November 11, 1999
Call to order: ~ 7:40 p.m.
Agenda:
I. Visitors
- Kobby Hoffman, Arts and Sciences Research Administration
- Susan Gartzke, Budhist Studies Graduate Council Conference funding
request
- Amy Campbell, Women's Center
II. Secretary's report
III. Treasurer's Report
IV. President's Report
- Health Insurance Survey early results
- Spring 2000 Research Fair plans
- Letter from Amanda about UAW/UMass
V. Honor and StudCo Reports
VI. Old Business
- Updating the Funding Request Process
VII. New Business
VIII. Departmental Concerns
I. Visitors
A. Kobby Hoffman, Arts and Sciences Research Administration
Ms. Hoffman is an experienced grant writer. She wrote her first grants while in graduate school, and later started writing and administering grants professionally. Ms. Hoffman came to this GSC meeting at Oliver Wilcox's invitation.
Oliver mentioned that he would like to see a relationship develop between the Arts and Sciences Research Administration Office and graduate students. He would like to see the office promoting itself as a resource-in a systematic fashion-to the graduate students. The GSC could help in a formal sense to achieve this goal. This would help graduate students become more aware of the resources available to them.
Chris mentioned the idea of potentially having a graduate assistant who would work in the Arts and Sciences Research Administration Office to facilitate graduate students.
According to Oliver, a large number of students receive no funding during their first year of graduate school. It would benefit the students as well as the University for students to enter graduate school with external funding. He recommends that UVa inform the students about external funding before they decide to attend this University. Oliver stated that the Government Department makes no effort to inform students about possible funds.
Patrick confirmed Oliver's statement: unlike other, more pro-active departments, the Government Department faculty members rarely show an interest in mentoring graduate students applying for external funds. Jeryn claims the Art Department is like the Government Department.
Ms. Hoffman recommends that people interested in academia start writing grants while in graduate school. She submitted handouts with information pertaining to her office. She invited graduate students to stop by her office and emphasized that there are many resources available; that people should apply to multiple resources, especially when seeking external funding for the first time. According to Ms. Hoffman, having a large number of smaller grants is fine, as long as one accomplishes all he has set to accomplish.
In writing grants a person must know what the mission of the sponsors is, he needs to find a way to tie what he wants to accomplish to the mission of the sponsors. It is important that the person be confident he can accomplish the goals, that he make his own goal relevant to the wider audience and that he pay respect to those who came before him.
The level of quality and variety of among the departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) is a well-known fact. Most of the natural sciences have individuals who help keep track of grants within their department. Kobby Hoffman warned us that most of the money available is for research in the medical field, and that one cannot know what he will end up with when applying for grants. Most grants are for research, there are not as many resources to "just write a dissertation," according to Kobby Hoffman. Whether the funds are for master or doctoral degree completely depends upon the field of study.
The difference among the departments of the GSAS is illustrated by the fact that a number of departments invited Ms. Hoffman to give a brief talk to their entering graduate students. In such a case, Ms. Hoffman usually does a brief search specific to the particular field in order to introduce the students to the "ropes" of finding external funding. She thinks that it would be worth putting together a funding information sheet relevant to each department. Ms. Hoffman emphasized the importance of learning from our faculty members about writing grants, since most of them are experienced in seeking funds.
This discussion ended with the guest expressing her interest in helping the graduate student body in finding external funding. She asked for help in putting together a minimal package that would help our colleagues in the future, and also asked for suggestions regarding the web site of her office.
B. Susan Gartzke, Buddhist Studies Graduate Council Conference funding request
This is an annual conference that changes location each year. The first Conference took place at Harvard, the second at the University of Michigan. The upcoming Third Annual Buddhist Graduate Council will be take place at UVa. There will be a number of presentations given by graduate students, from UVa and other universities. Also, the students will gather to discuss a number of previously chosen articles. The conference will take place on March 31 and April 1, 2000. This conference will be opened to all interested in participating.
The speaker was asking for help with travel costs for visiting students.
Oliver asked Susan whether she looked into outside funding and suggested the Art History Department, and the Center of Near Eastern Studies as potential financial supporters of this event. Jeryn listed a few faculty members from the Art Department advocating Asian Studies.
Given that the GSC funds are sparse this year, Chris asked the visitor about the possibility of obtaining funds from other sources. According to Susan Gartzke Dean Huskey has been very generous in helping with the conference as well.
C. Amy Campbell, Women's Center
The conference organized with Betty William which the GSC helped sponsor was a success. One fourth of the participants at the conference were graduate students. The evening lecture attracted on the order of two hundred people.
