• Representatives present • Katherine Bold, ACM • Neven Fuckar, AOS • Jack Tinsley, proxy for Sasha Meyers, CHE • Kellam Conover, CLA • Christopher DeCoro, COS • Kevin Amonlirdviman, ECO • James Bickford, ENG • Tarje Nissen-Meyer, GEO • May Mergenthaler, proxy for Angela Holzer, GER • Chin Jou, proxy for Jeris Yruma, HIS • Robert Harron, proxy for Wei Ho, MAT • Shin-Yi Lin, MOL • Annika Peter, PHY • Mary Beth Ehrhardt, proxy for Barbara Buckinx, POL • Daniel Raburn, PPL • Susan Robison, proxy for Louis Lee, PSY • Levi McLaughlin, REL •
• Delegates present • Josh Friess, BUT • Neven Fuckar, GCO •
• Councilors present • Chair Shin-Yi Lin • Parliamentary Secretary Medini Padmanabhan • Recording Secretary Annika Peter, CPUC • Press Secretary Susan Robison • Treasurer Jeff Dwoskin • Social Chair Megan Sullivan • James Bickford, CPUC & Academic Affairs • Jack Tinsley, CPUC • Josh Friess, CPUC Resources Committee •
• Others present • Assistant Dean Lisa Schreyer, Graduate School • Laura Bennet, Graduate Christian Fellowship • Anita Adhitya, GEO •
• Representatives absent • Peter Locke, ANT • Alexandros Ntelekos, CEE • Tyrel McQueen, CHM • Christiane Meyer, EEB • Ying Wang, ELE • Peter Eubanks, FIT • Sultana Banulescu, HOS • Weifeng Chen, MAE • Samir Soneji, OPR • Cori Anderson, SLA • Steven Shafer, SOC • Daniel Harris, WWS •
• Delegates absent • Chidozie Ugwumba, Black Graduate Caucus • Heather White, Women’s Center (WOC) • Chen Wei, ACSS • Weining Man, CIGS • Marcelline Block, Hibben-Magie (HIB) • Jennifer Jordan, LAW • Meredith Safran, OFF •
• Councilors absent • Corresponding Secretary Danielle Osler • Guillaume Sabouret, CPUC • Newsha Dau, CPUC Priorities Committee • Nicole Esparza, CPUC, CPUC Executive Committee • Meredith Safran, CPUC, CPUC Executive Committee & Academic Affairs • Christiane Meyer, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee • Sara Nephew, CPUC Governance Committee • Ian Parrish, CPUC Priorities Committee • Lior Silberman, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee, Facilities • Tauna Szymanski, CPUC Judicial Committee • Karin Sigloch, Health and Life •
• Representative seats vacant • ARC• ART• AST• COM• EAS• MUS• NES• ORF• PHI• SPO•
• Delegate seats vacant • Millstone Apartments •
Chair Shin-Yi Lin called the meeting to order at 6:08 pm.
Ms. Padmanabhan stated that there were no new Assembly members, but that Aderemi Artis was stepping down as the Philosophy representative. She thanked him for his service.
Ms. Peter stated that she had received only one correction to the July minutes. Assembly unanimously approved the minutes.
Exec has met four times since the last Assembly meeting.
We've been working on putting together the PriComm letters. All but one of the letters were sent on Monday; the last one, on Frist Campus Center, will be sent sometime soon.
We've also been working with the Dining Office to put together a summer dining survey for graduate students. While we were in charge of composing the questions, the Dining Office will be implementing the survey. Given the university's choice to reduce Frist summer dining hours while expanding summer dining options at the GC, we felt that it would be a good time for us to gauge graduate student satisfaction with summer dining options. The survey should be released sometime in August; please encourage all your constituents to fill out the survey.
Finally, we have an important announcement about post-enrollment. During Dean Russel's visit to Assembly last December, he mentioned that there was a plan in the works to make improvements to post-enrollment, especially to ease the burden on international students and students with academic loans. Exec has been discussing this plan with the Graduate School since then. We are now at liberty to open the discussion to Assembly.
Before Ms. Lin began her presentation on post-enrollment, Daniel Raburn asked if the Executive Committee had made progress on obtaining recycling containers for Hibben/Magie. Ms. Lin responded that the Executive Committee would take up the matter in September, owing to the fact that the Committee spent most of its time in the past month preparing the PriComm letters.
The gist of the proposal to change post-enrollment (please see the complete presentation and the links within for details) is that the Degree Candidacy Continues (DCC)year (the first year after the end of the regular program length) will be replaced by a two-year Degree Completion Enrollment (DCE), Absentia, or enrollment termination, depending on the student's preference. Points to note are that DCE confers student status to graduate students (important for international students to obtain visas, and for domestic students to defer student loans) and that students in absentia would be required to pay a nominal $3500 tuition, whereas students in absentia currently pay no tuition. Students could not go back from enrollment termination (ET-DCC) to DCE or in absentia status. This plan will likely be implemented in the 2006-2007 school year.
