GSA MEETING MINUTES
November 6, 2003
Attendance:
Officers: Susanne Altermann (Secretary), Vicky Tarumoto (IVP), Joni Wajaryb (EVP), Emily Robinson (President), Ian Dobbs-Dixon (CPB Rep).
Department Reps: Kelly Reiner (Education), Karen Artiles (MCD Biology), Abhijit Sen Gupta (Economics), Marla Holt (SFAC), Nicholas Konidaris (Astronomy), Ge Yi (Computer Engineering), Dirk Robinson (Electrical Engineering), Meredith Armstrong (Ocean Science).
Visitors: Leila Forouhi, Joe Schwarts (Physics), Raj Gupta (Physics), Erik Dedini (Physics), Kai Pommerenke (Economics), Jamus Lim (Economics).
Approval of Agenda and Minutes
GSA Action Agenda was added to the agenda. Agenda, June 2003 minutes, and October 2003 minutes approved.
Elections
Nick Konidaris was approved as the Astronomy Representative.
Committees
Department representatives are required to serve on a campus or GSA committee. Anyone with questions about committees and being appointed to committees should contact Internal Vice President Vicky Tarumoto: gsaivp.yahoo.com.
Funding
Speaker Group: Breaking the Bonds of Structural Servitude. Thursday November 13, Classroom Unit 1.
The Council approved $250 in funding for this event.
GSA Kayaking Event.
The Council approved $280 in funding for this event.
GSA Action Agenda
The Graduate Council is a committee of the Academic Senate. They have asked for a list of our most important issues. The officers met previously to come up with potential action agenda items. There was a long discussion of this topic, led by Emily.
Health Insurance (GSHIP). We want the administration to provide us a negotiator to help us cope with our insurance broker. We also want to support UC-wide graduate student health insurance. Costs would go down if we had a larger pool of grads.
Housing. We want to decouple graduate housing rents from undergraduate rents. Currently grads help finance current and future undergraduate housing.
Graduate Student Life Survey. We want a stronger picture of graduate student life at UCSC. Unless a sociology grad. wants to take on this project, we want to hire someone to do this for us. The council brainstormed about potential survey question topics such as living expenses, funding sources, job prospects, work space, advising quality, availability of administrative staff, and more. Some information, such as retention rate, would come from administration sources. If we knew more about graduate life, we could make stronger arguments to the administration about what we need.
International Student Fees. Over the last few years, there has been occasional momentum on the council to push for a change in international student fees at the UC level. Gi, Vicky, Sina and Abhijit volunteered to work on this issue.
Graduate College. This idea ties in with the current UCSC accreditation process. UCSC is committed to studying and demonstrating “academic enrichment” in three areas of academic life for its accreditation process. One the topics the administration (in the form of committees) chose is graduate education. There is some momentum behind the idea of establishing a graduate college at UCSC. This can be residential or not. The main benefits are: 1) a target for outside funding 2) the ability to design, sponsor, and implement courses appropriate for all grads, 3) more support to do interdisciplinary work.
The Council ranked to above topics as follows:
1) GSHIP
2) Housing
3) Student Life Survey
4) International Student Fees
5) Graduate College
New Business
HR3412 - Lobbying for graduate tax exemptions: Susi will write a letter to our federal officer and draft a letter for circulation to all grads.
Adjourn.
Committee Report Texts:
Student Fee Advisory Committee (SFAC) Report
GSA Meeting
6 Nov 2003
Marla Holt
Of the $1,000,352 new Reg
Fee allocations for 03/04, the campus (through former EVC Simpson) has only
released $733,065 of it to Student Affairs units for “core operational cost
increases, campus/divisional funding priorities, and health and safety
enrollment driven workload increases.”
The remaining fund allocations of $227,287 (including
the $4500 that SFAC has recommended for funding GSA travel grants) are in
abeyance until early December. We will
not know if GSA will get the $4500 for travel grants until then.
