Minutes from meeting of
October 4th 2004

Call order 7:03pm

Funding Requests

* Funding for 100th anniversary of birth of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda
* Requested $1,406 from Grad Council
* Motion was made to fund $700, with a stipulation that if they can't get the other $700 from The Cultrual Board then they can come back and we can give it to them. This motion passed unanamously.

Stephanie McCormick, Neuroscience Research Day

* Annual event for Neuroscience grad students to present their research to fellow students and faculty. Also, different from in years past, there will be speakers and a career panel.
* Requested $1,755 from Grad Council.
* Motion was made to table the request until next meeting when more information will be known as to how much the Neuroscience department will be willing to fund. The motion passed 17-1.

Committee's progress reports

Social Committee

* Past events, including a vineyard tour and miniature golf, were successful.
* Future events in the works are a rafting trip, bowling night, happy hour, ski trip, and apple picking. These will cost in th neighborhood of $2,000.
* It was decided that the Social Committee will use the remaining funds that had been allocated for summer events that had gone unused.
* The Halloween Party at Starr Hill was also discussed. Should be fun.

Treasurer's Report & Funding Debate

* We have $21,728.14. Wohoo!!

President's Report

* Tom is working on getting a new location for our meetings.
* He attended a dinner for student leaders at President Casteen's house. They talked about possible joint BA/MA programs that the University may start.
* The Diversity Report says that graduate students are underfunded (we already knew that).
* The Teaching Resource Center wants to work with us.

Vice Presidents Report

* Brandi was noticeably absent tonight. She was celebrating her birthday. Happy birthday, Brandi!!

2nd Vice Presidents Report

* The minutes from last meeting were approved unanamously.

Honor Report

* The GSASC reps on the Honor Committee have conflicts with our monday meeting schedule.

StudCo Report

* StudCo passed a resolution officially condeming a racial slur incidence that occured on Grounds recently.

GLU Report

* Had a rally recently protesting UVA's move to charter university status.

Old Business

Constitution

* Motion was made to pass second ratification of constitutional revisions and was passed unanamously

Graduate Student Survey

* The survey should be circulating by mid October.
* It should take about a month to complete (not for one person to complete the survey, I'm assuming, but for all the results to be tabulated).
* A random sample of graduate and professional students will be sent surveys and will receive enticing inentives to turn the survey in.

Last week's Honor Forum

* An article in the Cavalier Daily about the event wasn't terribly complimentary.
* Tom wrote a letter to the editor that was co-signed by the Honor Committee Chair, Meghan Sullivan.
* There will be another discussion about the Honor System this week sometime in Jefferson Hall.

New Business & Departmental Concerns

Presentation about Double Hoo Awards by the Undergraduate Research Network

* Maggie Samra came to speak with us.
* Grant given to graduate and and undergraduate students to do joint research.
* The prize is $5,000 to be split between the two students.

Students from Engineering and Education

* We have a lot in common with graduate students from these two areas
* We hope to be able to collaborate with them in the future.
* Questions were raised about whether or not these students would be able to vote on Council if they don't contribute funds.

Bylaws

* There was discussion about whether the standing committees should stand as is or not.
* A suggestion was made to add a Diversity Committee.
* We will vote on them next meeting.

New Reps for large departments

* There are several departments that are large enough to have another representative.
* We need to try to find people to fill these seats.

Meeting ended at 8:45pm

Minutes from meeting of October 4th 2004