• Representatives present • Katherine Bold, ACM • Peter Locke, ANT • Neven Fuckar, AOS • Sasha Meyers, CHE • Damian Carrieri, proxy for Tyrel McQueen, CHM • Kellam Conover, CLA • Chris DeCoro, COS • Christiane Meyer, EEB • James Bickford, ENG • Peter Eubanks, FIT • Tarje Nissen-Meyer, GEO • Jeris Yruma, HIS • Sultana Banulescu, HOS • Weifeng Cheng, MAE • Thomas Horine, MAT • Shin-Yi Lin, MOL • Annika Peter, PHY • Daniel Raburn, proxy for David Smith, PPL • Kim Montgomery, proxy for Louis Lee, PSY • Levi McLaughlin, REL • Cori Anderson, SLA • Steven Shafer, SOC • Newsha Dau, WWS •
• Delegates present • Nicole Esparza, proxy for Leslie Hinkson, Black Graduate Caucus (BGC) • Joshua Friess, BUT • Lior Silberman, GCO • Jennifer Jordan, proxy for Carolyn Mordas, LAW • 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 • Press Secretary Christine Percheski • Social Chair Aleksandar Donev • James Bickford, CPUC • Newsha Dau, CPUC Priorities Committee • Lior Silberman, CPUC, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee • Christiane Meyer, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee • Annika Peter, CPUC • 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 • Anita Adhitya, GEO • Matt Margolin, USG President • Daniel Raburn, PPL • Bernice Rosenzweig, CEE & Capoeira •
• Representatives absent • Sinéad Mac Namara, CEE • Kevin Amonlirdviman, ECO • Ying Wang, ELE • Angela Holzer, GER • Andrew Moroz, ORF • Aderemi Artis, PHI •
• Delegates absent • Heather White, Women’s Center (WOC) • Chen Wei, ACSS • Weining Man, CIGS • Marcelline Block, Hibben-Magie (HM) •
• Councilors absent • Andrew Moroz, CPUC Resources Committee • Sara Nephew, CPUC Governance Committee • Ian Parrish, CPUC Priorities 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 6:05pm.
Parliamentary Secretary Jack Tinsley seated Peter Eubanks from French & Italian and Steven Shafer from Sociology as new members of Assembly.
Ms. Esparza presented the minutes from the previous meeting, noting that there were several corrections. These included a grammatical correction from Lior Silberman, two minor points from Mr. Tinsley, and a corrected quote from Eric Adelizzi. There was a motion to approve the minutes. The motion was seconded and accepted.
Ms. Esparza introduced Matt Margolin, President of the Undergraduate Student Government, and welcomed him to address the Assembly as a special guest. Mr. Margolin thanked Ms. Esparza and the GSG for the invitation to address Assembly. He began by remarking that it was quite extraordinary that this is the first time in recent memory that a USG officer addressed the GSG Assembly but that he did not believe that it was due to the GSG or USG's lack of interest in each other. Mr. Margolin gave an overview of how the USG is similar and different from the GSG. Among the differences are that most USG members are elected by members of their class (instead of their department). Project work is also organized differently; in the USG, individuals work on projects and then come to USG Assembly meetings for advice whereas in the GSG, individuals suggest projects to Assembly and Assembly assigns the projects to committees or task forces.
Mr. Margolin discussed current USG projects which include grade inflation, precept reform, the Princeton Experience Survey, Pequod packets, wireless internet access, and 24 hour study space. Mr. Margolin asked whether grade inflation affects graduate students and explained that most of the undergraduate students are not concerned about lower grades or reduced chances of getting into graduate schools, but rather are concerned about increased competitiveness between students. In response to the concerns over changes in grading policies, the USG has formed a committee to discuss the issue. To address concerns over precepts, the USG did a survey of undergrads a few years ago. The survey found that undergraduates were concerned about the English proficiency of their preceptors, the size of precepts, and precept experiences that did not meet their expectations. Preceptor training and a handbook on precepting have been created to address these concerns. Mr. Margolin also discussed one of the most important findings of the recently released Princeton Experience Survey: that race relations on campus need improvement. Margolin said that there is a racial divide among undergraduates and that eating clubs are big part of the problem. Another big concern for undergrads is academic advising. Margolin reports that many students find the current system "pretty unhelpful."
