From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri Dec 4 17:58 EST 1998 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 RAA14144; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 17:58:15 -0500 (EST) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id RAA27377 for info-list; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 17:58:09 -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 RAA27373 for ; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 17:58:04 -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 RAA14131 for ; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 17:58:04 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Pitts Received: by cs16.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id RAA09934; Fri, 4 Dec 1998 17:58:00 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 17:58:00 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199812042258.RAA09934@cs16.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Dec 3, 98 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text Content-Length: 14679 Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Our next general meeting will not be until January (to be announced). Committees may meet as needed during the interim. --Rob Summary ======= 1. Questions & Answers with Whitaker This was the portion of the meeting where we asked questions of Assoc. Dean Whitaker. Since he said when he arrived that he could not stay for the whole meeting, we moved this portion first. We weren't able to ask all the questions we had wanted. Below are the questions that we asked and the answers (or discussions) that followed them: ====================================================================== Question: -------- Is the administration considering increasing student stipends next year? What about a yearly cost-of-living increase? Answer: ------ After a few minutes explaining how TF stipends are both a form of financial aid and help provide services for courses (which are sometimes incompatible views), Whitaker said that he is planning on proposing a stipend increase for next year. He is not currently planning to propose a yearly cost-of-living increase. Since the administration has researched pay rates at other schools and found BU's not to compare well, he wants to get stipends up to a more appropriate level and does not want to tie them to a yearly increase rate. The administration still views the increase in tuition waivers (i.e., they increase to match tuition) as a form of cost-of-living increase. He mentioned that his proposal will travel via the Dean, Provost, etc. and that somewhere higher up in the chain the final decision will be made. He also said that they encourage depts to pay RAs at the same rate as TFs. ====================================================================== Question: -------- RA stipends are not always up to TF stipends. Some departments have RAs making different rates? Answer: ------ When TF stipends are raised (as the rate for veteran students was in Spring 98), RAs don't always go up right away. The school allows for some "lead time" since RAs are paid from grants, and grants have to be sent ahead of time. In order to encourage advisors to pay RAs at the same rate as TFs, the school pays for an RA's tuition waiver out of school funds (called GRASP) *if* the RA is paid at the same rate as a TF. When the TF rate goes up, the school may also pay a tuition waiver if the RA is paid at the old TF rate. If an RA's pay rate does not meet one of these 2 TF levels (current or recent), then tuition waivers must be paid by the grant. ====================================================================== Question: -------- Two concerns grads have about health insurance are its cost and coverage (as identified in the Spring 1998 Survey). As far as cost, the student plan premium is 5% of a grad's gross stipend income during the academic year. As for coverage, the BU plan has many limits on coverage of costs, such as for outpatient care, surgery, etc. (yearly limits are not alleviated when you purchase the Supplemental Plan). In addition, grads healthcare needs are different than undergrads because of our age: we usually cannot enroll under parents' insurance and we suffer from more health problems. Has the administration thought about these issues? Answer: ------ Whitaker said he currently wasn't aware of any healthcare issues for grads (he mentioned there were some issues for postdocs). While health insurance is not handled by the academic side of the administration, but rather the "business" side, Whitaker said he would be willing to point us toward the correct people and facilitate the process from his side (the academic side). ----- Both sides of this conversation agreed that raising the basic plan's premium in order to get better coverage was not a desirable option (i.e., don't make the cost worse). They agreed that providing an alternative plan (in addition to basic insurance) with more coverage and a possibly higher premium was a better idea. We mentioned that Tufts University has a Chickering policy with more coverage and a higher premium and that Tufts is similar in how their health services center works. Obviously, this issue will require more followup. ====================================================================== Question: -------- Is it possible for the GSO to be funded by applying a small fee to the bill of each graduate student? A budget would help us provide things like travel grants, more activities, etc., which most grad orgs at other schools already do. Answer: ------ After restating the fact that grads currently don't pay the undergraduate fee, and thus, don't get any funds from it, Whitaker said that he didn't really like that idea. He said that he thought grads pay enough and wouldn't like an extra fee. He said that he is "proposing" including $1000 in the budget for the GSO next year. He said that if we collected dues from grads ourselves, that is a different thing. We responded that collecting dues was not a very viable option, since it would be difficult to do logistically. To counter his argument, one of us said that they personally didn't think they would mind paying a small amount each year as long as they knew it was going for useful projects. In addition, we could provide a way for students to remove the fee if they really don't want to pay it (making it an optional fee, similar to another fee the school assesses). Also, we cited the Spring 1998 Survey, where 61% of students responding to the question said they would consider paying dues. Finally, we cited the precedences for grad org fees that are attached to student bills in BU's Engineering School ($10/semester) and in BU's School of Social Work ($25/year). After these last arguments, Whitaker seemed to become more open to the idea and said "Give me a proposal". ----- If we do submit a proposal for a student fee, we will have to come up with a good budget on how to spend the money. Thus, this should be a longer term project. ====================================================================== General Comments: ---------------- Although Whitaker seemed to answer questions carefully, as an administrator would, he did give some concrete answers. Obviously, there are differences in how grads and the administration view some issues. He said he remained open to meeting with us in the future and to other methods of communication with grads (possibly instituting some office hours?) He said he wants to know what problems we have, and when we have them, possible solutions (although we don't need to have a solution before we discuss a problem). He also said he would like to see formalization of the structure of the GSO eventually (items the Steering Committee is working on), so that the administration knows who has the right to represent certain aspects of the group (or students) when they come to the administration. Finally, he brought up the idea of an Annual Meeting, which one student interpreted as a yearly GSO meeting where all the dept reps (when we actually have those) are in attendance. 