• Representatives present • Katherine Bold, ACM • Neven Fuckar, AOS • Sasha Meyers, CHE • Mariana Plazas-Mayorca, proxy for Tyrel McQueen, CHM • Jake Mackey, CLA • Adrian De Froment, proxy for Christiane Meyer, EEB • Ying Wang, ELE • James Bickford, ENG • Tarje Nissen-Meyer, GEO • Wei Ho, MAT • Shin-Yi Lin, MOL • Annika Peter, PHY • Daniel Raburn, PPL • Susan Robison, proxy for Louis Lee, PSY • Levi McLaughlin, REL • Cori Anderson, SLA • Steven Shafer, SOC •
• Delegates present • Josh Friess, BUT • Neven Fuckar, GCO • Meredith Safran, OFF • Tian Xia, ACSS •
• Councilors present • Chair Shin-Yi Lin, CPUC, CPUC Executive Committee • Parliamentary Secretary Medini Padmanabhan, CPUC • Recording Secretary Annika Peter • Treasurer Jeff Dwoskin • Social Chair Megan Sullivan • Kellam Conover, CPUC • Josh Friess, CPUC Resources Committee • James Bickford, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee & Academic Affairs • Karin Sigloch, CPUC, CPUC Rights and Rules Committee, Health and Life • Meredith Safran, Academic Affairs •
• Others present • Assistant Dean Lisa Schreyer, Graduate School • Tara Kitley, CPC • Yesim Tozan, APGA • Anita Adhitya, GEO • Aleks Donev, QGC •
• Representatives absent • Alexandros Ntelekos, CEE • Christopher DeCoro, COS • Kevin Amonlirdviman, ECO • Peter Eubanks, FIT • Angela Holzer, GER • Jeris Yruma, HIS • Sultana Banulescu, HOS • Weifeng Chen, MAE • Samir Soneji, OPR • Barbara Buckinx, POL • Daniel Harris, WWS •
• Delegates absent • Weining Man, CIGS • Marcelline Block, Hibben-Magie (HIB) • Jennifer Jordan, LAW •
• Councilors absent • Corresponding Secretary Danielle Osler • Press Secretary Susan Robison • Leslie Hinkson, CPUC • Guillaume Sabouret, CPUC, CPUC Executive Committee • Sara Nephew, CPUC Governance Committee • Diana Hill, CPUC Judicial Committee • Fatema Gunja, CPUC Priorities Committee • Ian Parrish, CPUC Priorities Committee •
• Representative seats vacant • ANT• ARC• ART• AST• COM• EAS• MUS• NES• ORF• PHI• SPO•
• Delegate seats vacant • Millstone Apartments • Black Graduate Caucus • Women's Center •
Chair Shin-Yi Lin called the meeting to order at 6:05 pm.
Ms. Padmanabhan stated that Kellam Conover was stepping down as the Classics representative, and that Jake Mackey was succeeding him. She thanked Mr. Conover for his dedication to the GSG. Ms. Padmanabhan also welcomed the new delegate from the ACSS, Tian Xia. The delegates from the Black Graduate Caucus and the Women's Center both stepped down over the summer.
Ms. Peter stated that she had received several corrections to the August minutes, including corrections to the attendance record and clarification of points. Assembly unanimously approved the minutes.
Ms. Tozan began by asking several questions to Assembly: How does the Graduate Student Body (GSB) view the APGA? What does the GSB know about APGA? How can the APGA best direct its funds to help graduate students? Ms. Tozan stated that currently, the APGA was doing the following things on campus:
Ms. Lin initiated the discussion by stating that a graduate student had complained that The Game fell on the same days as a football game, thus indicating that at least one graduate student would be interested in football-related events. She also suggested that several high tables should include graduate alumni instead of faculty. James Bickford, Co-Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, stated that graduate alumni had been very involved in the Humanities Mixer (meant to educate humanities graduate students about non-academic career tracks) earlier in the year. Meredith Safran, the other Co-Chair for the Academic Affairs Committee, thought that career mentoring by graduate alumni might be more beneficial than faculty mentoring for some people. Ms. Tozan stated that it would be possible to create an online match-making program for interested students and alumni. Louis Lee asked if APGA had been consulting with the career center to link students to alumni (undergraduate alumni do this). Ms. Tozan stated that APGA did not do this (except perhaps in the Woodrow Wilson School, which has its own career center). In terms of which alumni students would like to interface with, Dan Raburn was of the opinion that it was better to target graduate alumni (instead of undergraduate alumni) for mentoring. Karin Sigloch thought it might be interesting to hear from undergraduate alumni who went elsewhere for graduate school, but that it would be good to encourage graduate alumni to interact more with current students. She also mentioned that the APGA Reunions wristbands were very popular. Much laughter ensued. On a more serious note, Ms. Safran stated that it would be nice if the APGA representative to the GSG would show up to Assembly meetings more often. Ms. Tozan countered that current graduate students (Chair Shin-Yi Lin and GC House Chair Rebecca Jones) were on the APGA board and were free to raise issues, concerns and ideas at APGA Board meetings. GC Coffee House Manager Dan Raburn commented that the GC Coffee House would be a nice place to hold APGA events.
