From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri Feb 5 17:16 EST 1999 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 RAA20800; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:15:59 -0500 (EST) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id RAA20573 for info-list; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:15:47 -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 RAA20569 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:15:42 -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 RAA20773 for ; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:15:44 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Pitts Received: by cs16.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id RAA13728; Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:15:33 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:15:33 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199902052215.RAA13728@cs16.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Feb 4, 99 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text Content-Length: 10645 Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Our next general meeting will be on Thursday, February 18th, 5:30-6:45pm. Note that there is still a need for volunteers who can help plan next Fall's New Grad Student Orientation and also a need for suggestions for that orientation (as mentioned in the Liaison Committee report below). --Rob Summary ======= 1. Committee Reports Committee Membership Changes ---------------------------- Amy Tapper and Cassandra Celatka have taken over the Social Committee. Since Cassandra was a liaison, that leaves Gary Garber as the only member of the Liaison Committee. Jen Wenner has moved from the Social to Steering Committee. There is also one other person who may be able to give some help to Steering. ----- A brief report was given by each committee: Funding Committee ================= Gareth Roberts gave the main report for this committee with some additional information presented by Ann Walker . They have more details on Harvard and MIT's grad stipend payscales. Details will be given on their up-and-coming web pages (see below). They also learned that Harvard surveyed pay scales at comparable schools and then raised its stipends this past Fall 98 (this indicates that the Harvard pay rates mentioned by Funding last semester we not the most current ones). Recall that BU is raising its stipend rates next Fall 99. BU also did a study of rates at comparable schools before deciding on this raise. As for MIT, they seem to have pay scales that differ between departments (differences can be by up to 10%), but that the differences in pay are not considered a "problem" by students(?) -- Because gathering pay rates at other schools has been slow and difficult AND because they would like to do more to serve student needs, they would like to expand into: - Promoting better mentoring. The national organization (NAGPS) and school GSO's around the country are concerned about improving student/advisor relations. One method, which Harvard's Grad Student Council implements, is to provide awards to good mentors. They will explore what they can do on this issue. - Grievances. They will research what kind of system is currently in place for grad student grievances at BU and see if improvements are needed. - Web pages. They will start a subpage under the GSO's main page (http://gso.bu.edu). They'll at least include pay rate info at other school. They will still continue to gather pay rate information. They are looking for a new name for this committee that better communicates their new goals. Healthcare Committee ==================== Rob Pitts reported for this committee. They've put some information on student health services fees at selected other school's (courtesy of Tufts Univ's Grad Student Council) on the Healthcare Pages (http://gso.bu.edu/healthcare/). The NAGPS's Healthcare Committee has solicited feedback on the set of questions that they want to use for their national survey. The GSO's Healthcare Committee is currently compiling their own suggestions on how to improve those questions. Edits to the survey have an upcoming deadline, so this is their current high priority. Thereafter, the next projects include: - Write-up of assistance programs at Mass. General Hospital (MGH). - Write-up of Northeastern Univ's student insurance plan (apparently they also have a Chickering plan). I.e., they'd like to review one more Chickering plan in prep for a possible Chickering brown bag lunch talk (currently, they've written up BU and Tufts Univ's Chickering plans). Although they might get some of this information if Northeastern participates in the NAGPS Healthcare Survey, those results may not be ready in time. - Write-up of researched dental plans (mentioned at last meeting). ----- A meeting attendee asked why Chickering seemed to be prevalent with some Boston schools. They were not sure, but replied that BU and Tufts (both with Chickering plans) have similar campus health centers (e.g., without many specialists and services). Harvard and MIT, which both have fairly full-service campus health centers, have Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance plans. Housing Committee ================= Catherine Capuzzi reported for this committee. They announced that they've made an appointment to talk to Off-campus