From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri Jan 22 17:49 EST 1999 Received: from gso.bu.edu (GSO.BU.EDU [128.197.60.71]) by cs.bu.edu ((8.8.8.buoit.v1.0)/8.8.8/(BU-S-10/16/98-v1.0a)) with ESMTP id RAA29727; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:49:47 -0500 (EST) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id RAA04574 for info-list; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:49:38 -0500 (EST) Received: from cs.bu.edu (CS.BU.EDU [128.197.10.2]) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) with ESMTP id RAA04570 for ; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:49:32 -0500 (EST) Received: from cs16.bu.edu (rip@cs16 [128.197.10.115]) by cs.bu.edu ((8.8.8.buoit.v1.0)/8.8.8/(BU-S-10/16/98-v1.0a)) with ESMTP id RAA29694 for ; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:49:23 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Pitts Received: by cs16.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id RAA05885; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:49:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 17:49:19 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199901222249.RAA05885@cs16.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Jan 21, 99 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text Content-Length: 11071 Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Our next general meeting will be on Thursday, February 4th, 5:30-6:45pm. --Rob Summary ======= 1. AAUP Talk Summary This was a brief summary of our brown bag lunch talk on 12/17/98, which was jointly sponsored by BU's Chapter of the American Assoc. of University Professors (AAUP) and the GSO. The talk provided information (and an informal discussion) on the trends in U.S. higher education toward: - Fewer tenured positions. - More part-time vs. full-time teaching positions. - Different tiers of teachers at colleges (e.g., tenured, tenure-track, full-time, part-time/adjunct, grad teachers) and how they are used and "pitted against" one another by college administrations. The current solution to these problems being pursued by the AAUP nationally is to increase organization/collective bargaining among part-time/adjunct/grad faculty. I.e., the same type of organization they have supported in the past for other classes of faculty. The speaker also mentioned that they are interested in doing a national survey of pay rates and benefits for different types of teachers and to publish this information. If done, this may assist the GSO Funding Committee's work in obtaining TF pay rates at other schools. 14 people attended this talk (including the speaker), with graduate students, adjuncts/part-time faculty and tenured faculty as part of the audience. All in all, the talk went very well. 2. Committee Updates Each committee gave a brief report of their plans for this semester. We also reviewed any membership changes in committees. Most committee members will remain the same, although we will probably have some changes in the Liaison and Social Committees. A description of where there is a need for more committee members will be sent in a separate message. Funding Committee ================= Gareth Roberts reported for this committee. Beyond continuing to research pay rates for TF/RA's at other comparable schools, they'd like to expand to cover: - Faculty/advisor Relationships (for which the National Assoc. of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) also has a committee). - More student "employee" issues. ----- Attendees suggested that they may be able to get help with collecting pay rate statistics if the AAUP does their proposed survey of part-time/ adjunct/grad teachers. Also, since they've had trouble getting pay rate info from GSOs they've contacted at other schools, it was suggested that they ask students at BU to contact students they know at other schools. This was something the GSO tried last year and didn't get much response to. Healthcare Committee ==================== Rob Pitts reported for this committee. They will be pursuing a few different areas this semester: Write-ups --------- They will continue writing up plans available to grads (and placing them on the GSO's web site), including: - The BU student insurance plan write-up, which will be done very soon. This is for the benefit of new students to look at before they come to BU, but probably also contains information that other students will not find in the normal literature that student receive. - More dental plans, plus some optometrist plans (since insurance plans often do not cover those services). - More plans at hospitals/health centers. - Updating all the plans we already have during the Spring or Summer (since many of them change around that time). New Student Info ---------------- - Advertise their healthcare info to new Fall students (mailings usually go out over the Summer). This may be done in conjunction with whoever will be working on orientation for the Fall. - Try to have representation for the NAGPS insurance plan at Fall's orientation. NAGPS Survey ------------ The NAGPS's Healthcare Committee is doing a national grad student insurance survey this year. It will be based on a survey written in the past by another school. Our Healthcare Committee has an opportunity to be involved in determining the survey's content (e.g., questions asked) and will provide the answers to its questions for BU. More BU Insurance Options for Grad Students ------------------------------------------- An issue they brought up with Assoc. Dean Whitaker (at the GSO meeting he attended) was whether BU can provide more student insurance options. As an example, can BU/Chickering provide an extra option with better