Minutes

GSC Meeting 2013-12-04

December 4, 2013 by in Proceedings

Minutes

Approved unanimously
VSO Requests
French Students Assoc:
Transfer, Wendy said that we decided that group doesn’t need to come to the GSC meeting if they prove it to the Funding Committee. $150 transfer from food to alcohol. Ashveer says that they followed up with Europe center so it’s great. Vote passes unanimously.
Stanford Concert Network
Have worked with them with Frost before. Expressed interest to engage more grad students in concerts. Throwing concert coming up either Feb. 28 or Mar.1, in Burnham Pavilion, only for students. Can set aside tickets for grad students only. Opener is Chance, up and coming rapper. Budget is close to $40k, they are covering about $25-30k, they are asking other places as well. Ateeq’s objections is that if the OAPE sponsors there will not be booze there. Ateeq says he wants alcohol to be there at that event. They are hoping that we can give them $5k. Ask about location for the concert, not sure if Burnham Pavilion is big enough. Various GSC members express opposition to there not be booze there. About pre-party, need to find out if we need to plan it or we can just pay for someone else to do it. Second proposal is made by an undergrad, would only be for grad students, have 3 international DJs come, proposal is not yet fleshed out, total budget is $10-12k, SCN would throw in 2-3k, remainder we might be able to figure it out. DJs would be dubstep. Wendy asks why it is so much cheaper to have 3 people than 1 rapper. Ateeq thinks we should only fund one concert. 3 years ago Marine threw an outdoor concert in Rains, that was the closest to a precedent. David thinks dubstep DJs might be more popular in international students than the rapper. Trevor says maybe $1500 toward the SCN Chance concert in order to get our logo on there. Paul says what if we pay per grad student?
Nomination Committee Appointees
Visited 2 weeks ago, Trevor asks if anyone has comments. Voting passes 10-0-1.
GSC Retreat
Next Sunday the 15th (or Sat. the 14th) we are going go-karting, around 2-3pm.
Advocacy Update
Paul: Coke and Pepsi inquiry. Why doesn’t Munger Cafe serve Coke products? Ateeq gives example about Saudi Araboa chicken farm that gets paid by Coke to have Coke products. Says it started from question from Honest Tea. Wendy says what about putting vending machines? Says at Berkeley a lot of student groups own their vending machines.
Ateeq: Meeting with John Pearson at Bechtel I-Center. He said that the H1B visas are having issues, so international students are having issues getting their visas approved. He is very concerned about the judicial review, would love to meet with Paul Harold about it. They had the largest reception for the international graduate student orientation ever. They were able to get more funds from the Provost office, but they are going to try to get more funds this year. Concerns involve getting different groups to coordinate on issues, how they deal with issues with putting events on calendars, said they don’t give groups the money for their events until the event is on the Facebook page, he is also concerned that the ASSU takes a long time to transfer money so there is always the problem of waiting too long for their money. Also they are thinking of adding pre-orientation on STARS on Axess, so people have to do the training on Axess before they can register. Training would involve getting to know offices, etc. Might also be able to incorporate videos on there. Wendy asks about Bechtel mailing lists to international students, since some people have been taken off the mailing lists.
Susie: Office of Sustainability wants help promoting Winter Closure, passes around flyers. Green Store, are likely going to be working just to serve registered VSOs for now, because there seems to be a lot of complications. Will be selling to student orgs. Ability to operate depends on whether they can become a service organization. Wendy asks if they can sell to CAs, Susie says no. Other viable option to work under the Student Store, but was too complicated. For now they want to make themselves available to student groups. Ateeq asks if Student Store can help them set up a separate front, Bryce says very complicated and would take an hour to explain. Susie says that would cause the GS further delays and they want to start selling products now. Susie says can sell to anyone who has account in SSE/ASSU, so all the money transfer would be within ASSU. Wendy asks if GSC can buy on behalf of other groups. Not sure. David says maybe if VSOs apply for programming funds from GSC, we can give free cups and plates instead of money. What if we put it as a recommendation for funding guideline.
David: Talked to Jamie Hogan at OCS about some issue. OCS is not going to tackle any specifics because they need to keep privay . Meetings are open by invite, you just have to email the chairs.
Paul: Joint Judicial Committee have met 3 times, had 2 BJA members present at the last meeting, had disussion about their perspectives on the bylaws. Appears that the committee would recommend that the appeals bylaws be overruled, which were made in October.  We should have overall recommendations to reform bylaws.
Ateeq: at last GHAC meeting, issue with subletting is in control, will send email giving people amnesty period for now, will go through sting operations, still considering it. Housing project is going quicker than expected, all the pieces should have arrived by now, might be completed much earlier than they think. Discussiona bout how to allocate new places in there. Think they should give people disturbed by construction first priority, wondering about how to distribute spots between new / old students. About to reach a final decision about Lyman. Trevor says that they have been delayed so much that they are probably not going to move the grad students out of Lyman. So far past the deadline. At this point they can’t make the decision. They also said that housing is fairly tight, but managed to get all couples and families in, trying to do everything they can. Ateeq asks about why they cannot do safe rides (5-SURE) to apartments by secret Safeway.
Wendy: met with Vaden people this week, focusing on coming up with strategies to reduce stigma surrounding using CAPS for intl communities. Will run a pilot program with specific intl groups to better communicate what CAPS does. Regarding Bridge program, she will meet with CAPS person who interfaces with Bridge. In Jan will meet with health promotion/i-thrive group, seems like when it comes to stress management, there are lots of groups on campus that work on things on campus, but don’t talk to each other. Want to see how we can help promote services. Ateeq asks, in the past CAPs used to offer 10 free sessions, but now only have 6-7 sessions and the times per session are shorter. Rather than hiring more conselors, they are cutting off the sessions sooner. Wendy says that with session numbers, number she’s been given in the past year has been 6-8 per year.
Johnny: Thanksgiving dinner went really well, will write up a document of recommendations during winter break. Bryce had recommendation about how family room can be rearranged. Ateeq asks if anyone wore the Turkey suit? Asks about how to print out pictures and what to do with message book.

GSC Meeting 2013-11-20

November 20, 2013 by in Proceedings

Food

Yum Thanksgiving tasting for GSC Thanksgiving Dinner next week! Susie likes smooth mashed potatoes while Austin and David likes chunky ones.
Minutes
Approved
VSO Requests
Stanford Polymer Collective:
-Speaker David Boger visit, using polymers towards environmental efforts. Coming to talk about his work towards environmental mvt. Using models to solve energy problems, like industrial waste from mining etc. Applying for $575 for honorarium, all recommended. About 100 ppl expected. How are they planning to contact engineering depts? Have own contacts. Austin suggests advertising to environmental fluidynamics students. Ateeq says make sure they pay for honorarium and get reimbursed, don’t pay for them. Voting passes unanimously.
AAGSA:
-Social and cultural event. Study break on Dec. 7, expecting 150 ppl, requesting $500. Recommended full amount. Ashveer suggests reaching out to East Asian Studies center.  Susie says she can forward to law school groups. Voting unanimously passes.
NomCom Bill
NomCom chooses ppl to serve on University committees. Bill is to confirm these ppl. Susie says last year the interviews were not well done, like she got the signup sheet for same day interviews. Wondering if they can comment on ideas to choose candidates. NomCom candidates introduce themselves. We have a Skype candidate introduce themselves. Back to Susie’s question. In the spring, many slots need to be filled. So plan out a schedule beforehand and stick to it. Ateeq asks, how does transition process between NomComs work, what they have learned from last year’s? John Dodini, who was chair last year, will be still around, they should go to him for help. Adrienne asks for clarification on bill. Ateeq asks about what makes these candidates special? Trevor says had 15 interviews, main criteria was diversity. Eduardo asks about the # of ppl in committee candidate interviews. Candidate asks about what they can do now to explore what the committees. They said just get in contact with them. David recommends them to let the committees to know that if there are contentious issues to contact other students as well as the student reps. Trevor also wants to know what they would do to enhance communication between candidates and GSC/ASSU. Bill on previous notice, ASSU-F2013-4.
Alcohol Line Item Change (GSC-2013-9)
Vote passes unanimously.
Composting with Susie
Recently grad residences got compost bins but not a lot of grad students are aware of it. Want to put on workshops on how to compost, where are the bins, etc. Create emails and flyers. Also, ppl don’t have trash bags for compost, so they want to get small compost pails and start a rental program or a lending program. Also maybe free bio bags, quote 500 bio bags 50 bucks, maybe a case of 500 for each residence as an example? Ateeq asks how long do the bags last? Susie says one time use. Austin says WorldCentric might have some pails. Can also just go buy non-official compost bins. Maybe an opt-in program for the compost bins. Ateeq says don’t need to provide ppl with it all the time, just need to start it. Wendy says usage rates of composting bins will be low, because consistently doing it would already be hard, so anything that helps would be good. Bryce says can have stickers on these bins to indicate composting. Austin says should do an educational program. Wendy says if we could combine both hardware and education at the same time, that would be good. Susie would also follow up with Tresidder and Old Union about composting. Petr says should have a way to measure success, so can see if it is worth scaling.
Sustainability Office
Meghan involved in getting students more involved. Ideas for green bins: pilot project good for housing, they can support but want data. Can also do a waste audit. Have conservation campaigns during the spring time, March or so (recyclemania). Office has 30,000 for projects. Reviewed by faculty, staff, and students. What kinds of projects? Institutional change projects, such as rewards for residences, posters. For example rain catchment bins. Susie says her UG group also got Green Funds to do stuff. As long as it is not academically focused. They have a big campaign called Winter Closure. On facility side, see it as an opportunity to save utility savings (shut down heating). She has a sign up sheet, and if we would like to see a building close down over winter break, then can do it. Also we could help with putting up signs to close windows, unplug fridges, etc. Does have safety standards regarding lights that can be shut off (how many lights can be shut down). University is in huge push for lighting retrofits, occupancy sensors. Wendy asks about Lucas center, and says that the heat distribution is uneven. Asks if Office of Sustainability can help deal with that? Adrienne asks if water fountains are tap water or specially filtered? Don’t know.
GSC Retreat
Dec 15th would be the best (Sunday). Spoke with corporate liaison of go-karting, they can host from 8-12 ppl, but if someone doesn’t want to go-kart. Let Adrienne know if you have reservations for ice skating or go karting.
Advocacy Updates
Saad:
revamping the email format. Showed us the new email formats. Can also segregate events by using tags. Wendy says that adding #freefood tags might not be a good idea, chairs disagree. Will make sure code and template is well documented. Showed a timeline, will finish mailing script by December. Will continue support afterward. Saad also says we should figure out an amount of money to thank him for doing this for. Ateeq says makes sure bill has account number on there. Wendy says also to test with different email clients to test.
Johnny:
talked to Marine, we paid half of it already, but the second half also needs to pay up front. Needs to make sure the request is submitted ASAP.
Ateeq:
Met with Dean Plummer to talk about how GSC can help with engineering students. Survey 1.5 years ago had 400 responses, common problems came up. Says we can meet more often, like every month, so can figure out problems from student side. Meeting was to understand the demarcation between schools and ppl. Let him know that we want to establish a partnership between the GSC and the Deans office. Right now he is interested in the survey data. Data shows that a lot of Masters students have feedback regarding funding and advising. Also talked about videos for international students.
Adrienne:
Approached library regarding art rentals, general idea is to collaborate with Cantor or art department, rental periods up to 2 months. Ateeq says that with project like this, ppl could always screw up. Adrienne says cheap art, not insured. Buy from students or local artists, and put it up for rental. Should it be insured?
Bryce:
Bridge counselling wants our help to advertise. Wendy says it would be good to start, they don’t do any advertisement. Peer counselling program, all undergrads. Wendy says with their program, they require a course 6 units before you can participate.
Adrienne + Ateeq: Want to know how efficient was Frost funding. Last year around 600 grad students went and 800 UGs went. SCN person wants to ask us for money again this year.

