was reminded that Assembly did not approve his request to do so.
The meeting adjourned at approximately 8:25 PM.