Meeting Minutes
The Council of Graduate Students General Delegate Meeting
Friday, January 05, 2001- 3:30 PM
Present: Present: Officers: Ron Meyers (presiding), Kevin Cope, Briggs Cormier, Allyson Lowe
Executives: Anil Challa, Andrew Holbrook, Phil Huckelberry, Alecia Naugle, Elizabeth Warren
Voting Delegates: Cathryn Allen, Judit Bach, Jill Burkhart, Jason Cervenec, Anil Challa, Alysia Chaves, Pankaj Choudhary, Roger Dashner, Michael Duffy, Kay Fukuda, Leigh Anne Goldberg, Erich Guy, John Harris, Andrew Holbrook, Karen Huber, Phil Huckelberry, Unmesh Kurup, Edward Lasseigne, Scott Leppla, Stacza Lipinski, Alecia Naugle, Justin Pepperney, Daniel Peterson, Joe Pirone, Susan Printy, Mark Nuckols, Arun Ramakrishnan, Scott Risley, Christina Rivera, Marsha Robinson-Barber, Stanley Radzevicins, Michael Rowan, Scott Risley, Eve Scrogham, Kurset Sendur, Reema Shafi, John Shea, Theresa Skybo, Shannon Snyder, Dainta Teeple, Jeff Walline, Jennifer William, Jing Zhao, Lisa Wallace,
Non-Voting Delegates, Committee Representatives, Senators, Representatives and Guests: Huntington, Riffee, Yoon, Ralston
Introductions
We're in the process of working to form a statewide association of graduate students. Wes Flinn is here from the University of Cincinnati to observe. He is helping to spearhead the effort to establish a state-wide organization.
Guest Speaker: Tally Hart, Director of Student Financial Aid
I'm especially glad to be with you and talk about issues of graduate financing. I have some brief remarks and some issues that I've heard from dialogues with CGS officers and other conversations. I hope the lion's share of our time will be devoted to questions that you have of me. I hope to set a new platform of dialogue of issues over which we might be engaged in the future.
When I arrived on campus four years ago, I heard a number of issues from students about financial aid. These issues apply to graduate students as well as undergraduates. In general the issues that were reflected by graduates have to do with the concern that graduate education is increasingly reliant on student loans. While federal support continues to be strong, many would argue that it is the wrong kind of dollars: student loans, and often unsubsidized student loans. The distinction lies in that subsidized loans are deferred until ones education is complete. The real growth in student loans, however, has been in unsubsidized loans, which have a higher interest rate and begin accruing immediately after taking out the loan. This can rack up quite quickly and means that interest is racking up throughout the education. The questions about the availability of the right kind of financing is important. We've just learned that the key education House committee responsible for the loans will be chaired by an Ohioan. This move has created controversy as it has broke with the tradition of promoting on seniority, and also that there are concerns that this Congressman will not be friendly on issues regarding student loans.
Is Congressman Boehner a Republican? Yes. He's quite inexperienced and that's what's causing a lot of people to be nervous. Flinn: He's in the 8th Congressional District. Meyers: CGS joined the NAGPS lobby day last fall, and we met with Congressman Boehner's aide in Washington. His aide seemed to need education on the value of graduate education and the need for the government to fund it.
On a much more local level, I have heard from students that there is a need for greater access to financial aid information. I'm please to say that great improvements have been made due to the application of web technologies and our number of contacts made each year have dramatically increased. We find that the vast majority of students prefer this type of web contact . The agenda is not changed because the demand for personal contact information has not decreased. Therefore we are still amidst game plans. Our goal is on average, we will have a 10 minute average wait and that students won't redial more than twice.
Also in this last year, we created a toll-free telephone line that operates outside the 614 area code. We've had heavy traffic because half of the calls are intended for other offices. It's a work in progress.
