Council of Graduate Students - Minutes -27 May 2005
Attendance for this meeting is unavailable at this time.
The guest speaker for this meeting was Dr. Pete Pappas, from the Committee on Academic Misconduct. The PowerPoint presentation with his remarks can be found here.
I. Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 3:33pm, Barbara Pletz, President, presiding.
II. Approval of Minutes
Minutes from the last meeting are unavailable at this time. Both those minutes at the minutes for this meeting will be approved at the June meeting. Secretary Scott apologizes for the delay.
III. Old Business
No old business was raised at this meeting.IV. New Business
A. a. Act 0405-SP-21: An Act Amending the 2004-05 Budget
Rationale:
I thought we would only have one amendment, but there were some administrative mistakes when categorizing Ray awards. Some that should have been classified as last year got delayed. Some had yet to be paid, or they had 2 awards one in both the previous and current fiscal year. Here we’re moving money around and closing out lines of money that would be going unspent. There was also some money left over from the Ray award and the cut points were lower than authorized.
Questions for the author
Delegate Corwin – So you said moving money around. If I added up that second column would I get 0? Yes, it’s just moving it to different lines in the same budget.
Chair Pearson: Is there a reason we’ve decided that we won’t need any equipment? Yes, the fiscal year ends on June 30th, and we really didn’t need anything before then. Most of our equipment has a monthly service fee attached to it and that’s how our equipment gets repaired or replaced. If something did need to be replaced instead of repaired, it would go through the IT plan.
With no debate, the act passes by unanimous voice vote.
IV.Elections
Treasurer – Waverly Gordon
Because Delegate Gordon could not be here, Vice President Baack spoke briefly to the body regarding Delegate Gordon’s desire to run for Treasurer. She suggested that she’d like to take on more responsibility with CGS and she has some previous experience in this area. Delegate Gordon filled in as chair of the Government Relations Committee and also serves as the representative from the Black Student Caucus.
With no objection to consent, Delegate Gordon was elected as Treasurer.
Senate – Jim Anderson, Administrative Sciences
Delegate Anderson has been serving in this position for the past year and has had solid attendance, including sending alternates when he could not attend.
With no objection to consent, Delegate Anderson was elected Senator.
Senate – Inna Caron, Humanities
Delegate Caron said that while her attendance was not impeccable in the past year, she did attend as many meeting as she could. In addition, she will be much more available in the coming year and would like to opportunity to serve as Senator.
With no objection to consent, Delegate Caron was elected Senator.
Research Graduate Council – Kerry Hodak, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Basically, RGC will be something a little different. I’ve served on senate and a lot of different committees, and I’d like to have a chance to serve on RGC as well.
With no objection to consent, Treasurer Hodak was elected to RGC
Research Graduate Council – David Berntsen, Professional Biological Sciences
I’ve served one year so far and enjoyed the opportunity to represent you. I also look forward to the continuing to serve on the Research Graduate Committee.
With no objection to consent, Delegate Berntsen was elected to RGC
Research Graduate Council – Jane Evans, Education
I've been on RGC and serving on the GCBC ad-hoc committee and the GA and Fellowship Committee and I’m really looking forward to serving on a different committee.
With no objection to consent, Delegate Evans was elected to RGC
V. Delegate Issues and Concerns
Delegate Shklar: I’m from the School of Public Policy & Management (PPM) and we’ve been working very hard to promote our merger with the John Glenn institute and several of my fellow students are here to explain this issue and ask for your support. President Pletz: This has been discussed a lot and there is some controversy because these faulty will now report directly to Provost. This is a purely graduate program and that’s why we’re allowing them to speak.
At this point, Mark Ryan, Bill Couch and one other (unknown) PPM student addressed the delegate body.
The School of PPM is celebrating it’s 35th anniversary this year. It contributes to a wide variety of academic and research programs throughout the university The John Glenn Institute provides a variety of programs to this university, including internship and public service opportunities. Both have a similar focus and we would like to create synergy by creating the John Glenn School of Public Affairs.
The benefits are clear – name recognition will bring in more money, outreach and strengthen the engagement mission. A centralized reporting line (where the resistance will occur) deals directly with our desire to promote and increase interdisciplinary research with different entities. This merger is critical for 3 reasons
First, it situates the school as professional, preparatory program. We don’t currently have one in the state of Ohio. With our easy access to statehouse, we would be preparing professionals to enter this environment. This institute would disseminate high quality researchers and public servants. Second, this merger elevates public affairs, which is a fundamental aspect of our land grant mission. Finally, all public affairs schools have a direct reporting line. All schools across the country have this – Kennedy School of Government at Harvard included. It’s our mission to have a high level program like that.
This year, one of the students had a funded research position through John Glenn institute. He said: I spent the year working with partners like United Way and the City of Columbus. We do things that aren’t necessarily the same as academic research – it’s more like a practitioner program. My position this year was actually created with the idea that the school was going to merge. Because that didn’t happen, my position has been eliminated for next year. Placing us as a graduate student program in the college of behavioral sciences leaves us without access to research and positions. Having this program would increase the value of our degrees and that’s also a self-interest reason why we want this to take place. However, beyond that it will position us as a high quality school of public affairs and elevate the entire university by doing so. Does anyone have any questions?