 

GSC Meeting 2013-11-13

November 13, 2013 by in Proceedings

Minutes

Approved unanimously
VSO Requests
SIA: Diwali, Sat night. Fundd transferred from food to ELS. Total ELS budget about $4500. $1000 transfer from SIA and $3000 from HSA to ELS. New request for $500 for HSA for ELS. Food budget funded from ASSU and HSA undergraduate portion. Full amount recommended. Vote unanimously passes for all 3 (Saad abstains because he walked in late).
GSEE:  Student alumni Meetup. Packard atrium tomorrow. $800 food, $62.50 prog, $650 janitorial. Reached out to CDC and Bechtel. David and Johnny recusing from vote. Vote passes unanimously (except for recusals)
ACSSS: Withdrawn request.
Arab Studies Table: Lunch and panel for research opportunities in North Africa. Advertising through own event list and Center for Democracy. Ashveer asks about advertising through Abassi program. Ashveer asks about kids (UGs), they said yes. $500 for food, recommended full amount. Vote passes unanimously.
CWC: Traditional Chinese artist event, $100 honorarium and $100 snacks and drinks, $50 for prog (painting matl). Wendy prog cap is soft cap, if they actually calculate amount can be changed. Advertising through email list, GSC calendar, and FB. Have not reached out to Center East Asian Studies. Ashveer says that last time they came, they said they would reach out, but never did. They said if they get their email address tonight, then they will email them. Ashveer just wants word to get out, objective is not to fund just Chinese women, but to also have other people to learn from experience. Recommended as-is. Vote 10-0-2, passes. Ashveer gives them his contact.
Diversity Advocacy Committee:
Social next Thurs 12-1pm, ppl to get together to find out about the DAC. Requesting $500 from discretionary to fund the food. Budget already allocated.
Thanksgiving Dinner
Nailed down form, streamlined. 12 and 1 are fully booked, rest have almost full. Sad thing is that CoHo says can’t have sampling beforehand. Voting for tasting unanimous!! Adrienne says need tasting because food was bad before!! So far about 1200 ppl signed up. Volunteering, so far had only 3, 1 is a CA. Johnny wearing turkey suit unless there’s a tasting. Trevor said he might be willing to wear turkey suit, according to Bryce!
PR Rules for GSC Events
Ashveer thinks we need to push listserv of ethnic centers to be prominent. Thinks language needs to be very action-oriented. Wendy’s going to add a webpage with the GSC logo. Wendy agrees language should be more strict. Ashveer likes the cc’ing GSC part in the emails to ethnic centers. Trevor wants groups to tag with search tags on calendar events (for example, “free food!”). Formalize suggestions into rules. Wendy says that, as short term solution to the tagging, technically she can go tag everything herself, but that is not a long term solution. Ateeq asks if possible to use hash tags or something? Wendy says if we add “keyword” section at the bottom of the event description, then that will appear as a tag. Adrienne asks if groups understand why we are pushing this? Ateeq says that if you advertise to too many ppl, too many ppl can show up, so groups might be afraid of that. Ashveer says that he tried to add language about whether or not they think it is appropriate to blast out, they can tell us. Ateeq says if tagging system works out, then ethnic centers can just poll our calendar and put it on their calendar. Petr says there is logistical argument, but also philosophical argument for advertising the event. The centers should know about it so that next year they can plan for it in advance. Message is mostly to let people know, not to flood the events with ppl. Adrienne says we shouldn’t suspect maliciousness unless it’s deserved. Adrienne says event funds coming from all grad students, so should go back to all students. Will tidy up for next week. Petr says where is the accountability for the event? Bryce says maybe a week before can look at the flyer, or use internal auditor. Wendy says that for internal auditor, they generally do receipt audits and not go to events much.
Alcohol Policy Bill
Modifies funding bylaws. 2 main changes. SSE introduced alcohol line items, feedback from members about funding. Ateeq asks whether combined caps? Wendy says she surveyed VSOs, asked ppl who ran alcohol events. 4 options: flat alc cap, combined cap, having diff alc caps for diff meal types, diff alc caps for diff alc types. Second option was most popular by far. If dinner, can split their dinner cap between alc and food as they like. If only alcohol, then can only be snack with only alcohol. Wendy surveyed groups on max and average spending on alcohol per person.
Collaboration with SAM PhD program
Started about a year and a half ago. Not all mentors know about how to deal with mentees. Want to continue with GSC to help advertising and funding, for example booking places and get better rates. Want more exposure on the student side, about 20-30 students have signed up only. All mentors have PhD degrees from somewhere. Three part workshop to teach mentors and get students to feel comfortable. Wendy says some programs have great access to mentors, but many schools have none. Having this type of program would even out opportunity to all students. Also have students from different backgrounds to interact with people from all walks of life. Primarily, want advertising and booking rates for student groups. Already have $10,000 in funding, from other grants.
SAL Committee Reps
Committee works on approving VSO applications, implementing policies on how VSOs should be approved/ managed, and what types of resources we should provide them with.
Typhoon Relief Efforts
Adrienne says talked with Johnny about it, can use UNICEF cards on every table encouraging people to donate on a link. Ashveer says is it possible to send out a link to attendees? Ateeq says that idea is great, but many students may not show up because of this. Maybe can have a signup desk next to the sign in for people to donate? What if we had the PASU group set up a desk encouraging donations? Petr says may be choose just one option instead. Ben says what if made small speech at the event? Eduardo says what if we hand out tickets? David will follow up with PASU.
Advocacy Updates
Ateeq:
-GHAC meeting talked about students in Munger who put up their apt on AirBNB or VRBO.com, and don’t tell their roommates. Housing is upset about this because it violates a lot of contracts. Looking for inputs on how to resolve this issue. GHAC meeting on Monday. Ashveer says they should do sting operations, for example probing people’s emails. Ateeq says they might send out an email in the next months warning people, perhaps with an amnesty period right now. Petr says if we know the channels that people are doing this, why can we not just filter them? Ateeq says info is protected. Ashveer says that you cannot come to Stanford and think this is ok to do. What if accident happens on campus, and it is not a student, sexual assault, etc.? Wendy asks about how many cases? ateeq will ask on Monday. Ateeq says Stanford has non profit status, but requires that only Stanford affiliates can stay in housing, if we violate the rules then they can revoke our non profit status. Petr says it would be good to understand what the official process to look like, Ateeq says it is very hard to use. Can get ppl through SUPost or Craigslist, but must have ppl registered through housing office. Ben says it is a Fundamental Standard violation. Ateeq says bigger problem in the fall.
- Has meeting with Dean Plummer next week about issues with student life and student issues.
- Wants to email out to all engineering students about GSC engineering reps.
Adrienne:
-signup for the retreat
Eduardo:
- student at School of Medicine and want to expand the Safe Spaces program. Can train students who can then go to panels at different residences to talk about how to make LGBT inclusiveness in residences.
David
- OCS meeting next week.
Meeting Adjourned

 

