Graduate Center, CUNY
Doctoral Students’ Council
Plenary Minutes

February 15, 2008—6pm

Members and Voting Alternates Present:

Anthropology: Javiela Evangelista, Mariya Radeva
Art History: Monica Steinberg, Whitney Thompson
Audiology: Allison Shapiro (proxy: Tasha Youstin)
Biology: Kathleen Schnaars Uvino (proxy: Karyn Collie), Lisa Offringa
Chemistry: Nancy Medina
Classics: Michael Broder
Comparative Literature: Adele Kudish
Computer Science: Deniz Sarioz (proxy: Debora Upegui)
Criminal Justice: Alissa Ackerman, Crystal Rodriguez
English: Kerdiana Chez, Cori Gabbard
French: Chong Wojtkowski
Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Lit: Teresa Darwich
Liberal Studies: Christopher Ian Foster
Linguistics: Elizabeth Pratt
Philosophy: Chris Sula
Political Science: Aaron Ibur
Psychology: Bio: Maria Maust
Psychology: Cognition, Brain, Behavior: Karla Felix
Psychology: Industrial and Organizational: Jessica Anderson
Psychology: Neuro: Jenny Ly
Psychology: Social Personality: Rachel Verni
Social Welfare: Denise Torres
Theatre: Ana Martinez
Urban Education: Pamela Proscia

At-large Reps: Jill Belli , Randy Cota, Gregory Donovan, Rob Faunce, Fiona Lee, Charles Lieberman (proxy: Julie Viollaz), Anton Masterovoy, Geoff Rab, Meghan Sacks, Amanda Springs, Brenda Vollman, Kate Wilson (proxy: Kevin Born), Danielle Wu

Members Absent:
Comparative Literature: Andrea Efthymiou
Computer Science: Omer Demr
Engineering Biomedical: Xiang (Ian) Gu (excused)
Engineering Chemical: Mehrdad Kheiripour
Engineering Civil: Rouzbeh Nazari
Engineering Electrical: Rex Wong
English: Allyson Foster (excused)
History: Jameel Haque (excused), Carl Lindskoog
Mathematics: Micah Miller, Brooke Orosz (excused)
Music DMA: Judy Woo
Music PhD: Roberto Barnard
Political Science: April Henning
Psychology: Environmental: Stephanie Domenici Cabonargi
Psychology: Learning Processes: Matthew Taylor (excused)
Public Health: Lauren Evans (excused)
Psychology: Forensic: Elizabeth Arias (excused)
Sociology: Valerie Francisco, Jesse Goldstein (excused)
Speech & Hearing Sciences: Kristen Maul (excused)

At-Large Reps: Nazreen Bacchus, Ericka Calton (excused), Dave Golland (excused), Amy Meyers, Aya Shohat

Members Present: 42; Members Absent: 26

Acting Provost Julia Wrigley –
Health Insurance – Recently a survey was conducted that expresses the strong desire of students to have health insurance. The Graduate Center is aware of these problems and understands that they are daunting. We are trying some new strategies to bring insurance closer. Such strategies arise from other sources, for instance, SUNY students who work for the university all have health insurance that we think CUNY students should have. “This is an avenue for getting health insurance right now. It may not be the best avenue, but it is definitely a good avenue.” It is a first attempt and we will keep working on the issue. This is the current strategy and we will listen to students’ ideas. We will endorse all strategies moving forward.

Tuition Waivers and Tuition Remission for people who work at CUNY – What category do graduate students fall under? The provost’s office will handle all the tuition awards from people who work at The Graduate Center. There are other categories of students eligible for these awards (adjuncts). We have to ask the EO’s of each program to forward this information to the financial aid office.

Joint degrees – major changes happening at CUNY – the Chancellery at 80th street want these. Right now there will be joint degrees in Chemistry, Biology, Biochemistry and Physics. This will not be a huge transition. However, there will be a radical change at the engineering program, which is separating from The Graduate Center. New students from fall 2008 will be city college students and degrees will come from there. These changes might set in motion other changes for other campuses, programs.

AK – tuition waivers – right now the system is for students working in just 1st 5 years of studies? However, we are discouraged from teaching in our first year? How can we extend this?

JW – we are a small part of a very huge organization – it doesn’t seem like this will be changing.

Call to order – 6:21 pm

I. Approval of Agenda  
RF – motion
GD – 2nd
Unanimous consent
  
II. Approval of Old Minutes   
AM - Motion
RF 2nd
Unanimous Consent
  
III. Old Business  
a. Windows Live Hotmail – GD –not going to windows live hotmail
b. Nurse Practitioner – RF – we’ve interviewed two candidates from Mt. Sinai, 2 models of candidates one with more student experience and one with more experience overall – offer will be made soon and will be here in the next four weeks. DT – start generating ideas about how many hours and when we need them - we may need some nighttime hours (what day of the week)? We should have some discussion about the needs of students.