Treasurer Hodak: Why couldn’t JGI and PPM merge and report directly to the Dean, while keeping the same name? This may be important since Deans have more flexibility with spending than the Provost does. It really doesn’t make sense for the John Glenn Institute to go under a college. They’ve spent a lot of time fundraising and developing. They spend too much of their time and resources doing things outside of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences for it to make sense for them to come under college. There’s no incentive. Also, the graduate programs will still remain under the purview of the graduate school and the faculty will certainly still be evaluated by the Provost. We seek to solely become a professional development program.
Delegate Mrozek: One of the issues I brought up last time was health insurance. One of the concerns I have is the communication issue. In terms of using the employee benefit – I don’t think that’s being communicated well at all. It is on the student health website.
Dean Clark: This is a human resources issue.
Delegate Mrozek: We don’t know about enrollment periods, that the option exists at all. I’d like to know if other people did hear about this when they enrolled. Presisdent Emeritus Cormier: did you get the HR graduate employees benefits booklet – who got them? Doesn’t seem like it’s being distributed well – we should follow up on how that’s being distributed to GAs.
President Pletz: A letter also went out to funded students within the last two years that explained the option. I will bring this up at June 15 meeting with Llewlen.
Treasurer Hodak – would it be good to suggest that they send the benefits stuff directly? Delegate Mrozek: There are also other departments that could do a better job -– the health center, the student advocacy office.
Treasurer Hodak: You’ve just listed a whole bunch of student affairs offices and if we give them this information, they will use it. I think we can get some of this changed.
Treasurer Hodak: I have something that I’d like to bring up to the body. As you all know I’m serving on the Beck Committee. We’ve been discussing the role of the outside represenative at the dissertation defense. If you haven’t reached a defense with an outside representative yet, basically what they do is read your written material to ensure fairness, equity and quality. The numbers should dictate that every faculty do it once every three years, but it seems like some faculty members are doing it much more frequently than that because other faculty do not serve.
Dean Clark: The outside member is present to ensure fairness. This helps with students who run into problems with advisors. They are supposed to participate. We have about 3000 graduate faculty and we give about 1000 exams per year. Most of the faculty do this duty. About 100 dfon’t. However, this duty is one of the responsibilities of being a graduate faculty at OSU. Treasurer Hodak: I think this issue has come up several times. Is it worthwhile? Graduate students have found this very favorable to them, from what I’ve heard. If you’ve had a good experience let us know. Or if you have any feedback. Most universities don’t do it this way; most do have outside members but the process by which they are chosen is different.
At this point, several delegates offered feedback about their experience with outside representatives.
Delegate Kinsey: I liked it. I felt a little bad for the guy because he didn’t know what I was talking about, but it was good to try to explain to him at a different level. I didn’t really realize until afterwards that they were advocates for graduate students.
Chair Pearson: I haven’t had the personal experience but I’ve heard from a number of students who have liked it. Is there a reason to change it? Treasurer Hodak: When they’ve pooled the data, the results of the surveys, they tend to see no differentiation between programs. It looks as if things are working and nothing’s happening, so why should we waste people’s time. One member said that it looked like his department did not necessarily have the quality of exams they should which was apparent within college.
Secretary Scott: My experience was very positive. My outside member participated fully, asked several questions and actually got to some applied issues that wouldn’t have been raised otherwise. Also, I would say that if there’s no variation, it could be that there’s no variation because committee members know that an outside member there to keep the process fair. That the system is working.
Treasurer Hodak: It can also work the other way, just so you know. They are there to ensure that students do adequate work.
Unknown Delegate: When a member is from a closely related field, how many questions can they ask? Can they contribute to failing a student? This outside person thought they should be able to use theoretical perspectives from the outside member’s related field, and the that member wanted to try to fail them.
Delegate Muller: I have heard that a lot of questions that come up are at a lower level. The reviews that I’ve heard indicate that it was significantly less challenging because he spent so much time explaining background to the outside member. I wonder if students would be more professionally prepared if they weren’t there.
Delegate Cormier: I had a person from an entirely different field. We had a great time and I think the system works.
Delegate Zakos: I’m from Vet Clinical Sciences and my person for my exam made it a lot harder. I just wanted to point out that my person asked a great deal of questions, they made it harder but I’m better for it.
Delegates can relay other comments can be to HYPERLINK "mailto:hodak.2@osu.edu" hodak.2@osu.edu.
VI.Officer Reports, con't
President Barbara Pletz: No additions to online report.
Delegate Corwin: When you asked at the beginning if we’re satisfied with our comp and benefits… I come from Physics and I think actually most of them are satisfied, I don’t think it’s fair to say everyone is unsatisfied.
President Pletz: Some departments take care of their students better than others. Thank you for making that point.
Treasurer Hodak: You’re probably the first person to say that in an open meeting and I think if there are people who are happy, we need to know that too. It would be useful for us to know what a graduate student does consider adequate funding. This could give us aspirational goals for the lower programs.
Delegate Zachos: I am totally happy with my program, you can quote me, I really can’t ask for more from them, and there are departments where people are treated very well.
President Pletz: OK. Just two more additions to my report. First, year end committee reports will take place at the next meeting. Second, anyone who gets their year end reports in will get a bonus gift certificate. It’s first come first serve and you can only get one. Vice President Baack: No additions to online report. Treasurer Hodak: No additions to online report.
VII. Announcements
Inauguration will be held on June 20th on the 2nd floor of Bricker Hall from 4:30 – 6:00pm.
VIII.Adjournment
Meeting was adjourned at 5:27pm.
Respectfully Submitted, Amanda Scott