From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri Aug 21 17:35:16 1998 Received: from gso.bu.edu (GSO.BU.EDU [128.197.60.71]) by cs.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-01/27/97-fc1)) with ESMTP id RAA07774; Fri, 21 Aug 1998 17:35:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id RAA00617 for info-list; Fri, 21 Aug 1998 17:35:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cs.bu.edu (root@CS.BU.EDU [128.197.13.2]) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) with ESMTP id RAA00613 for ; Fri, 21 Aug 1998 17:35:08 -0400 (EDT) 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 RAA07761 for ; Fri, 21 Aug 1998 17:35:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Pitts Received: by cs16.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id RAA04411; Fri, 21 Aug 1998 17:35:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 17:35:00 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199808212135.RAA04411@cs16.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Aug 20, 98 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Comments are welcome. --Rob Summary ======= 1. Group Structure Subgroups --------- We reviewed our current subgroups: Social - This group will continue to plan social events for the coming year. Healthcare - Will continue throughout the year to gather information about healthcare plans available to grads, update plan information, and possibly report on healthcare legislation. Survey - This group will only continue until it has finished analyzing last April/May's grad student survey results. Orientation - Will continue until the new grad student orientation (and may regroup for another orientation next year). The new subgroups that have been proposed (via Mike Hayes) are: Liaison - This is essentially a formalization of the members who already deal directly with GRS. Nonetheless, it is nice to have a group that deals in relations to the administration separately. Steering - We'd like to form this subgroup in the fall. It would consist of members working on formalizing the organization (writing a constitution, etc.) Other permanent or ad-hoc subgroups may be needed in the future. Officers -------- We decided against assigning officers at this time. Instead, we would like to make sure there is one main contact for the group and 1 person who is responsible as contact and for events/projects in each subgroup. We will wait until we assess the fall membership to round out all the subgroups and assign primary contacts for each group. We will reassess the assignment/election of officers in the future. Dept. Representatives --------------------- At the end of August, we will be asking each dept's Director of Grad Studies to send (or recommend) one or two students to participate in regular GSO meetings as representative from their dept. We also hope that some new students may join in this capacity as a result of the new grad student orientation. Directions towards Formalizing ------------------------------ Here are some of the issues that will have to be resolved in planning to formalize the GSO a bit more. These issues might fall in the domain of a "steering" group. - Constitution - How to determine reps. from each dept. and their duties - Officers, committees and their duties - Voting, decision making by officers and reps. - Election of officers, reps., committee members - Stable funding (from GRS or possibly other sources) 2. Issues/Projects We brainstormed about some of the projects/issues we would like to address in the coming year (this is probably not a complete list). Obviously, which issues we tackle will depend on our manpower as well as the interests of active members and the grad student body. Issues are listed here in no particular order. - library privileges for "non-fellow" grads - better info about funding sources - brown bag lunch talk forum - grad lounge - library of resources (for our proposed grad lounge) - newsletter - healthcare - housing (listings accessible to new students, plus more info) - NAGPS conference - coordinating with other grad groups at BU - common payrate for Human/Sci - cost of living pay increases - grad student representation at higher levels - forums for more political/controversial subjects? 3. Speakers Below are some of the potential topics for our proposed brown bag lunch talks beginning this fall. - Chickering to discuss BU Student Health Plan - Librarian to discuss using Mugar and Science libraries - BU Chapter of American Assoc. of University Professors (AAUP) + academic freedom issues + teaching issues + tenure issues - Legal services + renters rights + employment issues - Unionization issues - School of Management professors (concerning their recent "renewable tenure"-type contract) - Race/gender issues 4. Orientation Cassandra Celatka updated us on current plans for the new grad student orientation in which we will be participating. All of our events are on Friday, Sept. 4. Apparently, there were not enough volunteers to do campus tours on the preceding Wednesday. Orientation will take place in the GSU. Roughly, the orientation events planned for that Friday are: - A signup period with tables of information manned by: copy center, bookstore, IT (computers), Chickering (Health Plan), GSO, etc. - Mingling time. - Speeches by Dean Berkey, Assoc. Dean Whittaker and our own Cassandra. - Getting into our groups (with student leaders) and then going out to dinner. Invitations for the orientation were sent to approx. 500 new students. Since responses are still arriving, we don't know how many to expect just yet. We will be contacting the Directors of Grad Studies in each dept. to remind them of these events. Also, we will be having a meeting of all orientation volunteers prior to orientation (meeting to be announced). Information about GSO for New Grads ----------------------------------- New students will receive packets of information compiled by GRS from their depts. These include the GSO's calendar of meetings and pub nights for Sept. We would also like to have some handouts about the GSO available at orientation. We would like to have information about our history (e.g., how we got started), some of the projects we have done, and some information about our future direction. There has been some debate in the group about what tone this literature should have. We would like to mention that we came together because of the TF (and RA) pay disparity last fall. Some people are for stronger language than others on that subject. Another issue is that literature we have at the orientation may require GRS's approval. Some of us expressed dismay that we have to get this kind of approval; however, it is the type of restrictions that can be expected when we coordinate an event with the administration. This topic should lead to more discussions about how we deal with the administration. Hopefully, we will be able to provide some literature with at least some of the *facts* about how the group got started. 5. Other The results of the grad student survey (from the end of the spring semester) should be available before classes start. We will make the results available on the web.