GSC Meeting 2013-11-06

November 6, 2013 by in Proceedings

Minutes Approval

Approved

 
Stanford Concert Network
Indie band, expected 200 people. Would ask for 5k. Hoping at least 30 grad students would go. Ashveer says we’ve never heard of this band. Adrienne says that’s a lot of money for 30 students. Trevor says maybe come back next week with a more detailed description + lower sum.
ETH Zurich Folks
14 ppl, student project to look at use of tech we employ in learning. Meeting diff ppl in a few days. Reason why came to GSC is because has equivalent in ETH, look at diff ways we represent student pop at Stanford. Want to sit down with us later.
VSO Requests
Stanford Alpine Proj
-Organizing geology events for community. Hosting chili cookoff. Requested $450 for 100 attendees. Recommendation $400 food $50 prog, tickets for event cost $6 each. Advertising with posters, have also used other methods like Rains events list. Unanimously passes.
Stanford Brewing club:
-$450 for beer tasting. Event is capped based on size of room so everyone can taste most of the beers. Hoping to accommodate 60-80 ppl. Currently paid members is 28, mailing list at 200. How is it capped? Someone will check IDs at the door to count attendees, first come first serve. Recommendation is $320 snack cap, $30 prog, total $350. Vote on $350: unanimously passes. Wendy says situation falls within snacks and alcohol. Vote on extra $80, passes unanimously.
Spanish association:
-Welcome BBQ sunday, requesting $425. Recommendation $425. Advertises through Bechtel. Ashveer says reach out to Europe center. Vote on $425, passes unanimously.
ASHA for Eduxation:
-$500 for Diwali event, expecting 1000-1500 ppl, still within caps of dinner. Voting on $500, passes unanimously.
Dutch @ Stanford:
-Traditional Dutch holiday celebration, about 50 ppl, trying to get all European ppl involved. Asking for $225, recommended. Ashveer asks about Europe center again. Voting $225, passes unanimously.
French student Assoc:
- 2 events: cheese and wine, in Havana room, and King’s cake event at Bechtel. Asking for $1080 in total for both events, recommended. Wine and cheese event includes dinner too. Ashveer asks about Europe center. They said tried to contact them last year and they didnt respond. Ashveer gives them his email. Voting for $1080, passes unanimously.
Thai student assoc:
-Stanford-Berkeley Thai soccer match. Requesting $1000 food and $150 equipment, which will come to GSC after the event is over. Ashveer says should let East Asian center know about event. Recommendation is for $1150. Passes unanimously.
ACSSS:
-Autumn social event at Tresidder Oak lounge west. Expect 100 ppl. Provide snacks and drinks, $400, $50 prog. Venue costs $550. Total $1000. Recommended $1000 total. Not yet in touch with the east asian center. They said this is social so maybe not appropriate? Ashveer says they would love to have them. Adrienne says that they should try to get everyone who is interested in China to come. Voting $1000, passes unanimously.
Green Store
-online store that sells sustainable products to students. Hoping to switch to diff website because SSE and ASSU wants reports every month. Will use Shopify which has PCI compliant and produces reports every month. Has a monthly fee of $79, and since Green store doesn’t want to use budget on this, asking from the GSC. In bill also has provision that Green Store receive $1500 for advertising for the next year. Think would also love to add composting materials to store. Ashveer says that if he were SIA and want to buy their products instead of solo cups, how much would it cost? Susie says cheap because they buy from Axe and Palm, 70 recycle cups is $4 something. Reallly good way to make products available to students in an easy way. Adrienne says is it available to departments? Susie says yes, as long as on-campus delivery location. Paul asks if UG contributed any? Existing money was given by the UGs. Bill will fund GS annually until we vote no on it. There are also regulatory hurdles but not relevant to us. ASSU says that Shopify is ok, platform is same as student store .Wendy says what if Shopify increases their cost in the future, then do we need a new bill? Susie says since bill is recurrent every year, will continue until we cancel it. Suspending the rules: 9 present, 8 for 1 against. Rules suspended. Vote on bill to fund Green Store, 8 for, 1 abstain. Rules reinstated.
Nom Com bills
-John: 4-5 students for judicial panel pool and IRB, second for voids on high profile committees. 3rd is amendment to bylaws about terms of nom com to calendar year. Voting for NC-F-2013-1 and NC-F-2013-2 and NC-F-2013-3: unanimously passes.
Elections Commissioner
Hunter is here, came a few weeks ago too. Right now working with execs, will need help submitting stuff to grad community. Voting for EC-F-2013-1: unanimously passes.
Publicity Rules for GSC Funded Events
Should we make real rules before they come, such as for them to say which places we have reached out to. Recommendations for where to advertise in, for different ethnic groups, or departmental groups? Wendy says good idea, but reinforcement hard. Already looking for ecvents on calendar is hard. Maybe a way to automate it? Ashveer says can play hide and go seek on GSC calendar in the meeting. Adrienne says in spirit of publicizing, cannot have acronyms on calendar. Trevor says maybe require tags (like “free food!”) on GCal. Wendy says when someone adds GSCstanford  as a guest on the google calendar, we can’t directly edit stuff on the calendar. Ashveer says he will make some guidelines and send it out to us. Adrienne and Wendy says should be a recommendation only, since there are groups without a clear group to publicize to. Susie says we can threaten them with not funding them. Adrienne says we should not approve someone in the next 2 weeks.
C-GS
Adrienne will do it if Bryce doesnt want to.
GSC Retreat
-Dinner-esque retreat. Adrienne says maybe Malibu Grand Prix next few weeks (bumper cars and mini golf and pizza arcade games bowling etc). Wendy says theres a great online scheduling thing called “when2meet”. Adrienne says it’s closed. =( Will figure out something else. Maybe SSF?
Advocacy or Proj Ideas
-Defense class: Wendy says shoulnt have closed signup since in the end only 26 ppl came. Couple ppl asked if we could do another one. Kenpo time members were volunteering their time. Wendy says havent approached yet to ask about the second workshop, and not sure what the turnoiut would be if next time since this rime not that many ppl showed up. Went to most recent meeting of intl student group leaders at Bechtel, asked about what CAPS could do more for students. Also met with Ira and Ron, now have predoc at CAPS who can help with outreach at CAPS. Can devote more tiime than the actual prof staff. Got updated on support resources website, gave advice, being pitched down the line to Greg Boardman. Still working with Vaden to figure out diff ways they can do outreach to intl students. LGBT peer counseling being scrapped because of funding.
-Sustainability: pushing project with water bottle refilling station. Lot of energy around ccomposting right now. Want every CA to have a composting workshop at events. In general, going very well. Need GSC to give them a letter that says that we as the grad students want an introduction sheet about composting in welcome packet for grad students. Wendy says that she’s heard that a lot of ppl not familiar with recycling as part of everyday life, maybe need to educate ppl more, likes leaflet idea.
- Johnny good with Thanksgiving dinner.
- Diversity Advocacy committee met last week, chose diff VSOs that are diversity focused. Want mixer next week to raise awareness of what DAC is and what they should accomplish. Need 3-4 more ppl on it.

