Council of Graduate Students
Third Autumn Quarter General Meeting
Friday, December 3, 1999
University Hall 014
OFFICERS and EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBERS: President Ron Meyers, Vice President Candace Cherrington, Treasurer Briggs Cormier, Parliamentarian Brian Rivera, Ex-officio Kathleen Carberry, Secretary Christine Parker, PDF Chair Kelly Costner.
VOTING DELEGATES: Carmin Blumenauer, John M. Brockman, Amanda Callison, Homero Cantu, Anil Challa, Jill Coleman, Kelly Costner, Michael Daniels, Sabiha Daudi, Mark Gooden, Mark Hicar, Cheryl Hindrichs, Adriane Liner, Daniel Peterson, Brian Rivera, Kristina Secnik, John Shea, Christy Stanlake, Jennifer Stoots, Carla Taylor, Jennifer Whetstone, Alyson Young.
Non-voting delegates, Committee Representatives, Senators, RGS Representatives, and Guests: Luke Bradley, Patrick Crisler, Jennifer Hart, Byoung Min Moon, Jennifer Pommiss, Anitesh Pumhani, Haiying Zhou, and Advisor, Dean James Siddens.
Scheduled guest speaker Kathy Wise, director of Student Legal Clinic, was ill today. In her staid, Pres. Meyers briefly described Student Legal Clinic's history and activities. The Clinic idea was initiated by the student members of the Campus Partners Board of Trustees. It came to fruition with the additional efforts of the Provost, Vice President Williams, Campus Partners and the support of the law school. The Clinic is at High Street and addresses landlord/tenant disputes. A one time, $5 entrance fee will be instituted shortly. So far, over 150 cases have been initiated with landlords in the university area. The Clinic presently is functioning as a pilot program.
Q: Is the student service only for university area matters? No, it will help students who live anywhere.
Q: Does the service offer assistance only with landlord problems? Right now, yes. The original plan was for a clinic that dealt with all legal issues, but it was eventually pared down to just landlord disputes to make the program more manageable. It is uncertain whether it will be expanded in the future.
Q: University doesn't have any other legal office to help students? No, it doesn't. This is the only university-organized legal service available to students.
Meeting opened at 3:40 p.m. Officers and members of the Executive Committee introduced themselves.
I. Approval of Minutes
Moved by Parliamentarian Rivera (Motion 99-4-38), seconded by delegate Secnik. Secretary Parker offered one clarification to the minutes of the October 22 meeting. Section C, under Old Business, describes the discussion on the Ad Hoc Health Insurance Committee's activities. It seems to state that the GA waiver covers health insurance. In fact, the insurance is NOT covered by the GA fee waiver. Minutes approved with no abstentions.
II. Officer reports
A. President: President Meyers announced that his report and his comments to the Board of Trustees and the University Senate on behalf of CGS are now available in print. He also discussed current issues including the planned upgrade of the CGS web site to include committee & officer reports to facilitate the flow of information within and externally to CGS. A number of draft University plans are currently circulating, such as the Academic Plan and Diversity Plan. Please make an attempt to review these documents and forward any comments to the CGS office by the end of December so we can forward them onto the relevant people. President Meyers announced that CGS received an award from the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students at their Annual Conference held in November and hosted by Ohio State. This award recognized the work done on G-QUE. President Meyers thanked all the participants in the conference, including Kathleen Carberry, the IPC, Brian Rivera and Kelly Costner for their PDF presentation, and Christine Parker for her campus tour. Additionally, he announced that Kathleen Carberry was elected as the new president for NAGPS for the upcoming year. He introduced the new executive committee members and mentioned that work on Buckeye Watch and overall improvement of campus safety continues.
B. Vice President– VP Candy Cherrington recognized two new delegates, Adrian Liner from Microbiology and Daniel Peterson from Environmental Sciences. She extended thanks to Brian Rivera for organizing a very successful flu shot clinic at Jones Tower. Currently VP Cherrington is working on CGS brochure and mentioned that draft examples of the brochure as well as the final copy of the Health Insurance resolution are now available for inspection in the CGS office. President Meyers offered thanks to VP Cherrington for all her work in getting the committee positions filled. Only 6 slots remain unfilled.
