GSA General Assembly Meeting Minutes

Meeting Date:  October 3, 2007

Meeting Time:  7:06 - 8:40 p.m., HGS 119 A&B

 

 

I.  Reports

a.  Reimbursement - Sara Nichols (Treasurer)

§         Each department should hold one departmental meeting per semester.

§         Discuss what GSA is, what we are doing, and what the students want us to be doing.

§         Each department receives $200 per representative per year (it can be divided in any fashion, i.e. for a department with 2 reps, they can use their $400 to buy $300 worth of food for the first meeting, and $100 for the second meeting).

§         It is customary to order food for such meetings in order to entice students to attend.

§         The reimbursement procedure has changed from what it was in past years.

·         No longer direct-deposit

·         University will not give a credit card to students

·         All purchases for departmental meetings will have to be invoiced

·         Only several places around campus will invoice:  Yorkside Pizza, Subway on Church, GPSCY.

·         Reps can try to find other restaurants that will invoice the Graduate School

·         With invoicing, no cash is transferred.  The receipt should be given to Sara, then she will copy them and give them to the appropriate graduate school officials.

·         You need to make all charges to the GSA account.

·         Bobbi and Sara are trying to work out a more efficient policy, but this is a university-wide change, so there are a lot of hurdles.

·         It is easiest and advisable to get food from Yorkside Pizza for these meetings.

·         Some Thai places in New Haven may invoice? - Sara will talk to YCC rep to find out.

·         Nica’s might invoice; Ashley’s has agreed to invoice.

·         Is it a possibility to use a departmental credit card, and then have Yale reimburse the department?

·         The best course of action is to check your ideas/transactions with Sara first.

 

b.  Departmental Meetings - No Reports

                       

c.  Conference Travel Fund - Dennis Mishler (CTF Director)

§         The GSA will distribute $45,000 this year (up from $30,000 in past years) to students who are planning to attend conferences or visit another site to give a talk.

§         The first application deadline is October 15.

§         The maximum award amount is no $750 per person, up from $500 in past years.

§         Once the October 15 deadline is passed, Dennis will need two readers from each division to review application and decide which applicants receive awards and how much each reward will be.

§         Award distribution is based on the quality of the abstract/application, not necessarily the subject of the research itself.

§         Reading applications is an enjoyable and educational process.  Readers learn where conferences are held, what other students are studying, and about how to write quality applications for the CTF and other competitive awards.  This is an instructional process for people interested in going into academia.

§         If anyone is interested in reading, sometime after the deadline a first meeting will be held (over dinner) where the rules will be outlines.  Then readers get a couple weeks to read over and judge applications and return the results to Dennis.

§         All applications are anonymous, so there should be no conflict of interest; however, if you do recognize someone’s work, you can ask your fellow reader to make the call on that application.

§         Volunteers:  Andrew Davis (NS), Allie Sargent (SS)

 

 

II.  Appointments

a.   Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity (ODEO) Liaison Announcement - Andy Bellemer (Vice Chair)

§         ODEO works on programming for mentoring and diversity.

§         GSA interacted with ODEO more in past years - Andy is working with Dean Mangan in order to re-forge that relationship.

§         We would like to elect an ODEO liaison from GSA to work on publicizing ODEO programs.

§         There is no meeting schedule yet for ODEO.

§         Interested reps should e-mail Andy Bellemer.

           

b.  Yale College Council (YCC) Liaison Announcement - Bobbi Sutherland (Chair)

§         YCC GSA Liaison Julia is at the meeting tonight.

§         The hope of this partnership is to work together to organize events and learn from each other.

§         YCC meetings are held on Sundays at 2:30 p.m. weekly in the Branford College Mendell Room (but the GSA Liaison could possibly attend just every other meeting).

§         YCC currently has 26 members that are separated into smaller 2-3 people committees, including transporation, financial need, etc… 

§         We are trying to encourage more interactions among YCC, GSA, and GPSS.

§         A YCC-GSA connection is especially effective when dealing with TA-ing/teaching issues.

§         Kathryn Wilkinson (Immunobiology) has agreed to take this position.  She and Julia will exchange e-mails/phone numbers.

                       

 

III.  Mentoring Week

§         Original concept was developed by a committee of GSA representatives last year, headed by Ian Simon (former Chair), and these individuals convinced the Dean to give his support in hosting an event where students and faculty could discuss, improve, and celebrate mentoring practices here at Yale.

§         General Outline of Mentoring Week Events:

·         Mentoring Week will be held the week of October 29.

·         Monday, October 29 there will be a discussion panel, with students only, held somewhere in mid-campus.  We are looking into having a Women in Science at Yale (WISAY) representative and another representative from another academic institution speak at this event.

·         Mid-week activities will consist of faculty/student discussion panels in several (7?) departments around campus.  The departments we are asking to participate were chosen based on size, presence of mentoring awardees, locations on campus.  Related disciplines are welcome to attend these several events, or are welcome to have their own.

·         The keynote speech by Kathy Barker (Author of “At the Bench” and “At the Helm”) will take place on Thursday, November 1.  We need to check her schedule, but we are planning on taking her to lunch that day, and will need a couple of volunteers to attend.

·         If you are willing to help advertise via flyers or word-of-mouth or to help organize a meeting in one of the several departments involved or to assist with the Monday discussion section, please let us know.

