Minutes of the GSG Meeting, 10 April 2002
SUMMARY OF THE MINUTES
- Call to order
- Approval of previous minutes
- Officer reports
-
Chair -- GSG Executive meeting, correspondence with President Tilghman,
U-Store Board of Trustees graduate student representatives
- Guest speaker: Thema Bryant, SHARE
-
sexual harassment / assault
-
SHARE
- Officer reports (cont'd)
-
Treasurer's Report -- financial statement, no funding requests, Butler Chinese New
Year party, disbursement of funds (note: 2 new policies!)
-
Social Chair's Report -- no report, Social Chair appointed to fill vacancy
-
Parliamentary Secretary -- no report
-
Press Secretary -- publications relating to graduate students, newsletter
- Old business
-
CPUC nominations
-
Committee reports
-
Housing
-
Post-enrollment
-
Parking and Transportation
-
Elections
-
Status of committees
- New Business
-
Frist Campus Centre Programming Board
-
Princeton University Environmental Oversight Committee
-
Women's Centre
-
Housing draws -- problems associated with Hibben-Magie draw
- Scheduling of next meeting
- Adjournment
MINUTES OF THE GSG MEETING, APRIL 10 2002
Attendance
Officers Present:
Chair Scott Miller,
Parl. Sec'y Lior Silberman,
Corr. Sec'y Eric Adelizzi,
Press Sec'y Meredith Safran,
Rec. Sec'y Anita Adhitya,
Treasurer Donnell Butler,
Social Chair Kerry Bystrom
Representatives Present:
AOS Anita Adhitya,
CHE Eric Adelizzi,
CLA Meredith Safran,
EAS Brigitta Lee,
ELE Bill Jordan,
ENG Kerry Bystrom,
FRE Juliet O'Brien,
MAT Hadi Jorati,
MOL Jessica Bessler,
ORFE Michael Ludkovsky,
PACM Cynthia Rudin,
POL Jason Casellas,
PHY Tamar Friedmann,
SOC Donnell Butler,
WWS Toni Fiori
Delegates Present:
Butler Huiyan Yang,
GCHC Lior Silberman,
Women's Centre Heather White
Councillors Present:
CPUC Donnell Butler SOC;
CPUC, Exec Matt Fouse POL, Past Chair;
CPUC, RRR Tamar Friedmann PHY;
CPUC, Exec Lauren Hale WWS, Past Chair, Press Secretary, and Social Chair;
CPUC Lior Silberman;
CPUC, PriCom Jim Vere;
RRR Jason Casellas;
Others Present:
Steven Miller MAT, Past Treasurer;
Leonard Pease CHE;
Lisa Sherov, GC RLC
Representatives Absent:
ARC Zach Riddley,
ANT Riaz Tejani,
COM Seth Abelson,
COS Robert Osada,
EEB Sarah Smith,
ECO Tanjim Hossain,
GER Brian Tucker,
HIS Joseph November,
HOS Ishita Pande,
MUS Emily Snow,
NES David Brenner,
PPL Ethan Schartman,
PSY Cara Talaska,
OPR Patrick Gerland
Delegates Absent:
Hibben-Magie Nate Gleason,
Lawrence Eszter Hargittai,
Millstone Matt Moore,
Off-Campus Upma Sharma,
ACSS Haizhou Yin,
BGC Ade Artis
The following representative seats were vacant:
ART, AST, CHM, GEO, PHI, SLA, SPA
The following delegate seats were vacant:
CIGS
- CALL TO ORDER
- The meeting was called to order at 6:04pm by Scott Miller, Chair.
- APPROVAL OF PREVIOUS MINUTES
-
The additions to the minutes of the February meeting had not yet been completed,
for which Lior Silberman apologised. Ratification of the February meetings was postponed
to the next meeting.
-
Lauren Hale moved to approve the minutes of the March meeting, seconded by Mr. Miller.
The minutes were approved with no opposition.
- OFFICER REPORTS (Part I)
3.1 Chair -- Scott Miller
-
Mr. Miller announced that a GSG Executive meeting had been held between the last and
current meetings, and gave the following summary of what had been discussed...
