Graduate Student Assembly
Regular General Meeting

4:15-adjournment; Monday, February 2, 2004
Texas Union, UNB 3.116

MINUTES

1. Call to Order. The meeting was called to order at 4:20 by Co-Chair Don Drumtra.

2. Verification of Attendance.

Executive Committee Members Present: Marian Barber (Co-Chair), Don Drumtra (Co-Chair), Joyce Banks (Secretary), Dan Gilman (Treasurer), Ginger Gossman (Publicity Coordinator), Erik Malmberg (Electronic Resources Coordinator).

Certified Representatives Present: Peter Haney (Anthropology), Amy Forestell (Astronomy), Sylvia Gale (English), Maria Baroco (School of Information), Malavika Shetty (Linguistics), Rachel Mitchell (Music—Theory), Paul Mathews (Neuroscience), Markus Glodek (Philosophy), Robyn Honig (Psychology), Ruby J. Jones (Slavic Languages and Literature), Dauna Howerton (Special Education), Audra Rouse (Women’s and Gender Studies), Erin Boade (TSEU).

Alternate Representatives Present: None were recorded.

University Committee Representatives Present: Paul Navratil (Student Government)
Melanie Ulrich (University Library Committee), Nachiket Kharalkar (Graduate Assembly, Admissions and Enrollment Committee), Qunhui Huang (Graduate Coordinator Committee).

Ex-Officio Members Present: Victoria Rodriguez (Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies, GSA Faculty Advisor), Brian Haley (President, Student Government).

Uncertified Representatives Present: Greg Argo (School of Information), J. Cheryl Beaver (School of Information), Greg Hammond (History), Erica Whittington (History), Christy Kohl (Petroleum Engineering), Lori Stunz (Economics), Clary Richards (ORIE), Allisa Carter (Educational Administration).

Guests Present: Rick Taylor (School of Information), Lindsey Schell (General Libraries), Terry Newman (Office of Graduate Studies), Darlene Grant (Associate Professor of Social Work and Associate Dean in the Office of Graduate Studies), Stephanie Crouch (Graduate Coordinators Network).

3. Adoption of Minutes of Last Meeting: December 1, 2003. Several amendments to the posted minutes were requested by Don Drumtra (Co-Chair). Patty Drumtra and Jennifer Lee (The General Libraries) should be added to the minutes as guests at the December meeting. The minutes should read that committee reports are posted to the GSA website, not the GSA Blackboard site.
The minutes were passed as amended.

4. Reports of Guests.

a. Darlene Grant (Associate Professor of Social Work, Associate Dean in Office of Graduate Studies) gave a presentation on the recently released Report by the Task Force on Racial Respect and Fairness. The Task Force’s four major goals were created through the consensus of its fourteen members. The first goal is to widely articulate the university’s commitment to diversity and inclusiveness. One recommendation linked to this goal is to support an Honor Code as a way to reaffirm that students will treat each other civilly. They also hope to see recruitment as a top-down responsibility as well as from the bottom up. Another suggestion was to remedy the fact that there are no recruitment documents in Spanish. Also, the Task Force sees a need to educate the families of undergraduates about the value of life-long learning. The second goal addressed by the Task Force was to create a structural and institutional mechanism for interpersonal change. For example, there is currently no way to insure that diverse perspectives are offered on search committees at the graduate level. The third related issue the Task Force addressed in their report was recruitment. They saw a need to do more to reach into the University’s pool of undergraduate students for enrollment in graduate school. As part of this, the University seeks to ask TAs and AIs to help recruit and to remind our departments to do more. The fourth issue the Task Force addressed was increasing the University Police Department’s skill with interacting with a diverse population. In their research they noted that this issue appears to be particularly endemic to university communities and there is always more that can be done to improve training. Related to this, if any graduate students receives a call asking them to participate in a survey on the University police department, please respond to it. Dr. Grant then opened the floor for questions. Paul Navratil (Student Government) asked if the Task Force had addressed ways to widen the pool of diverse applicants so that all universities weren’t recruiting the same people. Dr. Grant responded that she saw a need to survey all courses to find those that take students into the community as a component of the coursework so that these courses could be better coordinated and strengthened. It was noted that the Provost is trying to find a way to flag those courses that have a community involvement component in the Schedule of Courses. Erik Malmberg (Electronic Resources Coordinator) pointed out that graduate students need not only to help recruit diverse populations but to be positive role models in showing others how to do this, too. Marian Barber (Co-Chair) asked if there was any way to insure that graduate students continue to be involved in following up on the Task Force’s suggestions? Dr. Grant answered that we need to make sure we provide written comment during the 45 day comment period so that administration sees a need to make the report relevant to graduate students. She reported that the last day for comment is March 1.