The Women's Center honors each year a distinguished alumna with an award. In the coming year, the Center will organize a series named "Women 2000 - Shapers of the World." This will include inviting all previously nominated distinguished alumna. Also, the Women's Center will start nominating a non-alumna women to be honored throughout the year. Amy asked the GSC to help spread the word about this new award, since the School of Arts and Sciences is the most difficult to choose candidates from.
A prominent editor will visit the Women's Center next semester. Amy suggested that we try to overlap the Publishing Forum with the Center's event.
It was not clear that the GSC plans on organizing a Publishing Forum this year, but Oliver suggested inviting a couple more people and organizing a panel along with the Women's Center visitor.
Funding request discussion: The Treasurer pointed out that we haven't solicited requests for our funds this year, that we expect more funding requests next semester and that all applications should be evaluated based on merit.
Regarding the Buddhist Conference, the travel costs came under question. They are rather high. Also, there was a debate on whether paying travel fare for graduate students is acceptable. The GSC members agreed that having one's activity fee attributed towards supporting students from across the nations to gather for a highly acclaimed conference is justified. Patrick opened the bid at one thousand dollars. All were in favor of supporting the conference with this sum of money.
II. Secretary's report
The September minutes were approved unanimously. The October minutes were distributed via email. The secretary will edit and re-distribute the latter.
III. Treasurer's Report
1. 1998-1999 carryover: +$3,677.29
2. Fall 1999 Appropriation (prelim.): +$3,500.00
3. Spring 1999 (carryover) - Airfares for Michael Lambeck: -$660.83
4. September 1999 - pizza: -$41.19
5. September 1999 - orientation social: -$205.54
6. October 1999 - Chris Palma (pizza): -$49.62
Total Additions: +$7,177.29
Total Expenditures: -$957.18
This puts our current account balance at $6,220.11
(Note: This figure does not include funding allocations to student groups
from last semester that have not yet been debited from our account.)
(Note: This balance does not include our Spring appropriation of
approximately $3,500, so for those of you who would like to think in terms
of a yearly balance, it would be approximately $9,720)
Discussion: We also discussed the possibility of discontinuing the food at our meetings. No final decision was made regarding this issue.
IV. President's Report:
A. Health Insurance Survey early results
The response level on the Health Insurance Survey was low, about 20%. Of those who responded, 60% chose health insurance as the primary funding choice.
Oliver pointed out that a large number of graduate students are not present on Grounds due to their research. Todd suggested looking into the demographic results of the survey as well.
In conclusion, the responses were encouraging, and Chris along with Todd will inform Dean Huskey about the survey results.
B. Spring 2000 Research Fair plans
The financial aspect of the Fair should not be a problem. Our President talked both to Dean Huskey and Gene Block, the Vice-President for Research. The latter will support the Fair.
Oliver had a question regarding the organization of the fair, to which Chris replied that he plans on using the Research Fair structure of Penn State which has decades of experience with such fairs.
C. Letter from Amanda about UAW/Umass
The GSC decided not to act as a group in supporting the above organization. Members of the Council were invited to act as individuals.
V. Honor, Judiciary and StudCo Representatives Reports
The Honor and Judiciary representatives were not present at this meeting.
Richard Pierce, the StuCo representative brought up the issue of the Affirmative Action letter discussed at our previous meeting. According to Rich, our letter and that of the StuCo did not carry much weight. Our voice is more likely to be heard at the BOV meetings if we solicit the student member of the BOV.
Rich also brought up the meeting QualChoice will have with the StuCo this coming February. Since graduate students are the primary student users of this plan, StuCo will follow the lead of GSC on this issue. The main concern at this point is the fact that QualChoice failed to address any of the issues described in the Health Insurance Resolution Patrick wrote last year. Among these, changing the language of their application so that students may get a clear description of the health plans they offer. The resolution also encourages the University to open the bidding and look for new health insurance providers.
It is not clear that the Resolution was distributed to students at all, as initially promised by QualChoice.
The issue of the effectiveness and willingness of the Student Health in accepting other insurance plans was mentioned as well. People had different opinions on this issue.
The GSC will try to find out some concrete facts regarding the above mentioned resolution before the upcoming meeting with QualChoice this coming February.
VI. Old Business
A. Updating the Funding Request Process
VII. New Business
Oliver and Patrick suggested that the GSC should think about soliciting more requests from the graduate student body.
VIII. Departmental Concerns
The meeting adjourned at 8:30 p.m.