-
Policies regarding email lists
-
Mr. Miller summarised the various GSG mailing lists: gsg-global, gsg-active, gsg-list, gsg-assembly,
and gsgexec.
-
Gsg-global, the global mailing list, reaches the Graduate Student Body (GSB). Majority
approval by the Officers is required to send to this list.
-
Gsg-active is an optional mailing list, used for large-scale debates and high traffic.
-
Gsg-assembly contains all Assembly members.
-
Gsg-list reaches both Assembly members and those who have requested
to be on the list, and is used for sending out the minutes and the agenda.
-
Gsg-exec is used only by the Officers.
-
Standing Committees status
-
Mr. Miller invited those interested to participate in the standing committees; new
members would be most welcome. In particular, the Healthcare Committee -- currently only
Donnell Butler -- is in need of new members.
-
Mr. Miller announced that an ad hoc Housing Committee had been started.
-
Mr. Miller informed the Assembly that he had had correspondence with President Shirley Tilghman.
-
Mr. Miller was pleased to announce that President Tilghman would attend GSG meetings
on an annual basis. It was noted that the February 13 meeting was the first time that the
University President had attended a GSG meeting. Dean Wilson was also present at that meeting,
and Ms. Hale suggested that it also the first time a GSG meeting had been attended by a Dean.
However, Eric Adelizzi informed the Assembly that this had occurred once before.
[Deans Wilson and Taylor attended the 15 February 2000 meeting].
-
President Tilghman had also informed Mr. Miller that a University committee had been
created to discuss the post-enrollment issue.
-
Mr. Miller informed the Assembly that he had received an email from Reza Banki, a member of the U-Store
Board of Trustees whose term in office would end next month.
-
Mr. Banki's letter was read to the Assembly by Mr. Miller. The contents of the letter is
summarised below...
-
Mr. Banki was one of the 2 graduate student representatives on the Board of Trustees. The
Board of Trustees consisted of a range of members, including 6 undergraduate representatives.
The Board meets 3 times a year.
-
The U-Store by-laws had been changed over the last 2 meetings, affecting the
elections for Graduate Student representatives:
1) a change had been made to the requirements for dissemination of the information
regarding the elections was now required, resulting in greater publicity of the information,
and
2) the representatives would be elected by the graduate students.
-
Representatives served a 2 year term, and the 2 positions available to graduate
students were staggered by a year. As Mr. Banki's term was ending soon, there would be
elections later this year.
-
During and after the reading of the letter, several comments were made.
Ms. Hale noted that in the past, the representative was appointed by the Graduate School.
This raised the issue of democracy. Also, a contrast was made between the previous
requirements for announcement of graduate student representative elections, which
were minimal, and the requirements for announcement of
undergraduate student representative elections, which were not-so-minimal.
-
Mr. Miller asked the Assembly to inform the GSB of the open position.
-
A motion was made by Mr. Adelizzi, and seconded by Mr. Butler, to thank Mr. Banki.
- GUEST SPEAKER: THEMA BRYANT, SHARE
-
OFFICER REPORTS (Part II)
5.1 Treasurer -- Donnell Butler
-
Mr. Butler presented a current financial statement and reported that the financial
balance, as of 2 March 2002, was $8871.74.
-
No funding requests had been made.
-
Bill Jordan asked if the financial statement would be posted on the web.
-
Ms. Hale suggested that the financial records
should not be placed on-line where anyone could read them. Someone
suggested that the reports could be password-protected so as to be
accessible only to members of the GSG. Mr. Adelizzi questioned the
need to restrict the information and asked why it should be kept
from the general public.
-
Mr. Butler stated that the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) did not
post their financial statements on the web, but did post their budget.
-
Meredith Safran queried the advantages to putting the financial statement on the web.
Mr. Jordan replied that it would allow groups requesting funding to know how much
money was available. He stated that he was not necessarily advocating the posting
of the information, but was only asking of it would be.
