From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri Sep 25 18:38 EDT 1998 Received: from gso.bu.edu (GSO.BU.EDU [128.197.60.71]) by cs.bu.edu ((8.8.8.buoit.b4)/8.8.8/(BU-S-06/23/98-b7)) with ESMTP id SAA02155; Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:38:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id SAA08358 for info-list; Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:38:08 -0400 (EDT) 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 SAA08354 for ; Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:38:05 -0400 (EDT) Received: from csb.bu.edu (rip@csb [128.197.10.4]) by cs.bu.edu ((8.8.8.buoit.b4)/8.8.8/(BU-S-06/23/98-b7)) with ESMTP id SAA02139 for ; Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:38:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Pitts Received: by csb.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id SAA07961; Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:38:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 18:38:02 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199809252238.SAA07961@csb.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, Sep 24, 98 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text Content-Length: 6830 Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. Our next meeting will be in 2 weeks (exact day/time to be announced). --Rob Summary ======= 1. Committee Reviews We reviewed the purpose of each committee (descriptions sent out earlier--available upon request). Committees will begin meeting between now and our next general meeting to write up what their goals are and to begin their work. Each will report on their progress at general meetings, but may also send/request information via the general mailing list. Below, we list each committee. Following the names are the number of "confirmed" members, then the number of potential members from which we are still waiting for confirmation: Funding (3/1) Healthcare (4) Liaison (2) Social (2/2) Steering (4) There is also one person who has volunteered to improve our "housing" information. 2. Committee Reports The 3 committees that continue from last year gave brief reports. Social Committee ================ Jen Wenner and Sarah Lyons reported that we will be able to have movie nights. At these, movies will be shown on campus, free to grad students. They are still deciding on a day/time and frequency; and thus, will give us more information about those and the movie night location in the future. They also plan to start looking into "brown bag" talks for the semester. It is likely that one talk will involve inviting a representative from the Chickering (student) insurance company. One meeting participant suggested the possibility of putting out a "topic of discussion" for a brown bag talk and then having each department prepare something to say about the topic. Other participants said that Pub Nights could be improved by having: more tables set aside, more signs around where the grads are sitting, and some people with name tags willing to go around and greet people. Also, that perhaps some simple activities could be set up to help "break the ice." Liaison Committee ================= Cassandra Celatka reported that Andrea White (our contact in GRS, who works under Assoc. Dean Whitaker) had not yet replied on what is happening with: - Our acquisition of a lounge for grad students. - Changes in library privileges, which we hope will give all grads the same (better) borrowing privileges as TFs. After being asked by a meeting participant about our rapport with the administration, Cassandra said she felt that while Andrea was originally very enthusiastic about doing stuff with the GSO, she has backed off some. The Liaison Committee also feels that sometimes the administration has taken our ideas and tried to make them their own. Healthcare Committee ==================== Rob Pitts reported that he has written up some "guidelines" for summarizing healthcare plans. These are based on what he's learned from writing up plans and are meant to keep plan summaries consistent and complete should new members of the committee write up plans. A definite goal is to get a good writeup of the Chickering plan (especially so that new students who don't have documentation on the BU plan can compare it to others we have summarized). A meeting attendee suggested having information about plans more accessible to students before they come here (by finding more ways to publicize our Healthcare Pages, etc.) 3. NAGPS Conference We discussed whether we will participate in the National Conference of the National Assoc. of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) to be held in the Boston area (Boston/Braintree), Nov. 18-22. Gary Garber , who attended the NAGPS Northeast Regional Conference back in March 1998, stated that he felt that the most useful parts of the conference were pamphlets/info and networking with reps from other grad groups during conference meals. He felt that the workshops (at least at the Northeast conference) were less useful. Normally, registration for the conference is $250/person. Since this is not feasible for us, we have a couple other options: - Send reps at a day rate (approx. $50/day, but possibly lower if the NAGPS decides on a way to exclude meals). - Send volunteers. Those that help run parts of the conference will be allowed to attend certain functions (usually on the same day they volunteer). Gary proposed that we try to ask GRS for some money to attend the conference. We can also get more information about what types of volunteer work can be done. The consensus was that we should send some reps to the conference and that a good approach may be to send people from committees that would benefit from gathering information by networking with other grad orgs, e.g., Steering ("How are other groups run?"), Funding ("What is the funding situation at other schools?"), Healthcare ("How have grad orgs made strides in student healthcare?"). 4. Registering the GSO/Becoming Official Rob Pitts reported on what he learned from a meeting with a representative from the Student Activities Office (SAO) about what groups must do for official recognition at BU. Besides having at least 5 members, we'd need: - a constitution - a president and treasurer - an advisor in order to register. The deadline for registering this semester was Wed, Sept 23. Nonetheless, IF we do choose to register, it could be done in the spring (Feb) or next fall. Rob received materials that detail the requirements and benefits of being registered. Below are listed some (not a complete list) of the advantages and disadvantages of registering: Advantages ---------- - More visibility: registered groups can be part of some BU publications, calendars, event lists, possibly linked to via an SAO website, voice mail. - Tax-exempt status for purchases. - Use of university facilities (which we've used already to some degree). Disadvantages ------------- - Cannot advertise (in any way) an event until it has been approved by the SAO. - Must notify the SAO before allowing a non-BU person to attend functions. - Lots of procedures/paperwork for spending money. ------ We'll turn the documents that detail registering a group (and rules for registered groups) over to the Steering Committee. They can study it in detail and give a more complete report on the pros/cons at some later date. For now, we'll leave the issue of registering up in the air.