Minutes from meeting of
October 3rd 2005

Funding Requests

Speaker Presentation

* Two representatives from the Honor Committee, Stewart Ackerly (Vice Chair for Trials) and Lauren Ross (Vice Chair for Investigations) came to speak to us tonight.
* The faculty survey that the Honor Committee is putting together will also be given to TAs. It is good to know that at least the Honor Committee knows we exist. Now if we could just work on the rest of the University.
* Luke suggested that they broaden survey to include all grad students who have taught or TAed at some point. He also mentioned that he doesn't like the single sanction rule.
* Aside from Luke's relatively mild (for Luke, anyway) criticism of the single sanction rule, we let these folks from Honor off pretty easy. People, people, people. Who are we if we can't berate representatives from Honor? We need to take a good look at ourselves in the mirror and decide what kind of a Grad Council we want to be.

Funding Presentations

13the Annual German Graduate Studies Graduate Student Conference

* The Council uninimously voted to fund $1500 for this conference. This is short of the $1900 they requested because they still have some outstanding requests. I am sure they have a lot of outstanding things in the German department but their particularly outstanding requests are the issue here.


National Association of Graduate-Professional Students Affiliation

* This is a national body of grad councils. We pay a membership fee every year to help them along. This membership fee can be whatever we feel comfortable paying between $300 and $1000.
* Seems like a simple choice, right? If you have to choose between giving someone $300 or $1000 you give them $300, right? Nop. Not us. We voted unanimously to get them $500. That is the kind of generous Grad Council we are.

Officer and Ex Officio Representative Reports

President's Report

* Gavin had a meeting with President Casteen and the Rector of the Board of Visitors. Apparently the BOV signed opp on a budget that would increase graduate funding. Sounds like good news, right? Unfortunately, this happens every year and Richmond always ignores it. So the BOV will try to raise some money somehow to fill the gap between what they wanted to fund us and what Richmond agreed to.
* This is the last meeting before Jorge Cham (the PhD comics guy) comes to speak. He will be speaking in the bookstore where he can sign copies of his book. I wonder if plublishing a book of PhD comics counts toward your tenure review.
* Gavin reported that the fees we pay ($60 per semester) are a lot more than grad students at other schools pay and we get a whole lot less than they do. We do, however, get the privilege of going to Mr. Jefferson's University. As a matter of fact, they should be charging us a whole lot more than that. We are getting a good deal.

Vice President's report

* Doug wants to get a list of clubs and/or organizations up on the Grad Council website so that grad students can know all the opportunities for involvement that are out there.
* Doug would like to get the website to the point that it is the central place where grad students go to find any type of info they need. If that is the case, I say we get a list of possible dissertation topics to choose from. I bet we would get a lot of traffic that way.
* The fight goes on to get a space for Grad Council. We will be able to get a mailbox but anything else will be tough. The only thing on grounds that is more scarce than money, it turns out, is space. I guess we will just have to be nomads. Nomads with a mailbox.
* Doug is also the rep for the student health committee. He is soliciting any concerns that grad students have that he can address with the committee. If the committee could do something to improve the job prospects for PhD's who hope to get paid large amounts of money for doing minimal amounts of work, that would sure improve this student's health.



Second Vice President's Report

* Minutes from our most recent bull session were distributed.
* After having been presented with a graph of the quality of Grad Council minutes over time and taking note of the large negative slope, the minutes were passed unanimously.


StudCo Report

* Josh won a decisive and convincing victory for his spot on StudCo but has since decided that he doesn't want the job. Anyone else want it? Up for grabs.




UJC

* So there is a referendum that may be on the Fall ballot for hate crimes that actually makes it harder for perpetrators of these crimes to be punished. Yep, you read that right. It makes it harder for them to be punished.
* Who do they have writing these things anyway? Seems like a blind-folded chimp with a pencil in his teeth could do a better job than this.
* Anyway, if it ends up on the ballot, we need to make sure grad students understand the consequences of it so that they know what they are voting on.

Old Business

Committee Reports/Membership

* Ben is the chair of the Research Committee.
* There was a question of whether we can combine the Teaching Committee and the Grad Student Welfare Committee. We then decided that we can do whatever we want. We are the Grad Council. Who is going to stop us?
* So the Committees are now: Budget, Social, Teaching and Misc., and Research.
* Social Committee Report:

* The next Restaurant Club event will be Oct 20.
* There will be a tailgating party on the (home, home on the) Range on Nov 12.
* This Saturday, there will be a group going apple picking. Better than cherry picking. I hate it when people don't play any defense and just cherry pick all game.
* The DJ is all set for the Halloween party. Jena will send flyers around to all the reps since that has been the most successful mode of advertising thus far.


New Business & Departmental Concerns

* Reminder: Graduate Student Social, Thursday Oct 13 from 5-8 pm in the Satellite Ballroom.
* Just a note about the Forum on the Observatory that we discussed last time. The Astronomy Department told Mario that they have lived up to all their committments regarding the observatory. The chair of the department would like a chance to address Grad Council so that we can hear their side of the story. He also mentioned that if UVA backed out of the agreement on the observatory, it would have very adverse consequences for the Astronomy Department.

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