Minutes from meeting of
January 31st 2005

Funding Requests

Officer and Ex Officio Representative Reports

President's Report

* Tom informed us that he didn't get to go home for Christmas but instead spent his break diligently preparing to make his second semester as our fearless leader even better than the first semester.
* El Presidente then gave us a brief synopsis of his dinner on Carr Hill with President Casteen where the topics of discussion included the Chartered Universities Initiative, activity fees, and a hefty increase in the salary of the Second Vice President of the Grad Council of Arts and Sciences.
* The head honcho next told us that he will be attending the all university retreat next month and will report back to us. I for one don't think we should be retreating at this point in the game. I mean, I was never treated to anything in the first place. So how can they think that they can retreat now?

Vice President's report

* Wonder Woman, er I mean Brandi, said that she may have to send flowers in order to get the problems with the grad student email list solved. Might I suggest a nice arrangement of daffodils and tulips? A nice bouquet of daisies and lilies would be what they are expecting but we need to bring out the big guns on this one. Do I hear a motion for daffodils and tulips? . . . anyone?
* The revamping of the website has hit a few snags.

* GSAS is changing their website as well and it would be best if we could use their templates. However their change seems to be moving along at a rate a little slower than continental drift.
* A suggestion was made to send out an email that contains an actual dollar amount of how much we are willing to pay a student to build this new website.




Second Vice President's Report

* Minutes from last meeting were passed around for the perusal of the council.
* They were approved unanimously (yawn), though several positive comments were made about the entertainment value of the content of last months minutes. Yes, the accolades are nice but I do it for the love of the graduate students. My intentions and efforts are firmly grounded in the belief that each and every one of us can, and should, make a difference. I think there is something in my eye.



StudCo Report

* According to Gavin, "StudCo didn't do much last week". What a coincidence! Neither did I.




Honor Report

* Yet again, we were without anyone from Honor tonight. Apparently they were too busy to "Honor" us with their presence. OK, I admit that was pretty bad. I'm just doing the best I can with the material I have. Maybe if they showed up once in a while I would have more to work with.





UJC Report

* Nothing exciting seems to be happening with the Judiciary Committee. The problem may be that they are waiting for the excitement to come to them. Man, if you want something in life, you can't sit back and wait for it. You have to go out there and make it happen!
* Apparently, a certain high ranking official on student council, who will remain nameless, is trying to change the judiciary system to account for hate crimes. Looks like someone is angling for a second term.




CEPC Report

* Andre didn't have anything to report on this since the next meeting is tomorrow. What, don't you have a crystal ball, Andre? How about tarot cards? How about just a good guess? How about a bad guess? Anything?

Committee Reports

Budget Committee Report and Funding Debate

* Heather, filling in admirably for our money guru Anna, informed us that we are sitting on a pretty sizable nest egg still.
* $9050 was allocated during the fall semester, which still leaves us with plenty left over to pay off the student loans of the talented yet unappreciated author of these minutes.
* Two requests for funding were made.
* The budget committee met earlier and recommended funding $500 for Sylvia Molloy's seminar sponsored by the Spanish Department and $800 for the Jefferson Lecture in Chemistry.
* A third request was made by the English Department but was delayed until next meeting when it was discovered that their numbers didn't add up. Give them break, Folks. They are from the English Department. If their request had contained sentences ending in prepositions and inappropriate metaphors, then we would have something on our hands.
* A motion to fund in full passed unanimously.

Health Insurance Committee report

* Wonder Woman informed us that the committee met with two insurance providers, Chickering and GM Southwest.
* Apparently a lot of questions went unanswered. Sounds a lot like graduate school to me.
* Premiums will be increasing $250 for single students and $300 for families. Good thing graduate students have plenty of extra money laying around. If not, this could be a problem.
* Of the 4,000 UVA students currently covered by Chickering, 2,000 are graduate students who receive insurance waivers and 500 are graduate students not receiving insurance waivers.
* Apparently there is quite a bit of bureaucracy in dealing with the Student Health Insurance Committee organized by the University. I wouldn't expect anything less.
* Info from the grad student survey was used at the most recent meeting of this group.
* It was announced that an advocate for graduate students "lives" at the Student Health Center. It was unclear as to whether this person actually does reside at the building on the corner of Brandon Ave and JPA or if that was just a figure of speech. The jury is still out but my money is on figure of speech. I'll let you know if I hear anything.
* The committee would like to compile a list of alternative insurance providers to Chickering and distribute this to students so that they are aware of their options.

Teaching Committee

* Srikrishna explained that the committee is looking for ways to distribute the survey that will give the committee info on graduate students' experiences teaching at the University.
* The subject of publicly available course evaluation sparked heated debate. It got to the point where I had to take my jacket off because I was sweating.

Diversity Committee

* No representatives from this committee were in attendance. Therefore the committee's report was fairly short. In fact, there was no report. Probably because no one from the committee was at the meeting. Funny how that worked out that way.


Research Exhibition Committee Report

* Patrick Eidam, who is one of the coordinators of the exhibition, gave us some details on the event.

* The exhibition will take place on April 11 and 12 in the new Special Collections Library.
* A call for papers and presentations will be sent out soon. While we are at it, we should also put out a call for Batman. I have always wondered if the Bat Signal actually works. Only one way to find out.
* Retired faculty will serve as judges for the event. I doubt there will be any Jeremy Bentham style corpses housed in cases filled with formaldehyde but a fellow can dream, can't he?


Speaker Series Committee Report

* It appears that this committee is officially defunct. At this point, so is my dissertation.


Social Committee

* Jena reported that the event at Orbit in December went well.
* The Rapture event was pulled because our co-sponsors fell through.
* Upcoming events include:
* BBQ at the end of Spring.
* Rafting.
* Habitat for Humanity build.
* Bowling.


ABD Support Committee report

* Allison reported that she sent emails to departments asking how many of their students are being funded.
* Some departments have not responded.
* The idea is to show the administration how tough it is for dissertation writing students having to pay research fees. It makes it even harder when you give away half your money to televangelists. I need to stop doing that.

New Business & Departmental Concerns

"Town Hall" Meeting on the Graduate Student Survey

* This event will occur on Monday February 7th at 7:00pm.
* Jonathan Shire from IAAS will be there to discuss the results of the survey.
* Dean Brujes and Roseanne Ford will be there as well.
* It is unclear whether Frog and Toad will be there too. Oh wait, that would be Toad Hall. Never mind.

Vote on Constitutional Changes

* Passed unanimously.


Vote on Bylaws

* A few questions arose including omitted groups under the Diversity Committee, inconsistencies with restrictions for social committee, and why reality TV has not gone the way of the dodo. I think it is further evidence of society's overall decline, but that is just one man's opinion.


Charter University Initiative

* Tom is really behind this.
* Our numero uno has spent a lot of time putting together a well written and concise summary of the issue which can be found here.

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