The GSC holds regular meetings on the first Thursday of every month of the academic year (September-December; February-April) at 6:00pm in the DUC TV Lounge, with free pizza and soft drinks. All students are invited to attend.

Graduate Student Council, April 2006

Present: Assistant Dean, Rosemary Hynes and Interim Dean, Rick Rubinson

Announcements:

.1. Travel Grants: The GSC voted to limit the number of Travel Grants that students can receive over the course of their career at Emory. This policy will take effect starting next fall. All students will start from 0.
The vote to determine whether each student should receive a maximum of 1 or 2 grants will take place at the next meeting. The GSC officers are going to compile some information about the usage of the program over the last 5 years to get an idea of some figures. That will help determine the "1" or "2" times issues, as well as at what level the Grant amount will be set at.

2.Tuition Increases: On the trails of the recent discussions here, there is some news on tuition. We will still be getting the "tuition scholarships" from the school, but there be an increase in the level we pay.

3. Hillary Ford stated that anyone still having problems with being charged incorrectly for health insurance can contact her at hford@emory.edu to get the matter corrected.

4. Health Insurance: Emory is going to continue the approximate 50% health insurance subsidy. Be aware, however, that insurance premiums are going up 9% next year.
There are also some changes in applying for the waiver. If you are waiving automatic enrollement, you will have to do so between 17 April and 1 July.

5. Stipends are slated to increase from $15,000 to $15,500 next year.

6. Clairmont Campus: There is some talk about graduate students being moved out of Clairmont Campus temporarily to allow sophomore occupancy during construction of new dorms. This is currently only a PROPOSED plan; if the plan goes ahead, we will have plenty of warning.

7. Parking and Shuttles: The University is looking at expanding shuttle routes in the area. One concept is to terminate shuttle routes at shopping centers around the Emory area, allowing people driving in from various parts of Atlanta to park at the shopping centers and take the shuttle in to Emory. There will probably be some surveys coming out soon asking for input, so pay attention.
This is important because the school is apparently looking at SIGNIFICANTLY increasing parking fees in the future to discourage cars on campus.

8. The Graduate School is looking at establishing some university-wide guidelines for maternity leave for graduate students. This is currently in the beginning stages, but there might be a call for more general input in the near future.

9. Finally, the GSC needs officers for next year. No officers = no funding for events, no mixers, no ticketed events... Elections at the May meeting. Stay tuned for emails with more details regarding positions.

Graduate Student Council, March 2006

Officers Present: Seth, Tavishi, Chris, Andrea and Jennifer, Hilary Ford

Announcements:

1. Dean Rick Rubinson is instituting a committee to decide if dissertations/theses should be electronic. Volunteers needed — Scott and Susie volunteered.
2. Reminder Woodruff Library: PN-PS (Level 5 stacks) will be moved out.
3. GSC Officer Positions are open for 2006 – 2007 and the vote will be held in the April meeting.
4. Seth announced that Emory is “realigning campus housing” which will occur over the next few years. The most important issue is that Graduate students might be moved to another location or out in order to put in sophomore students.

Events

March 9th: GSC social mixer-Atlanta Brewing Company. Thurs, 7-10pm
March 3rd: Ticketed event: Atlanta Hawks game, 7pm.

Chartered Organization Reports:

BGSA-Recently held Health Fair at the DUC. Had a great turn out. In March they are planning a Research Forum and 5K Run/Walk for ACS.

DSAC-Planning Spring mixer/awards ceremony end of April. Also planning symposium for next year at Whitehead Auditorium, September 18th.

GIN-Busy recruiting. Hosting a speaker on April 20th and end of semester mixer.

Philosophy Forum- Upcoming conference. Reminded everyone about weekly Friday Philosophy Forum where students get feedback on papers. Other students are welcome.

Funding Requests:

The following requests were received before Chris sent out the email about running out of money to fund requests.

State of Race Bill-already funded by Chris $250

BCMB Training Grant Symposium-April 7th event. Asking for $1,000. After some lengthy discussion about GSC’s budget. Unanimous Vote. $250 approved.

Immunology IMP Program with Dr. Rudensky. April 4th Whitehead Auditorium. Requested $500 or less. Unanimous Vote. $250 approved.

African Music Festival- April 7th on campus at Tull Plaza. Hosted by Women’s Studies. Requested $500 or whatever. Unanimous Vote. $250 approved.