·         We plan to give the involved departments a blueprint for the structure of the departmental events.  A panel of 3 individuals (preferably faculty) who can share their own experiences and also answer a set of drafted questions is the current idea.

·         Several of the involved departments have OK’ed the idea so far.  The departments we are targeting (and will be contacting the DGS’s of this week) are:  BBS, Chemistry, Computer Science/Engineering, Foreign Languages, Forestry/Geology and Geophysics, History, Psychology, and possibly Astronomy/Physics.

·         The Forestry DGS is currently on sabbatical, so we will have to work with the replacement DGS.  Perhaps we can have Geology take on a larger role.

·         BBS Mentoring Week Organizers will contact the Director Lynn Cooley and John Alvaro.

·         Please let Bobbi know if you are interested in having lunch with the invited speaker, Kathy Barker.  There are a limited number of seats for this.

                       

 

IV.  Caucuses

At this point in the meeting, the representatives divided into Caucuses based on Division to have group discussions about general and specific graduate school issues.  The groups were: Humanities, Social Sciences, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences.  Only one Master’s student was present, so he joined the Social Science group.  The purpose of these meetings is to determine the key issues for the GSA agenda this year.

 

Social Sciences Discussion Concerns

·         Mentoring at the Master’s level is very “hands-off”, especially with regard to the structure of the theses (there are also similar issues at the Ph. D. level).

·         DGSs are unaware of details about teaching - there is a disconnect at the administrative level.

·         Field work is lacking.

·         There is inadequate numbers of TA-ing opportunities for older students

·         Conference funding policies vary widely by department.

·         It would be useful for the CTF Director to know which departments already provide travel funding to their students (this is part of the application process, but sometimes the students themselves are unaware).

·         Master’s concerns:

o       Area studies have unique issues

o       Departments cover part of tuition, which leaves the departments with less funding (this, however, is an issue that needs to be dealt with at the administrative, not the student, level).

o       Some of these programs have no funding

 

 

Humanities Discussion Concerns

·         The library hours are bad - especially on Fridays, when it closes at 5:00 pm.

·         The music library has both bad hours and is lacking in variety of acquisitions (especially popular music).

·         Study/Office space is a continuing concern, although the process of reserving study carols has become more straightforward (contact Cindy Greenspun)

·         Music students are lacking practice rooms

·         Housing is a continuing concern.

·         Students have no direct access to the undergraduate colleges.

·         TA-ing issues due to low enrollment in Humanities programs, so TA’s are still being moved from assignment to assignment this late in the semester.

·         In the Music department, a student was forced to take his/her University Dissertation Fellowship in his/her 4^th year.

·         The HPV vaccine at the Health Center is ~ $450, and birth control costs have also risen.  Can Yale subsidize this?

 

 

Physical Science Discussion Concerns

·         Summer funding in some departments (Computer Science, some Math departments) is unclear.  Some students applied for summer jobs and were unaware of other funding opportunities (such as fellowships).

·         IT@Yale - Forestry department is particularly bad, as they do not have the appropriate computational equipment to run calculations

·         It is helpful for departments to have a dedicated IT person within the department itself (Computer Science, Chemistry, Astronomy have this).

·         Phillip Long is interested in getting an IT@Yale advisory board organized (including graduate student representatives).

·         Faculty do not have a straightforward method of alerting IT of their concerns, either.

·         Beta testers for the GSA website are needed.

·         Teaching opportunities fluctuate widely from year to year due to large fluctuations in enrollment numbers (both undergraduate and graduate).

·         Some graduate students may be able to teach in other departments, but are unaware of available opportunities.

·         Security issues:  Temporary solutions for protecting students in the Mansfield and Prospect street areas of campus, such as stationing sentinels in these neighborhoods, are not long-term solutions (too many man-hours for more than a few months).  Crime resumes when sentinels are no longer stationed.

·         Yale parking is too expensive for graduate students, and this creates security concerns.

·         Mentoring - in some departments, there is a dismissive attitude regarding preparation for qualifying exams (professors have seen this all before, while for students, this is a pivotal academic moment).  Departments need to be very clear about qualifying exam structure and demands (in Astronomy the students made the faculty give a concrete description).

 

 

Life Sciences Discussion Concerns

·         Science funding is in crisis.

·         There are often too many students for too few slots in labs.

·         GSA should encourage peer mentoring of new students in order to provide them with specific information about the labs they are interested in joining and the policies of the departments.  Something similar to the BBS Fellows program.

·         Issue of the Yale-New Haven relationship - the GSA could use partnerships with service organizations that are trying to improve life in New Haven (Childcare places, Diaper Depot, neighborhood clinics, Senior citizen outreach programs, United Way, etc…) to get involved and improve this relationship.

·         Use GSA’s leadership position to set an example and act as a conduit for student involvement by making announcements to departments about opportunities.

·         GPSS is starting a volunteer group?  Connect with them?

·         Connect with professional school students who interface with the community on a regular basis (nursing students, for example).

 

Bobbi will send an e-mail summarizing the major GSA concerns for this year,

Andy will e-mail people interested in internal committees.

Eli needs volunteers for GSA website beta testing.

 

Motion to adjourn - 2^nd