COGS - Council of Graduate Students

Minutes
General Assembly of the Council of Graduate Students
University of Minnesota

President’s Room, Coffman Memorial Union
Thursday, November 18, 2004

Minutes submitted by Sue Davern (COGS Administrator) and
Isaac Kamola (Vice President for Communications).
Minutes approved by executive committee.

5:00pm Food Served

Welcome & Call to Order
Quorum was met.
At 5:15pm the General Assembly Meeting of the Council of Graduate Students was called to order by President Britt Johnson.

Election
The next order of business was election for the position of Vice President of Finance. The President announced the need to hold the election for this position now even though the position begins in the spring. The reason is that it gives the person in this position a length of time for training and time to become familiar with COGS finances before taking office.

Britt Johnson gave a brief description of the time commitment and job description. Andy Warta the current Vice President of Finance answered questions about what he does. The floor was opened for nominations. Andy Warta was nominated. There were no other nominations. He was unanimously voted into office.

Committee Updates
Survey (Shana Watters)
Shana talked about the COGS survey which is being prepared to send to DGSs asking questions about departmental COGS representation, graduate student funding websites, and TA issues. The goals of the survey are:

(a) to build a relationship with the DGSs by calling them and asking them to complete the survey;
(b) to discover programs/departments that need a COGS representative and to help them get one;
(c) to locate departmental funding websites so they can be linked to one main site thereby making it easier for graduate students to access funding information;
(d) to gather information about TA positions.

P&R Reports (Meghan Warren)
All of the Policy and Review Councils have met.
Discussion at the P&R Councils included:
a) raising $5 million to begin expanding fellowship programs and building it to $100 million;
b) right sizing programs;
c) there was a report from the Budget Advisory Committee that studied whether the Graduate School is doing what it is supposed to be doing and the answer was “yes”; and
d) a discussion on the need to increase support for professional programs and the ways to do this.

Questions were raised at the P&R Councils about whether a program can be shifted to another program or department--for example, if a department could leave the medical school and join the graduate school. The answer was “no”. There are 40 small graduate programs that could be merged or eliminated. All the College Deans have been notified and information is being gathered. What is small? Small is less than 20 applications, less than 2 faculty and less than 6 students.

GAPSA
GAPSA held their meeting Wednesday, November 17.
a) No graduate student applied to be on the Fees Committee. This makes a difference to graduate students since now they have no voice when it comes to disbursing student fees for the next year.
b) There was a presentation about the MYU Portal and how it would benefit graduate students. MYU wants feed back on defaults.
c) GAPSA will be organizing up in Duluth again this year.

OneStop (Sean McNee)
The new OneStop design will be ready by spring. There is a calendar view that will be implemented at that time. MYU and OneStop are supposed to be cooperating, but things are not going all that well.

Sean asked the following questions:
Q: Do you read your official U of M email announcements?
A: Most read first paragraph only.

Q: If you go to a OneStop location to get help, how long do you think is reasonable to wait in line?
Comment: Is there a real location for OneStop?
Answer: Yes. There are three physical locations for OneStop: East Bank (in Fraser Hall), West Bank (in the West Bank Skyway) and St. Paul (in Coffey Hall). They all have standard business hours.

Q: If you call them on the phone, what is a reasonable wait time?
A: About two minute maximum is the reasonable wait time.

OneStop is hoping to eventually have a 24-hour turn-around on all email inquiries. The bill paying program is still being reworked to clear up problems.

Housing (Andy Warta)
Affordable Housing Committee had a meeting prior to the GA meeting Thursday. They invited about 25 local landlords to attend. A presentation outlining the highpoints of the COGS 2002 Housing Report Survey was given by Andy. He presented information including who the grad students are, how many there are, what their needs are, how apartment complexes can help graduate students especially in the first month, and the specific needs of the international students (problems of language, no transportation, perceptions of responsibility as renters).
A very informative discussion period followed.