GSC Meeting 2013-10-30

October 30, 2013 by in Proceedings

Approve minutes: passed unanimously

John Dodini & Nom Com
Talking about nom com bills, put on prev notice. First bill is IRB panel, given around when school started. Second bill is for some committees who did not notify them of vacancies earlier. Third bill is amendment to the joint bylaws regarding how nom com is selected. Changes term of nom com to winter quarter to beginning of fall quarter. Can get things done beforehand at the start of the winter quarter. make application time longer for the students. Paul wants to say that this means we have to start looking for GSC nominees for the nom com earlier too. John says yes, diversity is good.
VSO Requests:
Bhakti Yoga Club:
-Diwali event, organized by many student groups. More than 1500 ppl there. This is for food. Wendy is checking that the event is below the total cap for the event. $1000 recommendation. All approves, passes unanimously.
49ers Academy:
-Biosciences students. 49ers academy is an elementary school in East PA. They staff the school labs during some of the days. Take students on trips, etc. Applying for trips, food, various events. Cal Academy trip this year. For first vote: Stanford visit, lunch $640 recommended, end of year trip food $500 prog $1500. Total $3847 recommended. Vote on $3847, unanimously passes. Gas situation is that gas is never funded in line items in guidelines. Not listed as an line item that we fund, but can be overruled. 2-3 cars to SF and back. Voting on $100 for gas. Unanimously passes.
Stanford visit: $640 food
End of year trip: $500 food, $1507 programming for ticket to Cal Academy
Science lesson supplies: $1200 programming
Gas for end of year trip: $100
$3947 in total (incl. gas)
Stanford Biosciences:
Twice a year hold large bbqs where the entire campus is coming. Requesting funding to put on 2  bbqs, in nov and may. Requested $2050 per BBQ, $1800 of that for food and alcohol, also with equip rentals and programming. Both events on GSC calendar. Equip rental for grills. $4100 up to hard cap. Vote on $4100. 12 for 0 against 1 abstain.
Matl Research Soc.
-3 student groups cohosting event. Conference on campus next sat. Like symposium, also with networking events. Next sat at 4:30. $800 for food, should have about 90 students. Recommended $800. Voting unanimously passes.
AHA:
-Speaker in nov. Neuroscientist and comedy magician coming to talk about the illusion behind magic shows. Recommended $153. Saad asks about how related to group mission? They say that magic shows are a setting where you go in and are willing to be deceived, but know that it is not real. Ties into view of not deceiving yourself about nature. $75 for honoraria and $78 for janitorial. Voting foor $153, passes unanimously.
Spicmacay:
-This Sat, cosponsoring an dance event. Requesting $400, recommended. Ashveer asks about publicizing on South Asia Center. Voting for $400, unanimously passes.
SSE FM Selection Process:
Bill hasn’t changed. Bill changes selection process of FM, rectifies issues in bylaws like the FM should not serve in the selection committee, etc. Changes terms to 2 years, since good FMs stay for the full 2 years. Usually a senior and they stay after into the second year. Susie asks about ways to shorten the term if the FM is not doing a good job? Stephen: Bill says the FM can reapply for job, but GSC/UGS can veto them if they want to. Can also fire the FM for fraud or something. Just for informing the applicants and to reflect practice in the bylaws. Voting Unanimously passes.
PR Coord Revamp
-Following up on discussion about improving the GSC email that goes out every week. Want funding to hire programmer to write code to do this. About $600 that they think would cost. Professional services are crazy expensive, maybe the best way forward is to find students. Trevor says need clear documentation about the Python script if we want them to do this. Timeline by the end of this year. Can get an invoice or contract? They are CS PhD students. They’ve made event websites and similar before. Can wait to vote until the invoice/contract/timeline comes in. They said worst case will be by december.
Stanford Concert Network
-Trying to reach out to more grad students. Reached out to cosponsor Frost, last few years the money was for the grad students. One of their members reached out, want to throw a concert for both grad and undergrad, late november. SCN not willing to allocate money to this. Want GSC to provide $7k-10k. Overall feel in GSC is neutral-negative about funding the event. Ashveer plays the video for the band La Policia. Funny youtube comments.
Football 101 Event:
-Athletics reached out to Ateeq Cathy etc to advertise the football 101 event. About 50-60 ppl showed up, it was great. Maybe next year can be during NGSO. They got some coaches and players, went over basic rules, etc. Susie says if they have it at the beginning of year then it could be more educational.
VSO Ticket Sales
-Some VSOs sell tickets and raise money which they then keep. Impose some conditions. In situations where student groups serve a mission, it’s fine. Stephen says that the incentive structure is not good because ppk would just jack up expenses, turns out to be a waste of money. Petr says if there’s a VSO organizes only one event, what if the money just goes into a reserve fund? Stephen says that there’s two kinds of events, ones where you want to subsidize students, and one where you want to sell tickets. Let’s take a look at previous events and look at their spending. Wendy said last year the debate rested on the fact that their first year EEPROM was seed funding, but they came back again. Adrienne says that they also sell tickets. Petr says would be interested how ppl have dealt with events with ticket sales in the past. Austin says that  there’s so many variables in these costs so not a good way to spend time. Wendy says we can just leave things as they are. Bylaws says that they must have tickets available, nothing about ticket prices. Petr says what if make the groups report back how much they made? Stephen wants to say that one thing that’s changed is that they can get loans at the SSE for events where they charge ticket sales. Maybe can help with the decision making process.
Bill to create JLC
-Committee will make recommendations to UGS or GSC, and those will be forwarded to BJA by us. We don’t have authority to make bylaws. 5 members, including 3 UGs and 2 Grads. Paul says this committee should not extend past this year. Petr says that if only suggesting this year and not next, then we should set it in stone in the bill, and if not then we should amend it. Paul wants to start this committee now so minutes will be open and stuff. Time-critical nature since we just vetoed their bylaws. Petr asks if committee can provide a mission by the committee. Paul says yes. David asks if can provide feedback to GSC maybe every week. Voting to suspend rules, rules suspended unanimously. Unanimously passes. Motion to unsuspend rules.
Advocacy Updates:
-Petr is member of American Society for Educating Educators. Have a key need for giving grad students more opportunities to teach. Will ask next week about questionnaire to students.
-Ashveer: Sustainability says that we are not going to get anywhere with composting. We should make it to Patty Gumport that this is what grad students want. Also working on water bottle refilling stations. Also, lots of students who are poor and dont have anything (like basic necessities), especially for students coming from Africa or similar. Want to push university to earmark these people who need help. Want to hear about more stories from people regarding these people. Petr says as they are collecting anecdotal info, look for social vs, financial aspects of the situation. Ateeq said he’s applied for this fund before and they gave it in 2 days. For composting, will talk with PSSI about having more composting areas around campus.
- Maybe the 30k challenge should be advertised, Wendy says.
Meeting Adjourned.

 

GSC Meeting 2013-10-23

October 23, 2013 by in Proceedings

GSC Voting Member Attendance:
Trevor Martin
Sjoerd de Ridder, proxy for Bryce Anzelmo
Susie Choi
Eduardo Gonzalez-Maldonado
Paul Harold
Austin Hay
Johnny Giorgis, proxy for David Hsu
Petr Johanes
Adrienne Johnson
Sam Bydlon, proxy for Wendy Ni
Ashveer Singh
Ateeq Suria
Adam Xu

Bills

Bill: Senate Innovation Fund
Fund Senators (14 currently) to pursue projects. Financial Manager in charge of hiring people to execute programs.
Unanimous vote to suspend rules to vote on bill.
Unanimous passes.

Rules re-instated!

Bill: Overrule Board on Judicial Affairs (BJA) Bylaws
BJA Student Board Members – Came to open up conversation about how BJA/Judicial Panels work; opportunity for Senate & GSC to ask questions;
Explanation of BJA:
BJA is composed of students, faculty and staff to provide oversight on the OCS (composed of staff). BJA puts in place bylaws and rules deemed in the interest of the Stanford Community. Bylaws intent is to put in clear language how to operate (What is/is not okay?). After BJA passes these bylaws, ASSU/GSC have the option to veto them.

Arguments against the bill:
In a 50 minute discussion, GSC/ASSU will overrule 3 years worth of bylaws work by BJA, Office of Community Standards (OCS), GSC, ASSU. The bylaws lay out the procedural structure (e.g. providing rights to responding students).
If vetoed, would it take another 3 years to push for universally-accepted bylaws?
Vetoing the bill would result in certain situations not having a proper procedure as the bylaws serve to fill in the gaps in the Judicial Charter.
e.g. number 6 concerns character evidence allowed to be introduced to panels. If one has taken the time or initiative to start doing community service, at the sanctioning phase, the student may avoid a quarter-long suspension. If bylaws are vetoed, these types of considerations would not be properly documented with an appropriate procedure.
Student Representatives nominated by the Nominations Committee and ASSU/GSC sit on the board. Therefore the opportunity has always been there for students to voice their opinions.

Arguments for the bill:
Lots of students’ rights have been violated by OCS and BJA due to the bill.
Student who went through the process this past Winter – evidence can be brought up last minute and left to judicial chair’s discretion on whether to decide it’s relevancy. Bylaws violate right to prepare timely as student missed submitting a paper in order to have all paperwork in on time. OCS can talk to other University Officials about the case – student was interviewing with RCC at the time and Res Ed pulled his application stating certain issues came up.
Vetoing the bylaws would increase the urgency of the process → method to raise attention to issue.

Complaints:
From a procedural standpoint; students have asked over the past year to attend BJA meetings (especially those concerning any changes to the bylaws), but were either ignored or told not to show up.

Regardless of outcome, a new joint-committee on judicial affairs is to be created to address student/OCS issues. The committee will work on correcting the bylaws after review by the two bodies (BJA & ASSU/GSC).

Vote:
For – 5
Against – 4
Abstaining – 0
Bill passes by 5-4-0

VSO Requests

Israeli Student Association
Requesting $345 – Recommended full
Quarterly barbecue with Israeli food/music @ Rains BBQ Pit
Open to all – expecting 50 guests
Advertising – on GSC Calendar, on all Israel related mailing lists, but need to reach out to academic centers
Unanimous passes.

GradQ
Requesting $180 – Recommended full
Halloween Mixer this Friday for before Grad-wide Halloween Party.
$160 for food; $20 for programming
Unanimous passes.

Pakistanis at Stanford
Requesting $350 – Recommended full
Foster Pakistani culture on campus
Talk next Wednesday – Expecting 100 people
Unanimous passes.

Indian Diwali (Festival of Lights) Event
Request $3000 – Recommended 3250
People-oriented festival – bringing people closer together.

Unanimous passes.

Shaking the Foundations Conference
Requesting $1659.10 – Recommended full (transfer)
This is a transfer.

GSC meeting 2013-10-16

October 16, 2013 by in Proceedings

GSC Member Attendance
Trevor Martin
Bryce Anzelmo
Saad Bhamla
Susie Choi
Eduardo Gonzalez-Maldonado
Paul Harold
Austin Hay
Petr Johanes
David Hsu
Adrienne Johnson
Ashveer Singh
Wendy Ni
Ateeq Suria
Adam Xu

 

Minutes
-Unanimously passed.