2. Committee Reports Funding Committee ================= Gareth Roberts reported for this committee. They've gotten some information about stipend rates from Harvard and MIT. One interesting property of the Harvard system is that there are opportunities to get more pay if you do more work. The Funding Committee agreed to give students details of the Harvard and MIT systems either by e-mail or via the web page at a later date. They also mentioned that RA pay rates seem to be more in line between schools than TF rates. ----- One meeting participant said that having a similar system at BU, i.e., allowing student teachers to do more work, might go against BU's policy of trying to get students to move from TFs to RAs. Another said that if they made more money at teaching, students could stop teaching earlier and then concentrate on research. One meeting attendee suggested that because RAs are paid from grants there may be some national guidelines (NSF, etc.) about pay. Others thought no, that RA rates are usually based on TF rates. One attendee mentioned that some outside fellowships allow students to teach for extra money. Healthcare Committee ==================== Jill Orofino reported for this committee (with a few additional pieces of info included below). - The alternative healthcare plan "Network Health" is now on the GSO Healthcare Pages. - Other information collected, but not on the web yet: + Research on dental services at local universities' dental schools that BU students can use. + Information about the Supplemental Insurance purchasable under the Chickering plan. Most notable is that while this supplement increases the aggregate lifetime maximum coverage for a particular illness, it does not increase any of the "per year" maximums. + Some general information about the BU plan (it does not cover Domestic Partners). - Current things in progress: - Finishing writing up the BU plan (including the feedback from students on their experiences). The committee also has access to the comments from the Spring 1998 Survey, which may be useful. - Gathering information from contacts met at the NAGPS conference: + More information about the NAGPS health plan. + More university plan comparisons (another school has also done some research--we plan to share each other's research). + Tips on how a few schools made improvements to their student plans. ----- One meeting attendee expressed concern as to whether the committee would just list student comments about the BU plan verbatim. The committee said that because most comments have been sent as anecdotes of a student's experiences, they were planning on paraphrasing or summarizing the comments. Another attendee reiterated the idea of buying into the faculty plan as another alternative for grad students wanting better coverage. The committee was concerned that BU subsidizes a large part of the cost for faculty and may not want to do that for students. Housing Committee ================= Their representative was sick and could not attend. Liaison Committee ================= Gary Garber reported for this committee. They asked whether we should hold meetings next semester in the new grad student lounge. Attendees seemed to agree to that idea. ----- An issue that still seems to be up in the air is how to provide card access to that new lounge and the building it is in. Although we've been told that each student's ID must be typed in a computer for access, some of us still feel there must be a way to transfer the IDs of all GRS students to that computer. We decided to try to resolve this issue by the January meeting. Social Committee ================ Jen Wenner reported for this committee. They reminded us about the last Pub Night of the semester on December 15th and brought signs for students to put around campus. Although they did not put an ad for this Pub Night in the BU Bridge, they plan to do so for all the Pub Nights in the Spring. Steering Committee ================== Dave Morgan reported for this committee. They reported that they need more time to work on their proposal for a constitution, etc. They plan to have a rough draft by January, so that they can get some feedback from students. They welcome suggestions. Students can send suggestions any time. 3. NAGPS Conference Debriefing There weren't any questions about the conference, but conference attendees did state (or restate) some things they learned during other parts of this meeting. Dave Morgan said he would like to eventually send out an e-mail report about what he learned, but welcomes e-mail questions during the meantime. Rob Pitts gave a bunch of material he gathered from the conference to Jill Orofino (who volunteered to organize it). It contains example newsletters, student handbooks, etc. that other grad orgs produce, and which we may eventually find useful. 4. AAUP Talk Rob Pitts reported that he recently received a response from the president of BU's Chapter of the American Assoc. of University Professors (AAUP) about whether they could do a brown bag lunch talk for us this semester. The president mentioned that a member of the AAUP working with their National Office will be in town and can talk on "issues confronting part-time, adjunct, and all 'contingent' faculty, including grad students who are employed in teaching." Some attendees expressed concern that this would be a talk during finals week (possibly the 17th) and that attendance would be low. Rob argued the point that we have been talking about having a "brown bag" talk all semester and we should take advantage of this one-time opportunity. Meeting attendees agreed that we could continue planning such a talk as long as we warn the speaker about possibly low attendance. Even if attendance is low this time, we'll have the opportunity to have other talks (on a similar or different topic) with the AAUP in the Spring. We will inform students *if* this talk is actually going to happen, since there are still some details to iron out before a final decision can be made. We are considering inviting both faculty and students. 5. Welcoming New Spring Students Rob Pitts will be constructing a 1-page flyer on the GSO, which will mention the GSO's repository of info (on housing and healthcare). This flyer will be included in mailings to new grads entering this Spring. According to GRS, they are fine with this idea as long as we give them a flyer by Monday, December 7th (in the morning).