The University can do some things to help:
a) explain to students that the law in Minnesota is very supportive of tenants;
b) make some changes at the department level to be more supportive of graduate students;
c) constantly update and refine the Housing Section information in the "Welcome CD" all graduate students get when they are accepted into the Graduate School;
c) get information to graduate students, but especially international graduate students earlier then orientation which is too late.

Senate (Meghan Warren)
a) There was a discussion about the use and availability of alcohol on campus.
b) There was a presentation outlining the need to impact the legislature on the needs of students and to gain support for the University’s Budget Proposal.
c) Teacher evaluation surveys were discussed. They are hoping to get support for one section of the evaluations to be made public. They are hoping to put these sections on OneStop so you can see what is said about a teacher before you register.

Student Health Advisory Committee (Andy Rivard)
There is a flu shot surplus only in Minnesota. Anyone who works for the Academic Health Center can receive a shot.

There is a proposal for using student fees to pay for year-round health insurance. The second semester's Student Services Fee would be increased to insure that Health Insurance would be available year around. This would help those not on the GA plan and would help international students.

Q: Would fees increase for everyone?
A: Yes.

A graduate student also voiced the concern that those on 1/4 appointments pay 52.5% of their own insurance, but this bill is sent at the end of the semester as opposed to the beginning.

Task Force on Financing Graduate Education (Chris Pappas)

The University has just released a draft copy of the Financing Graduate Education Task Force's findings. There are some points which are especially important to graduate students including point 3 in the executive summary ("examine and adjust the balance between expenditures on graduate education and other expenditures, in light of college and institutional priorities and capacities") and point 4 (which talks about the possibility of replacing Teaching Assistants with Teaching Specialists).

Q: How will Teaching Specialists save the University money?
A: The University will not have to pay tuition and fringe rate. If a department is no longer dependent on TAs they can cut down on the totally number of graduate students.

Part of the plan is also to reduce time-to-degree and increase completion rates. The administration feels that if the University can increase the number of graduates while decreasing the time it takes to complete a degree, the University will save money. There are discussion points: 1) how to better help graduate students complete their programs and, 2) when to cut students who are not completing their degrees. COGS has a lot of chance to influence how this debate unfolds. Most likely the College of Liberal Arts will be hit hardest by this plan, followed by the Social Sciences.

Another important point is #6--"Close small, lower-quality graduate programs, or merge them with others to promote greater efficiency and student choices. Furthermore, the University should examine whether reallocations can be made from lower priority University activities or programs to support high priority graduate education programs, and consider consolidating small academic units to save administrative costs and minimize faculty and staff duplications."

Q: Whose wording is this? What are the guidelines for "low priority"?
A: A lot of this has to do with making the state happy. The Administration wants to prove that they are not wasting money so the Governor can say that he is not wasting tax-payer's money. If you are in a nationally ranked program and if there is enough teaching and research to be done in that program, you will probably be insulated from these program cuts and consolidations. If you are in small programs, especially in the hummanities, you might be hit very hard.

Q: Is the Administration accepting graduate student input?
A: There will be a series of task forces and work groups and I assume graduate students will be on them. Also, much of the changes will come through the DGSs, so you can work with them. There will also be strategic town hall planning meetings you can attend.
Britt: Confront the DGSs, Deans etc. if they are ignoring you, that is how we become important.

Please download and read the task force's report. The report is 75 pages long, but the first 12 provide a good summary.

Legislative Lobbying (Britt Johnson)

The University is asking for an increase from the State Legislature. In order to get this, they are pushing for lobbying by undergraduates, graduates, and professional students Everyone is encouraged to participate. The lobbying will start in January, but will be most active during February. GAPSA is going to lead the lobbying effort and COGS will work with them. There is more specific information to come.

