Meeting Minutes
The Council of Graduate Students General Delegate Meeting
Friday, February 2, 2000- 3:30 PM
The Younkin Success Center
Present: Officers: Ron Meyers (presiding), Hyunsook Yoon, Briggs Cormier, Kevin Cope
Executives: Anil Challa, Michael Daniels, Michael Duffy, Andrew Holbrook, Phil Huckelberry, Alecia Naugle, Elizabeth Warren
Voting Delegates: Abu-Ali Jareer, Cathryn Allen, Matthew Anderson, Judit Bach, Betsy Breseman, Stefne Broz, Jill Burkhart, Jason Cervenec, Pankaj Choudhary, Karen Clark-Keys, Len Cooper, Roger Dashner, Jennifer Delong, Robin Dodsworth, Gregory Emch, Kim Foster, Kay Fukuda, Leigh Anne Goldberg, John Harris, Mike Harrower, Karen Huber, Alison Hurwitch, Unmesh Kurup, Edward Lasseigne, Gillian McIntosh, Elizabeth Moore, Dan Nelson, Justin Pepperney, Joe Pirone, Susan Printy, Mark Nuckols, Megan Nussbaum, Arun Ramakrishnan, Scott Risley, Marsha Robinson-BarberScott Risley, Eve Scrogham, Kurset Sendur, Reema Shafi, John Shea, Theresa Skybo, Shannon Snyder, Osman Topac, Michael Triplett, Tommy Truong, Ray Tseng, Jeff Walline, Jennifer William, Kevin Weakley, Rachel Weidinger, Jing Zhao, Lisa Wallace
Non-Voting Delegates, Committee Representatives, Senators, Representatives and Guests: Huntington, Riffee, Yoon, Ralston
Introductions
Officers, Vice President Bill Hall, Bill Clark, Elliot Slotnick, Executive Committee
Ron Meyers, President, called the meeting to order 3:45 P.M.
Delegate Nelson moved to approve minutes
Delegate Walline seconded
Approved by affirmation unanimously
Officer Reports
President Ron Meyers
We have a number of ongoing issues. We're grateful to Bill Hall for
starting a management audit of Student Activities. This is an audit of
the history of funding and our relationship with Student Activities.
In terms of funding, we've registered as a student organization and
our funding is due to be released. Regarding health insurance, we've
met at least six times this month. The draft of the report will be
released within the next week. The document estimates the cost to give
all students subsidized health insurance and other health insurance
issues. The administration will then look at the report and make
decisions. We should have some real answers by March or April when the
Board of Trustees finally approves it. We don't have health insurance
yet, but we have estimate on counts. The GQUE has been released and I
presented to the Board of Trustees this morning. We hope to prepare a
draft report on the summary. Any questions?
Robinson: With the Code of Conduct, can we have a
copy go out to incoming students? Meyers: We could
entertain a resolution that proposed that.
Vice President Hyunsook Yoon
The research forum deadline is today. The event is a huge event in which we award more than $10,000. If you want to work please contact me. I'm passing around a sign up sheet. We are doing great at filling positions but there are still seats available. We especially need new delegates.
Secretary Kevin Cope
Please review the year's attendance sheet and indicate your attendance status at each of the previous meetings.
Nelson: How do alternates sign up? Cope: The alternate should sign their own name in the spot reserved for the regular delegate.
Committee Reports
Elizabeth Warren- Diversity
I just came from the first forum of the multicultural center . I'm trying to involve all the student governments. I'm also working on the spring summit. It used to be the spring research forum for diversity but now it's broader based and more inclusive. I'm trying to get a speaker, so if you have a suggestion let me know.
Phil Huckelberry- Health Insurance
I have sheets for the graduate student health insurance survey. The other piece is a draft letter that I hope you will take back to your graduate studies chair. I'm passing these out.
Meyers: Thanks to Phil for that. I think having the faculty pass these around will be great benefit. Some faculty are anxious that this will add to the cost of research, but most of our peer institutions do so, so I think we can actually be more competitive in research in the end by attracting better graduate students. Huckelberry. With the survey, please take it back to your department and make as many copies as possible. When returned by? The end of this quarter. You want the faculty to pass this resolution? Yes, but if the grad groups want to as well that'd be great.
