GSG - Assembly - Minutes 03.9.2005

Minutes

I. Call to Order and Assembly Business

The Chair, Nicole Esparza called the meeting to order at 6:05 pm.

A. Seating of New Assembly Members -- Jack Tinsley

We welcomed one new representative, Samir Soneji, from OPR; and two new housing delegates: Neven Fuckar from the GC House Committee and Jennifer Jordan from the Lawrence Committee.

B. Approval of Minutes--Nicole Esparza

The February minutes were not as yet complete.

II. Special Guest--President Shirley M. Tilghman

President Tilghman opened with her vision for Princeton for the next ten years:

One of President Tilghman’s main goals is to increase the diversity in the university at all levels—she fears that we will experience a brain drain if we are unable to attract and retain the best minds in all underrepresented groups to academia. She emphasizes that diversity needs to be emphasized at each step of the educational system (starting with kindergarten), but Princeton can only look within at this point. The President suggests that we encourage people in academia at every level, and that we set high expectations but also provide support for people to reach those levels. Support also involves making the university environment more welcoming, especially in fields where there is a low female or minority population. Princeton has achieved some amount of success in increasing the numbers of women and under-represented minorities at the faculty level through the “Target of Opportunity” program. This program allows departments to compete for free FTE (full-time equivalent) faculty positions (typically 4-5 positions are available on an annual basis), with the criteria for a candidate’s nomination being that the candidate would increase both the diversity and the quality of the faculty. In emphasizing that this is NOT an affirmative action program, President Tilghman states that the faculty hired as a result of this program are among the finest at the university. Princeton has also had success in recruiting a more diverse undergraduate population, but has done poorly with graduate students.

President Tilghman hopes the 4-year residential college system will enfold graduate students into undergraduate life—at the very least, sixty rooms will be made available to graduate students. She asked if we have collaborated with the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), to which Ms. Esparza answered that the former USG President (Matt Margolin) had been talking with our executive committee, and that she was hoping that the Executive Committee would interact with the new Chair (Leslie-Bernard Joseph). Ms. Esparza and Meredith Safran noted that the graduate alumni have been very active lately, an example of which is APGA’s collaboration with the GSG Academic Affairs Committee to run a humanities alumni networking day.

President Tilghman has asked the Dean of Architecture to create a Taskforce on the Creative and Performing Arts to explore an expansion in the creative arts, including the addition of graduate programs in those fields.

She would like to grow our nascent neuroscience groups from the several groups operating out of the Molecular Biology and Psychology departments.

Various graduate students addressed questions to President Tilghman. Louis Lee asked if there were plans to increase the graduate fellowship program in the residential colleges. President Tilghman replied that there would be ten fellows in each of the six residential colleges when the 4-year colleges come online. Leslie Hinkson says that interaction between the Black Graduate Caucus (BGC) and the Black Student Union (BSU, an undergraduate organization) has been very successful, but that the interaction is driven in large part due to the fact that there are so few students of color on campus.

Danielle Osler stated that in order to attract students from geographically underrepresented regions, the Woodrow Wilson School has started flying prospective students to Princeton. This program has been quite successful. Ms. Osler further asks President Tilghman to more specifically address how the Target of Opportunity process works. President Tilghman states that they look for candidates who would have the biggest impact on their departments. For example, if a department has a lot of women but not many minority faculty, the Target of Opportunity committee would encourage the department to nominate a candidate from an underrepresented minority. The candidate must also adhere to a high standard of excellence.

Sudhakar Govindavajhala made the point that student organizations must be registered as either graduate or undergraduate, and that limits the number of each population that can be officers of the organization. It is not effective in getting undergrads and graduate students together.

Christine Percheski asked if there are changes coming in the tenure process. President Tilghman stated that junior faculty of both sexes are given an extra year per child, maximum two years total, for each child born before tenure review. They have found that more men than women take advantage of this provision, so in order to make tenure review fair for everyone, the extra years will now become automatic. President Tilghman emphasized that it is also important to create more high quality day-care on campus (this came out of the Taskforce for Health and Well-Being). The new day-care facilities would likely be located on Broadmead. In the future, President Tilghman says she hopes tenure committees will look more at the quality than quantity of work, and she thinks this will help women in tenure review.