Q: Does the University want to portray a unified voice or can we go and say "Give money to the University, but do not fund a stadium"?
A: Bruininks and the Regents has a specific strategy. The stadium is not in the budget. Instead they are: 1) focusing on what the Governor wants, for example, the "Bio Sciences for a Healthy Environment" program and, 2) splitting the budget 50/50--this allows the school to fundraise for the boring stuff, like lighting and heating the buildings, while the state gets to fund the projects it likes.
Keith Cunnien: I'm the graduate student rep. to the Stadium Committee. If you're interested, contact me. Currently the stadium is rolled into the bonding bill. We can come up with a strategy for lobbying for the University but against using student fees to pay for a stadium.

Q: Given that only a small fraction of the total number of state legislators are from Minneapolis and St. Paul, what can we do beyond our own representatives?
Britt: We can lobby everyone since many current graduate students end up staying in Minnesota. We can also educate all legislators about the importance of the University, focusing on the fact that it is a land-grant institution. One important issue we have to confront is that many of the legislators favor the state college system because they get money for satellite campuses in their district

Strategic Planning Town Hall Meetings (Britt Johnson)

There are three meetings (Nov. 22, Nov 23, and Nov. 29) where the Administration will discuss its strategy for getting money from the state legislature. More information can be found here and here.

Ombudsman Services (Britt Johnson)

Megan, the GAPSA Administrator, use to send a lot of referrals to the Student Dispute Resolution Center (SDRC). However, since she left GAPSA, the SDRC has not been getting as many calls. So, if you need negotiation, conflict resolution, or help reporting plagiarism or other ethics violations please contact the SDRC. You can also contact COGS and we will put you in contact with the people there.

Campaign for Free Higher Education (Isaac Kamola)

Adolph Reed was on campus this week to promote his plan for free college education. He argues that previously a high school education was the only necessary requirement for a good job and access to public life; as a result, high school was provided free of charge. Currently, however, a high school education is no longer enough and citizens are expected to have a college degree. However, college education is becoming more and more expensive, and increasingly divides the country along class and race lines. As a result, Reed advocates creating a program, like the one established by the GI-bill, to pay for higher education. Currently the campaign is two years old and is being promoted by the AAUP, labor unions, and educational professionals. The hope is to build a grassroots coalitition which will put pressure on the Federal government to enact such a policy. If anyone is interested, please contact me: kamo0010@umn.edu.