Andrew Holbrook- Legislative Affairs
Legislative Affairs met a couple weeks ago. I've put together an interesting consortium of people. We attended the lobbying day last year and got some good lobbying accomplished. Unfortunately, NAGPS this year hasn't gotten together a lobby day, so were considering doing it ourselves perhaps in April or May, when we'll have a lobby day in DC. Education funding in Ohio has become the number one issue, but until lawmakers start getting their legs, not much will happen. I have one bit of really bad news: the measure granting students the ability to refinance loans passed by President Clinton has been vetoed by the banking companies so it will likely be tied up for at least three years.
Anil Challa- International Student Concerns
We haven't met this quarter yet, but if you have colleagues with concerns please get them to me.
Delegate Issues, Concerns, and Discussions
Skybo: On the health insurance plan, do you want faculty to support it? Huckelberry: The premise of this is if the faculty in general is in support, then it's an important voice for the administration. It's basically a resolution of support. Meyers: The details of funding are still in the draft report that will be released shortly.
Lasseigne: Is there still interest in encouraging in the Senate to pass domestic partnership coverage? Meyers: Yes, its working through CSA. We've talked to Senate steering as well. If any of the senators want to bring this up on the floor that'd be great.
Old Business
None
New Business
Elections
Yoon: In spring we will have elections, we will advertise in March, and on April 6 we will accept nominations. On May 4 we will close nominations and candidates will give a 10 minute speech before the vote. They take office the first day of summer quarter.
Meyers: I'm going to go ahead and pass out the Global Sullivant principles.. I recently attended a meeting with Allyson Lowe. The Reverend Sullivant has approached the university to ask that we take a lead in supporting international human rights issues. President Kirwan convened a meeting of various university reps. The Global Principles are very high minded. The idea is that OSU is committed as an institution to respect human rights. The thought is that a very general set of principles with an accountability mechanism would be a nice way for OSU to engage the issue of human rights and sweatshops. I don't yet have it a resolution from but I'll entertain discussion. Weidinger: Could you talk about enforcement some more? Meyers: The great aspect of this document is that it's been translated into dozens of languages that ought to be understandable throughout the world. He's trying to provide a document that's universal and struggling with that mightily. Weidinger: So you're suggesting that we could advocate for these principles? Meyers: Yes, we do things like that, and if we had conversations we could develop a university sweatshop policy. Weidinger: This would be the responsibility of a specific employee or employees within the university?. Meyers: Mary Daniels, Janet Ashe and someone in athletics have done a lot of work on it. Lasseigne: I know that in some universities it has caused extreme controversy. What segment of the OSU community might be opposed to this? Meyers: I haven't heard of any opposition, except from HUSAC which wanted a stronger resolution. Clark-Keys: Did this come about as an exterior move or internally? Meyers: I think that it's a generally recognized thing that needs to be done. Many groups including student groups have taken the lead on it. Rev. Sullivant has also done quite a bit of work on it. We would be the first student government to address this issue.
William Clark, Elliot Slotnick- PowerPoint presentation on the GQUE
Guest Speaker: William English Kirwan, President of The Ohio State University
I want to thank you, Ron, for this opportunity. I would like to make a few comments and then I'd like to hear you thoughts and comments regarding issues you'd like to see the university address. I'd like to talk about something that's very much on my mind and then have questions.
What I have on my mind is the Academic Plan and how it speaks to issues of graduate education and how the GQUE report ties in to the Academic Plan. This has been a very lengthy and arduous process and at the end we've produced this document but took a tremendous effort. There are two trends in larger society that guided our putting this together: 1) Society has gone through a very rapid evolution from an economy that was driven by brawn to one where now brain has replaced brawn. Brains will bring success for individuals, institutions, etc. and has become an absolutely essential for success in this information age. The information age is driven by two things: first, the production of highly educated people that can bring their skills to bear in society. The second important thing is the innovations and ideas that come out of great universities. The regions that are really making it in this day and age are the ones that have a presence of a great university. The presence of a great university is not just an added benefit but absolutely essential. 2) The other belief is that society has changed dramatically in terms of race, ethnicity, etc. and moreover, the globe has shrunk and we live in a world that is connected instantaneously and an awareness of this changing demographics is an underlying theme that has guided our thinking on the plan.