VSO Funding
Chinese Women’s Collective
-Welcoming dinner next week, annual event. Aims to let more Chinese students know about their association and what they are going to do during this year, social networking, etc. Expect about 60 students, applying for funding about $480 food snacks and drinks. Recommended is actually dinner, Recommended full $480 amount (way below cap). Advertising to own mailing list, collaborate with ACSSS to advertise event, other relevant Chinese centers. Ashveer suggests Center for East Asian Studies on campus to advertise, and GSC calendar. Wendy says still not on calendar yet. Conditioned on having it on GSC calendar for tomorrow. Vote, unanimously passed.
Shaking the Foundations
-Progressive lawyering conference, was here 2 weeks ago. How Law intersects with social aspects. Marketing to diff grad students in schools. Before had requested up to $6000, but read funding guidelines incorrectly so only applied for food. Now back to get back to the cap. Request $3250 because combined with previous funding would reach cap. Has speakers coming in (honoraria). Law school is matching funds whatever GSC provides. $1659.10 for equipment rental. Labor (table, chairs), keynote address for about 200 ppl. She lists off a lot of prices for equipment, which is too fast to be taken down in minutes. Trevor says in the future can be a separate funding line on the budget. Recommended $3250 by FC. Passes unanimously.
GSB Rugby Club
In 2 weeks, hosting a tournament with teams coming in from all over the place. Over 2 days, one day off site and one day on site. All day event. Have entrace fees that come to about $8000. Requested funding because want to have spectator food and drinks. Putting on BBQ and drinks from 8:30-6pm. Serving food throughout. Budgeted for 350 ppl to turn up, but probably an underestimation. Also requested money from the GSB. $2900 for food, $175 for programming. On the calendar already. Recommended $2900 for food, $175 for programming, total of $3075. Ashveer asks about other non-top-elite schools, whether they looked for those? Part of it is that rugby is only common at these schools mentioned, not others. Not charging for food and drinks. Trevor says if it is possible to outreach GSC to GSB, need a Business rep right now. They said that’s fine. Voting 15-1-0, passes.
Spicmacay
Indian music group on campus, bring artists from India to come perform for students for free on campus. Hosting a campus concert, famous guitar concert. Request $600 for honoraria, being matched by ASSU, for total from $1200 for honoraria. Recommendation was $600 that was requested. Wendy said it is still not on the calendar. Voting unanimously passes.
Campus construction update:
Joseph Kearney. Work for land buildings and real estate group. New Stanford Energy System Innovation Project on campus. Campus has embarked on half billion project to convert energy system from co-gen to heat recovery system. Via Ortega and Campus drive, will be shut down on April 1 2015, building new plant out by Stanford golf field. Converting campus from steam to hot water. Driver is that existing plant is nearing its lifetime, looking at greenhouse gas reductions and water savings. The campus does simultaneous heating and cooling every day. Have 70% overlap between heating and cooling. Consultants said that heat recovery is a really good option for energy. They are going to shut down the co-gen plant, stop generating electricity on campus, and buy electricity from the grid, and do heat recovery on campus. Taking the waste heat that comes back from the chill water system, draw heat out, inject heat into the hot water system, circulate around campus. New central energy camp, electrical substation, 20 miles of new distribution piping throughout campus. Converting 160 buildings on campus from steam to hot water. BJ colleague is a new project for the plant, Board of Trustees gave final approval last week, have to be up and running by April 2015. Have an office of sustainability and engineering management, website: sustainable.stanford.edu, look at the information about SESI there. Ongoing construction on campus: most of the utility work ongoing is the work installing the pipes. Out of 20 miles of pipes, have 14 in the ground, 11 are put in service, about 6-7 to go until they’re done. Anticipating the construction to be done in next Oct. Nov. Bulk of work was in the core campus area, now pushing out to the perimeters. Next year will be primarily out in Oak and Welsh roads, cow clusters? Med school areas. Core work on campus has been complete. Building conversion work is ramping up right now. About 100 buildings to go before next April. Maxed out in construction planning right now, incredible amount of work that’s ongoing and what they’re pushing to happen. After SESI winds down, construction will still be very consistent. Adam talks about building conversions. Also in the new hospital complex, going to be installed there. Quick factoids: usually there’s a balance between sustainability and dollars. With SESI, both sides of the table are happy, viable long-term, also reduces greenhouse and water usage. Immediately drop greenhouse emissions by 50% by day one of starting, can continue with purchasing more green electricity, potable water usage drops 20%. Case 1 project for SESI feasibiltiy was done on athletic campus. Since then, 18 other buildings have been converted, with about 120 to go. Work inside the mechanical rooms, replacing all existing steam equipment with heating hot water and domestic hot water equipment to run off the utility water. With some buildings easy, some difficult. Some buildings, have to demo out all the steam, so no heat or hot water for 6 weeks, before new stuff it is installed. Working on Munger right now (and Mirrelees, but that’s undergrad). Can’t take hot water out of Munger for 6 weeks, so have temporary reservoir to use before the new system is installed. Bryce asks what extra work is needed in the regional level in order to support this change? Stanford is now direct purchaser of the grid, can purchase hydro power from Washington, can buy nuclear, etc. Portfolio where they can buy power is pretty wide, will expand grid, building a little redundancy that’s currently not there. Adrienne asks about “overlap” in heating and cooling? They said that, server rooms are air conditioned like crazy, coldest air drives the building for the server room, but same air going to other rooms, and reheat coils heat up the air again to warm the air so that the other rooms stay at a comfortable temperature while the server room is being cooled. That overlap is where the energy efficiency will be gained. Eduardo says the new system that is used heat that is lost? They said yes, right now when water returns to the cogen building, it is just evaporated, The payback is about 30 years, but overall they looked at 15 options of what to do, and this one was the best options because of all the requirements needed. Petr asks about the lifetime of the project. They said about 50 years. Bryce says that, construction on campus is maxed out? They said it’s mostly about construction fatigue. Bryce asks what the main driver for all the construction projects are? For new buildings? They said it’s programs, med school, engineering, completion of bioe and cheme buildings. Med school has so many new buildings in plans right now. Trevor asks about grad life: new power plant is next to residences right now, says there are complaints about the construction taking place at weird times. They said yes and no, plant needs continuous concrete pours, during peak hours, concrete pour runs all night long. Had to do it at all hours, concrete trucks had to continuously run, so they have to go off-hours to avoid traffic (from concrete plant to the pour). Trevor says need better outreach. They said yes, have done good job with undergrads, but not grads, especially residences that are next to the projects. Have a listserv for issuing updates, asks if we have a listserv that the GSC can send to them so that they can use. Chairs say that CA’s maybe good.
PR Revamp: Saad
Saad met with Trevor a couple of weeks ago, talking about revamping GSC newsletter. Last year they had PR reps, this year they had project for updating GSC website, one thing that’s still old fashioned is the GSC newsletter. Text-based email. Now proposal is that it would be good idea to revamp into html based newsletter? Divided into different sections (academic, social?) with internal links? Second option is that since now has good website, come up with new ideas. Stephen says that the SSE already does a lot of similar things. Can share membership with us, could look at statistics like which links are the most clicked, etc. Happy to help out with. Saad says that for our events on Google Calendar, need to paste stuff in. Stephen says that need to figure out how to do html events by themselves. Saad says could be a python script or something. Easier and can continue past this year. More ideas can go to Saad. Stephen says that one last usage of __ is that can see how many people opened the email. Saad asks if there is need to reinstate PR coordinator again? Trevor says maybe yes, right now between him Bryce and Xi, responsibilities include keeping website up to date, etc. Saad’s main goal is to find someone else to write this script. Petr’s questions: what are the PR issues for the GSC? How would collecting more data actually help us? FOr example if we find out that only 2% graduate students open the email, how does that help us? Saad says that PR issue is converting the email to easier to read format. Trevor says the answer to the second question is more about how to improve what we are doing? Figure out if we need to use grad wide list? Petr says may be good idea to craft PR strategy for the GSC. Saad says we’ve tried FB and blogging on website, but difficult. Main method is the mailing list that goes out weekly. Adrienne says that party fliers did reach a lot of people on FB, so does want to keep attention on that. Bryce says that events with free beer always get people. Adrienne says that FB statistics can see how many people clicked on it, etc. Adam asked about talking with Xi about writing a script, going from google calendar to a standardized format? Saad says worked with Xi last year too, doesn’t know if he updated Python skills yet, right now the script is in Python. Integrating APIs wasn’t an option last year. Voting to reinstate Saad as PR coordinator, passes unanimously!
SSE Bill:
Selecting new CEO of SSE this quarter and next quarter. Having gone through thsi process twice now, Stephen says current bylaws doesn’t really make sense. The Financial Selection committee is never specified in the bylaws. Financial Manager proposed these bylaw changes. Try to make a consistent process that makes sense, fits timelines, etc. Paul has questions: why did they create this presumption against FM serving one term? Stephen says probably because so that they can ensure students would continually change over to create continuity. Says changes make sense. Benefits significantly outweigh the detriment of the FM to change every year. Linguistic suggestions. Major points: under the “standard selection process if FM does not reapply”, why not just have the committee rank the candidates, then if the first candidate is rejected, go to the second? Stephen says that there’s a first choice candidate and no other options generally, given the FMSC responsibility to select those people also offers them the possibility of choosing the candidates if they are strong, but can also look at other people. They can define that process when they see what is going on is a good move, instead of restricting them to a very specific process. On the whole, giving them leeway to define selection process is right move. Stephen says that if it is not practical to go to a ful interview process, maybe interview the old candidates? Paul says: in situation where FM reapplies for the position, about the report that the FM has to prepare, these bylaw provisions doesn’t mention that the GSC/ASSU can look at the report. Is this appropriate? Stephen says it is reasonable for this to be a thing, but if doesn’t trust FMSC to make a good decision, then maybe should discuss FMSC more than the specific candidate. Stephen says can add something into the bill to make the report public, but perhaps has private information. Paul says that amendments mention that the financial manager chooses the assistant financial manager, and there’s associate financial manages when they start. Stephen says that the associate FM doesn’t really get paid, out of the scope of this bill; Assistant FM is at the FM’s discretion, FM has to spend money on them. FM has very restricted funds, must find the budget for that. can have Assistant FM’s, or pay them 500 bucks, whatever the FM thinks is a reasonable number. Doesn’t know what the impact will be, but FM’s role to figure that out. We’re voting on thsi next week.
ASSU Office:
Stephen sent out email about how they want GSC input to the new redesign of the office. Want to redesign student union space, if we are interested, the substantive work is now looking at office space and looking at what we want to do with it, looking at what we want and need. GSC can appoint 0-2 members to look at this office. Stephen says can probably get the GSC some office space at the SSE. Prrobably need to share office space with current users. One idea is to provide student office space to student groups. Can discuss how the ASSU fits into the union space. Paul says he would be interested in helping. Bryce says he would be too. Voting on having Paul and Bryce be on the working group for the ASSU office space. Passes unanimously.
Self Defense Class
Next Wednesday at 7pm-8:30pm at Burnham, requesting $160 to buy snacks for 40 people. Right now has 24 people that signed up, considering that it’s only been advertised in 4 venues. Will further promote by sending to CAs, also want different school reps to forward to their members. If more than 50 people sign up, then will probably have to shut it down because not able to accommodate so many people. Voting on $160 from the programming discretionary account, had issues booking rooms because there were no rooms at Arrillaga. Adrienne says maybe can give gifts if there is funding. Ashveer says read email, doesn’t have the date in the body of the email, might be nice to have in the rest of the emails. Voting for $160 passes unanimously.
BJA By-Laws
Paul says it is very hot topic. Met with Jessica Dragonetti, Miles Seiver, Koren Bakkgard, Ben Holston, etc. Bill intended to improve BJA process. Bill overrules what the BJA did during the spring quarter. Want transparency and openness, gives student a voice into administration. BJA had closed door meetings, not keeping detailed minutes about deliberations on these bills, other actions they took. Paul emailed Koren and asked about why minutes not being posted since May 2012? Particularly grave given the importance attached to judicial affairs at Stanford. Lists off several cases where the BJA minutes are too short. Paul took out the language in the bill that criticizes the OCS and BJA. Susie asks what did Koren and Jessica say when Paul met with them? BJA has 4 different sub committees that draft these amendments. They meet in secret, no minutes at all. On BJA, 6 students, 6 faculty, 3 admin. Nominating Ashveer, and Paul to be involved on this Student Justice Project.
Thanksgiving Dinner
Trevor emailed Provost and got funding. Funding coming out of discretionary first and then reimburse from Provost. Adam can help issue a check. Need to get volunteers. Responsibilities are mostly to get students in. Alphabetically had students in, had 8 volunteers in total. Adrienne wants a sample run of turkey into the GSC meeting before.
Advocacy Updates
-Next week having joint meeting with undergrads on Wednesday at Cypress Room at 6pm-7pm. Provost will be there too. Afterward can have a brief meeting.
-DAC: mixer in November, with Chicanos GradQ BGSA LEGOs BioAIMS WEE
-Bryce: electric charging stations in pipeline, currently 6 on campus, going up to 50+, in the works, trying to figure out where to locate them. Susie asks if they are talking to P&TS only, or also sustainability people.
-Ashveer and Susie: getting water bottle refilling stations. Meeting with sustainability peoplen ext next week. Also maybe want to get more composting stations. But there’s issues of getting compost bins from bookstore, paying for it, etc.
End Meeting