-
Mr. Butler acknowledged that the GSG had more money than usual at this point because
of the work of Yesim Tozan, outgoing Social Chair, who had been successful in obtaining
cosponsorship of events initiated by the GSG. Therefore, the GSG funds were not stretched
to their full capacity at this point.
-
Huiyan Yang, Butler delegate, raised the issue of funding for the Butler Chinese
New Year party. Mr. Butler stated that GSG funding for this event had not yet been paid to Butler
and Ms. Yang informed him that the funding had already been approved.
-
Mr. Butler informed the Assembly that there were several such occurrences at present:
-
According to the August 22 minutes, $50 had been approved for a speaker and film
for PCOP. The money had not yet been asked for and had not been paid.
-
$160 had been approved, but not paid, to the Democratic Left organisation
for non-violent protest training.
Mr. Butler informed the Assembly that he had contacted Elliot Ratzman regarding the matter.
-
Money had been approved for the Butler Chinese New Year party but had
not yet been paid, as had been raised by Ms. Yang.
-
Returning to the Chinese New Year party...
Ms. Yang informed the Assembly that, in the past, the GSG had given the funding to
Butler before the event.
Ms. Hale stated that usually reimbursement was given after the event, and that the receipts
were required before Shelley Wester transferred the money.
Ms. Yang suggested that it was not usually so formal. She observed that it was not done
this way the previous year, and asked if this was the procedure. Ms. Yang said she
would bring in the receipts next time. Mr. Silberman suggested that it is easier
if a formal procedure is followed.
-
On the disbursement of funds (2 new policies!)...
-
Mr. Butler stated that he did know of a case in which Ori Heffetz had disbursed funding
prior to an event, and speculated that it was because Shelley Wester knew about the event.
-
Mr. Butler offered to draft a formal policy: since the GSG knows the
Butler Chinese New Year party is an annual event, if approved by the
Assembly the money could be transferred and it could be left to
Shelley Wester or Dean Montero to "sign-off" on it [sign the interdepartmental invoice].
-
The question was raised as to what would happen if less money was spent than was asked for,
to which Mr. Silberman replied that it was easy to transfer money to an organisation such
as the Butler community and that unspent money could just be transferred back. After
some more discussion in this vein...
-
Mr. Butler noted that a University account was required for money to be
transferred.
[The Graduate School will not allow money to be paid out of the
University system without receipts, but money transferred between accounts is
internal and money can be moved via interdepartmental invoices (e.g., to the
Butler Committee) without receipts since they have a University organization
account.]
Steve J. Miller stated that individuals have been paid in the past, and Mr. Adelizzi
noted that some organisations did not have an account. Mr. S. J. Miller
noted that most purchases were made by credit card.
Mr. Butler said he could set up advance payments, which Mr. Adelizzi suggested should
be at the Treasurer's discretion. Mr. Silberman suggested that the Treasurer could
disburse funds ahead of time to those organisations that have internal
University accounts.
-
Ms. Safran proposed a policy in which funding was disbursed only after the receipts
had been submitted. To this policy, Ms. Safran added the qualification that,
if the funding was to be given to an organisation, the funds could be disbursed ahead of time
at the Treasurer's discretion. This policy was seconded by Mr. Adelizzi and passed
unanimously with no amendments.
-
Ms. Sherov suggested that there be a policy regarding limits to the time
within which receipts should be presented. Ms. Hale suggested a time limit of 3 months.
Mr. Adelizzi proposed a policy in which funding expires within 3 months from today
and future events. That is, for events that have already occurred, receipts must be
submitted by 3 months from today or the funding will expire.
For future events, the receipts must be presented within 3 months of the event.
The policy was passed with one objection noted: Cynthia Rudin raised the question of
what would happen if the Treasurer was not available (e.g. summer).
Mr. Adelizzi pointed out that the GSG continues over the summer, as it does over
the winter, and that there is always someone in charge of finances.
-
Mr. Butler stated he would contact pending requests to inform them of the 3
month deadline.
5.2 Social Chair (Report and Vacancy)
-
Ms. Tozan, interim Social Chair, was not present. There was no report.
-
The Social Chair vacancy was discussed.