(Jill Belli) -In the meantime during emergencies how can we go to clinics?
DT – The Institute for Urban Family Health will provide help just with our ID cards. They are aware tat we are fast tracked.

GR – question for RF, will the stopgap continue through the date we have someone?
RF - Yes

c. Elections Process – GD – postcards – people who registered late won’t get them, but if you want to take a few and hand them out, take some. Go to cunydsc.org and circulate it more. Nominations close on March 3rd and will be back up my April 1st for actual voting.

RF – keep getting out the word – keep reminding people.

BV –stresses – election for DSC, if you don’t have a strong association, this is not for intra program representation and we should remember this as voting takes place.

d. Scholarly awards committee (BV) we have money for awards for achievement and we need to solidify a timeline – we need a committee to determine a timeline and decide on qualifications – we need three volunteers TODAY to make sure we have all the criteria to be made clear.

Nancy Medina – hard sciences
Adele Kudish - Humanities
BV – remember being on the committee next year will prevent you from getting an award!

If you know anyone who is interested let Brenda know- if we don’t get it together we will lose almost 50K. The goal is to award at least $1000 for already completed work in each field. Brenda can forward notes to anyone is interested. Come to the meeting it is an open meeting!
 
IV. New Business 
a. At-Large Openings – RF – at last steering we removed 2 at large members who had never attended. We have always kept a pool, but we no longer have the pool available. If we have the name of anyone willing to serve at large – please spread the word, talk to people, and at steering we will discuss. If you are serving as a proxy tonight you may want to sign up for regular proxy duty.

In the next week when certification is done we will have a fresh roster to solicit for new members. We are down to 67 people and we need 73!

b. Wellness Center Monies – part of the issue with our wellness services, we have not paid for NP – those monies are for wellness and health (allocated constitutionally) part of what the steering committee and EC wants to hear what we should be doing with that money since it hasn’t been going to administer the Wellness Center Nurse Practitioner.

(Aaron) What about the clinic reimbursement? Does this come out of that fund?
DT -Those moneys are allocated specifically for the NP, part of what we need to do is to think about what we can do with that money now.
RF – are we authorized to ask for a refund for the money from last semester?

DT – we can ask, but it might be a financial and bureaucratic nightmare
BV – no because the referendum – the wellness center is still open and was open with this referendum was passed.

DT- that’s why we should look at other health issues
GR –how much are we thinking about money wise? What kind of service can we add to the wellness center?
DT – we have at least $48 thousand.
GR – maybe some equipment to “beef up services at the Wellness Center”
Pam – would this amount have to be divvied up to the entire body or could it be a resource or reserve amount to be put toward something else?

RF – a refund is not plausible – maybe it should be something to talk about with our constituents so maybe we can talk to everyone to discuss what we can REALLY do. What SPECIFIC item could we buy?

Aaron – Maybe it could be in terms of events, raising awareness – at a minimum cost we could really get the word out.

c. Email Task Force – GD – IT has decided not move to Windows Live Hotmail – the campuses that have switched have not had a good time with it. IT put together a task force – one idea, allow students to use whatever email account they want and then link it up with professional GC account. What is not clear is whether you can send mail from a professional address. Other alternative, going to Gmail? It still requires students to use Gmail even if they don’t want to?

Aaron – as far as Gmail – it is probably fine with a lot of people. I would be vehemently apposed to anything that does not allow us to send mail.

Chong – why not email forwarding? GD – central office won’t allow it. Hunter is actually operating in defiance of 80th Street

RF –what we have seen in our conversations, they are more willing to get a new system that to defy 80th street

GR – what is the objection to forwarding? GD –argument is that allowing forwarding brings about more Spam Mail.

JA – going to Gmail takes it out of our control – anything that happens through Google is out of our hands?

GD – we are better off at Google because we have more control of your account there than here. We would still have an address... xxx@gc.cuny.edu. Would stay with us as alums…

d. IT complaints – (Cori Gabbard) in terms of usage of computers, could problems be alleviated during orientation if some sort of instruction was provided? Also, for all the times the computers and printers don’t work, we pay a tech fee, maybe we should get a refund?

GD – submit help requests to IT!!! This will work better than bringing it to DSC. Just always turn in a help ticket – if there is problem, copy and paste the text of the problem and send it to IT - if they don’t do anything, then bring it to the plenary.

Michael – how do you report these things?

GD – go online to the IT helpdesk or call them at their extension.

Chong –are all computers on the C level supposed to have the same programs?
GD – Yes, but again, check with IT

V. Student Affairs Report (Gregory)  
a. Online Operations - (see below)
b. Chartered Organizations – deadline for rosters is May 1st. Room Reservations are now up on Google calendars– go to our website and look to see what rooms are reserved at what times.

Michael – Can rosters for chartered organizations be done online?
GD – I will explore what can be done electronically?