GSC Meeting 2013-10-09

October 9, 2013 by in Proceedings
GSC Attendance
Trevor Martin
Bryce Anzelmo
Susie Choi
Eduardo Gonzalez-Maldonado
Lori Weekes, proxy for Paul Harold
David Hsu
Wendy Ni
Ashveer Singh
Johnny Giorgis, proxy for Ateeq Suria
 

Minutes

Approved
VSO Requests
GSEE:
GSEE = Graduate Students in Electrical Engineering. Event is EEPROM, have one every winter, open to all the grad students. Last year we had around 300 students. Event is on January 17, 2014, 9pm-1am. Event is a formal, includes dinner and snacks and drinks for students and dancing. We have at the Oak Lounge in Tresidder, the venue can hold up to 350 students and last we actually exceeded the amount by a little. Recommendation, initially applied for $4750 based on 350 student estimate, but last year’s stat only had 312 Stanford students with the rest being non-students, so readjusted food cap amount. Remaining amount is for janitorial. Recommended $4240. Department budgeted with $1000, ticket sales will cover the rest. Last year had discussion about money going back to GSEE from ticket sales. No questions. David recuses from voting. Unanimously passes (except for David). Trevor tries to be funny.
GradQ:
Eduardo representing! National Coming Out week this week. Share coming out stories, etc. GRad students always have mixer by Studio 1 right before fire truck house party. Requesting mixer party money. $210, $180 food $30 prog, 60 ppl. Initially only applied for food, notified that they have programming too so added that on too. Recommended $210. Unanimously passes.
Spicmacay: Absent, pushed till next week.
Turkish Students:
Welcome event for new students, mixer for old students too. TSA gathering, same day is religious day, Turkish culture to celebrate with friends and family. 10/18 at Tresidder Patio. Requesting $390, mostly pizzas and baklavas and some drinks. Ashveer asks about advertising, they said Facebook. Ashveer says there’s some centers available, so he should reach out to them. GSC Calendar? Yes. Susie asks where is Tresidder Patio? Right in front of Coho and Campus Bike shop, there are tables, maybe for 50 ppl. Recommendation was $395. Unanimously passes.
ASSU/SSE Major Projects Request
Stephen: he just sent out an email 14 seconds ago sending out updated bill. Small changes. Wanted to update and it was the bill passed by the UG senate. 3 changes: on each bill there is section on back clause saying that they can’t spend money on EVENT honoraria, and not just honoraria in general x 2 (one on each bill). Third change is UGS wanted to each veto transactions out of the office improvement fund, it used to say that the legislative bodies can jointly do so, but now we can each veto them. Questions. David asks about 60% UG and 40% grad users of the office. Many come in for reimbursements. Back office area is all SSE area. Voting ASSU-F13-1 passes unanimously passes, ASSU-F-13-2 unanimous passes.
Thanksgiving Dinner
Johnny doing it! Met with Eric and Ray, they deal with logistics with dinner and menu. He just has to organize the students. Last year 3 times available. Contacted Marine, she gave info on how they did it. Need to ensure enough volunteers to check in and registration. Biggest thing is that the costs needs to have half up front, who should Johnny talk to to get that check? Trevor says if last year is that we funded half and then got reimbursed by the Provost, then we need a bill for that for the exact amount. Would be ideal if at the meeting to pass the bill, Johnny could show proof of funding by the Provost.
Advocacy and Project Updates
1. Green Store project. Susie!! Online service that sells eco friendly products to students, deliver directly to student residences. Service has been part of ASSU STudent Services division since 2008, now has roadblocks. One issue is that typically relied on E-Groups through SSE, like Paypal, for online orders, but service no longer offered. Stuck because business model is online ordering.  Not allowed to go outside the University to use Paypal, so they’ve been looking at working with bookstore and various offices, but hard. Stanford Student Store has website that uses alternative payment system called MyShopify, Susie asks Stephen about that system and if they can use it. Stephen says that issue with selling things at Stanford is accounting for goods in your store and making sure that they are correctly reporting all of the financial metrics that need to be reported from something like a store. The stanford Student store has strong management of all the inventory, do monthly audits, hand counts every quarters, make tons of reports to the ASSU. Financial manager also not very trusting of any student group that is not directly managed (she can’t fire people) to be doing that reporting of the financial metrics that she needs to remain in compliance with state law and accounting practices. Susie says that, he says they need to re-establish themselves in the ASSU, would they have to be directly under the SSE’s purview? Can’t just take orders from SSE instead? Doesn’t understand why does it need to be directly under SSE while in the past few years they’ve been directly operating. Stephen says that they have no idea where their inventory is and group disintegrated, and still don’t really know what’s going on, although not her fault, there’s a problem with frequent turnover. Need maintanable leadership and accountability over years, that’s why CEO not comfortable with any student group selling items. If it happens this year, no guarantees that it’ll happen next year, or 5 years from now. Trevor says can’t we just audit every year, and if there’s leadership this year, then go ahead and sell ; if next year no, then you stop. Does the need to be organize carry more weight than offering this service? Mahalia says that they used to purchase stuff from Green Store, and also have problems with turnovers, and found that they are managing books from year to year, and for them sometimes they work with startups that come and go, and they would like to work with the Green Store, convenient if they were available because they would like to have more compostable products, and GS is a resource. Logistically might be challenging, but just having them there is better than nothing. Stephen responds to both: problem is that if they can’t pull the info they need immediately, ex. if in 5 years GS doesn’t give info for June, it’s not just GS that shuts down, the entire organization gets a black mark against it, and can’t take that lightly. They prepare 6 months for their audit every year, and we can talk to CEO about what kind of model they would like to have. Would like to have their manager part of the student store, why do we need to create a third weird structure that we kind of have control over some things and not over others. Need to make sure that GS doesn’t mess up SSE’s books. Offering E-Commerce products that is not controlled by SSE creates risks that the CEO has determined that they would not want to do it. Would love to have conversation about including GS in the Student Store, is already set up, have offered that option. Susie says that students don’t want to be Student Store is that because it’s being done for profit so that you can be sustainable as an organization. GS just want to sell eco friendly products as cheap as possible because they are already marked up and they don’t want to discourage students from purchasing those products. If they go into Student Store then that’s probably going to jack up prices and they don’t want that. Another thing is that when students think Student Store, they don’t think “eco friendly products”, don’t know how much of the Student Store will actually be dedicated to eco friendly products, such as bamboo toothbrushes, etc, how will they have these materials and products without this concern about sustainability? That’s why it is not a top choice. But sounds like even if they did find another online checkout system, because of the institutional issue, wouldn’t be able to do it. Her problem is that in the past 5 years, why haven’t they been asked to produce reports and stuff, and why now? They kept track of all purchases under google spreadsheet for years, and were never asked for that information. Stephen says: Selling things at breakeven costs is a goal that the Student Store could adopt, but there are overhead costs that they have to pay for, either people who are managing the risk of the GS externally, or people inside SSE to manage in the same way. He respects break even costs goal, but as a business model it is not possible otherwise. Why now? In short, GS’s operation during Susie’s sophomore year was a mess and they have spent the past 3 years cleaning up, they now have someone working on it. Now they have increased oversight over what they do. Trevor says  what if the GSC would act as the patron of the GS, making sure all the auditing requirements are fulfilled, etc? Stephen says that the GSC also turns over and he would be hesitant to support that as well. But Trevor says that could be an advantage, if we must pass a bill every year to make it work. Stephen says must talk to CEO to figure it out. Can certainly talk about other models, if someone else is absorbing the risks and costs, then that’s different. But for now the risk management is too great that they are not open to doing it. Bryce says, so there might be a compromise if they sat down and hashed it out? Stephen says certainly possible, both Financial manager and CEO would need to sit down. Eduardo asks about any costs to operate currently? Susie says no, everyone is a student volunteer, only costs would be marketing. They have funding ($8000) from the ASSU that they gave us to us, use that when they need inventory, feeds back into system when people buy products. Susie wants to say on the record that the convo with Stephen was the most freaking useless conversation she’s ever had.
Trevor: all meetings will have section where people can brainstorm together on problems and solve them together so we can get feedback from everyone.
GSC Office
Bryce had idea of having office hours, once a week, someone sits in the office and someone comes and talk to GSC member face to face instead of just going online. Lots of people don’t even know that we have office space. Would also raise awareness about the equipment that we rent out. Maybe would be the chairs, Trevor mentioned why not any GSC members who are willing? Maybe once every two months or something?
Rains Halloween Party
Oct. 25. If Mahalia has a flyer that advertises the party, send it to Trevor by tonight so they can put it on the website. One-page flyer. Funding should* be approved already, but has to check with Adam or Wendy. PDF flyer is ideal. Next week come by and give an update? Mahalia says: annual Halloween party, has approval from party people, taking place at Hacienda Commons from 9pm-1am on Oct. 25. Have a DJ, photobooth, plenty of beer and cider, EANABs too. Expect about 1000 people, planning to order 5 kegs? Trevor says NOT ENOUGH! Mahalia says notes from the last decade of this party, last year they ran out of beer at 12:30am but still had cider. They have another jockey box this year. Bryce says GSC party had 14 kegs and ran out by midnight. Mahalia says problem is with distribution. Ashveer says for GSC, had one person per tap not per jockey box, perhaps they should do that too, but if they want to do that then they need to order another keg or two. Police ordered, registered, has wristbands, on the GSC calendar, have cleaning, have some people helping but need more volunteers. Trevor says they should check money in their account, Mahalia says they are good on equipment.
Meeting Finished!