We found that the budgets we were using were insufficient, and we've achieved improvement on that ground in the aggregate. We now have a process that recognizes many fees automatically in applying for financial aid. We're moving toward software that will allow us to do individual student budgets in the future. We think in the future we'll have to crate 50,000 student budgets. We have offered to be the pilot group for this process. If it works for Ohio State, it will work everywhere else!
One issue we discovered a problem with was when students were applying for aid in multiple programs, because we can only award one type of aid to a student at a given time. Now every year we recognize graduate students who have applied for aid in multiple categories. We now instruct these student who apply to a wide variety of programs what to do. Your feedback has been instrumental in creating this solution.
We will now have one or two meetings of our advisory board per year strictly devoted to graduate student finance issues. Increasingly there are more differences between graduate and professional students so there will be separate meetings to address each type of issue.
Some of the other issues we're starting to work on: first, we need to begin to differentiate between quarters so that aid can be divided unevenly between quarters as needed . We are also beginning to deal with issues that you are dealing with eligibility for student loans on a
I look forward to final publication of the GQUE report as I'm sure you do. We will take that document very seriously. Input through the GQUE will hopefully lead to more discussion of our action plan.
That concludes my report. Now I'd like to hear from you.
Meyers: Let's list some concerns that we have. Will we be able to email a question to you next week? Hart: Absolutely. My address is on the sheet at the back of the room and on the board: hart.149@osu.edu. My direct phone number is 8-5712. Please feel free to contract me by either vehicle.
More info on student loans refinancing? Hart: There's an ongoing litany on student loan refinancing provisions. They come out at the beginning of one of two fiscal years On both dates during the last year, there has been increased opportunities. The competition between public and private loan programs has been creating better rates for students. The two things that have been happened have been lower rates overall or reduction of interest rate if you pay on time for a given number of months.
Meyers: Thanks very much Tally.
Hart: Thanks
Ron Meyers, President, called the meeting to order at 4:03 PM
You have received a copy of my president's report. We have a new Vice President, Hyunsook Yoon. We want to thank Allyson Lowe, the outgoing Vice President. Hyunsook is transitioning well. In looking at the size of the organization, we have 230 people who represent 114 graduate programs and we have 130 some committee positions that we fill. Please feel free to drop us a line at any time . We can always use your support in finding more delegates. The good news is we're happy to hear people out talking about CGS extensively.
There was big news over the break. It's interesting in light of our efforts to stress academic partnerships between athletics and academics. Coach Cooper was let go in part because of his failing in that regard. SASSO needs special help with the physical sciences so please contact them. We actually called for an investigation into athletics and whether athletes are disciplined through Judicial Affairs or some other means. We feel it's important to be the former.
We've quite please that the PDF is going well. We're revising our website so that you can process our forms more quickly.
Contact at SASSO? Kate Riffee.
Officer Reports
Vice President- Hyunsook Yoon
We are making great progress in filling delegate seats but need help. You have the form in your packet for application. We are now planning the Research Forum which will be held on January 21. The application deadline is February 2nd. We need your active involvement. Please sign up as it is passed around.
Treasurer- Briggs Cormier
I hope you all got a copy of the report. The university accounting system, ARMS, through Student Activities, is not processing payments or providing accounting reports quickly. The report reflects activities through December. We've gotten about half of the interest from our endowment funds and we're working to get the rest. Because of the way things are posted to our business account, we often don't things as quickly as we should. This is where our budget stands today.
Secretary-Kevin Cope
I'm continuing to work on a database for member and committee processing and for the new web page. Please e-mail me at cope.24@osu.edu if you can't attend a meeting. Meyers commended Cope for his effort on the database project, as it is a large project with much potential to benefit students.
Approval of Minutes
Delegate Harris moved, delegate Duffy seconded
Passed by affirmation unanimously
Committee Reports
Phil Huckelberry- Student Health Insurance
In the very recent past, GA's had the option of being part of the faculty staff insurance plan. The reason it's no longer offered is that students are apparently not interested in it, but perhaps if people knew about it they'd be interested. We haven't seen any numbers about how much it would cost but we're working with Assoc. Vice President Larry Lewellen to investigate the issue. Eight of ten of our benchmark institutions subsidize or pay health insurance. We're working on getting empirical data for this.