VI. Communications Report (Rob)
  A lot has already been covered – the archive happened – we are group VIII at the library – there is a project already underway and so ours is not guaranteed, but should be done by the fall of 2008.

Most important – The Board of Trustees will have a hearing on Wednesday regarding the joint degrees.

Pam – issue one – should people who are no longer part of GC community have access through communications to promote their ideas about our school?

RF – since Google groups have only been around for a year, we have no real system in place to handle these issues, we can possibly come up with an idea to change this so we only keep it about current students.

As for posting – we allow posting from anyone even if it isn’t from a GC student, as long as it is relevant.

JB– student organization listservs should only be for students. For English they have their own moderator to keep people off the listserv, you don’t know who is on the listserv and this is a very big issue!

Pam – also, the chair of the IRB has been so for 13 years straight – he is very “positivistic” and those of us who want to do ethnographic research come into a problem with him. Can we set a term for the chair of the IRB?

BV – you do not have to submit to GC IRB – you can submit to any IRB throughout CUNY.

RF- I can send a letter of clarification to find out about term limits? And will report back

GD - We may want to speak with Kay Powel to make sure that the IRB is being representative.

VII. Business Report (Denise) - briefly – cultural affairs and professional development grant monies are being spent. Thanks for the proposals! We are almost out of professional development money. We have approved 5 cultural affair and 8 professional development grants.
RF – do we know exact numbers?
GD – $214 for professional development and approximately $3000 for cultural affairs
RF – we originally have $6000 for cultural affairs and $4000 for professional development? Is there any latitude under the constitution or bylaws to move money – DT – there is a floor that we must allocate, but there is maneuverability

BV – technically no, because the budget was voted on - unless we want to do an emergency modification through the College Association.

CW – any applications on the table?

DT - 2 cultural affairs on the table?

RF – any spots in the budget that if we wanted to do a bugged modification we could do it this year?
BV – maybe one place - chartered orgs or departmental allocations?

2008-2009 budget – during plenary on March 14 we will present the new budget. We must have it by May 1st the final budget. Part of my concern is that given that engineering we may have a smaller budget then usual.

VIII. USS Report (Ally) RF – Meeting on Sunday and USS never notified her. Sent a registered letter to the GC – Rouzbeh went and reported that nothing happened and that there wasn’t even quorum. Key point, Ally was not on the roster in December, they would not put her on and that is the reason USS didn’t have quorum then.

CW – Rouzbeh is vice chair for graduate affairs, correct?

RF – Yes. Also, Rouzbeh has secured some money for us that was discussed at steering. USS wants to match dollar for dollar to do community building – it is up to us how we want to do it (up to 2500) given that they will give us money we might want to think about it. We don’t want to spend any of their money until we have it in hand. Until that point ewe need to come up with a proposal.

IX. Committee Reports 
HIC – DW – just met with Ellen () – very excited about the Wellness Fair this year. Let me know if you have any ideas.

CW - any way we can stop faculty from winning the prizes. Students have worked hard to put this together and faculty comes in and takes advantage?

RF- good point and worth talking about. Maybe only one faculty prize?

DW – lets have some outreach before –April 17th. Also we want to advertise the Wellness Center.

Breast Health Workshop – we need people to register.

Nancy Medina – hearing last Friday – still have time to submit your report in writing and email to Lindsay Goodspeed. Assemblywoman Deborah Glick was very receptive of our testimony; as representatives we can send on the behalf of others.

Community Building – we went last week to do an outreach for PhD students located at the outlying programs. I am creating a series – a huge response – brought all of the “happenings” out. If you want to get involved, we are tabling at Hunter on Feb. 29th at the 79th street campus at the school of social work.

Ideas for what to do with USS proposal?

Library – AM – better lights in the library? Shall bring it up with librarian. Also, the faculty has spoken about our library collection. If you have any ideas about what we should have in the library, email the librarian and we can try to get it up in the library.

Michael – could a rational approach be taken, such as a study of ILL requests as to what we actually use?

Adele – since we have the consortium has it been explored to have consortium library use even if you are not taking classes there?

AM – I don’t think this will occur - the other schools don’t really like this option.

Pam – brought up last summer – we are supposed to go back to 6 week renewal?

AM – we were told that they are ‘trying’ to work that out but that it isn’t really working.
RF – the agenda item for the library budget is not being given the option – it isn’t getting onto the agenda item and this is a problem!

Tech Fee

a. proxy for student tech fee –Jill Belli will proxy for Chris
b. RF – will be second proxy for Alissa Ackerman

Constitution and Bylaws – meeting two weeks from tonight at 5:30 in room 5489.
  
X. Announcements    -

AM – Slavic studies group here and we have a charted org sign up sheet! Please sign it!

DT - The coffee house on Tuesday Feb 26th - opportunity to nominate folks, enjoy coffee and buy movie tickets!
  
XI. Adjournment
 1 RF
2 AK
Adjourn 8:11 pm

Respectfully submitted,
Alissa Ackerman