-
Ms. Hale nominated Kerry Bystrom for the position of Social Chair, given that there
was a vacancy and Ms. Bystrom had expressed interest in the position.
-
Ms. Bystrom confirmed that she would indeed be here next year (at the March meeting
she was unsure of whether this would be the case). Ms. Bystrom wanted to confirm the
arrangement that Weining Man would act as a co-Social Chair and help organise non-Western
events. These arrangements had been suggested at the previous meeting.
Ms. Man was not present at this meeting and therefore unavailable to respond to
Ms. Bystrom's query.
-
Mr. Miller called for further nominations. Neither nominations nor oppositions
forthcoming, Ms. Bystrom was appointed to the position of Social Chair.
5.3 Parliamentary Secretary -- Lior Silberman
-
Mr. Silberman had no report, other than that it was necessary to nominate representatives
to the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC). This was scheduled for
later in the meeting ('Old Business').
5.4 Press Secretary Report -- Meredith Safran
-
Ms. Safran informed the Assembly of two publications featuring graduate student issues.
These were an article in the Princeton Alumni Weekly about the Lawrence construction, and
an article in The Daily Princetonian about Graduate Student Appreciation Week. The
former was mostly informal and included a quotation of Mr. Adelizzi. The
Princetonian article was based on a telephone interview and would hopefully
solicit more empathy from undergraduates.
Mr. Miller added that the Princetonian had also published an article announcing the
new Officers.
-
Ms. Safran also (re-)raised the idea of a newsletter for the GSB. This had been mentioned
in the previous meeting, but no vote on the idea had been made. However, Ms. Safran suggested
postponing this to the following month to allow her to prepare further details.
-
OLD BUSINESS
6.1 CPUC Nominations
-
Mr. Silberman began with a brief description of the Council of the Princeton University
Community (CPUC), whose members includes administrators, faculty, staff,
alumni, graduate students, and undergraduates.
For the convenience of the reader, the following description is quoted from the minutes
of the March meeting:
There are 7 graduate student
representatives to the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), of who 5 are
elected by the Assembly. The other 2 graduate students are the GSG Chair and Parliamentary
Secretary, who serve ex officio.
The CPUC also has several sub-committees (the Executive Committee, the Priorities Committee (2), the Resources
Committee (1), the Judicial Committee (1), the Governance Committee (1), and the Rights and
Rules Committee (2). The Chair serves ex officio on the Executive Committee and the 7
CPUC representatives elect the other CPUC Executive Committee member from amongst their
own number; this may not be the Parliamentary Secretary unless no one else wishes to serve.
Mr. Miller noted that the representative to the Judicial Committee may not serve on the CPUC
itself, so a minimum of 8 people are required to fill the posts. The Assembly nominates graduate
students to all committees other than Executive.
-
Next followed the nominations of CPUC representatives. The GSG can elect
representatives to the CPUC and Executive Committee, and can
nominate representatives for the other committees. The following nominations
were all preceded by a description of the position, as given by Mr. Silberman
and, where available, the current-to-be-past representative. However,
the position descriptions presented at the meeting are omitted from these minutes,
as they can be found on the GSG website
(http://www.princeton.edu/~gradcpuc/description.html).
The CPUC charter also contains the details of the positions, and is available
at
http://www.princeton.edu/~vp/cpuc/charter.html
6.1.1 CPUC
-
Mr. Silberman announced that Ms. Friedmann and Brigitta Lee were interested
in representing graduate students on the CPUC and had submitted statements. Toni
Fiori and Joe Valentino expressed their interest in the CPUC positions, leaving
one CPUC seat without a candidate.
-
Ms. Hale suggested postponing the nominations as there were so few candidates this
year -- the Assembly was informed that there is usually more competition for the positions --
but was informed that the nominations could not take place in the May meeting as
they had to be completed by 30 April. In any case, Mr. Adelizzi noted that there was a
shortage of only one candidate.
-
Ms. Yang volunteered to serve on the CPUC.
-
Mr. Miller was pleased to note that all four divisions of the University were
represented by the interested candidates.