C. Treasurer – Treasurer Cormier presented the revised CGS budget. Motion for approval of the budget moved by delegate Challa (Motion 99-4-39), seconded by Parliamentarian Rivera. Motion passed with one abstention.
D. Secretary – Secretary Parker announced that beginning in the Winter Quarter 2000, she will be keeping track of delegate attendance for CGS meetings and will be enforcing the attendance policy. Any questions regarding your responsibilities as a delegate or about this policy should go to Parliamentarian Brian Rivera.
Q: Will this be retroactive? Initially, we thought it would be retroactive from the October 1 meeting, but since so many people seem to be unaware of the policy, we will start taking attendance as of the first meeting of Winter Quarter.
Q: How will we inform people? Information about the attendance policy is being announced today and will be sent out in the next CGS mailing.
Q: What does the constitution say? The language is vague. It requires attendance but is not clear about what this means. We will have to discuss the matter and send something out that is more explicit.
Q: Should we have minutes on the web site or send them as an email through CGS links? CGS tried sending minutes via e-mail before. There were comments that people didn't like getting such a long e-mail. Straw poll results showed delegates split regarding the sending of minutes via e-mail. Delegate Brockman offered an alternative solution of sending out an e-mail that simply has the URL for the CGS web site listed which includes a link to the minutes. This will be considered.
III. Committee reports
A. Executive Committee – Secretary Parker stated that the Executive Committee met on November 12, 1999.
B. Organizations & Elections – VP Cherrington reported that CGS received 6 completed applications for the VP position by the nomination deadline of December 3, 1999. No additional nominations for VP from the floor. Motion to close nominations made by Delegate Hicar (Motion 99-4-40), second by Parliamentarian Rivera. The VP nominees are Daniel Peterson, Jennifer Hart, Pat Crisler, Byoung Min Moon, Jennifer Pommiss, Anitesh Pumhani. Ms. Cherrington invited delegates to talk with the candidates after the meeting. She announced that there are still some CGS committee positions available and provided information about the open positions on a handout. She also announced that a new Compensation & Benefits committee has been formed. Ms. Cherrington then mentioned that she is working on the CGS directory, however will wait on its publication until after the new vice president takes office after the election on January 14.
C. Graduate Research Forum – VP Cherrington said that she and delegate John Shea worked hard to complete and send out the Research Forum applications, which are also now available on the web site. Applications were also sent to Graduate Committee Chairs to distribute to appropriate students. Deadline for abstracts – January 21, 2000. We need judges!! There is a form in the application packet for nominating faculty for judge positions. The Forum will be held on April 15, 2000. We will need many volunteers during the Forum itself, so please keep this date open.
D. Professional Development Fund Committee – Kelly Costner reported that the committee has been hard at work on the new application form, now available in the CGS office and on the CGS web site by January 2000. The new deadlines are also listed for Winter and Spring quarters. He explained that several of the funding entities requested additional information about the applicants, thus initiating these changes. He encouraged everyone to make copies of the new application and distribute as needed. He reiterated that the committee can no longer accept old applications due to different and more in depth information requested on the new forms. NB: Please be sure not to use or distribute the old forms!
Brian Rivera spoke about the presentation he and Kelly made at the NAGPS conference. President Meyers commended the committee on their work. VP Cherrington noted that she wants to change the composition of the committee to reflect a student and not faculty majority, with at least six different college areas represented.
E. Ad Hoc G-QUE Report Committee – NAGPS President Kathleen Carberry was in Washington for a meeting. President Meyers summarized the following on her behalf. A draft outline of the G-QUE results is being developed by Dean Huntington, and currently not ready for review. The presentation has been delayed until March 2000. Until then, we will continue to use Annual Goals & Priorities and various platforms to talk about types of programs we want and need
IV. Old Business
There is no old business.