The academic plan is one that sets very high standards for this university. It is to become one of the world's great teaching and research universities. The plan is about building academic excellence. Two of the six strategies are: building and retaining world class faculty, and developing academic programs that will allow Ohio State to be recognized as the nation's leading land grant university. There are two additional initiatives that concern providing better support for our students such as information technology, better advising, and what goes on in the classroom. The two final strategies concern the institution's diversity and becoming a model in higher education for success in diversity. Finally there's a strategy that explains how we can adapt the land grant mission to the 21st century.
The GQUE report and the fortuitous nature of the timing of the document. It plays well into the academic plan and its priorities. Slotnick: It will be on the web in a couple weeks. Kirwan: It has a lot of excellent data and will be quite useful in determining issues to address. It also has a high degree of integrity and points out real issues that we need to address. It's not all rosy for you as a graduate student. The report, however, reports an overall high level of satisfaction in general with being a graduate student at Ohio state. Let me speak about five things that I take away from the report. One of the things I feel where the university has let you down is that we have not done an adequate job of training and support for you and your teaching function. We have to do something about that. I was somewhat disturbed to find out we have colleges that don't mandate GTA training. This cannot continue. In a study at UC-Berkeley, they tracked PhD recipients over a ten year period and found that only 10% had a faculty position at a Research One university. The others were working at teaching institution or were working outside academia. We need to rethink how we prepare you for your career. Not only is the lack of training bad for undergraduates, but were not preparing your for your career when you graduate. I know that graduate school has already been thinking about how we can roll out a much more substantial program to address this.
Another thing that comes out this report is the need to address compensation issues for graduate students. We've been gathering data. I want to say two things : we cannot wave a wand and make things how they ought to be. We can't go from no benefits to what we want in one step. We will address the benefits issue in the coming years and especially the issue of health benefits. In doing so, we have enormous fiscal challenges to overcome. We just got the news on the budget; although there are good items in the budget, the biggest portion of state support (in construction) the Board of Regents had called for a 5% increase and the Governor has only been able to include a 2% increase. So there will be a substantial setback. But we will nonetheless make progress on the issue of stipends. Until we have a real handle on the state budget it's hard to say what we will be able to do for sure.
One other issue coming out of the GQUE report is the issue of housing.
Hall: My staff met last week with the architects and were trying to work with design for the housing project on Neil and 10th and hopefully it will now begin to move more rabidly. We are still negotiating with some private land developers with land owners that have not yet sold us. Meyers: Can you also speak about the project across from the law school? Hall: The problem is that he have not been able to acquire that property. We would have to use eminent domain and haven't been able to do that yet.
Kirwan: Let me open the floor for questions.
Warren: In my office I get a lot of front line reactions to domestic health care coverage issues. There's a lot of anguish and a lot of students who can't attend or continue to attend because of domestic partnership. First, is this is a dead issue, and if not where is it at? How do I respond to these concerns. Kirwan: On a personal level, I am completely supportive of your position. This is something the university must do in time. I wish the university could do it tomorrow. I have made my views known to the Board of Trustees that benefits for domestics partners should be included in the package that the university has. The proposal would be required to be approved by the Board of Trustees, and the range of views is large on this issue. An encouraging thing for me is that the Board of Trustees is increasingly composed of people who are supportive of this issue. But the Board of Trustees feels strongly that there would be retribution from the state and they feel there are people in the General Assembly who would hurt the university's budget. The Board of Trustees feels that until the state is sympathetic with it, the Board of Trustees can't address it at this time. There are things going in the world that are leading people to believe that domestic partners is the right thing to do. The private sector is leading the way. The Limited, Longaberger, Nationwide, all offer domestic partners benefits. We can't address it this year, but eventually, in the near future, we will be able to provide the benefits. Meyers: CGS passed a resolution to support this measure. CSA has also passed a resolution supporting it, and we've asked the Senate to take up the issue. Kirwan: The issue is the signal it sends to these people who feel they are not valued. I would hope that you could come up with some ideas of things you could do to value these people.
Ramakrisha: Increasingly the private support for research is growing. Will OSU take any steps to partner with the private sector? Kirwan: Absolutely. There are some any things that are being done. The Board of Trustees has carved out a piece of land that is the SCI and Tech campus that is about 70 acres. We've crated the Science and Technology campus whose occupants would be startup companies that would grow out of the activities of our faculty and students. We have a whole greatly enhanced office that manages the intellectual property of the university and manages the patents. We also have a new program called Technology Partners where we form partnerships with the private sector. Although we underachieve as a university in absolute amount of research, but the area where we excel is industrial support. We rank 5th in the country in the amount of private sector support for university research. This is very important for the future of research at OSU.