 

GSC meeting 2013-10-02

October 2, 2013 by in Proceedings

GSC Members Attendance:
Trevor Martin
Bryce Anzelmo
Saad Bhamla
Susie Choi
Paul Harold
Meredith Townsend, proxy for Eduardo Gonzalez
David Hsu
Petr Johanes
Wendy Ni
Ashveer Singh
Adam Xu

Minutes
Approved unanimously.

VSO Requests
Solar wind and energy project:
-For speaker series for this year, 4 speaker events during academic year, speakers talk about energy and industry. Two tentative events locked down is speaker about solar entrepreneurship and another on a PV system workshop. Last year had 6 speaker evevents, this year requesting for 4 events for now. This is application for food funding. Original for $2500 which is over cap. Now cut down from 6 to 4 for total of $1500. Soft cap is 50 x 30 = 1500, max that FC can recommend for year. At time of funding meeting, they didnt finalize any of the talks. Wendy needs to make sure that they know that all events funded by GSC need to be of interest to all graduate student bodies, and if very specific events, might be in violation of guidelines. She’s talking about a particular PV workshop about a software package, might not have humanity students interested in learning the software. She understands that in general topic appeals across majors, but in specific events, the topics need to be applicable to all grad students. They said that they can allocate funds in a more appropriate way to events that they will hold. Paul asks about whether science background needed, they said no. Last year’s PV workshop not only about the software package, but about the entire industry too. Voting unanimously passes.

Shaking the Foundations:
-2 day conference, open to everyone, progressive lawyering conference, but they are creating an event to talk about interscection of advocacy, community organizing, and social movements. Have panels that talk about educational reform, effective advocacy, and other things. Touches every corner of advocacy on campus. Applied for $5990, recommended $2750 by FC. Originally applied for funding for a number of meals, but funding guidelines say each event can only be associated with meal. They also have funding coming from law school and other public service organizations. Can also resubmit next week for other expenses. Paul asks about submitting conference as a series of panel events, Wendy says not sure and is tricky. If submitted as 5 panel events then would fall under “recurring events” so can only fund first 2 anyways. Would be better to fund rentals, such as equipment or facility, to go up to hard cap, instead of misclassifying events. Every year about 250-300 people come. Voting unanimous, passes.

ASHA for Education:
Organize big fundraisers every year. Biggest is Holi, used to support education projects for underprivileged children in India. Asking money for welcome event, reach out to new students and explain what they do, get new students excited in their work. Asking for $500. FO put in additional request later, but Wendy says have problems with Mygroups and orgsync, FO shouldn’t have been able to modify request. Amount they would like to ask is $525. Average attendance is about 50-60 people. They’ve done already 5 tabling events this year. Recommendation is $500, and $25 would be programming maximum cap and the amount is fine. Has put on GSC calendar already. Ashveer recommends finding service organizations across south asian and education communities. They said have worked with Center of south Asian studies, Haas, and others. Trevor proposes we give $525 to ASHA. Voting unanimously passes.

AHA:
Religion and sexuality event, touches on points such as LGBT issues, how can atheists view sexuality, etc. Asking for $85 for janitorial fee. Voting unanimous passes.

Russian student Assoc.:
Have events that unite Russian students. Events open to all Stanford community, put on GSC calendar already. First event is welcome BBQ to meet new ppl who just enter Stanford. Next event will probably be folkloric song evening, and movie watching. Applied $750, Recommendation is $695 to meet food and programming caps. Ashveer asks if they have interfaced with community centers that are related to their mission. ICA has Europe center, another focuses on Russia. Many of these centers do not have a relationship to student groups in these areas. Should work with them more. Voting unanimously passes.

Science Bus:
Budget modification from last week’s funding (hard cap). Reason she is here because they got notified last night they will be charged janitorial fee of $140, but since they have used this facility before without a fee, not sure why it’s there. They want a budget modification for this cost. Converting supply money to facilities janitorial. Using Herren(?) for event. Voting unanimously passes.

Elections Commissioner
Hunter Kodama (hkodama@stanford.edu) is new commissioner. Been involved in many ways in the UG level. Was peer advisor in SAL, junior class president, ASSU leadership program, on cabinet of Execs. Asked to take on this role. Weird state of flux right now. Normally commissioner chosen by last year’s commission, but this didn’t happen this year, so Brianna Pang asked Hunter to take over. There’s no bill yet. What does EC do? Start in winter, run elections process, special fees. Organize special fee groups, take apps, work with SSE to make budget. Also makes timeline for election process. Point people to answer questions about campaigning, issues that arise, number of days used for counting. Improvements for this year? Was working in SAL last year, heard some stuff from Nanci and Brianna, issue with numbers. Work with UGS and GSC as early as possible to make sure which dataset to use, has no problem with using spring dataset, but must get dataset in time.

ASSU Project Request
Stephen is assistant financial manager from ASSU. Put together 2 bills they think are exciting. Asking for $75,000 to improve services and the way they work, capital infrastructure, things that will last for years. There was a third reason but he forgot. Intentionally asking for more money than they budget for, because want leeway for ideas which may pop up unexpectedly.
Bill 1: Office redesign bill. Recently redid main office, Bryce went and thought it was amazing. ASSU office is home to 50-150 group members every day. Litany of things that are wrong like tripping hazards, all the chairs are broken or look like they’ve been peed on or other terrible things. Like new chairs for office. Working with GSC with Execs to talk about what to do with the office space to serve the student body /groups better.
Bill 2: Improve operations. Hire more people. Governing documents are 6 years out of date. Need to go through past emails and update documents. Not hard but very obnoxious. Students need financial incentive to do it in order to make high quality job done. Will make a wiki that they can edit themselves in the future. Will go back 5 years and pull out every bill they’ve passed and put in nice place for future. Ongoing effort for funding reform, to grab data from mygroups2, look at what’s happened in the past, how have we spent money, other things. Two part time people to do that. Last part is for capital group can have extra staff stay extra time for times when they need to stay late. Ashveer concerned about overbudgeting, why can’t we look at a budget now? Stephen says there’s already budgets, but not itemized budgets, but he has gone through 2 cycles of buying furniture already. Already has specific budget for hiring people, but not itemized. He doesn’t want to itemizing, but also want to balance with detail for us. Ashveer says concerned about constituency, how to tell grad students in his department/area and tell them about how this will benefit them? Stephen says will not be served directly from this, but upgrade what they have so student groups can function better. Budget this comes out of is leftover money that wasn’t spent, not a pot of money that was intended for something else first. Ashveer says that graduate life is not really about student groups, and people who are involved in the groups are very involved in their professional schools. Most action he’s seen is the South Asian contingency (like ASHA), and then ethnic student groups. Uncomfortable with spending this money on this, when can spend money on EV improvements (for example). Has hard time justifying this investment. Stephen has 2 things, says that every group here banks through SSE at the end of the day, reimbursements all go through them. Also, money not GSGF reserve, actually from buffer fund (surcharge that was left over). Ashveer asks how he is asking for X amount from us if this is not grad student money? Stephen says there are 4 student fees here, 1 grad and 3 undergrad. On top of those fees, there are surcharges tacked on. In addition, there are endowment funds, and other things. Since buffer funds were created from fees that are charged to students, we have control over these fees, but fees not for “improving graduate life”, we just have control because our constituents paid those fees. Bryce asks why now? Stephen says that they have 3 great people inside SSE who want to make change, all who will graduate next year, and want to make something they will be proud of. Seen same old shit every year. Wants to change things. Now there’s people who have time and expertise to do things. Primarily will happen this year, but may have delays. Stephen will come back to update us on progress periodically. Could always use more people on team. Need more time to do things, since everyone is full time student. People with interior design expertise, IT knowledge. Petr wants Stephen to write up needs and advertise to students. Stephen wants to work with GSB students to look and review their investments. Wendy asks, projects involve improvements to VSOs, are they looking at setting performance metric targets, are there more solid targets? Stephen says has already set reimbursement goals, 3 days. Want systems to alleviate rushes in reimbursements. Will measure satisfaction rates like any organization would. Sent surveys to VSos last year and results were primarily negative, but will send one out again this year. Wendy wants the Money 101 slides sent out again.