Mr. Dwoskin noted that two funding requests had been received from the Queer Graduate Caucus (QGC), for a wine and cheese event and for a film series. Aleks Donev from the QGC explained that the QGC held a wine and cheese event approximately once per semester, and that the film series was new and was to be co-organized with Wilson College, at which Mr. Donev is an assistant master. Ms. Safran stated that RCA's have some programming money, so why was Mr. Donev asking the GSG for money? Mr. Donev stated that any money from the GSG would go toward refreshments. It was moved, seconded, and unanimously passed to fund both requests at the treasurer's recommended amounts.
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. Assembly did not have quorum at the time the amendment was proposed, so it was decided that Mr. Friess would bring up the subject at the September meeting for further discussion and (quorum-willing) a vote. In the days before the September meeting, various present and former Assembly members weighed in on Mr. Friess's proposed standing rule--please refer to that discussion for further details of the various arguments.
Ms. Padmanabhan began the discussion by suggesting that only the first sentence of Mr. Friess's proposal ought to be retained. She thought that not having a time limit on revotes was dangerous. Several people then spoke to the effect that they did not believe a standing rule was appropriate. Ms. Safran stated that the real issue was that people do not understand what their votes mean in specific contexts. The former Parliamentary Secretary, Leonard Pease, suggested over email that Assembly members familiarize themselves somewhat with Robert's Rules. Mr. Dwoskin suggested that perhaps Ms. Padmanabhan could create a pamphlet detailing common parliamentary procedures, to be distributed to all Assembly membters.
Ms. Lin asked if there was a motion on the table or if Assembly would be happy with one of the suggestions for educating Assembly on parliamentary procedures. Mr. Friess indicated that the sense at the last meeting was that Assembly would like a standing rule of some sort to address the issue of abstentions and prodecure when a vote was wrongly interpreted. He also stated that even if Assembly passed a standing rule at the current meeting, it could easily be overturned in the future, as standing rules are easier to change than the Constitution itself. It was moved and seconded to adopt Ms. Padmanabhan's version of Mr. Friess's amendment. During the discussion, several people stated that they thought such a standing rule was superfluous and that it amounted to simply clarifying the Parliamentary Secretary's responsibilities. The vote was 4-5-6, and so the motion failed.
Ms. Lin made the following statement:
I’d like to introduce Tara Kitley as our new Community Programs Coordinator since mid-August. Before coming to Princeton, she was a resident director for law students at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus where she co-supervised 17 resident assistants, coordinated all programming efforts, conducted judicial and counseling sessions, and assisted with emergency and crisis intervention. I welcome you to GSG Assembly and we look forward to working with you in the coming months.
Exec has met two times since our last Assembly meeting because many of Exec has been out of town in August. Megan, Susan, and Medini attended a meeting with Frist and Dining Services to discuss the changes in dining options at Frist. If you’ve visited the Food Gallery recently, you’ve noticed the changes.
We have been busy this week with Orientation events for the incoming graduate students: Medini and I attended an International Student Panel; Jeff attended the GSG-sponsored BBQ this past weekend; I made a speech to all first years as part of the Graduate Student Orientation; the GSG tabled for the International Orientation and Graduate Student Sign-In and will be present at tonight’s GC Clubs Night.
Exec has been discussing the issues that were raised at the August Assembly about the Dissertation Completion Enrollment status with the Graduate School. With Dean Russel, we will be organizing two town meetings for graduate students to ask questions of Dean Russel and the Graduate School about DCE status. While the specific dates have yet to be set, we plan to have one meeting in early October and another one in late October.
The Ivy summit, an annual meeting for student government representatives from the Ivy Schools, will be taking place at Yale in New Haven, CT on October 14-16. Combined with funding from the Graduate School, the GSG will be able to send four delegates. At the moment, I will be attending along with Karin Sigloch, our Health and Life Committee Chair. Any Assembly members who are interested in attending should speak with Exec after this Assembly meeting.
In response to the emails in Assembly, Exec has been looking into ways graduate students are participate in Hurricane Katrina relief. I attended an organizational meeting last week with undergraduate groups organizing the Hurricane Katrina response.
For your information, Princeton has accepted both undergraduates and graduate students from schools in the affected areas.
Ms. Lin also stated that Megan Sullivan, Susan Robison, and Medini Padmanabhan had attended a meeting concerning changes to Frist. The gallery would be introducing more Chinese and Mexican options. She stated that the gallery would be closing earlier (around 10 pm) but that Cafe Vivian would be reconfigured to offer food after the gallery closed.
In terms of a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser, Ms. Lin suggested having a t-shirt sale, with t-shirts printed with humorous comics about life in graduate school. Ms. Lin asked for Assembly's thoughts on this idea, and asked for questions about her report in general.