On top of that, Student Affairs has issued a call for
funding requests to units that are currently funded on the State side and thus
face major budget cuts but could justify eligibility for reg. fee funding based
on CSF Standing Policy 2 (CSF Policy on the Appropriate Use of the University
Registration Fee). Five funding requests
have been submitted to SFAC from the ACE program and health sciences advising
(both currently funded under the Physical and Biological Sciences Division),
Academic Support Services (requesting funding for a campus wide learning
center), the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, and
CATS.
Potential funding allocations from these requests
could go into effect for the 03/04 academic year. Therefore, the SFAC committee will need to
reconsider all of the recommended funding allocations for 03/04, including the
GSA funding request for increasing travel grants.
Additionally, because UC campuses may cap enrollment
for next year in response to the state budget crisis, this may be the last year
that the campus will have new student reg. fee funding (permanent) to allocate.
Report to the GSA on the October
2003
Committee on Planning and Budget
Meeting
(submitted by Ian Dobbs-Dixon)
The
operating budget for UCSC is $407.8 Million. 38% of that comes from State
funds, while 25% comes from Student tuition.
Permanent cuts assigned to UCSC by the state
for 2003-2004 total to over $12 Million (~3% of the current budget). This may
include ~$7 Million in targeted reductions and ~$5 Million in undesignated
cuts. Additional budget cuts may be passed on in the coming years.
The Administration has formed an Executive
Budget Committee (EBC) to deal with the implementation of these cuts. The EBC
is working with an outside consulting agency to find the best and most
effective cuts. The general philosophy so far has been targeted cuts rather
then across the board cuts; i.e. find specific places where money can be saved
with the least impact on functionality. However, this is easy to say, but hard
to implement. There will be many services centralized during this process. John
Simpson currently runs the EBC.
John Simpson has resigned as the Campus
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor. MRC Greenwood had appointed the current
Dean of Social Sciences Martin Chemers. Chemers will takeover control of the EBC process in
December.
Consultation between the new Vice Chancellor
for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies Robert Miller and the CPB has been
scheduled. This position, with duel responsibilities, was created after the
previous Vice Chancellor retired. Hopefully we will not lose services as a
result of this consolidation.
Graduate admissions into the Mathematics
Department are in the process of being reinstated. A series of departmental
reviews lead to the suspension of admissions until several issues regarding,
among others, graduate curriculum and faculty communication were resolved. It
is widely recognized that the existence of a well-regarded math department at
UCSC is imperative. To this aim the size and scope of the department is slated
to increase in the coming years, despite the potential freeze of overall number
of students.
Report
to GSA on the October 2003
Transportation Committee Meeting
(submitted by Susanne Altermann)
Loop Shuttle
The new loop route is a HUGE success. Loop shuttles don’t stop at remote parking
lots or have layovers at the bookstore.
Two are running in each direction.
UC Budget Crisis
Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) is
insulated from the UC budget crisis because UC transportation and parking
systems are required to fund themselves.
TAPS, including staff, is funded by the student transit fee, parking
fees, and a few grants. However, the SC
Metro (bus system) is increasing the cost of its contract with UC for the first
time in 10 years. TAPS’ budget woes come
from this contract negotiation, not from the UC crisis.
Free Motorcycle Parking?
TAPS Director Wes Scott suggested elimination of
parking fees for motorcycles. Much
discussion ensued and will ensue again.
Bike Path Drama
As of fairly recently, motorized cycles (but not
motorcycles), are allowed on the bike path.
Some bicyclists find this offensive (including me). However, some cyclists have resorted to harrassment of the (legal) motorized users. TAPS will post new signs to help “educate”
the cyclists.
Bike Path Stop Sign
A stop sign at the bottom of the bike path near the
Blacksmith Shop. It’s in the design for
the intersection with the access road to the new faculty-staff housing unit
(Ranch View Terrace).
Bike Shuttle Service Increase
We voted to increase the West side bike shuttle from
2 vans to three. There is also a
possibility of extending bike shuttle hours to noon. Stay tuned for when this comes into effect.
Strike
By the way, shuttle drivers are unionized but have it
written into their contract, unlike SC Metro drivers, that they will cross other
unions’ picket lines. That’s why the
Metro does not cross TA Union picket lines, but TAPS shuttle drivers do.