Housing. ----- Meeting attendees reminded them that a main goal should be to get Off-campus Housing to provide new students (before they arrive at BU) access to the Office's housing listings and that they shouldn't "take no for an answer" (i.e., it can be done!) Since Off-campus Housing might not be familiar with the technical details of granting access to students without accounts, it was also suggested that they talk to Information Technology (IT) before that meeting. IT probably provides the technical support for maintaining Off-campus Housing's listings, and so, could suggest technical details of how new students could be given access and also might suggest who in Off-campus Housing would be best to talk to on this issue. Liaison Committee ================= Gary Garber reported for this committee. Because he had to leave early, he mainly had time to report that Andrea White (Assoc. Dean Whitaker's assistant) asked to meet with him early next week (week of 2/8) to discuss next Fall's orientation. Anyone who has suggestions for orientation should send them to liaison@gso.bu.edu ASAP. We still need volunteers to help plan orientation. He also reported that the graduate student lounge (location of our meeting) now has bookshelves. ----- A meeting attendee who is a research assistance said they were able to take out a book for the whole semester (they had a shorter borrow period last semester). It's not clear if this means the administration has improved the borrowing privileges for non-TF grads. Social Committee ================ Cassandra Celatka reported for this committee. They've planned the first social event of the semester for 2/10/99. This will be a night out for grads at a local bar near BU. Posters will be placed around campus. By the week of the event, information about it should be on the web site and should go out by e-mail. They still aren't sure whether the money we normally get for Pub Nights (to buy snacks) can be used for this off-campus event. They are considering other events, like bowling, for this semester (about one event per month). A problem identified with bowling was that there aren't any 10-pin bowling lanes near BU. ----- A meeting attendee suggested something like planning a ski trip over Spring Break, but they said that would be too ambitious for them this semester. Steering Committee ================== Several committee members were present. A meeting attendee suggested that as they write up constitution/bylaw articles, they do so in a word processor since it is then easy to export that document as a text file (for e-mail distribution) AND as HTML (for our web pages eventually). Their report consisted of a presentation/discussion of the articles in the "Constitution, Bylaws, etc." section below. 2. Cycle/Voting Procedures for Articles We fleshed out more details of the cycle of reviewing/voting on articles. The cycle will consist of: 1. The Steering Committee will send out initial recommendations on an article via e-mail. Those on the mailing list are encouraged to send these to other grads in their dept. 2. Steering will collect feedback via e-mail. 3. We'll all discuss the article at a meeting and suggest changes. 4. The Steering Committee will summarize the discussion and e-mail comments, and will provide a revised version by e-mail. (Again, those on the mailing list are encouraged to send these to other grads in their dept.) 5. We may have to go back to step #3 if serious concerns are raised by students. 6. Vote on it. Votes will be taken at meetings, plus they can be sent by e-mail before the meeting (we did not yet decide who will collect votes). If there is a general consensus, the article will pass. If not, we did not yet decide whether we will require some sort of margin (like 9/10ths) or if we would use some other method to resolve the problem (like more discussion). Most importantly, we decided there should be time limits on how long we spend on each article so that we "move on." Note that these voting procedures will be used for voting on the constitution/bylaw articles--this is not necessarily how the GSO will vote on issues in the future. 3. Constitution, Bylaws, etc. Attendees discussed the list of "purposes" for the GSO and suggested some additions and edits. The group also reviewed the types of formalization methods and agreed that not registering (with SAO), but still trying to collect a voluntary fee from grads, was the way to go. Someone suggested finding out a little more about how GRS's administration views us ("Do they think of us as the official grad group for GRS?") and describe our and their views on how formal we are as an article in the constitution. The Steering Committee will be summarizing this discussion, the e-mail feedback they received, and the suggested changes to these articles in a separate e-mail. 4. Other NAGPS Northeast Regional Conference ----------------------------------- The National Assoc. of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) - Northeast Region - has rescheduled its regional conference tentatively to April 9-11, 1999. It is still to take place at Penn State. As for costs, we currently only know that the registration fees will be less than $20. We don't yet know about the cost of accommodations. Of course, there will also be travel costs. Once we know more, we'll consider whether we can send a representative.