James Bickford asked a follow-up question on the Target of Opportunity: are we just taking a large share of a relatively small population? How can we increase the total number of minorities and women in academia? President Tilghman said that in some cases there is a pipeline problem. She used the example of field of molecular biology, in which case women make up 50% of PhD’s but only 25% of academics. She said that for minorities there are serious pipeline problems that start in elementary school. In terms of what Princeton can do, she suggested that we strongly encourage our best undergraduates to pursue a career in academia. She also suggested that Princeton needs to become more effective at recruiting graduate students, which means in part to increase awareness of Princeton. In addition, she proposed that Princeton create a program to funnel good researchers from lesser-known institutions into post-doctoral positions at Princeton, with the aim of upwardly expanding their career options.

Barbara Buckinx asked if the Targets of Opportunity program looks to increase diversity in subfields within a department. She was also worried about backlash because she has heard that some departments are not hiring women because they think women will be more likely to leave the field. Can we change the culture within departments? President Tilghman said that they decided not to make the tenure changes gender-specific with the model that men and women would share equally in child-rearing. She also worried about backlash, especially in the aftermath of a NY Times Magazine article about Princeton graduates who have left their careers. She says that we should be telling positive stories about women who have balanced their academic careers and their families.

Ms. Safran asks where teaching ranks in tenure review, and if there is room for public intellectuals. President Tilghman says the emphasis is on the quality of work, but that they have certainly not tenured people due to their poor teaching skills. The value of public scholarship is also in the equation, but rates lower than teaching quality. For example, string theory is now a very abstract field that needs to be nurtured but is largely not part of the public consciousness. In response to a related question, President Tilghman says that each professor’s teaching is reviewed on an annual basis, and if a professor is having problems, the department chair will lean on the person to get help. There is also a question as to whether graduate students fill out course evaluations. This seems to vary a lot among departments.

Amber Post stated that she finds the environment in the physics department to be somewhat hostile, and that this has discouraged her from staying in academia. President Tilghman stated that she hopes the department will change and that one should not give up on academia.

In conclusion, one can find President Tilghman’s office hours posted on the President's webpage if one wishes to discuss any matter with the President.

III. Officer Reports

A. Chair - Nicole Esparza

This is the last assembly meeting for Ms. Esparza, who has been involved in GSG for three years. She thanked everyone in Assembly, the Executive Committee, and the committee chairs.

The Executive Committee has done a lot of PR work recently:

The Executive Committee sent a letter to various administrators to thank them for lowering rents on New Lawrence apartments.

At the last CPUC meeting, Classics grad students expressed concerns that previously available teaching positions for post-enrolled people have suddenly become unavailable. This was reported in an article in the Daily Princetonian. Christine Percheski wrote letter to the editor about article. Then Ms. Percheski gave another interview for second article on post-enrollment, which appeared the day of this meeting. She has again thanked the Daily Princetonian and encouraged us to write to the editor to express our appreciation of coverage of graduate student issues.

Jack Tinsley, Ms. Esparza, and Jeff Dwoskin went to the Housing Department to talk about complaints. Ms. Esparza talked about problems with dealing with the Housing Department itself. The Executive Committee has been invited to meet with them about once every two months.

Nicole reported that Vice President for Facilities Mark Burstein has cancelled appointments to see the Butler Apartments three times. Since warm weather is rapidly upon us, Ms. Esparza suggested that we suspend attempts to bring Mr. Burstein to Butler this academic year.

B. Parliamentary Secretary--Jack Tinsely

The Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) elections will be held next month. A global email is forthcoming. Also, Assembly will vote on a new draft of the By-Laws.

IV. Decision Items

A. Funding Requests--Jeff Dwoskin

Treasurer Jeff Dwoskin had sent his report in advance of the meeting.