b. Stephanie Crouch (Graduate Coordinator Network) announced that the GCN is sponsoring a tax preparation seminar to address questions that graduate students may have about preparing their taxes. They have invited a representative from the IRS who will do a short presentation and take questions. This representative has also received in advance some examples of questions many graduate students ask their Coordinators so she hopes the information will be very pertinent to us. The seminar is going to take place February 19th from 10:00-11:00 a.m. in the Union Ballroom. Refreshments will be served and all graduate students are welcome to attend. The GCN hopes to expand the program and have multiple sessions in the future. Ideally, they would like to make UT an official volunteer center for tax information. Stephanie is distributing flyers promoting the seminar and asks that students please take these to their departments to promote the event.

c. Lindsey Schell from the Student Library Committee announced that the University has purchased access to an exciting new database of materials from the 18th century. Please let anyone you know interested in this period of history that these materials are now available. Lindsey asked if graduate students had any library related concerns they wanted addressed? None were offered.

5. Reports of Ex-officio Members

a. Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Victoria Rodriguez. Dr. Rodriguez wished everyone a happy new year and welcome to the new semester. She pointed out that at the end of the fall semester it was announced that the University would cover full benefits for TAs and AIs. She expressed her thanks to everyone for the kind notes and emails she received following the announcement of this news. She reported that she passed on to Dr. Faulkner that graduate students were glad to be acknowledged for the hard work they do for the University.

Dr. Rodriguez also reported on the Diversity Forum that recently took place on campus and was also attended by Paul Navratil (Student Government) and Erik Malmberg (Electronic Resources Coordinator). The Graduate School organized a panel in which graduate deans and associate deans from eight universities discussed the issue of diversity in graduate education. This panel was charged with creating a list of feasible actions to address this issue and as she felt they had a very productive exchange and left the panel with many good ideas to implement. On this subject, Dr. Rodriguez noted that we don’t do a very good job of recruiting our own undergraduates to attend graduate school here. She asked graduate students for their input on how the university can recruit from its own diverse undergraduate population. She thinks TAs and AIs could have a big impact in this endeavor. Paul Navratil (Student Government) pointed out that the entire academy appears to view attending the same university for graduate and undergraduate degrees as a lesser accomplishment than if a student goes elsewhere. Dr. Rodriguez replied that this has been the case, but we need to work hard to change this perception.

Marian Barber (Co-Chair) asked Dr. Rodriguez if she knew if there were plans to include a separate space for graduate students in the new proposals for a student activities structure? Dr. Rodriguez noted that the need for such a space for graduate students where they cold hold workshops and build a sense of community was brought up at the Diversity Forum as well.
She also pointed out that many panels noted that there was no one definition of diversity, particularly in graduate studies. Each department or field may have very different definitions of what diversity in their population is or should be.

Erik Malmberg (Electronic Resources Coordinator) pointed out that it is hard to convey to the general population and the pool of donors the value of graduate education. He said that the University may need to consider creating fundraising positions tailored to graduate studies and diversity. For example, many other universities, such as the University of Michigan, have not just one but multiple officers appointed to fundraising for graduate studies. Paul Navratil (Student Government) asked who Graduate Studies may be targeting in their fundraising efforts. Dr. Rodriguez noted that they are looking across the board. They aren’t concerned where the money resides if they can use it to fund graduate education.

b. Brian Haley (Student Government President). Brian announced that he will be sending to President Faulkner a summary of the feedback he has received regarding the two Task Force reports (Racial Respect and Fairness and Enrollment). If you have any issues you want addressed about these reports, please email him your comments.
Brian announced that Student Government elections are coming soon. There are five spots for graduate representatives to the Student Government. If you are interested in any of these positions, talk to Don, Marian, or Paul.

Brian announced that for the remainder of his term he is focused on the following three goals: 1) Formulating a proposal for a new student center. In regards to this he will hold some brown bag lunches to discuss student’s ideas for this space—check the SG website for details. 2) Working to strengthen development initiatives, particularly to reach out to recent graduates for endowments. 3) He is working on the Texas 2015 Report. He needs graduate students interested in providing their input on what the university will look like in twelve years.