Karin Sigloch stated that she thought an effective way of advertising t-shirts would be to have Assembly members tack shirts to highly visible billboard in their departments. Ms. Safran asked if the proceeds would be donated to educational institutions. Ms. Lin thought that the University, at least, would be donating funds to a severely affected university. Mr. Bickford suggested that Assembly donate proceeds to a general relief organization and let it decide where funds are most needed.
Ms. Sullivan stated that the first GSG social event of the academic year would be a wine and cheese party on September 29th, 8-10 pm, at the Carl Fields Center. Varsity Liquors would be providing 6-8 types of wine suited to "graduate student" budgets. The budget for the event was to be $2640, which included snacks. Ms. Sullivan had solicited co-sponsorship from a variety of sources.
Mr. Conover made a report on the final recommendations from the Dining and Social Options Task Force. Mr. Conover stated that the Task Force consisted of five faculty members, four undergraduates, six administrators, and one graduate student (Mr. Conover) and had been charged by President Tilghman to create a more cohesive and integrated community on campus through changes in dining and residential college life. President Tilghman had also called this the "defining task force for the decade". This Task Force comes at a critical time, as the University is gearing up to open a new undergraduate residential college (Whitman College) and convert several of the two-year colleges to four-year colleges. Mr. Conover said that the official recommendations should be published soon, but that he was allowed to release the findings to the GSG.
To the end of improving the social climate on campus, the Task Force met with many focus groups to determine their social and dining desires. Mr. Conover stated that various groups on campus had different dining and social priorities (i.e., graduate students care about the cost of food, the faculty would like higher food quality, etc.).
Several recommendations will likely be implemented to integrate the campus. First, there will be ten graduate students living in each of the six residential colleges. Secondly, the dining halls and kitchens of Butler/Wilson and Rockafeller/Mathey will be overhauled. There will be one kitchen for each the pairs of colleges, which will be more market-place in style. The hope is that this configuration will decrease waste and increase the quality of food. The kitchens will be run like restaurants. Also, the seating will be configured in restaurant-style, a change to the current dining hall configuration. Additionally, the Task Force is recommending that alcohol be served to those of age in the four-year colleges. It is hoped that this will entice graduate students and faculty to the dining halls.
Ms. Peter asked if the changes to the undergraduate dining halls would trickle to Forbes and the Graduate College. Mr. Conover stated that he thought Forbes would be affected but did not know if the GC would be. Mr. Bickford asked how the new two-year and four-year college system would work. Mr. Conover stated that each two-year college would be paired with a four-year college (i.e., Butler and Wilson, Mathey and Rockafellar; however, Whitman and Forbes will be strictly four-year colleges). Freshman would still be randomly assigned to colleges, but those assigned to the two-year colleges could apply to switch into their four-year counterpart after two years. Mr. Conover finished by asking the representatives present to ask their constituents if they would consider attending themed dinners at Butler College.
Ms. Nephew was not present to make her report.
Ms. Banulesu's report was postponed to October.
Ms. Bold stated that the program length of the ACM program was four years, but that the mean graduation time was 4.5 years. At the time of the report, there were twenty graduate students in the program, two with DCC status, one with ET-DCC status. There were five women and ? international graduate students. When she solicited comments from her constituents, she received one request for a raquetball court to be installed. On a more serious note, several people had commented that Western Way is very poorly lit near Harrison St. Ms. Sigloch stated that this had been explicitly stated in the most recent PriComm letter to Facilities.
Mr. Mackey, the new Classics rep, made the following report:
Hi, my name is Jake Mackey, I'm the new department rep for Classics, taking over from Kellam Conover. We have 41 students in the department, and that number includes the 7 we admitted this year. There are slightly more men than women, which reflects the gender bias of the field overall. We normally admit 5 or 6 students per year and the program is supposed to be 5 years long. The mathematicians among you will have noticed that many people take longer than the 5 years, and recent suspension of funding for 6th years has caused a certain amount of consternation in the department. All our current 6th year and up students have, I think, been financially accommodated one way or another, whether with teaching appointments or something else, but this promises to be an ongoing cause of concern for a least another two or three years. A couple of years ago the department took some measures to streamline the general exams in order to get people through the program faster. It will still be a couple of years before we'll be able to tell if the changes will have the desired effect.
The classics department has 4 different curricula reflecting 4 different broad areas of interest, all with their own slightly different requirements. They are: Literature and Philology, History (otherwise known as Program in the Ancient World), Classical Philosophy, and Classical and Hellenic Studies.
As a rule, most classics grad students now take 3 general exams, not including Greek and Latin sight translation exams and German and French/Italian reading proficiency tests. Under the new rules we take a Greek or Roman history exam, as well as Greek literature and Roman literature exams. These are usually supposed to be completed in the 3rd year of study, leaving two years for the dissertation. On the whole, with the caveats I enumerated, folks seem to be pretty happy with the program. Any questions?
Ms. Lin asked how the Classics graduate students responded to the DCE announcement. Mr. Conover said that no one commented on it.
Ms. Safran stated that she was going to the APGA meeting the following Saturday to ask for fund to hold mixers for both the social and natural sciences. She asked the representatives in those divisions to ask their constituents to consider being part of the organizing committees.
There was no new business.