	Home About COGS Current Issues Meetings Publications Getting Involved Representatives The Endowment Resources and FAQs Contact COGS		Minutes General Assembly of the Council of Graduate Students University of Minnesota President’s Room, Coffman Memorial Union Thursday, November 18, 2004 Minutes submitted by Sue Davern (COGS Administrator) and Isaac Kamola (Vice President for Communications). Minutes approved by executive committee. 5:00pm Food Served Welcome & Call to Order Quorum was met. At 5:15pm the General Assembly Meeting of the Council of Graduate Students was called to order by President Britt Johnson. Election The next order of business was election for the position of Vice President of Finance. The President announced the need to hold the election for this position now even though the position begins in the spring. The reason is that it gives the person in this position a length of time for training and time to become familiar with COGS finances before taking office. Britt Johnson gave a brief description of the time commitment and job description. Andy Warta the current Vice President of Finance answered questions about what he does. The floor was opened for nominations. Andy Warta was nominated. There were no other nominations. He was unanimously voted into office. Committee Updates Survey (Shana Watters) Shana talked about the COGS survey which is being prepared to send to DGSs asking questions about departmental COGS representation, graduate student funding websites, and TA issues. The goals of the survey are: (a) to build a relationship with the DGSs by calling them and asking them to complete the survey; (b) to discover programs/departments that need a COGS representative and to help them get one; (c) to locate departmental funding websites so they can be linked to one main site thereby making it easier for graduate students to access funding information; (d) to gather information about TA positions. P&R Reports (Meghan Warren) All of the Policy and Review Councils have met. Discussion at the P&R Councils included: a) raising $5 million to begin expanding fellowship programs and building it to $100 million; b) right sizing programs; c) there was a report from the Budget Advisory Committee that studied whether the Graduate School is doing what it is supposed to be doing and the answer was “yes”; and d) a discussion on the need to increase support for professional programs and the ways to do this. Questions were raised at the P&R Councils about whether a program can be shifted to another program or department--for example, if a department could leave the medical school and join the graduate school. The answer was “no”. There are 40 small graduate programs that could be merged or eliminated. All the College Deans have been notified and information is being gathered. What is small? Small is less than 20 applications, less than 2 faculty and less than 6 students. GAPSA GAPSA held their meeting Wednesday, November 17. a) No graduate student applied to be on the Fees Committee. This makes a difference to graduate students since now they have no voice when it comes to disbursing student fees for the next year. b) There was a presentation about the MYU Portal and how it would benefit graduate students. MYU wants feed back on defaults. c) GAPSA will be organizing up in Duluth again this year. OneStop (Sean McNee) The new OneStop design will be ready by spring. There is a calendar view that will be implemented at that time. MYU and OneStop are supposed to be cooperating, but things are not going all that well. Sean asked the following questions: Q: Do you read your official U of M email announcements? A: Most read first paragraph only. Q: If you go to a OneStop location to get help, how long do you think is reasonable to wait in line? Comment: Is there a real location for OneStop? Answer: Yes. There are three physical locations for OneStop: East Bank (in Fraser Hall), West Bank (in the West Bank Skyway) and St. Paul (in Coffey Hall). They all have standard business hours. Q: If you call them on the phone, what is a reasonable wait time? A: About two minute maximum is the reasonable wait time. OneStop is hoping to eventually have a 24-hour turn-around on all email inquiries. The bill paying program is still being reworked to clear up problems. Housing (Andy Warta) Affordable Housing Committee had a meeting prior to the GA meeting Thursday. They invited about 25 local landlords to attend. A presentation outlining the highpoints of the COGS 2002 Housing Report Survey was given by Andy. He presented information including who the grad students are, how many there are, what their needs are, how apartment complexes can help graduate students especially in the first month, and the specific needs of the international students (problems of language, no transportation, perceptions of responsibility as renters). A very informative discussion period followed. The University can do some things to help: a) explain to students that the law in Minnesota is very supportive of tenants; b) make some changes at the department level to be more supportive of graduate students; c) constantly update and refine the Housing Section information in the "Welcome CD" all graduate students get when they are accepted into the Graduate School; c) get information to graduate students, but especially international graduate students earlier then orientation which is too late. Senate (Meghan Warren) a) There was a discussion about the use and availability of alcohol on campus. b) There was a presentation outlining the need to impact the legislature on the needs of students and to gain support for the University’s Budget Proposal. c) Teacher evaluation surveys were discussed. They are hoping to get support for one section of the evaluations to be made public. They are hoping to put these sections on OneStop so you can see what is said about a teacher before you register. Student Health Advisory Committee (Andy Rivard) There is a flu shot surplus only in Minnesota. Anyone who works for the Academic Health Center can receive a shot. There is a proposal for using student fees to pay for year-round health insurance. The second semester's Student Services Fee would be increased to insure that Health Insurance would be available year around. This would help those not on the GA plan and would help international students. Q: Would fees increase for everyone? A: Yes. A graduate student also voiced the concern that those on 1/4 