From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Sun Dec 19 18:52 EST 1999 Received: from gso.bu.edu (GSO.BU.EDU [128.197.60.71]) by cs.bu.edu (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8/(BU-S-10/16/98-v1.0a)) with ESMTP id SAA14316; Sun, 19 Dec 1999 18:52:41 -0500 (EST) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id SAA17024 for info-list; Sun, 19 Dec 1999 18:52:36 -0500 (EST) Received: from fserv2.bu.edu (root@FSERV2.BU.EDU [128.197.152.88]) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) with ESMTP id SAA17020 for ; Sun, 19 Dec 1999 18:52:31 -0500 (EST) Received: from [168.122.13.154] (DIP13-PPP-154.BU.EDU [168.122.13.154]) by fserv2.bu.edu ((8.9.3.buoit.v1.0.ACS)/) with SMTP id SAA68252; Sun, 19 Dec 1999 18:52:24 -0500 Date: Sun, 19 Dec 1999 18:52:24 -0500 Message-Id: <199912192352.SAA68252@fserv2.bu.edu> X-Sender: jongley@acs-mail.bu.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 To: info@gso.bu.edu From: jongley@bu.edu (John Ongley) Subject: Minutes of 12/16/99 GSO Meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 4175 Status: RO Here are the minutes of the Thursday, 12/16/99, GSO Meeting. Summary: 1. The constitution was voted on; all present approved it, but based on the number of approval votes received at the time of the meeting, three (3) additional email votes from absent department reps are needed before it is adopted. 2. Officers and liaison committee members who were elected are: Aimee Trochio - Vice President; Dave Morgan - Treasurer; Amanda Schermer and Masako Yamada - Liaison Committee. Minutes: Jason Ritt, from the Mathematics Department, moderated the meeting, which began at 5:45 p.m. I. The constitution was voted on. It received 12 votes in favor, which included two votes via email, and none against; it needs three more votes from absent department representatives before it is passed. II. Committee chairs for the term beginning in the Spring are: FAR committee - Nathan Mesnikoff; Healthcare - Robert Pitts (volunteered until May); Housing & Community - no members; Publicity - no chair; Social committee - no members. III. Election of Officers and Liaison Committee Members. Nominated for office to the GSO were: 1. Aimee Trochio - Vice President 2. Dave Morgan - Treasurer (volunteered until May) 3. Amanda Schermer and Masako Yamada - Liaison Committee All were elected unanimously. Jason Ritt received one write-in vote for President, but declined to run for the position. The position of President therefore remains open. IV. Constituent Issues. 1. Amanda Schermer raised two issues in two proposals to the GSO. a. One-time Volunteer Activity for the GSO. Amanda proposed to approach the administration in order to get a suggestion from them for a one-time volunteer activity that the GSO might do as a community service project. This proposal passed unanimously. b. Graduate Student Representation on Administrative Committees. Amanda proposed to approach the administration, in particular, Assoc. Dean Whitaker's office, in order to find out what administrative committees exist to which the GSO might send graduate student representatives. This proposal also passed unanimously. 2. Report on Library Privileges. Robert Pitts reported that GRS is still discussing extended library privileges for all grads with the library and that some kind of semester-long borrowing period is very likely according to Assoc. Dean Whitaker's office. The dean is still trying for a Spring semester change in policy. The GSO's previous (11/18) decision to wait until next semester before taking further action on this issue was reaffirmed at this meeting. 3. Patent Policy. Someone stated that they believed that it was the Student Employment office that sent out the letters concerning BU's patent policy that some graduate students were required to sign this semester. It was also noted that some undergraduates were also required to sign the policy. Masako Yamada proposed to ask the administration about how they intend to handle the patent policy issue next year and also to express the GSO's concern about how the issue was handled this year. The proposal passed unanimously. 4. Housing. A graduate student attending the meeting wanted the GSO to work towards getting the University to help first-year graduate students obtain housing. He noted that Rutgers, Harvard and MIT had such services. He argued that at least temporary help would be useful, say, until the first of September. He noted that right now new foreign students were given free housing for about a week, during their orientation, but that they were kicked out of the dorms on 8/28, while most of them could not move into their new apartments until 9/1. It was pointed out that the GSO has the opportunity to work with the administration on this year's orientation, and that we might be able to pursue the issue further with the administration in the Spring. The proposal to put the issue on the agenda of the next GSO meeting was passed unanimously. 5. Travel. Jason Ritt proposed to look into group airline rates for travel grants for those graduate students attending conferences and other academic functions. This proposal passed unanimously. The meeting ended at 7:15 p.m. John Ongley