Other more practical issues that the USG is trying to address are the following:
Mr. Margolin then discussed how the USG works as an organization, pointing out the good and the bad apects of the organizational structure and procedures. The "good" aspects include that there are many resources available to help with change and the "bad" aspects are that it is very easy for "nothing to happen" because the USG can be more reactive rather than proactive and that the same issues are discussed year after year. Mr. Margolin also expressed frustration with the University administration’s transparency and with their choice of the same 2 or 3 students for all of the University task forces and committees. Mr. Margolin suggested possible ideas for USG/GSG collaborations including the possibility of activities or collaborations around academics. He invited members of the GSG to attend the USG meetings - "our version of the your meeting" - at 7pm on Sunday evenings. He also mentioned a new website - Point.princeton.edu - that advertises events on campus; it is accessible to grad students with use of their PU login.
During a question and answer session, Newsha Dau asked a question about race relations and suggested that undergrad and grad students can work together to address concerns about race relations. Mr. Silberman volunteered his perspective on the differences between the GSG and the USG which included institutional memory and representation within the University.
In the chair’s report, Ms. Esparza announced that Dean Russell will be attending the December Assembly meeting and that he will be making a few announcements. Ms. Esparza also told the Assembly that President Tilgman will be attending an Assembly meeting in the future, although the date has not been determined, and that she had attended a very long meeting with Vice President Mike McKay and the facilities staff concerning graduate student concerns.
Ms. Esparza spent several minutes discussing the Princeton Experience Survey (PES) including the methodology and the responses from graduate students. She highlighted 1) the significant differences by race and ethnicity in the experience of taking Generals; 2) the high percentage of graduate students (20%) who report not being advised by a faculty member before taking Generals; and 3) that MPA students are more happy than the average graduate student and report having positive experiences with the Career Center.
Aleksandar Donev discussed the next GSG social event, the Valentine’s Day party to be held the Thursday after Valentine’s Day. He presented two options for venues: the Frist multi-purpose room and Liberation Hall in the Field Center and asked Assembly members to email him if they had a strong opinion on the venue.
Mr. Silberman gave the Facilities Committee report in which he discussed problems with last year's assignment process and the status of the Priorities Committee requests. Mr. Silberman reported that although much of the information regarding the assignment process is unavailable, the Committee knows that there are many vacancies in New Lawrence, a small number of vacancies in Butler and GC, and many more people than usual who moved off-campus. Mr. Silberman reported that there were "no significant biases in the system" and that most people who wanted housing got housing, with the exception of some 5th year students. The web-based housing draw and application system is being redesigned to incorporate grad student feedback. He also discussed general housing maintenance issues, reported that the old Lawrence renovations are on schedule according to administrators and that the price tag to update Hibben is higher than expected. Mr. Silberman also reported that Hibben may be available next year if the old Lawrence renovations aren't done or if the renovations to Hibben are too expensive.
Mr. Silberman reminded the committee that all of our Priorities Committee requests are still pending. Administrators are trying to figure out how they can get more grad students into the empty New Lawrence apartments. The housing situation was discussed. There is concern that the percentage of graduate students that the University is housing has dropped and that Princeton may lose students to other universities because of housing costs and availability. Ms. Esparza reported that Stanford went from housing about 25% of its graduate students to housing about 70% within the last year. And Harvard has plans to house 70% of grad students within the next five year. One student asked if there were plans to build more dorms. Beth McKeown mentioned that Stanford got more graduate housing through an alumni donation.