-
Mr. Adelizzi moved to appoint Mr. Fiori, Ms. Friedmann, Ms. Lee, Mr. Miller,
Mr. Silberman, Mr. Valentino, and Ms. Yang to the CPUC, seconded by Ms. Safran.
The motion was passed with no opposition.
6.1.2 Priorities Committee
-
Following a description of the responsibilities of the position, supplemented by current Priorities
Committee (PriComm) member Jim Vere, Mr. Silberman announced that Leonard Pease and Mr. Fiori
were interested candidates.
-
Ms. Hale asked if post-enrolled students could serve.
Mr. Miller stated that he had contacted Ann Halliday, Associate Scretary
of the University and ex officio secretary of the CPUC,
regarding this and had been
informed that they could not serve on the CPUC body.
The University's reason for this was that most post-enrolled students were also staff
and alumni, and thus were already respresented. A post-enrolled student can,
however, serve on the CPUC as an alumnus. Mr. Vere rightly pointed out that enrolled students
can also serve as alumni.
-
The two interested candidates presented brief statements. Mr. Fiori introduced
himself and informed the Assembly that he had served on the budget committee at UCSD,
experience that may be of relevance to PriComm. He stated that he would turn to the
GSG regarding issues. Mr. Pease stated that he wished to gain experience, to see how the
University runs, and to work for graduate students.
-
Mr. Vere made a request to question the candidates. He began by stating
that he had fought for the rights of the GSG to appoint graduate student representatives.
In the past, the Graduate School had made the nominations, which tended to be
unfavourable in terms of the sharing of information, as the representatives did
not have an obligation to report to the GSB.
With the current system, the GSG could more easily keep in contact with the
representatives.
Mr. Vere asked the candidates if they were willing to work with the GSG, to which
both replied affirmatively.
-
Mr. Silberman moved to nominate Messrs. Fiori and Pease for the Priorities Committee.
The motion passed with no opposition.
6.1.3 Resources Committee
-
A description of the position, provided to Mr. Silberman by Mr. Ratzman, was given.
-
Mr. Adelizzi noted that the interested candidate, Elliot Ratzman, had served on
the committee for 2 years already. Mr. Ratzman's statement was read out to the Assembly
by Mr. Silberman.
-
Hadi Jorati expressed interest in serving on the Resources Committee. He stated that
he was interested in gaining experience. Mr. Jorati was questioned by Ms. Safran and
Mr. Vere.
-
As there were 2 candidates and 1 position, a vote was required. It was agreed that the
vote should take place by secret ballot.
-
Mr. Jorati withdrew his candidacy. Due to a misunderstanding, he thought that he would
be serving with Mr. Ratzman and had not realised that only one position was available.
Mr. Jorati stated that he did not wish to contest Mr. Ratzman for the position.
-
Mr. Silberman moved to nominate Mr. Ratzman for the Resources Committee. The motion
passed with no opposition.
6.1.4 Rights and Rules Committee
-
Ms. Safran raised the issue of enforcement if departments were not performing their
roles, for example with relation to departmental Graduate Student Committees (GSCs).
Ms. Friedmann suggested that the Dean of the Faculty would be the appropriate person to
talk to and that the Rights and Rules Committee (R&R Committee) did not have any known activity.
It was later noted by Mr. Miller that it was not the responsibility of
the R&R Committee to take action against departments not
complying with their duties; rather, this is the role of the Judicial Committee.
To this, Ms. Friedmann added that the R&R Committee was not a disciplinary committee.
-
Ms. Friedmann stated that it was important that the Rights, Rules and
Responsibilities book be read, and that readers of the book tell others of its contents.
-
Mr. Miller suggested that the GSG would like the contents of the Rights, Rules and
Responsibilities book to be updated to reflect the greater prominence that the GSG
now held as the representative body of all graduate students. He asked if Ms. Friedmann
would be willing to advocate this to the R&R Committee. Ms. Friedmann was willing to
do so.
-
Mr. Silberman moved to nominate Ms. Friedmann for the Rights and Rules Committee,
seconded by Mr. Butler. The motion passed with none opposed.