Concerns/Discussion:

WOODPEC lockers - Seth readdressed the issue of graduate student lockers. Woodpec “declined to comment”. Seth suggested the issue is brought up at SGA.

BUDGET:
Seth opened discussion about budget, mixers, travel grants.

Mixers: people offered suggestions about making changes to mixers.
• Selling tickets, self-generating funds.
• 3 mixers to 2 mixers per semester

Scott talked about budget in the past and how presently there is a decrease in the number of grad students.

Travel Grants:
• people suggested “one shot deal”
• One travel grant per year versus one grant per career
• Get rid of travel grants entirely
• Scott suggested looking at numbers; historical data (how many people did not get; what were the numbers last year; why did it increase)
• Has the Grad school not rely on GSC travel grants.
• Do not take entire GSC budget to use for travel grants, still not helping every student.

Fundraising ideas: Seth suggested selling travel mugs. Use mugs at Starbucks. Student Activity Fee probably will be increasing but not for 2 years. Others recommend adding a fee to GSC to keep track of members. Someone suggested conducting a Graduate student survey to assess how they prioritize funding.

Graduate Student Council, February 2006

26 Students in attendance.

Announcements:
1. Level 5 of the Library is the next to have the electronic compact shelving put in and thus the books on this floow will be moved to storage.
2. SGA is considering raising the student activity fee from the current $71 to $86. This fee has not been raised in over a decade. There will be a referendum on February 16th where all students may vote.
3. Chinese Student Association will be organizing a Chinese New Year celebration on February 3rd and a Lantern Festival on February 12th, 2006.
4. The Black Graduate Students Association will screen the movie 'Crash' followed by a debate on the slow government response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
5. The ISSP will sponsor the annual International Cultural Festival on April 8th.

Events:

February 9th: GSC Mixer at Twisted Taco. See Mixers for more details.
March 3rd: Basketball game tickets for an Atlanta Hawks game. See Tickets for more details.

Concerns:
1. No glass recycling on campus
2. The lack of volunteer opportunities for graduate students
3. Financial priorities of the GSC. What do we do about the underfunded Travel grants program? How do we organize our financial priorities. Come and share your opinions in March! Our Treasurer announced one idea of having chartered organizations raise some of their own funds that the GSC could match for 2006--2007 instead of just providing a budget.

Funding Requests passed:
Chinese Student Associations request for $500 for the Chinese New Year celebration and Lantern festival. Passed through a unanimous vote.

ISSP sponsored International Cultural Festival. They requested $1000. There was a vote to suspend the rules so that we could vote on granting them $1000 for a single day event. Both votes were passed unanimously.

Graduate students from Comparative Literature requested $500 for a lecture on March 2nd and a seminar on March 3rd. Passed through a unanimous vote.

Graduate Student Council, December 2005

22 Students in attendance.

Announcements:
1. Our Advisor Hilary Ford mentioned the need for student representation on the Student Health Insurance committee
2. BGSA and the Black Students Associations of the School of Public Health and the Business Schools will co-host a holiday mixer.

A quiet end of the semester meeting. No guest speaker. We unanimously elected Jennifer Sorrells as the new GSC Vice President and she starts at her position in the Spring of 2006. Jen is a graduate student in the Chemistry Department and we are glad to have her! This meeting was a good opportunity however to take some time out and elicit student concerns that we had not been able to address so that we may put them on the agenda for the Spring. Some of the concerns brought up:

• Office space for Teaching Assistants (TAs)
• Lockers for graduate students in the Woodruff P.E. Center
• Parking issues remain
• Evaluations for graduate students - should these be made mandatory? What are other graduate schools doing in this regard.
• Trancript prices are $4 for direct mailing and $8 for student pick up which affects our grad student pockets! Why $4 just for the Emory seal?

Graduate Student Council, November 2005

Guest Speaker: Linda Matthews, Vice-Provost, Woodruff Library.

Graduate Student Council, October 2005

Great attendance continued at our second meeting with 31 students in attendance. Our GSAS advisor, Dean Hilary Ford was also present to answer questions on the tuition fee to be levied from next Fall. A reminder: We are still looking for a Vice President and temporary travel treasurer.

Travel Grants Update:
The votes on whether we should reduce the amount awarded for travel grants and by how much were taken at this meeting in the following order:

1. Vote in favor of reducing travel grants or maintaining amount.
Votes in favor of a reduction: 23. Votes in favor of maintaining the grant at $200: 6

2. Vote to reduce funding to $150 or $100.
Votes in favor of $150: 11. Votes in favor of $100: 19

Thus, the general body voted in favor of a reduction of the travel grant to $100. An emailing elaborating on this was sent out by our Treasurer Chris Lue the following day.

