From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri Oct 9 18:37 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 SAA22629; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:37:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id SAA07688 for info-list; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:36:56 -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 SAA07684 for ; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:36:52 -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 SAA22575 for ; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:36:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Pitts Received: by cs16.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id SAA02949; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:36:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:36:46 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199810092236.SAA02949@cs16.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Oct 8, 98 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text Content-Length: 8124 Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Our next meeting will be on Thursday, October 22nd, 5-6:15pm. --Rob Summary ======= 1. Committee Reports Each committee reported on their activities. Funding Committee ================= Byron Shock reported for this committee on their goals and projects: 1a) Researching pay rates at local schools. 1b) Determining cost of living formula for Boston area. 1c) Compiling and informing people of funding opportunities for grad students. 2) "Dealing" with the administration to improve the funding situation at BU. Each member has chosen a local university at which to start researching the funding situation. Healthcare Committee ==================== Rob Pitts reported for this committee on their goals and projects: 1) Inform grads about healthcare choices. 2) Research ways to improve grad healthcare. 3) Maintain a reasonable presence at healthcare forums. The primary activity of the committee (goal #1) is to add to our web repository more information about healthcare plans available to grads. The committee also wants to augment the repository with information about insurance terminology ("a glossary"), laws/legislation affecting healthcare, and services like counseling, vaccinations, etc. Secondarily, the group will discuss improving healthcare plans with other grad orgs who have succeeded in this area (goal #2). In addition, they'd like to represent students' interests at things like "a Chickering talk" (goal #3). ---- Currently, 3 members are working on health plan writeups (2 are alternative healthcare plans, the other is the student plan at a local university, for comparison purposes). The 4th member is gathering a list of "insurance plans" that are available to students. ---- One meeting participant suggested looking into whether Chickering offers "million-dollar" extended insurance. Housing Committee ================= Catherine Cappuzzi reported for this committee, which now has 2 members. Their projects will be: - Asking if the Office of Off-campus Housing can provide some way for new students to access the BU apartment listings. - Asking BU if they can also offer the Oct-Jan T semester pass deal while still keeping the Sep-Dec pass deal. - Information about "grad" housing on campus. - Expand on areas already on the GSO's housing pages. - Lists of realtors with either discounts to BU affiliates or with low or no fees. They are focusing on improving housing information for new students and are very interested in making the housing pages more visible. ---- A meeting attendee suggested getting each department to link to the GSO page. This is something the group has asked students to try to do in the past, but we are not sure how many depts. now have links to the GSO pages. Liaison Committee ================= Gary Garber reported on this committee's activities. They believe they need one additional member. The only word they've heard on the grad student lounge is that the proposed lounge now has a ID-card reader. No word on improving library privileges for grad students. ---- They have learned that Engineering's grad group gets some funding from a student fee, thus giving us a precedent at BU for possibly doing something similar. ---- They said they'd like to know what other questions students have for the administration. They feel that if they have more to talk to our contact about, they could perhaps establish regularly-scheduled meetings with them. Social Committee ================ Jen Wenner reported for this committee. Currently, they are understaffed with only 2 members, and thus, are concentrating on pub and movie nights. If they get more members, they can start to organize talks and other activities. For future Pub Nights, they believe they will have "Pub Night" cards on tables plus optional nametags, both in order to make the area of the pub where Pub Night takes place more visible (as suggested at the last meeting). For Movie Nights, they are considering the last Wednesday of each month as its schedule. Steering Committee ================== Dave Morgan reported on the goals of this committee. A primary issue is what kind of organization the GSO will be and how it will relate to the BU administration. In addition, they will be working on a constitution, including the details of officers, elections, etc., and reviewing the pros/cons of registering the GSO with the university (as an official group). ====== A meeting attendee suggested that we should try to meet with the Board of Trustees. According to the "Daily Free Press" (Oct. 6, Page 1), the Trustees have sought to meet with the Undergraduate Student Union--one issue being how to increase funding for student groups. The paper suggests that Oct. 17th might be when that meeting would happen. 2. NAGPS Conference Rob Pitts gave us more details about the National Conference of the National Assoc. of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) and how we can participate. The conference will be held at the Braintree Sheraton Tara Hotel, Nov. 18-22. The information below is based on his meeting with NAGPS Secretary, Tony Rosati (reported about at this meeting) and includes "updated" information from a meeting (Oct. 9) with NAGPS Exec. Dir. Kevin Boyer. Kevin expects about 60-65 schools to attend this conference with perhaps 25 local students and about 130+ out-of-town students. The conference will have 6 different session "tracks" on: - Developing grad student groups. - Good grad group "programs". - Post-grad employment. - Diversity. - Legislation. - TAs/student employees/unions. Most of the information sessions are on Thursday and Friday. Volunteering ------------ The NAGPS mainly needs volunteers for Wed/Thu (stuffing tote bags, preregistration, and registration). Volunteering would be for about 2 hours per person. Those that volunteer on those days would be able to attend Thursday's non-meal activities free, and possibly the reception. They also need volunteers to take people in groups of 15 or less out on the town (various activities). We may be able to attend other conference functions if we volunteer for this. Day Rates --------- We can attend both Thursday AND Friday (including meals, except the Awards Dinner) for $75/person. Otherwise, day rates are $30-$50 per day per person. ---- For more information on the conference schedule, go to the NAGPS site (http://www.nagps.org/NAGPS), choose "Conferences", then "13th National Conference", then "Event Schedule". 3. Funding Security/Job Placement An instructor from English brought up the issue of job security (because of this we deferred the topic of "Departmental Participation in the GSO" until another time). The following issues were brought up: - There are not always guarantees of funding. I.e., sometimes students do not get funding that advisors told them they could expect. Plus, there are not always a lot of funding opportunities in certain departments. - Departments need to do a better job of preparing students for the work force. Meeting attendees agreed that the first was an issue relevant to the Funding Committee, but were not sure how to address the second issue. The instructor felt that some issues concerning "funding students" or soon-to-graduate students are also relevant to part-time instructors (e.g., grad students sometimes end up being part-time instructors before or after graduation).