Assembly unanimously approved to hear a late funding request from the Black Men’’sAwareness Group for a Charity Streetball Tournament. Assembly voted to approve $250 for the event. It should be noted that the group is predominantly composed of undergraduates, but various assembly members agreed that we should fund them somewhat more than suggested by our guidelines as encouragement for events with a high likelihood of undergraduate-graduate interaction.

B. CPUC Resources Committee--Jack Tinsley

Announcement: The Executive Committee voted to appoint Joshua Friess to the CPUC Resources Committee. Mr. Tinsley pointed out that the vote was not unanimous.

V. Other Reports

A. Elections Committee--Sasha Myers

Ms. Myers' summary of election results from the election can be found here. Ms. Myers reported that 510 votes were counted from this election. She stated that about 25 people showed up at the candidates’ forum, but asserted that the most effective elections strategy was to send a last-minute email at the end of the voting period—150 votes were received within an hour of the last email. Ms. Myers also explained that the deadline for accepting candidate statements was extended by two days for all nominees because the deadline for acceptance was not clearly communicated, although she said that the vote in the committee to extend the deadline was not unanimous. One person submitted a statement between the two deadlines, and one person submitted a revision.

Lively debate ensued concerning the rationale for extending the deadline. Mr. Friess, a member of the Elections Committee, made the statement that the by-laws prohibit the extension of deadlines, and that the elections committee should strictly adhere to the by-laws. Ms. Safran, another committee member, averred that the committee ought to be allowed to interpret the by-laws as it appeared there was some ambiguity in them. There was some discussion as to whether or not the acceptance deadline had been clearly communicated and if nominees were given sufficient time to create statements.

A motion was made, seconded, and unanimously passed to certify the election. A motion was made, seconded, and failed to express disapproval for the deadline extension. Another motion was made to drop the issue of irregularities in the elections process, and was modified to a motion to drop the issue but communicate to future elections committees to follow the by-laws. The motion was seconded but fails.

Ms. Esparza thanked the Elections Committee for their work.

B. Seating of the New Executive Committee--Jack Tinsley

We have vacancies on the Executive Committee for Press Secretary and Parliamentary Secretary. Mr. Tinsley is staying on temporarily to make sure CPUC elections run smoothly (this is legal because the Constitution allows up to a fifteen month term). Please see the April minutes for a discussion of the legality and validity of Mr. Tinsley's comment. Power is transferred to the newly elected Executive Committee with Shin-Yi Lin as Chair.

VI. Department/Constituency Updates

Daniel Raburn reported from the Program in Plasma Physics. He says most people in his program are happy. He characterizes the program as small (20-30 grads), most of whom work at the PPPL after completion of generals. The program has a large population of DCC & ET-DCC. The main issue the program has is that students, especially first- and second-year students shuttle back-and-forth between the main campus and PPPL on a daily basis, but there is no shuttle provided between the two campuses. It is suggested that students wishing to have shuttle service between the two campuses should email shuttle timing preferences to gsg@princeton.edu. Finally, Daniel reports that some graduate students have partners who stay at home with their children.

Louis Lee of Psychology reports that his department is similarly happy. The department has one meeting per semester for graduate students to vent. The major issue is that many graduate students must teach to support themselves and that the teaching loads are very heavy, and that support varies widely across the three divisions. A full teaching load is officially 18 hrs/week, but in reality is closer to 25 or more. Ms. Safran notes that a 6 sections/week teaching load is not atypical across departments.

VII. New Business

Mr. Lee says that someone complained that Public Safety will not give your car a jump. Mr. Raburn says that he got a jump from them. Ms. Lin is going to forward the comment to the appropriate authorities.

Ms. Lin will send an email to Assembly asking Representatives to thank people for voting. She thanks the old Executive Committee for their outstanding work.

VIII. Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 8:10 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Recording Secretary Annika Peter

GSG • Assembly Meeting • March 9, 2005

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