Graduate Student Council Minutes

February 11, 1998

7:04pm: Call to order.

Secretary's Report:

Chris asked for approval of the minutes for December. Rich moves to accept with second by Todd. Motion passes unanimously.

Treasurer's Report:

Rich Pierce, Treasurer, distributed the following report:

1. 1997-1998 Carryover -- See 10 below
2. Fall 1998 Appropriation +$3600.00
3. August 1998 -- pizza -$85.00
4. August 1998 -- reservations -$140.00
5. August 1998 -- photocopying -$4.85
6. Alternative Careers in Science Symposium -$1250.00
7. NAGPS Membership Fee -$400.00
8. Art History Graduate Symposium -$700.00
9. German/History Dept. Conference -$2000.00
10. Load 6/30/98 Cash* +$7041.78
11. Amanda French -- food -$106.55

Totals:
Additions: +$10641.78
Expenditures: -$4686.40
Note: *Quoting Dean Huskey, "Also in December, there was a budgetary entry of $7041.78 which was listed as "Load 6/30/98 Cash". The current, apparent balance is $8815.55 with to-date expenditures of $-1413.77. The negative expenditures results from the large load of cash." My calculations give a current balance of $5955.38.

Discussion:

Rich mentioned that there is still no resolution to the $140.00 "reservations" mystery.

The paperwork has been submitted to pay our NAGPS dues, but it has not been processed yet.

Funding Requests:

Representatives of the American Studies Department requested $1000 for a conference titled, "Is There Life After Identity Politics?"

Oliver asked if potential attendees from the DC/Richmond area have been targeted, and was informed that emails have been sent out to all local schools. Jordi also suggested contacting Sociology faculty with interests in the field of identity politics.

Rich pointed out that the total budget indicated on the FRF was larger than the sum of the values in the individual categories. The discrepancy was due to honoraria being left off of the budget, since other funding sources are covering that item.

Oliver asked if there would be a critic on the panel. The organizers did choose a panel member with controversial views to provoke discussion.

Todd mentioned that it seemed like this year's conference may not have as much grad involvement as in the past. We were assured that grads are attending reading groups discussing the work of panel members as well as being completely in charge of organization of the conference and introduction of the speakers.

Virginia moved to fund at the $1000 level, with a second by Oliver. Motion passes unanimously.

Representatives of the Art History conference returned to ask for a second disbursement of funds, as per our request in the Fall.

After a brief discussion, Virginia moved to fund at the $1000 level, with a second by Jordi. The motion passed 5-1 with the caveat that we must receive a line item budget prior to releasing funds.

Finally, we received an FRF to fund the CREES symposium at the $1340 level. A motion to fund at $1340 by Jordi with a second by Oliver failed, while a motion to fund at $1400 by Elena with a second by Todd passed unanimously.

President's Report:

Publishing Forum:

With help from John Portmann, the publishing forum is on. Email advertising the forum has been sent to all reps to forward to their departments. Some discussion on the humanities orientation of the forum was held, and Amanda decided to try and find out if a social sciences editor from UVa press could be added to the forum.

Student Council:

Elections are coming up -- we need to either nominate from within people who are interested, or try and get other grads interested in running for executive offices.

Old Business:

The HIC gave a brief update. We have been asked to include grads from Engineering and Education (possibly Architecture) in our proposal. It has also been suggested that we get information on exactly how the med school funds insurance and why. With these changes, and the addition of hard data provided by NAGPS, we hope to bring our proposal before the full council soon for a vote.

New Business:

Amanda brought up the changes to the ENWR program for discussion. Council members agreed to mention the potential changes to the program to grads that may be interested.

Chris asked if there was support for a grad research fair, where dissertating grads would present posters on their thesis research. A panel of faculty judges would pick winners in broad categories and award cash prizes funded by the GSC. This got some support and the council seemed interested in pursuing this idea with Dean Huskey.

Meeting adjourned 8:00 pm (?)