6. Reports of Officers (Please read posted reports online in advance of the meeting)

a. Co-Chairs: Marian Barber announced that they are trying to get more graduate student representation on University committees. They have taken this request to Marv Hackert who has referred it to the Committee on Committees. Marian also announced a number of vacancies to University Standing Committees and GSA ad-hoc committees and explained what each committee was formed to address. Marian emphasized that these vacancies can be filled by any graduate student—not just GSA representatives. A sign up sheet will be passed during the meeting and representatives are encouraged to take additional sheets back to their departments to find willing volunteers. Marian also announced that as of 4:00 p.m. that day the GSO (Graduate Student Organization) funding that we had hoped to disburse to qualified applicants this spring had not be distributed to our account. This would make it impossible for us to distribute these funds to worthy organizations this year.

b. Secretary. Joyce Banks requested that those representatives who are new to the GSA this semester or have not yet completed membership forms should please send completed and signed forms to her as soon as possible to the GSA office via campus mail at G2000, MAI 2403.

c. Treasurer. Dan Gilman announced that he is hard at work getting a jump on the budget for the following year via his work with the Finance Committee.

d. Special Events Coordinator. No report was given.

e. Public Relations Coordinator. Ginger Gossman announced that she and Melissa Midkiff (Special Events Coordinator) are working on events to be held during the first week in April to mark Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation week. The GSA will be presenting their annual awards for outstanding graduate student employees during that week and an announcement regarding these is forthcoming very soon.

f. Electronic Resources Coordinator. Erik Malmberg reported that he is meeting with someone in the coming week from the Office of the Dean of Students to research the history of the GSA for the 35th anniversary celebration. He also informed everyone that the server upon which the GSA’s website resides is down and he is working on trying to find out when it will be back up so that our site can be updated. Erik also announced that he has created a new link for committee reports and resolutions directly from the homepage of the GSA website. This will make it easier for representatives to read this information online in advance of a general meeting. He reported that a prototype for our new website will be available in about 3 weeks so that we can start working on moving our site over and expanding its content. The web address he has requested is www.utgsa.org, but if anyone has a different preference please let him know.

7. Reports of University Committee Representatives. None were offered

8. Reports of Ad Hoc Committees. None were offered.

9. Unfinished Business

a. Resolution commemorating the Thirty-firth Anniversary of the Graduate Student Assembly. Erik Malmberg (Electronic Resources Coordinator) announced that he is researching this resolution and seeks help in authoring its content.

b. Resolution requiring the placement of Graduate Students on all University Faculty and Administrative Search Committees. Joyce Banks (Secretary) announced that volunteers are still need to help research and write this resolution.

c. Certification of new GSA Representatives and Alternates. Three representatives have offered completed memberships forms since the last meeting. They are: Sylvia Gale (English), Donald Zinman (Government), and Rachel Mitchell (Music--Theory).
Certification of these representatives passed unanimously.

d. Update on the GSA budget. Dan Gilman (Treasurer) stated that the Fall BBQ cannot be considered an official item to plan for unless the budget is approved and allocated.

e. A Resolution to Address the Welfare, Rights, and Responsibilities of Assistantships Recipients. Erik Malmberg presented the text of this resolution and asked representatives to take it back to their departments for feedback. We plan to vote on this issue at the March meeting.

10. New Business

a. Erik Malmberg (Electronic Resources Coordinator) announced that shortly after attending the NAGPS Conference in Washington D.C. he was approached about becoming a regional coordinator. He was also asked to consider putting in a proposal to enter the competition to host the NAGPS regional conference. Erik is seeking the Assembly’s input on this proposal. He noted that he has spoken to representatives at Baylor and hopes that they might be interested in co-hosting the regional conference. They may have some interest in coordinating the physical aspects of hosting so long as UT Austin representatives would handle programming. Discussion was held about the commitment in time and manpower that would be necessary to host this event and whether we should agree without a strong volunteer commitment. Erik explained that he has begun researching it and believes that either March 29th and 30th or April 5th and 6th are the best potential dates for hosting this conference. He explained that though there are 28 organizations in our region, most are inactive and no more than 5 schools have sent representatives to a regional conference in the recent past. We can probably expect 12-20 graduate students to be interested in attending if we win the bid.
Erik offered a motion that we bid jointly with Baylor for the NAGPS Regional Conference if five additional students volunteer to plan and twelve people to help on the day of the event.
The motion passed unanimously.

11. Announcement

a. Paul Navratil (Student Government) announced that the Friars Society is conducting its annual Friars Centennial Teaching Fellowship this semester. Cash awards of roughly $12,000 are offered for this prestigious award for undergraduate teaching. If graduate students are aware of a worthy professor who excels at teaching undergraduates please look for nomination materials available at the Friars Society website: http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/friars/fctf/

b. Erik Malmberg (Electronic Resources Coordinator) announced that the American Red Cross will be conducting reduced cost CPR Training for UT faculty, student, and staff this spring. Registration will be $10 and is available online. If you are interested ask Erik or look for a group email that will be distributed shortly.

c. The next Graduate Student Assembly General Meeting will be held March 1, 2004, from 4:15 to adjournment in the Texas Union Room 3.116.

12. The meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m.