Several possible consequences of the changes to post-enrollment were discussed. Kellam Conover and Josh Friess brought up the subject of housing--if DCE students were in the housing draw, they could pair up with younger-year students and edge out middle-year students for housing. It was asked if the university would build more housing to compensate. May Mergenthaler asked if DCE students would have access to McCosh, and whethers DCE and ET-DCC students would retain library access. Ms. Peter stated that library access was unrelated to post-enrollment status, and was instead was terminated five years after the completion of generals.
The topic of most intense discussion was the change to in absentia status. Several people asked if even regularly enrolled students in absentia would have to pay the same $3500 tuition DCE students would. It appeared that this was indeed the case. Several representatives, including the Politics representative, stated that most people in their departments went in absentia at some point, and that combined $4500 for tuition and health insurance would be a burden for those on outside funding for their time in absentia. Ms. Lin thought that departments would likely pay this nominal tuition, as they pay tuition for students on internal fellowships or assistantships in instruction. Still, several voiced concerns that students would have to pay the tuition out-of-pocket.
Due to the confusion on the meeting of abstentions at the previous meeting, Ms. Padmanabhan prepared a presentation to explain the meaning of an abstaining vote in various kinds of votes. The gist of the procedures, as per Robert's Rules and the GSG Constitution, is that for a normal vote, abstentions are just abstentions, but resolutions must be passed by a majority of those present.
During the ensuing discussion, Mr. DeCoro asked how one would count a person who did not vote yes, no, or abstain. It was agreed that that person would be abstaining. Mr. Friess introduced a motion that would change the standing rules, the text of it being:
For any measure for which a vote of "abstain" effectively counts as "nay", the parliamentary secretary shall inform Assembly as such immediately prior to the vote. Should the parliamentary secretary fail to do so, the vote shall be deemed void, and a revote must be held as soon as is reasonably possible.
This motion was seconded. During the discussion, Ms. Adhitya commented that it might be dangerous to allow a revote without some sort of upper limit in time. Several others voiced agreement with Ms. Adhitya. Ms. Robison suggested confining any revote to the meeting of the original vote. Mr. DeCoro asked if the text of the motion could be changed to allow a revote only if a voting member objected to the vote. It became clear at this point that there was no longer a quorum of Assembly present, so no vote could be held on the motion. Ms. Padmanabhan stated that it might be easier if one simply added the clarification of abstention policy for a particular vote to the Parliamentary Secretary's duties, i.e., by making a point of order. Mr. Tinsley stated that these issues should be discussed at a later date. An informal poll was held that suggested that a majority of members present would like to vote on a variant of Mr. Friess's motion at a later date.
Ms. Sullivan stated that the first GSG social event of the academic year would be a wine and cheese party on September 30th, 8-10 pm, at the Carl Fields Center. She requested for volunteers to help select wine and cheeses for the event.
Mr. Dwoskin stated that any one budget item more than 5% of the annual budget must be reapproved by Assembly. In this case, he was asking for reapproval of funds for orientation gifts (GSG coffee mugs) for incoming graduate students. He was also asking for reapproval for $800 for the GSG back-to-school barbeque, to be administered by the Graduate School. Reapproval was unanimous.
Mr. Dwosking stated that he had received three funding requests, for a pizza party at the Graduate College and back-to-school barbeques run by the Butler Committee and the Graduate Christian Fellowship. Mr. DeCoro spoke for the Graduate College House Committee, commenting that more than 300 graduate students were expected for the August pizza party. Laura Bennet spoke for the Graduate Christian Fellowship, stating that the barbeque would be held the first Sunday after classes start. Mr. Friess noted that the Butler back-to-school barbeque is one of the largest annual events held at Butler, and that last year 150 graduate students showed up, along with about 30 children.
Assembly unanimously voted to fund the Graduate College and Butler events by $300 each, and the Graduate Christian Fellowship by $100 (there was one abstention).
No one from the Chemistry Department was present to make a report.
Ms. Block was not present to make her report.
Mr. Amonlirdviman first explained the demographics of the graduate students in his department: during the 2004-2005 academic year, there were about 135 graduate students in the program, including 35 post-enrolled people. The program length is four years, which is a major problem as only about 2 people per cohort actually graduate within the program length. Most others finish in a total of about five years, which is standard among peer programs. Each cohort typically loses 3 students.
Mr. Harron asked how the program would change if the program length were increased to five years. Mr. Amonlirdviman stated that he thought it was better to have fewer students per cohort if it meant that those students had an extra year of enrollment. Mr. Bickford asked of what an economics dissertation consisted. Mr. Amonlirdviman answered that typically a thesis consists of several reworked publications.
Mr. Dwoskin stated that during the last shuttle meeting, it became known that the green line shuttle would be adding two stops, one at the Dinky Station and one at the Helm building, but only in the direction of Butler to the Graduate College.
Mr. DeCoro asked for anyone present who was a voting member of the Graduate College to sign a petition for Mr. Harron and others to run for the position of GC Social, recently vacated by Susannah Rutherglen.
Ms. Adhitdya asked if the Executive Committee had asked for a shuttle to Forrestal Campus in the shuttle PriComm letter. Mr. Dwoskin explained that there had not been mention of such a shuttle route because there did not appear to be sufficient interest from graduate students who work at the Forrestal Campus.