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Minutes Minutes taken by Jana Lee, VP of External Relations Quorum was met. 5:00pm Food Served 5:15pm Meeting called to order by President Chris Pappas Thank you to all representatives for attending this second GA. With us tonight is Ernesto Rivas, a graduate student from Duluth. Ernesto has been meeting with us all day to develop a strategy to graduate student representation to Duluth. We hope to set up up a Duluth COGS by the start of next year. The endowment is growing - many other Councils have taken an interest or taken action to donate money. Applications are available online at the COGS Endowment and the COGS Travel and Educational Awards page. COGS will be holding elections next month for a new (or same) Vice President of Finance. If you are interested, contact COGS. 5:20pm Recruitment COGS is actively trying to increase the number of programs electing and sending representatives to the meetings and serving on committees. We have begun thorowing parties in certain departments that either have a lot of students but no representation, or who have historically not had representation. Our first party was held in Chemistry, where we discussed what COGS does and what the chemistry students wanted to see from us. As a result, we have two chemistry representatives here tonight. We will continue to hold such events. Our goal is to have 80 representatives here for the last meeting of the school year. 5:40pm Resolution Process We are starting a resolution process where any graduate student can make a resolution to bring desired changes. In COGS, we have a direct line to Graduate School, as well as GAPSA. Creating a formal resolution process requires a change to the bylaws. An ammendment will be brought forth at the next meeting. What follows is as per the proposed bylaw, but changes can be made at the next meeting. To make a resolution, contact COGS or visit the resolution section of the COGS website. Resolutions must be submitted to cogs@umn.edu or in hand to nay executive officer or the COGS administrator two days before the meeting. Resolutions will be passed by simple majority assuming a quorum at the General Assembly. Passed resolutions will be brought to GAPSA, the P&R Councils and the Deans of the Graduate School. Please come to the next GA ready to discuss this. Committee Reports Senate-Kris Houlten Senate meeting was last Thursday. The Student Senate discussed MSA housing issues, working with Student Legal Services and campus football stadium. A resolution was passed asking both parties in the strike to come to an agreement as soon as possible, as the strike was affecting students.The University Senate passed a resolution that calls for 'all departments, computer labs and libraries on its campuses' to purchase printer paper that contains at least 30% recycled materials, and to have at least one duplex photocopier to save paper. P&R (Policy and Review) Council Engineering-Erik Smith The NRC (National Research Council) rankings were discussed. The NRC will interview graduate students as part of the ranking process, inquiring about quality of life. Dean Bloomfield was not present but his priorities included:
The P&R Council approved course proposals and made a program name change from 'Computer and Information Sciences' to 'Computer Science'. Most of the discussion focused on affirmative action. Departments can no longer set thresholds, where students with GPA and GRE scores below a certain level are automatically not considered for admission. Instead, departments are to use a holistic review, to look at everyone's application. Directors of Graduate Studies expressed concerns that this will greatly increase the time needed to process applications. [The graduate school needs to look at approval process more closely, to prevent lawsuits down the road] P&R Council Health Sciences-Carrie Rigdon Similar points were covered at their P&R meeting. Dean Bloomfield discussed his goals.The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs has a web site. For implementing Affirmative Action, each P&R Council will form a committee to review and make sure they meet guidelines. There was discussion on what to do if a program was not compliant. Should there be harsh action taken? COGS will be meeting with someone in the Postdoctoral Affairs Office, a former COGS executive. A note and reminder about P&R Councils Policy and Review Councils are bodies that evaluate and determine policy for the Graduate School. This is one of the places where COGS, and graduate students as a whole, have their strongest voice. Each graduate program is in one of the six sections. All representatives were asked to sit in P&R sections to talk with the P&R chairs about their council. Representatives from each section were asked to join their section's P&R Council, or, if the could not do that, aid in recruiting people for the Council. It is crucial that COGS fills the P&R Councils; or failure to do so makes us look bad. We'd like to thank everyone who volunteered to be on their council. COGS provides meeting information for the P&R Council meetings. Each Council is expected to report information from what happens at these meetings back to the COGS GA. Council Chairs are responsible for the attendance of their members, and should work with Elizabeth Oliva, Vice President for Internal Relations, on any problems or initiatives. SHAC (Student Health Advisory Committee)-Andrew Rivard Two SHAC meetings have occurred since the last GA meeting. They were given a tour of Boynton. This committee is responsible for designating where millions of dollars are allocated. In the next meeting, he will bring a pamphlet detailing what SHAC does. 6:20pm Graduate Student Housing Presented by Graduate Student Affordable Housing Committee representative Lauren Merlo. This committee was set up by COGS, GAPSA, ISS and Dean Bloomfield. They have a long-term goal of establishing a graduate student-only housing complex. They are currently working to:
