From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri Oct 23 16:22 EDT 1998 Received: from gso.bu.edu (GSO.BU.EDU [128.197.60.71]) by cs.bu.edu ((8.8.8.buoit.b4)/8.8.8/(BU-S-06/23/98-b7)) with ESMTP id QAA28769; Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:22:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id QAA27387 for info-list; Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:22:18 -0400 (EDT) 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 QAA27383 for ; Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:22:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cs16.bu.edu (rip@cs16 [128.197.10.115]) by cs.bu.edu ((8.8.8.buoit.b4)/8.8.8/(BU-S-06/23/98-b7)) with ESMTP id QAA28762 for ; Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:22:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Pitts Received: by cs16.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id QAA11022; Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:22:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 16:22:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199810232022.QAA11022@cs16.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Oct 22, 98 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text Content-Length: 9512 Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Our next meeting will be on Thursday, November 5th, 5-6:15pm. Attendance at general meetings has been decreasing. It's important to have good meeting attendance so that many opinions are represented. Even if different students from a dept. come to a meeting once a semester, that would be very useful. --Rob Summary ======= 1. Committee Reports Each committee reported on their activities. Funding Committee ================= Gareth Roberts reported for this committee. They have attempted to get salary information (for student fellowships, etc.) from other schools but have not yet heard much from their contacts. They have examined BU's cost-of-living formula. They've compared it to a cost-of-living formula they've constructed and found BU's formula to be lower. They will send more details on cost-of-living in a separate e-mail. ---- Meeting attendees had the following suggestions/concerns: - Try to find out more about salaries at other schools by posting a message to the NAGPS' bulletin board. - New students need to be given more information about length of appointments (some students may not realize that their pay is only for 8-9 months). Also, some students aren't told whether they will have funding until the last minute. - Master's students usually don't have a lot of funding opportunities. Healthcare Committee ==================== Denise Guillot reported for this committee. This committee is down from 4 members to 3. They've looked into insurance plans from major insurance companies in the hopes that there might be something affordable for students. They found all of them to be too costly, but will gather paperwork from each plan in case a student would like to look at them. They've completed (or almost completed): - 2 alternative healthcare plans (at local hospitals). - 1 description of the student insurance plan at a local university (for students to compare). - begun a "legislation/laws" and "terminology" section on the GSO's Healthcare Pages, with laws or terms relevant to healthcare. The groups immediate future plans involve: - Writing up the BU Student Health Plan. Especially so that new students will know about our plan before they come here. - Looking for more dental plans. ---- A meeting attendee mentioned that BU's Student Health Services is currently providing free flu shots. One issue that was mentioned is that part-time students have different access to BU health care. Apparently, they cannot use Student Health Services (with or without insurance). On the positive side, this means they don't need the usual "referral" to go to certain doctors. Housing Committee ================= Doug Wright reported for this committee. They've contacted the Office of On-campus Housing, who said that most of the on-campus graduate housing is for Theology students. They were referred to BU's Office of Rental Property Management, which apparently is responsible for apartments that BU owns. They have scheduled a meeting with this office. They've been told that students using this office to find an apartment do not incur a "finder's fee", but that these apartments go quickly. ---- Meeting participants had several comments or ideas, including: - Others schools seem to have more graduate housing on campus. The Univ. of Connecticut apparently sends information to new students in June about where they should look for apartments, etc. - Provide more recommendations for new students who cannot visit Boston prior to start of school, but are looking for housing. - Provide a listing of where students could stay in town (hostels, etc.) while they are looking for apartments. - Departments might be able to get a few people to "put up" students while they are looking for apartments. - A few grad students in each dept. might volunteer to talk to new students about the Boston apartment situation. Liaison Committee ================= Gary Garber reported for this committee. They brought up the "Boston Globe" article mentioning that BU has grad Pub Nights. Apparently, there was no mention of the GSO. This committee and meeting attendees agreed that this is a good opportunity to try to strengthen our rapport with the administration. In other words, telling them that we would like to be mentioned in references to joint projects (i.e., Pub Nights were our idea and we run them; GRS usually give us some money for snacks). And, that we would like to continue to work with them on projects and foster cooperation. They will either construct a letter addressing these issues or discuss them with GRS in person. They also reported that GRS is giving us $150 to send students to the NAGPS Conference (see topic 2 below). Social Committee ================ Jen Wenner reported for this committee. This committee is down from 2 active members to 1, and thus, needs more members before they can expand social events beyond Pub Night. They reported that the last Pub Night had lower attendance than usual. Likely reasons for this were: - Pub Night was the day after a holiday. - Signs were not put up. - The requisition for food never got sent from GRS. On the positive side, signs on each table used for Pub Night made it more visible (in the Pub). Steering Committee ================== Dave Morgan reported for this committee. This committee is down from 4 members to 3. They reported that their goal is to have a proposal for how the GSO should be organized in about a month. They have an upcoming meeting with a representative from Harvard's graduate organization to discuss ideas. ============ As a general thought while discussing housing, attendees said they would like to see depts. do more to "orient" new students. We could collaborate with depts. on some of this work, when we can. This is an issue we should revisit in the spring when we start thinking about next fall. 2. NAGPS Conference We discussed sending students to the Conference of the National Assoc. of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS), to be be held at the Braintree Sheraton Tara Hotel, Nov. 18-22. The $150 we will be getting from GRS for the conference will allow us to send 2 people (using the $75/person Thu/Fri combined day rate). Our main goals for the conference will be: - Attending sessions for developing grad groups (for ideas). - Networking with other grad organizations, especially local ones. We want to send people from the Steering (new group ideas), Funding (networking), and Healthcare (networking) committees. Since this is best done with 3 people, we might be able to split one of the Thu/Fri day rates between 2 people. Exactly who will be attending is not finalized, but they will be from among those committees and possibly a few other active members of the group. Of course, other students who are interested in attending the conference can contact us to discuss options for doing so. 3. Postings We've received a few e-mails about job opportunities or career seminars (i.e., e-mails to "questions@gso.bu.edu"). We discussed the best way to distribute this information since it is the kind that is not relevant to everyone on the mailing list, just a small subset. We've decided to create a web repository for these announcements. On occasion, we will send mail to the general mailing listing describing what can be found in this repository. 4. Collaboration We discussed collaborating with the School of Social Work's (SSW) Student Organization. They are a graduate student organization in a BU school separate from GRS, with which the GSO has had contact before. They are largely a group for Master's students (SSW consists of only Master's students, except for PhD's in the joint SSW/Sociology program). They are a funded group. Their organization has the typical set of officers and it has caucuses. Caucuses each have their own focus. Currently, they have caucuses on: - AHANA (an acronym) - this group concentrates on issue concerning "people of color". - GLBT - this group is concerned with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issue. - Spirituality In the past, the organization has had social events for students and/or faculty. In addition, each caucus has its own projects. For example, AHANA is collaborating with other schools, GLBT has helped to get more literature on "homosexuality" in the SSW curriculum, and Spirituality is working on a meditation lecture. Since they are interested in collaborating with us if a common project or issue arrives, we'd like to take advantage of this possibility, even if it is something as simple as a joint social event. In order to find out what that might be, we will either send one of our members to their next meeting or invite one of their members to ours.