Graduate Center, CUNY Doctoral Students’ Council Plenary Minutes
May 11th, 2007—5pm Members and Voting Alternates Present:
Comparative Literature: Alexander Moudrov Criminal Justice: Charles Lieberman Engineering, Electrical: Rex Wong English: Rob Faunce, Tina Meyerhoff French: Chong Wojtkowski
History: David Golland Mathematics: Brooke Orosz Music DMA: Barbara Podgursky (by Proxy:____) Philosophy: Christopher Sula Political Science: Zeeshan Suhail (by proxy:____) Psych., I/O: Lauren Mondo Psych, Social Pers.: Elizabeth Velilla Social Welfare: Denise Torres Sociology: Binh Pok Theatre: Kate Wilson At-large: Gregory Donovan, Lee Hachadoorian, Patrina Huff, Lindsay Krasnoff, Tina Lee, Amy Meyers, Pamela Proscia, Brenda Vollman
Members Absent:
Anthropology: Kate Griffiths, Martha Lincoln Art History: Tara Burk Audiology: Allison Shapiro Biochemistry: Avalon Garcia (excused) Biology: Jillian DeGezelle, Adam Kavalier Business: Cary Lange
Chemistry: Marie Thomas Classics: Michael Broder (excused) Comparative Literature: Kai Kreinke Computer Science: Hassan Adekoya, Mohamed Saad Criminal Justice: David Caspi Earth and Environmental Science: Angelos Lampousis Economics: Andrew Bossie Educational Psychology: Leslie Craigo Engineering, Biomedical: Veronica Lopez Engineering, Chemical: Mehrdad Kheiripou Engineering, Civil: Rouzbeh Nazari
-- D R A F T --
Engineering, Electrical: Rex Wong English: Louise Geddes Hisp./Luso-Braz. Lang. & Lit.: Hyon Kim History: Jameel Haque (excused) Liberal Studies: Nazreen Bacchus Linguistics: Ji Young Shim
Music Ph.D.: Inessa Bazayev, Jason Hooper Political Science: Jen Gaboury, Patrizia Nobbe Psychology, Clinical: Nora Goudsmit Psychology, Cognitive Neuro: Dominique Jones Psychology, Environmental: Stephanie Domenici (excused) Psychology, Forensic: Ryan Copple
Psychology, Learning Processes: Adrienne Robek Psychology, Neuro.: Robyn Powers Urban Education: Lynda Kennedy At-large: Celia Braxton (excused), Ericka Calton (excused), Valerie Futch, James Hoff, Amber Hui, Ian Jones, Lames Lyles, Frank Muscara, Tieuvi Nguyen, Dion Powell, Vincenzo Sainato, Farishta Satari
Total Members and Voting Alternates Present: 24 Total Members Absent: 49
Chair: Chong Wojtowski Minutes: Patrina Huff
Meeting called to order at 5:08 PM
I. Approval of Agenda and Old Minutes. Motion approved with unanimous consent.
II. Old Business A. Proposed Bylaw Changes. Discussion of changes to bylaw #4. Dave Golland
encourages everyone to support changes and suggests that corresponding changes be made in constitution. Denise Torres questions the rationale for changing the bylaw given that it has only selectively been enforced in the past. Chong responds that the change is to continue current practice when leadership changes. Motion approved with unanimous consent. Discussion of changes to bylaw #1. Brenda notes that the $1350 to cover changes in DSO stipend schedule will be taken from the Scholarship Development Fund. Motion approved with unanimous consent. Discussion of changes to bylaw #15. Brenda notes that her previous comment was meant to address changes in the stipend schedule outlined in bylaw #15. Motion approved with unanimous consent.
III. Co-Chair for Student Affairs Report A. Chartered Organization Update. Chong reports that the chartered organizations
fair will be held in August during orientation. Kate Wilson suggests that the fair be held later in the term to give more people the opportunity to attend. Patrina suggests that chartered organizations might also be invited to attend the first coffee hour of the year. Dave Golland asks why there is no list of elected
representatives. Chong responds that there have been delays. All elected representatives have not responded and that there are several ties that need to be resolved. Brook Orosz says that she can resolve the Math department tie—she is the chosen representative.
