GSA COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES

June 3, 2004

Attendance

Officers and others: Emily Robinson (President), Beth Daniels (Internal Vice President), Susanne Altermann (Secretary), Allison Luengen (Treasurer) Vicky Tarumoto (External Vice President).

Department Reps: Sina Farsiu (Electrical Engineering), Ignacio (Nacho) Solis (Computer Engineering), Lisa Downward (Physics), Nick Konidaris (Astronomy), Abjhijit Sen Gupta (Economics)

Others: Jamus Lim (Economics), Angela Rosales (SUA), Physics:  Erik Dedini, Joe Schwartz, Luke Winstrom, Kai Pommerenke (Economics), Roseann Cohen, and Chloe (undergrad).

Approval of Minutes and Agenda

Minutes and agenda approved. 

CocaCola Resolution

Roseanne Cohen and Chloe asked the GSA Council to stand with SUA in asking for an investigation of allegations against CocaCola corporation.  Letters have been prepared for Interim Chancellor Chemers and Coke CEO Douglas Daft.  UC has a code of conduct with a provision for investigation of human rights and labor rights allegations.  By a motion, the GSA Council approved these letters.

External Vice President Election

Ian Dobbs Dixon ran and was elected to this position.

External Vice President Report (Vicky)

UCSA will have a retreat at UCSC July 8-11.  This is an awesome opportunity to cooperate with undergrads and be active at the UC-wide level.  Grads and undergrads can split the cost of food and the weekend.  We want two or more people from GSA to be involved.  Council members encouraged Vicky to approach the Grad Commons about getting funding.  The ballpark figure for the cost of the event was $1000, but Sina objected to this high price for a summer event, especially since undergrads are the larger constituency for the retreat.  The GSA passed a motion to offer $750 for the event and ask Vicky to seek money from the Grad Commons.

Vicky requested $400 to be reimbursed to SUA for covering her travel expenses this year.  The GSA approved this funding request.

GSHIP (Allison)

We got all the dental coverage we had requested.  This is a big improvement over what we had this year.

Budget Discussion

Susi put out her quick calculations that show that the GSA is currently spending 62% of the budget on officers and travel grants.  Only 18% of funding goes to programs.  We are spending our surplus on travel grants and officers.  We currently budget $20,400/year for officer and representative stipends, given that we can only expect $31,000/year in income, this is an unsustainable level of officer funding.  Several people spoke up in defense of spending the money as we plan to.

The GSA Council approved the budget.

The GSA Council also eliminated the departmental social funding mechanism entirely.

Sina motioned that GSA not fund any event that is sponsored by a department with no GSA Representative.  His motion failed to get a second after Emily pointed out that this would be a Bylaw change.  This idea can be resubmitted in the Fall with an appropriate language change to the Bylaws.  Someone suggested having a two-tiered system where more money is available to departments that have representation on GSA.

Adjourn.