GSA Council Meeting Minutes from Dec. 02, 04
Attendance
Officers: Kai Pommerenke (President); Lisa Downward (Internal Vice President); Allison Luengen (Secretary); Ian Dobbs Dixon (External Vice President)
Department Reps: Nick Konidaris (astro); Sina Farsiu (EE); Christian Flacco (physics); Marina Sarran (soc); Abhijit Sen Gupta (econ); Berra Yazar (MCDB); Sara Bothwell (environmental studies); Kelly Holt (lit); Marla Holt (ocean sciences); Amy Dexter (psych); Cintia Margi (CE); Brian Gerstenberger (chem); Gerardo Palafox (edu); Jesse Saba Kirchner (ling); Brooke Crowley (earth); Nathan Whitehead (CS).
Others: Daniel Riera Crichton (econ); Leandro Dias (CE); Alex Hutko (earth); Susanne Altermann (EE Bio).
Minutes from Nov. 18 approved.
Announcements
1) Judy Scarborough from the Childcare Advisory Committee is looking for 1 or 2 graduate students to sit on that committee. The committee is in the process of coming up with an access policy. Two thirds of the committee is currently students, but their graduate student resigned. The commitment is for 1 monthly meeting and hopefully a couple more hours each month on additional stuff. Please contact our internal vice president, Lisa <lmd@physics.ucsc.edu>, if you are interested.
2) Student Regent. Applications are now being considered for this position. It is a 2 year commitment: one year as a non-voting designate and one year as a voting regent. This is an excellent way to impact decisions, and the Regents turn to this person to solicit opinions.
3) Liam Welcher from the Student Union Assembly (SUA) came to our meeting and is interested in establishing a liaison between the GSA and the SUA, which is the undergraduate student government. The SUA meets every Tues from 6-8 in the Bay Tree Conference Room. It is possible that we could get an undergraduate to come to all of our meetings, rather than vice-versa.
Departmental Reps
We approved the following new departmental reps: Gerardo Palafox (edu).
New Business
A) Protection of graduate students from mistreatment by the faculty. We continued the discussion we started the previous meeting on the ethical treatment of graduate students. This discussion was sparked by an article in the Nov. 2004 issue of Physics today (see minutes from last meeting).
Graduate students listed the following ethical problems that they, or someone they knew, had experienced: faculty haven’t read/don’t adhere to the faculty handbook; poor advising; lack of guidelines for resolving disputes; sexual harassment is the only conflict for which there is a formal process of resolution; faculty repeatedly causing grad students to cry; faculty not treating women students in the sciences equally; racial discrimination; faculty with unchecked power; students afraid to speak out when abuses by the faculty occur.
The discussion morphed into whether a committee from the GSA should take an active or passive role in resolving these problems. Suggestions for an active committee include:
1) supporting 1 student with an obvious grievance and going after that advisor. Use that case as a whistle blowing act and strike if necessary.
2) having the GSA committee interview graduate student in each department and then compiling anonymous reports that are then sent to that department.
3) having graduate students turn to the GSA committee when they need help
4) working within the framework of existing departmental review
5) publish offences
These are in contrast to more passive measures which included
6) writing a letter to an entire department. “We the GSA do not approve of . . .” This way there is no direct confrontation.
7) posting guidelines on ethical treatment on our web site
8) writing a letter to the administration pointing out how serious of a problem this is
9) raising these issues at graduate council
10) conducting an anonymous survey
Speakers repeatedly emphasized the need for the process to be anonymous. Another key point was that GSA has relatively little power in this situation and that the driving force will have to come from a faculty member.
The GSA unanimously voted to form a “Committee on the Ethical Treatment of Graduate Students.” It is the task of this committee to come up with a plan of attack by the next meeting. Should the committee be active or passive? What are the committee’s recommendations for proceeding with this issue?
As always,
to sign up for this committee, contact Lisa <lmd@physics.ucsc.edu>.
B) Discussion on the number of department reps allotted to each department. Nicole Diana Hidalgo, a Ph.D. student in the education department, requested 2 representatives for the education department, one for their Master’s program and one for their Ph.D. program. From the discussion that followed, it was clear that some departments had Masters and Ph.D. programs that were entirely separate, and in other departments, it was all the same program. It was pointed out that it would be hard to differentiate on this basis which departments should get 1 representative and which should get 2.
