GSAC MEETING MINUTES

February 5, 2004

Attendance

Officers: Vicky Tarumoto (EVP), Beth Daniels (EVP), Emily Robinson (President), Aarti (CPB Rep), and Susanne Altermann (Secretary), Allison Luengen (Treasurer).

Department Reps: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (Astronomy), Kelly Reiner (Education), Karen Artiles (MCD Biology), Abhijit Sen Gupta (Economics), Nicholas Konidaris (Astronomy), Dirk Robinson (Electrical Engineering), Meredith Armstrong (Ocean Science), Lisa Downward (Physics), Kelly Reiner (Education).

Other Grads: Kai Pommerenke (Economics), Annette Bauer (Music), Teresa Betts (Psychology), Ignacio (Nacho) Solis (Computer Engineering).

Approval of Minutes and Agenda

Agenda and minutes approved.

Funding Requests

Cathy Sandeen: Distance Learning Institute through UC Extension. Cathy is asking for help funding a pilot project in which graduate students would be trained in distance learning techniques. We hope for additional funding from the Grad Division. Grads will receive a certificate for 8 weeks of summer training. GSAC awarded $500.

Grad Housing computers (Teresa). The Macintosh computer at grad housing is broken, and they are looking for a replacement. GSAC authorized $300 to be spent on grad housing computers. However, first we will try to donate old Graduate Student Commons computers. If that does not work, we will look for a computer at the UCSC surplus store.

Take Back the Night Event. This annual event gets funding from the colleges as well. Their total budget is $3000. GSAC authorizes $500 for Take Back the Night.

Annette Bauer: Graduate Music Recital. Annette is looking for funding to offset costs in putting on her graduate recital. She needs to bring in guest musicians from the Bay Area. Student admission is $4.00. GSA authorizes $300 for this recital.

Internal Vice President Election

Kelly, Teresa, and Beth ran for IVP. Beth won this election.

Committee Reports

Grad Housing (Beth Daniels)

Currently there is a proposal to move all grads to the Porter infill apartments because grads seem to want two bedroom apartments instead of 4 bedroom apartments. Details have not been worked out.

Tax Workshop (Nick)

Nick is still looking for a CPA to do this workshop. Email examples of tax questions to Nick (npk@astro.ucsc.edu) so that he can properly prepare the accountant.

Committee on Planning and Budget (Aarti)

The CPB is on the 10th draft of a guiding statement, in these budget cutting times, that asserts UCSC's commitment to preserving instructional and research aims. Grads are a priority. Non-academic services will be cut first.

Health Insurance (Allison)

Plan costs may go up again this year. We already pay higher premiums than most UC students. We should consider pushing the chancellor to provide a worthy sum within which we can negotiate the cost of health insurance. Officers meet with the chancellor on the 25th.

Social Committee (Karen)

Wine tasting event may happen Feb 29th.

Grad Student Commons Party Feb 20th.

Officer Reports

External Vice President (Vicky)

The UCSA board is meeting at UCSC this weekend. Vicky also listed a number of up-coming conferences and events. She also mentioned that UCSA is suing the state government over the proposed budget cuts.

Old/New Business

PC Laptop for Graduate Student Commons

Nacho reported a variety of options we have, and we decided not to take meeting time to discuss the details.

Newspaper article response (Allison). A recent article about UC President Dynes' visit referred to UCSC doubling its number of graduate students. Allison will draft a letter to the editor pointing out that we need to take better care of the students that we all ready have before we add more.