Jeff Dwoskin updated the Assembly about the work of the task force to reform the funding guidelines. He introduced Christiane Meyer who gave a report on the new funding guideline suggestions. The main concern of the committee was to reduce the time spent debating funding requests. Ms. Esparza voiced her opinion that our funding decisions will be more fair if we use a system. Levi McLaughlin raised a question about raising more funds through an increase in the fee. He felt that if most students don’t know about GSG (at least according to the PES), it might be a bad idea to add a referendum question increasing GSG fees. Ms. Meyer disagreed and suggested that a referendum question might be a good way to raise awareness of the question. Mr. Donev had a question about the allocation system and snowballing requests and money from one period to the next. Kellam Conover replied that there should not be a problem except with during the first month of the new system. In the first month that we implement the system, we could add in spillover money to solve the problem. Mr. Donev also asked about the categories for the size of the group. Mr. Dwoskin defended the proposed size categories and said that they make sense given last year's funding applications. Ms. Safran stated that given that the PES survey question was vague in its wording of the question about the GSG, we should be cautious in interpreting the response. She also expressed concern that to pass a referendum would require a lot of students to participate and vote in favor of the increase and that we should consider getting the student groups who receive funding to advocate on our behalf. Mr. Silberman mentioned that more than a quarter of graduate students (ie. the students who live in the GC) pay a $50/academic year and $10/summer fee to the GC and that many of the events organized by the GC House Committee are open to the whole graduate student community. Ms. Sigloch said that the $5 fee doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, given that it all goes back to the graduate student body anyway.
James Bickford had a question about rolling the leftover money from one funding period to the next. Mr. Dwoskin explained the reasoning that an individual can’t go to ten events in one month, but you could go to ten events over ten months. Mr. Bickford commented that last year we switched to a quarterly system and that now we are proposing to switch back to a monthly system. He asked the task force whether they thought the quarter system was working. Mr. Dwoskin replied that based on the past year, the quarter system did’t work very well.
Shin-Yi Lin made a motion to use the guidelines. Mr. Silberman expressed concern that we could not pass a motion to follow the guidelines because they would have to over-ride our standing rules. The consensus of the Executive Committee was that there was not a problem with the voting on the guidelines since the current and proposed funding guidelines are merely guidelines not standing rules. The voted passed with no votes opposing.
Mr. Conover presented the highlights of a report from the task force on residential dining. The report calls for residential dining to be more integrated, to create a more intellectual environment, and to be more attractive to all students. Mr. Conover reports that most of the concerns discussed are undergraduate concerns. So, how does it affect grad students? The assistant masters program is changing and the administration would like to get more grad students into the dining halls. Mr. Conover discussed student feedback on dining at Frist, proposals to reorganize the Fellows program, and other suggestions on how to get more grad students into the dining halls. During the questions and comments period, Mr. Silberman made a point about working with existing committees and efforts and Ms. Percheski suggested hanging a sign at the GC dining hall to solicit more grad feedback.
Treasurer Jeff Dwoskin had sent his report in advance of the meeting.
Unfortunately at this point in the meeting, we did not have quorum. Mr. Dwosking announced that according to the new funding guidelines, when we do not have quorum we should encourage groups who would have normally been sponsored by us to advertise the GSG as a sponsor and we will hear them at the next meeting.
Mr. Tinsley announced that we would not discuss the election resolutions since we did not have quorum.
Mr. Tinsley gave an update on the upcoming election. The Assembly needs to appoint an Elections Committee. Mr. Tinsley asked for volunteers and Mr. Silberman and Damian Carrieri volunteered. Mr. Tinsley explained that the committee will need to form an election plan and send emails calling for nominations. Ms. Safran suggested sending a global about the election, with a call for candidates and volunteers for the election committee. Mr. Tinsley said that per last year’s Election Plan, there will be a global sent in mid-December.
Mr. Tinsley announced that starting at the next meeting, the Assembly will take a few minutes to hear a 2 minute departmental report from different representatives each month. When it is their turn, Assembly members are asked to give a 1-2 minute report to the Assembly issues that are currently of concern to members of their department.
Ms. Shin-Yi Lin asked Assembly whether they thought the GSG should send one global per semester asking for volunteers for Assembly projects and committees. Mr. Silberman suggested tacking the email onto emails with other announcements. Jeris Yruma voiced concern that people won’t read the call for volunteers if it is tacked onto other announcements.
The meeting adjourned at approximately 7:56PM.