appointments pay 52.5% of their own insurance, but this bill is sent at the end of the semester as opposed to the beginning. Task Force on Financing Graduate Education (Chris Pappas) The University has just released a draft copy of the Financing Graduate Education Task Force's findings. There are some points which are especially important to graduate students including point 3 in the executive summary ("examine and adjust the balance between expenditures on graduate education and other expenditures, in light of college and institutional priorities and capacities") and point 4 (which talks about the possibility of replacing Teaching Assistants with Teaching Specialists). Q: How will Teaching Specialists save the University money? A: The University will not have to pay tuition and fringe rate. If a department is no longer dependent on TAs they can cut down on the totally number of graduate students. Part of the plan is also to reduce time-to-degree and increase completion rates. The administration feels that if the University can increase the number of graduates while decreasing the time it takes to complete a degree, the University will save money. There are discussion points: 1) how to better help graduate students complete their programs and, 2) when to cut students who are not completing their degrees. COGS has a lot of chance to influence how this debate unfolds. Most likely the College of Liberal Arts will be hit hardest by this plan, followed by the Social Sciences. Another important point is #6--"Close small, lower-quality graduate programs, or merge them with others to promote greater efficiency and student choices. Furthermore, the University should examine whether reallocations can be made from lower priority University activities or programs to support high priority graduate education programs, and consider consolidating small academic units to save administrative costs and minimize faculty and staff duplications." Q: Whose wording is this? What are the guidelines for "low priority"? A: A lot of this has to do with making the state happy. The Administration wants to prove that they are not wasting money so the Governor can say that he is not wasting tax-payer's money. If you are in a nationally ranked program and if there is enough teaching and research to be done in that program, you will probably be insulated from these program cuts and consolidations. If you are in small programs, especially in the hummanities, you might be hit very hard. Q: Is the Administration accepting graduate student input? A: There will be a series of task forces and work groups and I assume graduate students will be on them. Also, much of the changes will come through the DGSs, so you can work with them. There will also be strategic town hall planning meetings you can attend. Britt: Confront the DGSs, Deans etc. if they are ignoring you, that is how we become important. Please download and read the task force's report. The report is 75 pages long, but the first 12 provide a good summary. Legislative Lobbying (Britt Johnson) The University is asking for an increase from the State Legislature. In order to get this, they are pushing for lobbying by undergraduates, graduates, and professional students Everyone is encouraged to participate. The lobbying will start in January, but will be most active during February. GAPSA is going to lead the lobbying effort and COGS will work with them. There is more specific information to come. Q: Does the University want to portray a unified voice or can we go and say "Give money to the University, but do not fund a stadium"? A: Bruininks and the Regents has a specific strategy. The stadium is not in the budget. Instead they are: 1) focusing on what the Governor wants, for example, the "Bio Sciences for a Healthy Environment" program and, 2) splitting the budget 50/50--this allows the school to fundraise for the boring stuff, like lighting and heating the buildings, while the state gets to fund the projects it likes. Keith Cunnien: I'm the graduate student rep. to the Stadium Committee. If you're interested, contact me. Currently the stadium is rolled into the bonding bill. We can come up with a strategy for lobbying for the University but against using student fees to pay for a stadium. Q: Given that only a small fraction of the total number of state legislators are from Minneapolis and St. Paul, what can we do beyond our own representatives? Britt: We can lobby everyone since many current graduate students end up staying in Minnesota. We can also educate all legislators about the importance of the University, focusing on the fact that it is a land-grant institution. One important issue we have to confront is that many of the legislators favor the state college system because they get money for satellite campuses in their district Strategic Planning Town Hall Meetings (Britt Johnson) There are three meetings (Nov. 22, Nov 23, and Nov. 29) where the Administration will discuss its strategy for getting money from the state legislature. More information can be found here and here. Ombudsman Services (Britt Johnson) Megan, the GAPSA Administrator, use to send a lot of referrals to the Student Dispute Resolution Center (SDRC). However, since she left GAPSA, the SDRC has not been getting as many calls. So, if you need negotiation, conflict resolution, or help reporting plagiarism or other ethics violations please contact the SDRC. You can also contact COGS and we will put you in contact with the people there. Campaign for Free Higher Education (Isaac Kamola) Adolph Reed was on campus this week to promote his plan for free college education. He argues that previously a high school education was the only necessary requirement for a good job and access to public life; as a result, high school was provided free of charge. Currently, however, a high school education is no longer enough and citizens are expected to have a college degree. However, college education is becoming more and more expensive, and increasingly divides the country along class and race lines. As a result, Reed advocates creating a program, like the one established by the GI-bill, to pay for higher education. Currently the campaign is two years old and is being promoted by the AAUP, labor unions, and educational professionals. The hope is to build a grassroots coalitition which will put pressure on the Federal government to enact such a policy. If anyone is interested, please contact me: kamo0010@umn.edu.