coverage (at a higher premium)? They'd like to spend some time this semester pursuing this issue. Housing Committee ================= Doug Wright reported for this committee. Their initial plan for this semester is to meet with the Office of Off-Campus Housing. A primary goal of that meeting would be to get new students access to the Office's housing listings on the web. Currently, students cannot access them without a BU account. Another goal is to advertise housing information to new students (which may include mailings to new Fall students over the Summer). Liaison Committee ================= Gary Garber and Cassandra Celatka reported for this committee. They reported that a few bookcases will be placed in the new grad lounge. Otherwise, they mainly took suggestions from attendees as to what issues they need to pursue with the administration right now. Those suggestions were: - Review the status of "library privileges". Originally, the deans agreed that allowing all grads the same (better) borrowing privileges that TFs have would be a fairer policy. No apparent changes have been made on this issue yet. - Ask Assoc. Dean Whitaker about having "office hours" or some other regular schedule under which students (or the GSO) could meet with him. This is an idea the dean himself proposed when he met with us this past Fall. - Provide some sort of photocopying access/budget for the GSO since we do a lot of advertising by paper. - See if there is any money to send a GSO rep to the NAGPS Northeast Regional Conference to be held in Pennsylvania in March. - Work on obtaining a better grad lounge. Recently, we found out that when the managers of Metcalf Science Center agreed (with Assoc. Dean Whitaker) to set up our new lounge, they only agreed to give card reader access to the set of core GSO members. Obviously, the building has chemicals, radiation and expensive equipment that prompted them to want to limit access; however, that they were not going to allow all grads in GRS card access to this lounge was not originally made clear to us. Thus, while we may use this lounge for some GSO events and meetings this semester, we want to ask for a more appropriate place that all GRS grads can have access to in the future. Social Committee ================ Jen Wenner reported for this committee. Attendees discussed the idea of having once-a-month events (like Pub Night last semester), but having a different event each month (one of which might be a Pub Night). The group agreed this plan to "mix it up" was a good idea since Pub Night attendance isn't always great. We recalled that other social events we've done in the past include a billiards night and dim sum. Also, the idea of a movie night we discussed last semester would be a possibility. Steering Committee ================== Kendra Carter reported for this committee. They've written up ideas for the GSO's constitution, by-laws, etc. and gave a short description of some recommendations: - Recommend that we not register with the Student Activities Office (unless necessary). They also recommend that we don't need to use the word "unofficial" when describing our group, something we've mainly taken out of our documents anyhow. - Make plans to collect a voluntary fee from grads (with the administration's help). A goal would be for this to be done not this Fall (probably too soon), but some semester after that. They also had suggestions for officers and standing committees (we did not go into much detail because of time). ----- Because there will be so much material for them to present, to be reviewed by everyone and finally voted on, they suggest the following process: Present/discuss/vote on one "article" at a time, i.e., 1. First, present an article for discussion/review. 2. Integrate any suggestions or changes. 3. Vote on the final version. 4. Move on to the next article. In order to get feedback on articles, they'll use the methods of: the mailing list, general meetings or specific meetings for those interested in an article. We'll announce those on the mailing list so that all those interested can participate. 3. Group Projects While we still have the option to discuss other new group projects in the next few general meetings, we discussed the main continuing or new projects we will take on this semester. They are: Talks ----- Since our first brown bag lunch talk went well, we want to continue and perhaps have 2 more this semester. Rather than have one committee run them, whatever person or committee is most relevant to the topic will run a talk. Last semester, the Healthcare Committee agreed they might be interested in hosting a Chickering talk after they finished the BU student insurance plan write-up. Since that is essentially done, they will consider hosting such a talk this semester. Other ideas for talks are welcome. Orientation ----------- Although the next grad student orientation won't be until September, we agreed we need to start thinking about and working on it now (e.g., some mailings may have to go out to new students by early Summer). We'd like to perhaps make improvements to what was done last year (e.g., a barbecue?) or add things (e.g., represent the NAGPS insurance plan?) if we can make those arrangements with GRS. ====== We decided that it is not necessary to survey graduate students as we did last Spring, but we may do so in future years. 4. New Committees The only new committee we are adding at this time is an Orientation Committee to plan next Fall's grad student orientation. 5. Other An attendee suggested that moving the general meeting to another location (over than Metcalf) might improve attendance. No decision to change the location was made at that time, but feedback is welcome.