6.1.5 Judicial Committee
-
Ms. Friedmann asked why CPUC members could not serve on the Judicial Committee and was informed
that the judicial branch was kept separate [to avoid conflict of interest].
Mr. Vere asked if GSG Officers were excluded from serving on the Judicial Committee.
On checking the Constitution, Mr. Adelizzi informed the Assembly that GSG Executives
could not serve on this Committee as they were the first judicial level of the GSG.
This interpretation was considered dubious by Mr. Vere.
-
Heather White volunteered to serve on the committee. Ms. White
was nominated for the Judicial Committee without opposition.
6.1.6 Governance Committee
-
Mr. Silberman stated that the current Governance Committee graduate student representative
was David Linsenmeier, and provided a description of the committee.
-
Ms. Safran asked if there were any restrictions on who may serve on this Committee and was informed by Mr. Silberman that there were not.
-
No other volunteers being forthcoming, Anita Adhitya volunteered to serve.
Mr. Adelizzi moved to nominate Ms. Adhitya for the Governance Committee. The
motion passed with no opposition.
6.1.7 Summary of CPUC Nominations
-
The GSG nominations for the CPUC are as follows:
CPUC Nominees:
Anthony Fiori (WWS)
Tamar Friedmann (PHY)
Scott Miller (CHE), GSG Chair (ex officio)
Brigitta Lee (EAS)
Lior Silberman (MAT), GSG Parliamentary Secretary (ex officio)
Joe Valentino (ELE)
Huiyan Yang (AOS)
[Following the meeting, the graduate U-councillors elected
Scott Miller and Brigitta Lee to the CPUC Executive Committee.]
CPUC Committees:
Priorities - Anthony Fiori (WWS), Leonard Pease (CHE)
Judicial - Heather White (REL)
Governance - Anita Adhitya (AOS)
Resources - Elliot Ratzman (REL)
Rights and Rules - Tamar Friedmann (PHY), Jason Casellas (POL)
- NEW BUSINESS
7.1 Frist Campus Centre Programming Board
-
Mr. Miller informed the Assembly that Mr. Fouse had been asked to join
the Frist Campus Centre Programming Board. Mr. Fouse had forwarded the emailed request
to Mr. Miller, who wrote back to the Laurie Ann Hall, the organiser of the
Frist Programming Board, verifying that the GSG could send a representative.
7.2 Princeton University Environmental Oversight Committee
-
Mr. Jordan informed the Assembly that a Princeton University Environmental Oversight Committee
had been formed, and that he had been appointed to the committee to represent
graduate students. The committee is a closed committee. Mr. Jordan invited
suggestions from the GSB. [Contact wjordan@]
-
Mr. Jordan informed the Assembly that the committee members included Facilities,
a graduate student, and 2 undergraduates. The 2 undergraduate students currently on the committee
had proposed the formation of this committee in the Environmental Audit two years ago.
-
Ms. Safran contrasted this with the post-enrollment case.
Here, those who had written the Audit and recommended the committee had been appointed to the
committee; in the case of the post-enrollment committee, the graduate students who had
written the post-enrollment report and knew most about the issue had not been appointed
to the University post-enrollment committee.
-
A brief discussion of how representatives should be nominated followed. The GSG
would like all requests for graduate student representatives to be referred to the GSG.
-
Mr. Adelizzi stated that Mr. Vere had worked to give the GSG the
right to nominate representatives for the CPUC during his term of service on the CPUC.
Mr. Adelizzi further informed the Assembly that, in the past, he and Jason Brownlee had been
involved in trying to have all requests for graduate student representatives
brought through the GSG. A problem was that different committees were convened by
different people or different parts of administration, and that there was no master list
of convenors.
- SCHEDULING OF NEXT MEETING
-
The next meeting of the GSG is scheduled for 6pm, Wednesday 8 May, 2002, in Frist 309.
-
The Assembly was asked by Mr. Miller if any changes to the meeting schedule
(every second Wednesday of the month) were required over summer.
No scheduling change requests were made.
- ADJOURNMENT
-
The meeting was adjourned at 8:35pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Anita Adhitya
Recording Secretary