Eve Scrogham (speaking for Alecia Naugle)- Professional Development Fund
Alicia Naugle asked me to give her report today, as I am on the committee. The deadline for apps is Jan 19 at 4pm. The awards will be announced on Feb 9. The web address for the application is on the board . Please encourage other graduate students to apply. We have two committee meetings coming up to review applications and select winners: January 22 from 4-5pm and February 2 from 4-6 p.m. If you want to volunteer to help us, please call Alecia or Hyunsook at 2-3645.
Jason Cervenac- COTA Committee
Our ridership is just under where it should be. We've expressed our concerns to COTA but they have said there is little they can do. Please send me any comments you have about COTA at cervenec.1@osu.edu. Meyers: Monitoring of fees paid, and costs of service is extremely important.
Carmie Gade- Campus Events
Does anyone else out there want to help us plan the spring picnic? We're planning on doing a lot of activities and publicity. Our next meeting is January 26 if you're interested. Also if you are interested in helping on the Research forum please contact me.
Anil Challa- International Concerns
The international concerns committee is looking to find out how to put on a spring summit. Also a committee on off-campus housing is meeting to talk about off-campus housing issues.
New Business
Chair Meyers passed the meeting chairpersonship to the Chair of Organization and Elections, Hyunsook Yoon, to conduct elections.
Ms. Yoon indicated that Organizations and Elections Committee met and approved a candidate for the Senate and a candidate for the Research and Graduate Council. She introduced each.
Elections for Senator
Senator for Social and Behavioral Sciences
Stephanie Lundsmeyer: I love the opportunities here. My interest comes from the desire to serve students in the social and behavioral sciences, and also because I want to spend the rest of my life in academic. My desire is to serve the students in the senate.
The Chair asked if their was objection to consent. Hearing none, Ms. Lunsmeyers was elected by consent.
Elections for Research and Graduate Council
Representative for RGC from
Free Shafee. My interest is in representing my school in Research and Graduate Council, so I can serve students.
The Chair asked if their was objection to consent. Hearing none, Ms. Shafee was elected by consent.
Delegate Issues
Scrogham: I wanted to announce that for non Ohio resident second year non funded students there are important deadlines coming. A packet with information concerning residency is in the graduate school office. Coleman: How do you apply for Ohio residency? Scrogham: It's all in the book. There are several conditions. Macintosh: Can international students apply? Siddens: No.
Denison: Some students in my program are wondering about the teacher evaluations. They seem to be inadequate and there there's a chance for change. Lowe: The SEI is used throughout the ASC and they're mandatory but most departments give an additional form. You can ask if they're not used. There's a SEI committee that's meeting at the university wide level. Meyers: Graduate students should not be evaluated on the basis of their performances on the SEI, just as faculty are not permitted to be.
Leppla: Update on the new Vice President Student Affairs? Meyers: The search committee is working and applications are closed. Our representative is Elizabeth Warren. Cormier: Bill Hall has applied/has been nominated.
Code of Student Conduct Discussion
Meyers: You have a number of handouts. Is there any discussion? The Code proposes to extend the Code of Student Conduct to off-campus events when not with a university event. We've struggled mightily with the judicial affairs and with other student governments to exclude certain types of non-threatening behavior from inclusion in the Code, and still to set the standard of behavior a little higher. We have gone ahead and supported the Code, despite our reservations. We wrote a letter to the Senate indicating our support, and our reservations. The letter was in the delegate packet and is available at the back of the room and at CGS.
Leppla: Will the Code will be changed to cover my actions off campus with just physical violence, or how far does it extend? Meyers: It's limited to crimes of violence including verbal harassment that leads a person to believe they will be harmed. There is a clause that enables the university discretion to charge students for other types of actions that threaten the safety of students or property that is a problem. That clause has been partly modified.