IV. Co-Chair for Communications Report. A. Media Board Report. Chong (for Ericka) reports that the editor-in-chief and
webmaster will be staying on next year.
V. Co-Chair for Business Management Report – Brenda (10 min.) A. DSC Budget. Brenda points out the $1350 from the Scholarship Fund that will go
to pay for increases in DSO wage schedule. Motion to accept the proposed shifting of funds from the scholarship development fund to pay for increases in DSO stipends is approved with unanimous consent. Chong asks that since the item for the Wellness Center only shows zero balances that it be removed from the budget. Brenda says that she will remove it.
VI. USS Report Dave Golland (for Rouzbeh) reports that there have been no USS meetings since the last plenary. Chong asks if the USS has decided to allow each campus to vote for the level of fees they would like to contribute to the USS. Dave says the USS has not yet come to a decision to divvy up the process in this way.
VII. DSCStandingCommitteeReports A. Health Issues. Denise reports that the health fair went well and that over 187
people attended—up from the 120 average attendance in previous years. Condoms and lubes were not distributed at the Wellness Fair as they had not yet arrived in the mail. They are available for future events should any group need to use them. Denise also reports that the first of three health issues articles—Going Without—was published in the May Advocate and that Lynda Kennedy is working on an article for the September issue.
B. Community Building. Charles reports that the purchase of sofas for the DSC common rooms has been delayed due to the fact that the selected sofas did not meet the required fire codes. Patrina adds that Ray Ring has offered one sofa from downstairs. Charles announces that there are plans in the works for an end of the year gathering for May 25 or 26 and that an official announcement will be made when plans are firmed up.
C. Library Committee. Rob reports that he met with Linda Edwards and they are still working to reach a decision on having a 3 or 6 week loan period for books. Rob, Tina Meyerhoff and Julie Cuningham will continue to meet to discuss library committee concerns.
VIII. DSC Ad Hoc Committee Reports. There were no ad hoc committee reports.
IX. Grad Council Committee Reports. Dave Golland reports that all who attended the May 10 Grad Council meeting were elected to the committees they signed up for.
X. Adjunct Project Report. There was no adjunct project report.
XI.
New Business A. Locker Lottery. Brenda announces that the locker lottery is open from May 31-
August 1. People who currently have lockers should vacate them by August 1 and apply for a new one. Applications can be filed online. Most people who apply are approved. Only 10 were turned down last year.
B. OIT. Chong reports that students will be getting email forwarding. From responses to the survey on the CUNY DSC Google group, it seems that people are okay with getting rid of roaming desktops, but she also would like feedback from the plenary. Ping asks, if the roaming desktops are removed, will there still be a U drive? Chong says yes. Pamela Proscia asks if email storage will be reduced when email forwarding is implemented. Brenda says yes. Gregory Donovan asks, as the two are unrelated, why there needs to be a trade off. He assumes it’s because more people will start to use their email accounts when email forwarding is implemented and the reduction in individual email storage space is being made to accommodate increased use. Pamela Proscia suggests that implementing autodelete for emails sent to trash folder (as opposed to current setup where emails must be manually deleted from the trash folder) might address some storage issues. Greg notes that if CUNY switches to Google as an email host, free email storage space would be included in the package. Rex Wong suggests that sent items not be automatically saved, that saving sent mail should be an option that can be selected. Chong surveys plenary on their feelings about implementing lifelong email addresses and what the naming convention should be for alumni addresses—the same as they are now or a special alumni address? Explains that having special alumni email addresses would solve the problem of current students and alumni with common names. Greg adds that alumni email naming conventions are also useful in grouping alumni for mailings, etc and that alumni accounts are usually set up as forwarding accounts not as actual email accounts. Rob says he likes the idea of alumni accounts but there should be no charge. Tina Lee does a survey to see if students would be interested in having the ability to receive faxes through their GC emails. There is general interest. Chong says that she will ask the OIT about this option. Chong does a survey of plenary to see if Outlook is functioning on their desktops. There are mixed responses. Gregory Donovan notes that some of the desktop versions of Outlook are outdated.
XII. Announcements. There are no announcements. XIII.Adjournment. Motion to adjourn at 5:47 is approved with unanimous consent.