Huckelberry: Some students are reluctant to support a measure that they don't thing will come to fruition in their college lifetime. A lot of student feel like they're just kind of numbers. The GQUE is a good step but more is needed. OSU is a large city within another city. I would like to se an attempt made to engage grad students more. We feel out of touch. Kirwan: One of the valuable things about having a session like this I hear issues like this. Those of you who will be here longer will see these benefits but there a number of things we're working on that will have a direct on you in the short term. Hall: We had a domestic partners policy here at Ohio State at Buckeye Village. The state legislation actually came down and threatened to take away funding. Where you can come in is to provide proper legislative support.
Holbrook: There's been a lot of turn-over in the statehouse this year. So now is good time to impress these freshman legislators. Recently we've adopted a law that will pave the away for public private partnerships. Kirwan: Tanks so much for pointing that out. There was a law that impeded these partnerships because of controlling legal concerns. Now faculty and students can be employees and major shareholder in technology. Meyers: The actual rules that have been developed by legal affairs Kirwan: We need to make sure that you as graduate students don't get penalized by this. By being prohibited from publishing their research.
Lasseigne. Dean Huntington said that other administrators weren't as excited about graduate issues. Also one of the strategies in the Academic Plan is developing new programs. Do we have new interdisciplinary programs? Kirwan: I think Susan Huntington did an excellent job of constantly reminding people of the importance of graduate education and was quite effective in assuring that attention was paid. Regarding interdisciplinary research I feel very enthusiastic about the report on interdisciplinary research. I feel that the largest issue require interdisciplinary involvement. Only as I was getting into graduate education was there a big push toward research in universities. We built incredible expertise in specific disciplines, and kept getting more and more specialized but now the problem is that we need to bring the expertise of these disciplines toward solving problems. Our new Vice President for Research has come here and his theme is interdisciplinary research. We have a lot of exciting ideas percolating out there about interdisciplinary activities.
Dodsworth: I was wondering what exactly you planning on dong to enforce the Sullivant principles and severing ties with the corporation that don't adhere to there principles. Kirwan: The Sullivant Principle issue is a very new one. It only came up this past November and came up here at Ohio State. Reverend Sullivant came here to hold a meeting and discuss the possible use of the Sullivant principles. I personally think that the principles could be a very important step in creating a more comprehensive approach to this difficult issue. I am a big advocate of the Sullivant Principles. The companies that have joined on board are not in retail, but in technology. I have hope that the principles as one piece of the solution and I would like to see Ohio State be a leader in adopting these principles. We are in consolation with that advisory committee to determine how we should proceed and my thought is that people will want us to go forward with this. Also , I think that the Sullivant principles don't go all the way. We also need a system of monitoring to enforce the principles and make sure the companies are living up to the principles. Doddsworth: Are you dedicated to listening to the Advisory committee and listening to its suggestions? Kirwan: We would not have an advisory committee unless we would intended to heed their opinion. We must understand that Ohio State can't develop a monitoring a monitoring system buy itself. What we have done is formed a partnership with the University of Michigan, Harvard, Smith , Notre Dame, and one other institution. We put up money together and hired a firm to go out to three countries. They visited site in all these countries and reported back with their findings of abuse in these countries including the US. We have sent this report to all these companies with which we do business. And asked them what they're going to do about them. Well give these responses to the advisory committee and companies that are not responsive, we need to sever relations with. Lowe: Mac Stewart, Interim VP Minority affairs, is on Sullivant's board, you can direct them to Mac Stewart.
Meyers: The health insurance issue is very important to us. We over 1300 petitions that we've already turned in, and grad students feel that the issue makes them feel like a respected part of the university.
Kirwan: This is certainly a difficult issue
I always enjoy the chance to interact with you please invite me back again
Meyers: Thank you.
Delegate Nussbaum moved to adjourn
Delegate Tseng seconded
Passed by affirmation unanimously
Adjourned at 5:42 PM
Respectfully Submitted,
Kevin Cope
CGS Secretary
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