V. New Business
Vice President Election. An informal discussion with the candidates took place after the meeting.
VI. Delegate Issues and Concerns
A. Delegate Hicar, a member of University Area Commission, reported on a number of issues, including the opening of a Starbucks next to Urban Outfitters on High Street.
Ø Issue one: It was reported that Sprint wants to build a 100-ft mobile phone tower at the corner of 10th and Neil Avenues, on or near the vacant lot right across form the nursing school. Dr. John Gardner owns the land, not the university. Based on this information, it was inferred that Ms. Gardner (the Dr.'s mother) lived on the property proposed for the tower, property which is contiguous to property CGS also wants for graduate and professional student housing. After the meeting it was determined that the proposed location of the tower is behind J.R. Miggs, which is on the south side of 10th Avenue. The University Area Commission needs a variance of 100 ft. of clear area around the proposed site. However, the clearing will only be 10 ft. CGS has a say in this matter due to delegate Hicar's presence on the Commission. A request for more information on this issue was made from the floor of Council.
Q. What are the benefits of the tower? The benefits are only for those who use Sprint PCS cellular phones.
Q. Is there a radiation problem to be considered? It is unclear at this time.
A question was raised regarding Sprint's assertion that the University area is outside the reach of present service. President Meyers suggested we hold a special meeting before the December 15 UAC meeting to discuss this issue, and that the issue be deferred to a subcommittee. Straw poll results show all but one delegate against granting Sprint the allowance to build the tower.
Ø Issue two – Should eminent domain be used in the South Campus area for the Gateway Redevelopment? Currently 85% of the property in the designated Gateway area has been purchased by Campus Partners. City Council will be taking a vote on using eminent domain to buy the rest of the area. There was much discussion on the proposed revitalization, the Gateway Project, CGS' interest in a major Graduate/Professional housing complex in the area, and CGS' in revitalization which maintains diversity. President Meyers, graduate/professional member of the Campus Partners Board of Trustees, mentioned that the Campus Partners web site has extensive information on this issue. He suggested that we obtain more information through their website and by asking Terry Fogler , President, Campus Partners, to speak on this issue and answer questions at the next CGS meeting. VP Cherrington suggested that we draft a resolution about this issue if there is time to do so before the UAC votes.
B. Delegate Brockman announced that this is his last CGS meeting and introduced his replacement.
C. Delegate Young brought up a question regarding health insurance.
- Under the Goals and Priorities, CGS proposed that GA's student health insurance be paid. Will those GA's who do not want the university's insurance plan be compensated? Probably not.
- Will there ever be a payroll deduction out of our paychecks that could replace having to pay for insurance separately? This idea has been discussed extensively by CGS for years, was in the CGS Annual Goals and Priorities, and in the Health Insurance Resolution. Discussions have been held with the University Health Insurance committee, which does not feel it is their responsibility. Treasurer Cormier said he asked about this possibility and the University's response was: "We can't do this for people with only 9 month appointments." The CGS Compensations & Benefits Committee has been asked to pursue this with the Office of Payroll. Delegates were encouraged to participate on the committee.
D. Delegate Coleman reported that the University Registrar's committee discussed the issue of a mandatory $5 per quarter transcript fee. In exchange, the Registrar would provide unlimited transcripts without charging a fee after graduation, in a more timely fashion and with less administrative burden for students and the Registrar. The committee in charge of this issue supports charging the fee. Council raised the following issues:
Ø There were concerns over the possibility of web-based billing,
Ø some people are against such a fee in general
Ø do they know how many transcripts people tend to order on average?
Ø other universities charge much less for transcripts
Ø how length of tenure and eventual number of transcripts requested balance out – will some people actually be paying more for transcripts this way?
VII. Announcements
Next meeting: Friday, January 14, 2000, Ohio Union Grey Suite G
VIII. Adjournment
Delegate Liner moved to adjourn (Motion 99-4-41), second by delegate Cantu. Meeting adjourned.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]