Another suggestion was made to become more like the house of representatives and allow large departments to have more than 1 representative. With 15 Ph.D. students and 119 Masters students, the education department could be allowed another representative just for being so big.
In the end, we voted 17 in favor, 0 opposed, and 2 abstentions to keep our existing “senate” system so that each department gets only one representative regardless of size or separate Masters and Ph.D. programs. Liam (SUA) made a point that having lots of representatives could make the meetings bureaucratic and hard to handle.
We wanted to remind everyone that you don’t have to be a department representative to come to GSA meetings, to sit on committees, or to take part in the discussion. And one speaker had some funny words of wisdom stating our basic requirements, “If you want to lead, you have to show up.”
Committee and Officer
Reports
1) Committee on Teaching (Berra)
The committee on teaching is looking a keynote speaker for their Feb 17 teaching symposium on “How to engage students in large and small classroom settings." Berra sought feed-back on if we thought an on or off-campus speaker would be better.
2) Social Committee (Sina) and Christian (Graduate Commons Governance Board).
There were lots of drinks at the party last week and the staff expressed the concern that people were too drunk. Previously, many people in the GSA thought that the 2 drink limit was to prevent us from running out of alcohol and if the supply allowed, more drinks could be distributed. However, Christian pointed out that the use permit for the Graduate Commons is actually the source of the 2 drink limit. The reason for the limit is that the people could get hurt and the commons could be liable. Some speakers expressed interest in trying to increase the drink limit. It was also pointed out that 2 drinks don’t affect all people equally.
3) Campus Welfare Committee (Jesse).
The committee is looking at a reallotment of housing for faculty and staff; that shouldn’t affect us much.
4) Student Fee Advisory Committee (Marla)
A survey on all student services will be conduced though the AIS system. It looked like we wanted to keep the responses of graduate students separate from undergraduates. The survey will have to be somewhat general. It will go out in the middle of winter quarter when students are registering for the spring.
5) President’s Report (Kai).
Kai is looking into catalogue rights. Susi pointed out that the grad handbook from each department is also an important written document for most of us, stating the requirements we must fulfill.
Kai is extending the deadline for the grad college survey until Dec. 10.
Kai and Lisa had a meeting with key administrators: Robert Miller, Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies; Lisa Sloan, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies; Gail Heit, Associate Vice Chancellor Student Affairs; Jean Marie Scott, Associate Vice Chancellor, The Colleges and University Housing Services; Leslie Elkin, Director Health Services.
Kai also spoke with Ken Doctor from the Alumni Association and Jessica Pierce and we should be thinking how the Alumni Association can help us out.
6) GSHIP (Allison).
Allison wrote a history of GSHIP premiums- see below. Allison met with Lisa to fill her in on this history before her meeting with key administrators. Allison, Luke, and Sara met to discuss the foundations for a letter that would 1) solicit the opinion of graduate students on how Blue Cross is working and any needed improvements and 2) inform graduate students about a few key things they might want to know before winter break, including picking up your pharmacy before you go, the improvements in the dental plan, the lack of a campus dentist, and the possibility of seeing your family dentist in your hometown.
The GSHIP committee is also investigating extending your health care coverage after you graduate and how to get together with the undergraduates since we all now have the same health plan.
GSHIP
History
2004-2005. Dental plan vastly improved. GSHIP combined with USHIP. Premium holds at $423 per quarter. Blue Cross.
2003-2004. Plan
reduced to $423 per quarter and benefits slashed (deductible increases,
pharmacy copay increases, coverage decreases from 95% to 85%, and copays
required for doctor’s visits). Combined
Insurance Company of
2002-2003. Cost is
$424 per quarter. Combined Insurance Company of
2001-2002. Cost is $313 per quarter. Fidelity Security Life Ins. and Claims sent to American Insurance Administrators. Problems with too little physical therapy and mental health coverage. Claims take 6 to 9 weeks to process and claims are often lost or incorrectly processed.
2000-2001. Cost is
$313 per quarter. Fidelity Security Life
Insurance Company. Claims administered
by American Insurance Administrators.
7) CPB (Marina).
8) External Vice President (Ian).
The Regents increased the graduate student fees by 10%. We do not know, but would like to find out, how this will affect the $242 that we are already paying when we are TAs.
The CA
graduate and professional meeting will be held at