University of California, San Diego

Graduate Student Association

Council Meeting #12

Monday, April 22, 2013

6:00pm, Price Center Level 3: Warren College Room

I.        Call to Order

II.        Approval of Agenda
        -Move to have public comment and announcement after the special presentation.

III.        Public Comment and Announcement

• UCEN fee referendum failed, although the graduate community did vote to pass it. GSA should work closely with the graduate student reps on UCAB.
• Health care cost will increase by 72% in the next year for graduate students due to our premiums being much lower and having high expenditures. The new cost is to help stabilize to the current cost and is reflective to the levels of how we use our healthcare.
• VP External and National Affairs Liaison lobbied national legislators about graduate student issues and ask for testimonials about how issues affect students.
• Local Affairs legislative liaison has been working to get a bigger share of Prop. 30 money and are hoping for a supplemental tuition buy out.
• VP Internal: Nominations are open for community awards including students, faculty, peer mentorships, etc. and available on the gsa.ucsd.edu website. Looking for members to sit on the awards review committee.
• VP Diversity: STARS brings underrepresented undergraduates from around the nation to recruit and prepare students for graduate school, it is a paid position. CSOC secured $10,000 from Gary Ratcliff to help fund programming for student organizations.
• VP Campus: Quarterly Spring Fling on Friday, April 26th. Poker Night at the Loft. Trying to establish an off-campus Happy hour.
• VP Academic: 5th annual PhD conference on May 3rd with more diverse speakers on the Arts & Humanities panel.

IV.        Special Presentation - Strategic Planning - 6:15pm (45 minutes)

• Increase interdisciplinarity

• lack of transportation between main campus and SIO
• increase grants for interdisciplinary research, the earlier the better to engage in interdisciplinary research in one’s thesis
• increase awareness about labs/facilities on campus
• website to propose projects and promote interactions that way, an academic “Craig’s List”
• Support community cohesion among interdisciplinary departments
• Seminars and listservs to promote inter-departmental relations, student seminars
• Incentives to promote interdisciplinary research, community, etc.
• Institute one primary advisor and secondary advisors to promote collaboration between other students, get this supported by the Academic Senate and Graduate Council
• There are currently disincentives that do not encourage interdisciplinary research, faculty members must be more supportive

• What resources are needed to get better at what we do?

• more in-depth evaluations
• more undergraduate lab spaces to help TAs do lab work
• graduate mentoring program where departments are ranked based on value-added programs to incentivize faculty to provide mentorship, focus on retaining students
• professional development for preparation for a career outside of the university, help promote resources like the Career Services Center
• create leadership and career service workshops that are tailored towards graduate students, workshops/classes that will provide skills for students (ie. grant-writing)
• provide staff members adequate training to fully provide for students

• Orientation

• Department vs. OGS orientation
• increasing orientation length may not be the best, orientations should provide an opportunity for graduate students to meet and socialize
• make lab safety training more tailored towards individual departments instead of blanket, less specific safety training
• more effective orientation

• Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

• What is the campus doing well?

• Investing resources to try and improve diversity

• What can the campus do to improve?

• Centralize efforts and resources between communities to promote collaboration
• better resources available to graduate students with families (daycare, housing, etc.) and making it cost effective for the students
• campus climate and the university’s image discourages underrepresented students from applying
• facilitating cultural events to expose the community to various cultures
• faculty training in cultural understanding
• focus on more specific and smaller underrepresented identities (single mothers, transgender, etc.)

• What could help you take greater risks?

• more favorable intellectual property rights for inventors
• graduate internships
• re-evaluate the university’s current resources and their effectiveness

• How to engage the public (local, national, global)?

• Baseball camp
• Studying, working abroad for all departments
• Allow departments to have consultants to promote non-profit jobs
• Interfacing graduate students with other universities to do research and work within their field
• Programs with an outreach or volunteering requirement
• Organizing with activism in the local San Diego community to help facilitate action

V.        Move Into Closed Session (Roll Call)         

• Minutes were not taken during closed session and members who were not on council were asked to step outside.

VI.        Move Out of Closed Session

VII.        Presentation of Draft Budget (20 minutes)

• The time allocated for the presentation of the budget was reduced to 5 minutes.
• Councilmembers requested that a document explaining each line item of the budget be sent out to all of the reps.
• Councilmembers were encouraged to come to the next finance meeting to look over the budget.

VIII.        Finance Bills

• APRF 19-$150 Motion to approve. Seconded. Passed.
• APRF 18-$500 Motion to approve. Seconded. Passed.
• FFF 1-$200. Motion to approve. Seconded. Passed.

IX.        Diversity Bylaws Presentation

• Tabled until the next council meeting.

X.        Additional Bylaws Presentation from Bylaw Committee

• Tabled until the next council meeting.

XI.        Constitutional Amendment Presentation

• Tabled until the next council meeting.

XII.        Additional Bylaw Presentation

• Tabled until the next council meeting.

XIII.        Appointments

• VP Internal appointed Don Johnson to ARCHAC.

XIV.        Call for Agenda Items

• It was requested that the tabled items be prioritized on the agenda of the next council meeting.

XV.        Adjourn

• Motion to adjourn at 8:44pm.

Members in attendance: Chris Ahn, Dan Jacobsen, Cory Stevenson, Jeremy Davis-Turak, Michael Yu, Shigeki Miyake-Stoner, Fiona Nohilly, Chris Abdullah, Jackie Ward, Timia Crisp, Holly Dembinski, Nathanial Wood-Cohan, Carson Dance, Dan Frost, Joaquin Contreras, Roshni Chandrashekar, Russell Reas, Garo Bournoutian, Shayla Melo, Joe Smalley, Martin Boston, Jorge Leal, Alexandra Tracy, Cynthia Vazquez, Haydee Smith, Laura Andersen, Rahul Kapadia, Gregory Wagner, Jonathan Monk, Lindsay Freeman, Darcy Barron, Jacob Stanley, Alex Mendez, Michael Rivera, Liam Kavangh, Nicole Henniger, Steve Niemiec, Brandon Stephens, Lynn Waterhouse, Danielle Ishihara, Scott Ouellette, Lara Bullock, Mat Jarvis, Emily Elizabeth Goodman, Jordan Gosselin, Ash Arianpour, Don Johnson, Shannon Muir, Scott Guenther

Members in proxy: Bernadine Hernandez, Kathryn Furby