From rip@cs.bu.edu Fri Feb 13 16:57:04 1998 Received: from cs16.bu.edu (rip@CS16.BU.EDU [128.197.10.115]) by cs.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-01/27/97-fc1)) with ESMTP id QAA01251; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 16:56:56 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Pitts Received: by cs16.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id QAA26890; Fri, 13 Feb 1998 16:56:49 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 16:56:49 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802132156.QAA26890@cs16.bu.edu> To: aasa@bu.edu, alistair@bio.bu.edu, altvater@bu.edu, amgomez@bu.edu, atrochio@bu.edu, bhattac@bu-ast.bu.edu, btnoren@bio.bu.edu, byrnea@bu-ast.bu.edu, cchamber@bu.edu, celatka@chem.bu.edu, crampton@bio.bu.edu, crichard@bio.bu.edu, desrosie@chem.bu.edu, dkmciver@bu.edu, dmorgan@math.bu.edu, eftychia@bu.edu, elioff@chem.bu.edu, fclittle@bu.edu, ganne@bu.edu, garethr@math.bu.edu, ggarber@buphy.bu.edu, herbert@bu.edu, imlac@bu.edu, ingalls@ninkasi.bu.edu, jdunlavy@bu.edu, jric@bu.edu, jwillis@bu.edu, kim1@bu.edu, kpetersn@bu.edu, krlynch@bu.edu, landy@bu.edu, lholmes@bu.edu, marcusp@bu.edu, mghayes@math.bu.edu, mhmann4@bu.edu, monk@bu.edu, mparks@bu.edu, mramage@crsa.bu.edu, mslobodk@bu.edu, mwalker@bu.edu, obongo@bu.edu, rbresler@bu.edu, rcabana@bu.edu, rip@cs.bu.edu, rolvera@bu.edu, salzmann@bu.edu, scarella@bu.edu, stephr@math.bu.edu, susanlee@bu.edu, tdwalker@bu.edu, th@math.bu.edu, wenner@bu.edu, yfederow@truckee.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Feb 12, 98 meeting Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Our next meeting will be on Thu, Feb 26 at 6pm. For anyone new, below I refer to the National Assoc. of Graduate - Professional Student (NAGPS), the director of which, some of us met with a few weeks ago. --Rob Summary ======= - Social Events + Pub Night: We'll have pub nights the 1st Tuesday of every month, 5pm onward. - The social subgroup will advertise the pub nights via the mailing list, Daily Free Press, posters, our new web page, and possibly by BU electronic announcements (on the ACS system, for example). + Speaker: Mike Hayes has met with Assoc. Dean Whittaker and they have discussed the idea of hosting a speaker of general interest to grads. Apparently, the alumni organization would be interested in scheduling and paying for such an event. It's not clear at this point why alumni is interested in sponsoring an event for the grad students. + Other Events - As you'll recall, Jen Wenner asked someone from each dept. if their dept. would contribute money for a social event. With the few response the social group has received there seemed to be some depts. who would give money and some who would not. Due to the mixed response, money for a social event will probably have to come from a central source. + Pub open on a Saturday: Apparently, Assoc. Dean Whittaker said it would probably not be a problem to have the pub open on some Saturday for grad students (i.e., the school would pay for the staff). - Making the GSO "official" As mentioned, the NAGPS director and members of grad groups at other schools have stressed the benefits of finding an advocate in the administration AND getting official recognition in the school. Of course, we could have an advocate in the administration without becoming an official organization. + Benefits Some of the benefits of being official is that we might: (1) get representation in student govt at BU, (2) get money, and (3) generally, have more access to the administration as a tool to get things done. For example, many school's grad orgs get money through student fees with which they can budget different projects, etc. + Concerns Some people are concerned whether the administration would try to put certain restrictions on our organization. --- During Mike Hayes' meetings with Assoc. Dean Whittaker, the dean has expressed interest in the formation of an official graduate student organization. Therefore, Whittaker may be the "advocate" that we need. Some people are not sure, however, whether he is the best person, and that he may represent the admin's side over the grad students too often. We'd like to try to have a brainstorming session with Whittaker some time by mid-March to discuss the possibilities of making the organization official. He can probably tell us what we'd need to have an official organization. To help pitch our organization, we can suggest that the GSO take over some task that is currently not done, such as having a grad student orientation. In any case, if it turns out that becoming official will require us too compromise *too much*, we can always decide to remain an unofficial group. - Survey We briefly looked at the current format of the survey. There was quite a bit of debate about what we are trying to get out of the survey and whether it would be beneficial or not. After this debate, we mainly seemed to agree that the purpose of the survey is to give grad students another opportunity to give us feedback as to what issues concern them. We want to make sure that there aren't other issues of concern that we have not thought about. We are going to review the current state of the survey and the survey group will take suggestions in order to refine it. When the survey is ready, we've decided to distribute the survey on our own and not ask the administration for help in doing so. We'll rely on volunteers in different depts. (i.e., those on the mailing list) to assist in distributing the survey within their dept. and collecting the responses. - Labor Relations Board rulings: Yvonne is still gathering information about the current state of board rulings and will get back to us. - Health Care Rob Pitts has reviewed the BU and NAGPS plans. - Dental Plans: For those of you who may not know, BU offers a dental plan through the Dental School that covers certain basic dental care (e.g., cleanings, x-rays, fillings--but, not extractions) for a fixed yearly fee. Pamphlets on the BU dental plan are available at Student Health Services. (Thanks to Kaara Peterson and Mike Walker for pointing out the plan.) The NAGPS dental plan is also a fixed fee plan, but provides percentage discounts at participating dentists. - Health Plan: Besides the medical plan offered by BU, the NAGPS also provides a plan. It's cost is comparable to BU's plan (although you can get a lower yearly cost if you opt for a high deductible). It is hard to compare directly, but the BU plan is probably better for BU students in general. The NAGPS plan is beneficial, however, in that it can cover 6 months after leaving school and can cover domestic partners. The NAGPS plans are available to all grad students (not available in a few states). It is *not necessary* for either individuals or the grad org to be members of the NAGPS to take advantage of these plans. Rob has pamphlets on these plans. Rob Pitts and Cassandra Celatka have created a list of questions to use to compare health plans. Also, someone with experience in the healthcare system has volunteered to assist in reviewing healthcare plans. These questions will be used to review healthcare plans at other area schools. Also, other plans that are available to BU students will be reviewed. If you have any information about alternative plans, available either to all BU grads or just a certain segment, please inform Rob Pitts or Cassandra Celatka . The goal is for one or two new plans to be reviewed by each GSO meeting, and to have all reviewed plans combined into a big table for comparison in the end. - Web pages/mailing lists Dave Morgan has set us up a machine in Math named gso.bu.edu that we will use for our web page, mailing lists, etc. Rob Pitts showed the format of the basic web page. It has a short description of what the GSO is and then has a few sections (i.e., Events, Meetings, Resources). As time goes on, we'll add more information to the page in 2 ways: (1) new sections and (2) some of the sections will become there own web pages. Once the web page is online, we'll ask IT if they will link to it somewhere from the main BU page. We'll send mail when the web page and mailing list is ready.