GSG Meeting November 14, 2001 I. Call to Order The meeting was chaired by Matt Hindman, GSG Parliamentary Secretary, in Matt Fouse's absence. II. Approval of Minutes The minutes from the October meeting were approved with two modifications suggested by Eric Adelizzi. III. Officer Reports A. Treasurer Ori Heffetz distributed a budget covering the period from February, 2001 to January, 2002. The Frist Chance Dance on Feb. 7 was the largest expense, costing the GSG $1126.32. On several occasions, money that the GSG had allocated for specific purposes was never collected or used. Some events that the GSG funded in previous years are no longer being funded by the GSG, such as the Chinese New Year celebration, the Christian fellowship, CIGS, the frisbee team, and the Women's Center. Because of the above situations, and because many of the GSG's parties are co-sponsored, the GSG account has a balance of $17,000. Assembly members suggested that the GSG could fund a project costing about $5000. Members proposed funding an event that would normally not be funded. One suggestion for a possible project to sponsor was the Princeton/Rutgers conference on philosophy. Some members of the Assembly felt that the GSG should only sponsor events that include all members of the community. B. Social Chair Yesim Tozan reported that the salsa party would be held some time next semester in the entrance to Jadwin gym, probably in April. The GSG Assembly members agreed that the party should be separate from the GSG-sponsored Valentine's day party. The three events for next semester are the Valentine's day dance in Frist (costing the GSG at least $1000), the wine tasting event in March (at least $400), and the Salsa party in April (at least $1500). IV. Business A. Shuttle Meredith Safran, a graduate student and resident of Lawrence Apartments, is interested in pushing for a daytime shuttle from Lawrence to campus. She was directed to the GSG by Eszter Hargittai, the chair of the Lawrence committee and former GSG chair. Meredith posted a signup sheet for names of Lawrence residents interested in a daytime shuttle, and 23 people signed their names. Assembly members suggested notifying the Administration about this issue, particularly because key members of the Administration were appointed recently. Lauren Hale suggested that Meredith could speak at a CPUC meeting about the shuttle issue. Amy Shuster suggested posting a similar interest list in Hibben and Magie. Huiyan Yang, the Butler Apartments representative, was concerned about the shuttle that runs in the evenings because it is unreliable and takes a long time to get to campus. Eric mentioned that according to the GC House Committee minutes, a shuttle did exist until the 1970s, when it was stopped for financial reasons. Lauren stated that now such financial reasons do not exist, although Public Safety occasionally states that they do. Lauren suggested that the issue should be brought to the Priorities Committee of the CPUC rather than to Public Safety. B. U-Store Reza Banki, a new graduate student U-Store trustee, updated the Assembly on the current U-Store events. The possibility of allowing both graduate students and undergrads to vote for the undergraduate U-Store representative was discussed. Most of those present agreed that allowing undergrads and grad students to vote for each other could potentially be bad because grad students serve as TAs. Reza also stated that the U-Store is struggling financially and is looking for feedback. Members of the Assembly commented on the high prices of new and used books. C. GSLI 1. Post-enrollment The letter from Dean Wilson to the GSG Exec members has not been circulated widely. The letter stated that progress has been made regarding health care and parking, and that the post-enrollment issue cannot be generalized for grad students as a whole. Data collected by GSG representatives has shown that the average grad student becomes post-enrolled, and that the median time to degree exceeds the enrollment time in every department except Molecular Biology. One of the problems that the GSG has faced in researching the post-enrollment issue is the lack of accessibility to information about post-enrollment from the Administration and from many departments. Most members of the University Board of Trustees are unaware of the post-enrollment issue and therefore are not working on solutions. One solution that has been proposed repeatedly by the GSG is to allow post-enrolled students to retain their student status without paying tuition. Members of the Assembly agreed that the GSG should request that a high level committee be formed to address post-enrollment issues. D. Departmental Survey Lauren distributed some of the results from the departmental survey. Donnell offered to have his undergrad class analyze the data as an exercise. V. New Business The GSG plans to request an increase in disk quota from OIT. The GSG previously requested that the Board of Trustees create a new position for a young graduate alumnus/a. President Tilghman and other administrators are in favor of having an older, more influential graduate trustee. Nominations can be emailed to thwright@princeton.edu. Matt mentioned that the GSG and Graduate College should have representatives on the search committee for a new Dean of the Graduate School. Eric stated that no grad students are on the search committee for a new dean of the Engineering school. Matt mentioned that the library copy card system will be changed soon to use the ID card instead of a separate copy card. This means that post-enrolled students, who are given a temporary identification card without a magnetic stripe, will not be able to use their ID card as a copy card. Cynthia Rudin asked volunteers to email her with statements of why they like their departments. Sarah Smith mentioned that the Scholars in the Schools program is interested in having grad students talk to students in Princeton and Trenton public schools about a specific project or topic. The program offers an honorarium of $75. Lior Silberman discussed the issue of allowing grad students access to undergrad dorms by activating their prox cards. One of the benefits would be that Lockhart residents would have access to common space in nearby dorms. The GC House Committee has already sent a letter to Vice President Dickerson regarding the issue. The Long-term housing committee will be meeting on Nov. 27. The construction of new grad student housing near Lawrence apartments is being delayed until 2004.