Concerns:

Our GSAS advisor Hilary Ford answered queries regarding the tuition fee to be levied for students in tuition-paid status starting next year. An email was sent out to all graduate students with more information on this. Just to highlight some important points from that email:

The Board of Trustees decided on the increase in tuition for graduate students which has not been increased in the last 20 years. The fee of approximately $1250 will only be charged to students who are not able to demonstrate satisfactory progress towards finishing their dissertations. The GSAS has put together an executive committee that is considering this issue and this committee will meet with both graduate students and faculty to determine what this procedure for determining satisfactory progress would look like. Rest assured, we will be informed with plenty of notice once this procedure is established. Also, as mentioned, once the advisor has conveyed to the GSAS that the student is making this progress, a tuition credit will be given to the student for the fee.

Funding requests:
1. The LGBT Graduate Student organization held their Fall social on October 1st. A request was made for $200 to support this event and was granted with a unanimous vote by all present and eligible to vote.

2. The Black Graduate Student Association requested $250 to be used towards their annual Cultural Cafe event to be held on October 14th, 2005. The amount was granted with a unanimous vote by all present and eligible to vote.

3. Request for co-sponsorship of the Contemporary Tibetan Art Exhibit and related events. Please see our events calendar for further details. The request was for $500 and was granted with a unanimous vote by all present and eligible to vote.

Tickets:
Our ticket tzarina will be selling tickets for a hockey game featuring the Atlanta Thrashers v/s the New Jersey Devils.

Events
Our 3rd annual Halloween Mixer will be held at Manuel's Tavern. Please check the website for more details.

September 2005

A fabulous beginning to the new academic year, we had 36 people, including several new stduents attend the first GSC meeting. A reminder: We are still looking for a Vice President and temporary travel treasurer.

Katrina Relief :
I. GSC events
1. Fund raising effort at the first mixer at Brewhouse. Raffles.
2. Ticketed event also a fundraising event for Katrina effected. The tickets will be less subsidized but the extra charged will go towards relief efforts.
3. The idea for a change jar idea for individual departments was also proposed.
The money will go through SGA to the Red Cross where it will be used entirely (SGA assurance) for relief efforts.

II. Students coming in from the Gulf Coast – 3 in the GSAS.

III. Volunteer for Red Cross packing of supplies at local Walmarts.

IV. Emory alumnus – Daniel Fullerton set up a shelter. Need volunteers to help.

Travel Grants Update:
Apply in advance for travel grants.

A crucial vote is to be taken as to how we should structure the Travel Grants Program in the future so that we stay within budget and yet support graduate student travel to conferenes. It was decided that the vote would be suspended till October.

We need to decide between:
1. Keeping the grant at 200 dollars and fund fewer people.
2. Reduce grant to a 150 or even a 100 dollars and fund more people.

Concerns:

Two History department students, including Jason raised the concern that next year students awarded merit fellowships will be charged a higher academic fee in tuition paid status. Will ask Assistant Dean Hilary Ford about this fee $1250 and how it can be covered by the GSAS or departments.

Suzie – 5th year funding cuts across departments. Examples from History.
Concern that we are increasing funding for new students but decreasing lines – those offered before to 5th and 6th year students.

Orozman from Spanish: Graduate department’s course evaluations are not a requirement. What can be done to get these done across the board – requirement that graduate divisions require Professors to have course evaluations. Problem that the College hires the professors and the graduate school doesn’t. The other problem is how do you standardize one evaluation form to be used across departments.

Several students expressed the need for graduate student lockers at at the gym. We will try to get a representative from the WoodPec for our November meeting.

Funding requests:
Event sponsored by the English Department. The inaugural lecture in the
Kemp Malone series, Bruce Robbins will speak at 4pm on Wed., 26 October 2005 in Cox Hall Ballroom 2 & 3. There will be a reception following. He will also attend a formal response to his lecture on Thurs, 27 October in Kemp Malone Library (Callaway N301) from 11:30 - 1:00. A light lunch will be provided. All graduate students are invited to both events.

Tickets:
The GSC sponsors Martinis and IMAX at the Fernbank. Please check our Ticketed Events page for further inforation.

Events
Halloween Mixer details coming up. Social chairs announced that as the funding for GSC in general was toghter, we will have three mixers a semester as opposed to four as we have in the past.