Huckelberry: If an incident occurs off-campus, if it's an assault, if a police report is filed, a student can be sanctioned even if the police don't pursue it. Therefore there are due process and double jeopardy concerns. This vagueness is a problem and as a result maybe the university should be dealing with situations they shouldn't be.
Duffy: Is there a boundary, like if I'm in St. Louis? Meyers: There is no boundary, and this has been some concern. It's unclear that if a student is out of town and some incident occurs, that the Code would be enforced, even though it applies. This means that there is a potential for the Code to be very unevenly applied, which would lead to problems with it being viewed as fair. To the double jeopardy problem, students are voluntary members of an association, Ohio State. We may, and do have our own code of conduct to govern our conduct, separate from the criminal justice system. In the academy, we generally think part of the purpose of it is to help develop citizens, including their civic development, and so we have set higher standards of behavior through our codes of conduct. Double jeopardy, in general, means being tried twice for the same crime. When a student allegedly commits an offense, such as murder, the standard of evidence, the punishment for the crime in the criminal justice system is very different from the standard under the codes of conduct. If a person commits murder, the criminal justice system can find them innocent, if there is a reasonable doubt, while the civil system (as we noted with the O.J. Simpson title) could find them guilty under a lower standard of evidence the preponderance of evidence standard. The different systems are actually trying people for different offenses, so even though it seems somewhat like double jeopardy, it's not double jeopardy. In the proposed Code, we've upped the level of evidence required to find a person guilty from a preponderance of the evidence and to clear and compelling evidence.
Robinson: Do students give up their right to express themselves? Meyers: We were concerned about this. We had a document drawn up that protects student free expression. CGS proposed a Code implementation oversight task force, that Senate and Student Affairs are supporting. The oversight committee would review cases and how the Code revisions were implemented..
Abu-Ali: How will they be able to establish that somebody did something? How does OSU investigate possible offenses? Meyers: OSU Judicial Affairs investigates allegations. For many offenses, they're not followed up on by the city. Our hope is that university will be able to do a more thorough investigation. Also many people are discouraged by the system from complaining.
Kurup: Does it cover if I go to Canada? Meyers: Yes.
Huckelberry: If you were an employee instead of a student, does what we're talking about go far beyond what an employer has the ability to do to a student. Meyers: Yes, students are distinct from staff and should be held to a higher standard.
Duffy: What's the procedure for making a final decision? Meyers: There's a timeline that's on the board and in the handouts.
Huckelberry: How does this get disseminated to the students? Meyers: It is required to be printed and distributed to students, and we also want it posted on the web and printed.
Leppla: I'm concerned that the university will overstep its bounds. I don't think the university has the ability to make decisions on what kinds of students' action put students at risk.
Nelson: I had experience at another institution that had problems. Cervenec: A student who opts for a hearing by their peers goes through a complicated process. It's a straightforward process.
Leppla: My experience is that it varies greatly based on who is involved in the panel.
Huckelberry: What this says is that we don't have confidence in the police to handle this properly and so we need to take matters into our own hands and we're trying to supercede the justice system.
Pirone: Incidents in the OSU community may take a higher priority than they would within the city. I think that the university extending the Code of Conduct actually protects students. The perception of the city is that the university is doing nothing and this may create pressure for the city to "crack-down" and this would be less desirable that the university action.
Abu-ali: Does this Code apply to the faculty? Meyers: No. They have their own rules.
Huckelberry: Many students will feel that this is being forced upon them. We have to do more to communicate to students. Meyers: That's a good point. We've worked to create many solutions including a party patrol, and other more cooperative strategies to help students throwing parties. Send your comments to Bill Hall hall.26@osu.edu.
Delegate Leppla moved to adjourn, delegate Duffy seconded.
Passed by affirmation.
Meeting adjourned at 5:24 PM
Respectfully submitted,
Kevin Cope
CGS Secretary
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