Minutes from meeting of
March 14th 2005

Funding Requests

Guests

Catherine Neale and Jamie Head, Student Representatives to the Board of Visitors

* Jamie (who is the outgoing student rep) explained that the role of the student representative is to give the Board insight into student opinions and issues.
* He also indicated that the Board is extremely interested in knowing what graduate students think.
* Catherine (the incoming student rep) is also on the College Foundation, which is not what the Rotunda is standing on, but rather it coordinates all fundraising for the College of Arts and Sciences.
* There was an in-depth discussion about the need for a physical space (which is the best kind of space, if you ask me) where grad students could congregate.
* There was also a call for more training for graduate instructors.
* Tom explained the ins and outs of the budget amendment that passed in both the Virginia State Senate and House of Delegates that would restrict state appropriations to only be used for graduate students who are Virginia residents. It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or graduate student in economics) to tell you that this would be bad news if the Governor doesn't change this somehow.

Officer and Ex Officio Representative Reports

President's Report

* Tom explained to us that this has been his busiest month so far as Grad Council President. I won't use the exact words that Tom used. I don't want the FCC to crack down on this little sideshow.
* At the all university retreat, Tom expressed to the other retreat goers that we don't have a forum to express concerns (except, of course, for the all university retreat).
* The graduate student funding fiasco that could occur as a result of the budget amendment could cause big problems with the Chartered Universities Initiative.
* Allison Berg has been working hard to find out from DGSs how many departments pay for their grad students' research fees. Some DGSs haven't been great at responding which either means they don't know or are just playing hard to get. My money is on the latter.
* The resolution concerning student evaluations which was approved at our emergency meeting, and was so skillfully crafted by Josh, was passed unanimously by the Student Council.

Vice President's report

* Brandi was under the weather (as opposed to over it??) so Tom filled in admirably for her.
* There is still no new website and probably will not be one until next year. Revamping the website once a decade is an admirable goal (we are just not sure in which decade it will happen).
* Brandi has compiled a list of alternative health insurance options for graduate students and posted it on the Grad Council website.




Second Vice President's Report

* Minutes from last meeting were passed around for the perusal of the council and were approved unanimously.
* A request was made to decrease the stand up comedy routine to actual substance ratio in the minutes. No problem. The jokes were falling pretty flat anyway (is it my fault that economists aren't funny?).



StudCo Report

* A resolution to stop the proliferation of tobacco in 1st year residences was soundly defeated. Chalk up another win for Big Tobacco.




Honor Report

* The consensus clause (which would have made it virtually impossible to change the single sanction rule) failed by 42 votes in the recent election.
* Voting by graduate students in the Arts & Sciences was up 300% and chances are most of them voted against the consensus clause. Who says your vote doesn't count?





UJC Report

* Gavin won reelection to UJC by a landslide. He sees this as a mandate and has proposed privatizing the social security system.
* Gavin took the opportunity to plug the University Board of Elections, which is looking for some representatives from GSAS.
* The amount of time that Gavin actually spends on his dissertation was called into question. The general consensus was that Gavin has actually been cloned. Cool. I want a Gavin clone.




CEPC Report

* Andre reported that at the last meeting, the committee discussed the issues surrounding the Non-Western Perspectives Requirement. To use Andre's figure of speech, they are trying to "prune the bush".
* He also said that there was some discussion concerning whether January term credits could be counted the same as normal credits. As long as they are not debits, they should be the same, right?

Committee Reports

Budget Committee Report and Funding Debate

* Doug performed his duties in his first official meeting as Treasurer (and he did a fine job, I might add).
* Our current balance sits at $20,218.57.
* Four requests for funding were made.
* The budget committee met earlier and recommended funding $1500 for Meridian's publishing costs, $400 for the a graduate conference in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics, $375 for assembly of an online survey by the Teaching Committee, and a request from the English Department was rejected with an invitation to resubmit.
* A motion to fund in full passed unanimously.

Health Insurance Committee report

* Gavin filled in admirably for Brandi. Again, does this guy have anything else to do? Oh, right, the clones.
* There will be a 13% increase in the price of insurance coverage for a graduate student. This is better than the 15-20% increases that other insurance users are seeing.

Teaching Committee

* Srikrishna answered questions concerning the teaching survey.
* It looks good and is ready to be sent out this week. Great work!
* The Teaching Resource Center wants to use the results from the survey and is providing the analysis of the data. The TRC will also be sharing with us the results of a survey they are doing with the DGSs.
* There was some worry about a self selection bias which would taint the results if presented to the administration.

Diversity Committee

* No one from the Diversity Committee was in attendance.


Research Exhibition Committee Report

* The Graduate Research Exhibition will be held on April 11, not April 11 and 12 as previously advertised.
* There have been between 40 and 50 entries so far and the buzz around here is that it will be the best Graduate Research Exhibition ever. I've got my bracket filled out and everything.


Social Committee

* Jena reported that they are trying to put together an event at Rapture for the Saturday after classes end. They are still trying to get co-sponsors at this point.
* Upcoming events include:
* Bar Night every Thursday.
* Habitat for Humanity build - April 16.
* BBQ - Sunday after Graduation.
* Possibly a grad student IM team. Luckily, most grad students were recruited for their athletic ability.


ABD Support Committee report

* As reported earlier, Allison is having trouble getting responses from certain DGSs to the email that she sent.
* We may have to talk to Dean Brunjes to see if we can get this info through other avenues.

New Business & Departmental Concerns

Second vote on Constitutional Changes

* Passed unanimously. It feels nice to not have that monkey on our backs anymore, doesn't it


Discussion and vote on Bylaws

* Passed unanimously.


Approval of representatives to the Honor Committee and University Judiciary Committee

* Diane, who provided helpful insights at the Honor Forum held during the Fall semester, has volunteered to be a GSASC representative on the Honor Committee.
* Maria (another in a long line of brilliant economists to come out of UVA) volunteered to fill the other spot for GSASC Honor reps.
* These two fine representatives were approved with 18 votes in favor and 1 abstention.
* There were no takers on the other open GSASC spot in UJC.


Discussion of upcoming Officer Elections

* Next meeting we will be electing new officers. Hard to believe but this reign of terror is finally coming to an end.

Site maintained by: GSASC webmaster
© 2000, 2001 UVA Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Council