The fast that graduate students comprise 30% of student body, and graduate tenants are older, hopefully more responsible and stay on for multiple years make us an attractive market for developers and landlords. As such, the committee will discuss the reality of graduate student finances with managers and hope to work out nice deals such as having the first month free. To create a mutually beneficial relationship, the committee wants to provide incentives to the managers/developers, such as free advertising in the COGS GradLetter and Extra. Q: What kind of information is given to new students? A: The committee is working on giving realistic costs, describing neighborhoods, distance from each campus, bus routes and crime statistics. A suggestion was made to include proximity to grocery stores and other amenities and proximity to various departments. Q: Can graduate students live in dorms? A: Yes, they can. But most dorms are full with undergraduates. There are some graduates in University Village and Centennial Hall. GA comment: chances to get your own room is not high, not has not been verified. Q: How much incentive exists for apartment managers to freeze rent or provide the first month free? GA comment: Currently many apartment complexes have vacancies, and few people move during the winter. These perks can help fill up vacancies. COGS note: Some of these living spaces with full amenities are expensive, Dean Bloomfield is working on moving down the rent for graduate students. A listing of more comments from reps at the GA meeting:
Offer Letters Presented by Jana Lee, VP for External Relations Last year the Employment Working Group compiled a list of information that students would like to have in offer letters (out-of-pocket fees, TA training dates, starting dates, first paycheck). They met with the Deans for discussion, and the Deans suggested that students could easily work on this with their DGS. From this, I have developed a sample e-mail, letter and
template letter for DGSs. COGS note: given out at meeting and
also available for download
Let us know if you work on this in your department by sending an e-mail to cogs@umn.edu; we would like to keep a tally of which departments got involved. Please also include a copy of your letter(s). Let us know if you need our help in starting this process. Additional comments from the GA: Template offer letters are available online, but there are 8 different forms. It can be confusing to figure out which category a particular TA- or RA-ship should fall under. You might not want to use that as a reference, just let your department know what information is needed for new and returning students. For returning students, information on TA training dates, specific duties would be very helpful. Students may be out of town and need to plan accordingly to attend a training session. Strike The strike was recently settled. Q: What were the settlements? A: Unknown at meeting time. COGS Note: Settlement information is available from the U of MN strike website at http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/er/tentative.html Remember this is still a tentative settlement. Complete information about the settlement is still being mailed to all union members. The settlement will only stand if the union votes to accept it. Votes by union workers are being conducted by mail and votes are due December 1st. Other concerns Stadium COGS is activly working with GAPSA and MSA to address the possiblity of increasing student fees to finance a stadium. Although no resolution has been passed, COGS seems to be against students subsidizing the stadium. Fire safety A fire story was shared. By policy, the U police check fire alarms before the sending for the fire department. The reason for this policy is that there are a lot of false alarms. However, there is concern about whether this policy is safe, many students work with fire and chemical hazards. Perhaps, there should be a different policy for alarms set in dorms versus academic buildings. Certainly, a fire alarm pulled at 1 am in the morning is not to avoid a midterm. Departments with fire hazards should discuss emergency procedures at a student orientation We need a representative for the Public Safety Committee Funny story of the day: A dog got loose and urinated next to a radioactive waste containment. Upon discovery, people thought radioactive waste was leaking outside. This debacle took a while to clear up, the lab confirmed it was not radioactive waste, but urine. In any case, COGS is looking for a volunteer to be on the Public Safety Committee. If you agree, you can bring more cute stories just like this one back to COGS. Contact COGS for more information Transportation 2 seats are available on Parking and Transportation Committee, students will have direct interaction with those in charge. We work "weird" hours, so protecting free parking and reduced rate parking at night is in our interests. Contact cogs if you're interested in serving. International issues A story was shared about a foreign student being detained by the Department of Homeland Security due to late paperwork. Be aware that they are enforcing new rules. AdHoc Discussion Groups After a general discussion, students separated into smaller discussion groups for ~20 minutes. Later, each group summarized what were their main concerns and objectives. Employment
Housing
Health
Fees
No time left for the last two groups: International Students and Recruitment Meeting adjourned at 6:45 |
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Council of Graduate Students | 405 Johnston
Hall | 612.626.1612 | cogs@umn.edu
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