New Equipment Master
Benjamin will take over as EM, make sure the room stays organized. He is starting Masters in structural eng. Repainting the room now. Wendy says FC uses the room every Monday, so if they have at least half a table open then that’s good. Most VSOs understanding about the mess in room, just need room for laptops at least. Benjamin says shouldn’t be hard to keep equipment organized in there.

Graduate Student Services (Housing)
Ashveer says update about the girl with the seeing dog, University wanted to force her to move to a studio and pay more. But can’t force them to pay more. Failure by office of accessibility, one other office, and then housing. These offices kept bumping her back to housing. She almost sued but we stepped in. Bryce says also went to meeting for a cat for comfort. Grey zone because not really defined. She asked lawyer for advice and lawyer told her to go to GSC, Bryce and Trevor went to meeting and took care of it. They wanted her to go into studio, because in the past her prescreened roommates have not worked out. Housing says there’s at least 2 cases similar to this which are in trial right now. She’s living in the place, got roommate who is prescreened, everything is fine. Stanford also held a studio for her so she would have a place to stay. She didn’t want to pay more. Housing says no way to subsidize it, so just leave her in room with roommate just like in the past. But good to follow up on that. Ashveer says he can do the followup. Only concern is that such a fantastic place like Stanford can do this to a student, painful for us to hear. Bryce says UGs guaranteed housing, but housing not guaranteed for grads, that’s why there is gray zone. Was sad to hear that office of disability and accessibility did not help her out. Saad says he knows a lot of people who abuse the system, so maybe that’s why the office is like that.

Lyman
Won’t decide what to do for another month at least.

GSC Welcome Back Party
Adrienne thanks everyone who volunteered! Joseph was the glory of the night, was a great advertisement for the night. Sheriff said they triangulated his location from cellphone, he was in a bush, caught crawling out. Not sure if he’s from our party or not. Coincidence that fire alarm triggered and caused fire trucks to come. Alcohol ran out, Susie says in your face to everyone who shot her down.

Website
Trevor says take a look at the website and see if there’s anything that’s out of place and suggestions that we can fix it ASAP. Hoping to launch this Friday. Soon as they hear from Xi, will launch. Will have updates on projects next meeting.

Wendy Update on Women’s Self Defense
Suggested Oct. 28, Wednesday. Stanford Kempo requested that we have the workshop during their meeting. Will not be exactly the same as the one she talked about, where all members dress up in protective gear. In this one they will have pads for you to hit. Right now taking care of venue, not sure how to go about renting a room at the Arrillaga center, if anyone can help? Initially suggested Havana room, they said maybe 30 people is all they can handle, but Wendy says not sure if Havana room big enough because people will be moving and screaming. Paul asks about Roble? Not asking us for any money, but if we get a venue that needs money, Wendy will come to us, and maybe money for snacks and water too.

Trevor Update on Sign Outside Office
Will get sign that says “GSC” outside the office and on the street as well.

GSC Emails about Events
Saad says that maybe groups put events on the calendar first at an arbitrary time, but once script goes, he doesn’t check anymore.

Loophole in Funding Guidelines
Wendy says that loophole is that it says on guidelines about event being on the calendar one week before event and also before you apply for funding. Can’t keep track of events if the event not on the calendar before they apply for the funding.

Thanksgiving Coordinator
There’s a stipend, $800, for very little work. Trevor will find someone tomorrow.

GSC meeting 2013-09-25

September 25, 2013 by in Proceedings

Attendance
GSC Voting Members:
Trevor Martin
Bryce Anzelmo
Saad Bhamla
Susie Choi
Eduardo Gonzalez-Maldonado
Paul Harold
Austin Hay
Johnny Giorgis, proxy for David Hsu
Petr Johanes
Adrienne Johnson
Wendy Ni
John, proxy for Ashveer Singh
Ateeq Suria
Adam Xu

Welcome and Intro
People say their names.

Minutes Approval
Passes unanimously.

VSO Funding Requests
Science Bus
Requesting $6000, recommended full amount
After School program for East Palo Alto School (Science class)
Cover classes, 2 trips (Fall + Winter) + grad student recruitment ⇒ Covers full year
How many grad students participate? 50 tutors, 12 core members
40 – 60 kids served
Wendy – Recommends full $6000
How is recruitment done? Grad events, list of grad students lists its sent out to
Unanimous passes.

Scandinavians at Stanford
Requesting $2790, recommended full amount
Cultural Organization for Grad students interested in/from
FUll year funding – 4 events
Fall – Cray Fish Party
Christmas Holidays – Santa Lucia
Summer + Spring Parties
100/event attendance
Will post events on GSC Events Calendar
Unanimous passes.

BELGICA
Requesting $380, Recommended full amount
Introductory Barbeque – introduce new students to old, anyone interested in Belgium
Expected attendance – 40
WIll put on GSC Calendar
Unanimous passes.

Stanford Biosciences Student Association
Requesting $1900, Recommended full amount
Represent 700 students in School of Medicine
Fall Poster Session – series of orientation events; introduce new students to community
60+ students signed up
Anticipating 175 + grad students (including poster reps)
Future event – other departments have poster boards for free
Already on GSC Calendar
Existing grad students present current research involved in to community + new students
co-sponsored by School of Medicine
Unanimous passes.

Persian Student Association
Requesting $4700, Recommended full amount
Funding for 4 Events; For full year
Welcome Dinner Party – introducing new comers – October 9
Longest night of the year event
Persian New Year – serve dinner, New Year Party – Spring
Persian Valentine’s Day
Want to spend the rest of their allocated spending on the these events
Need to put 1 event on GSC Calendar (Group’s full name, description of event)
Average historical attendance: 220, 150, 190, 210
Unanimous passes.

Korean Student Association
Requesting $3050, Recommended full amount
Represents Graduate Students from Korea
Hold 3 big events every year
Requested funding for Welcome Party for new comers
Open to people interested in KSA, Korean culture
Expect 300 people to attend
Hosted in Tressider Union
Provide orientation focusing on Korean culture
Event on GSC Calendar already
Unanimous passes.

French Student Association
Requesting $590, Recommended full amount
Welcome BBQ – Next Friday, open to all, outdoor bbq behind the GCC in Oasis
Expect 80 people
For food and programming
Unanimous passes.

Stanford Materials Research Society
Requesting $4705, Recommended $3805
Bring together people working on solid state, Material Science, Engineering
To cover events for full year:
Professional Development Programs (2)
Speakers
2 Campus wide (multi-departmental) mixers
Outreach programs – art and sciences kids
Limited funding to 2 events instead of 4 due to rule limitation
Unanimous passes.

Thai Student Association
Requesting $1260, Recommended $847.50
Orientation next Friday – first gathering of the year, welcome incoming Thai students + catch up with old members, introduce new members and board
Open to everyone
On FB event (In english), already on GSC Calendar
Expect 80 grad students, 15 undergrad, 25 others
Unanimous passes.

Stanford Zen Society
Requesting $300, Recommended full amount
Event next Wednesday – Korean Monk to led a meditation session + talk, in Old Union @ 6:30
Expect 30 people
Pay for speaker + dinner
GSC Calendar, mailing list, post flyers, activities fair
Unanimous passes.

Asian American Grad Student Association
Requested $1100, Recommended full amount
Annual Fall Welcome BBQ – October 6th @ Willis Lounge, Rains
Open to grad community
On GSC Calendar already
Unanimous passes.

Environmental Humanities Project
Requested $350, Recommended full amount
Host events – how humanities can provide discourse on issues
Earth Knows No Borders – next Thursday, speaker from University of Louisville
$200 – Honorarium
$150 – Brown bag lunch for 30 people
Co-sponsoring event
Promoting on Humanities Centers Website, Grad Events, mailing list, FB page
GSC Funding for lunch
Should put group name on title of event
Unanimous passes.

Stanford Brewing Club
Requesting $1350, Recommended full amount
Co-sponsored event with German Club for Oktoberfest party
Live Band, food + drinks
Expect 600 people
October 6th 2-6 PM @ Bechtel International Center
Event already on GSC Calendar
Unanimous passes.

Welcome Back Party Update
Flyers available – this coming Friday @ 9-1 AM. Initial flyers were passed along during meeting. Volunteer list being sent out

Coordinate for GSC Thanksgiving Dinner
Last year, 1500 students attended
Need someone to co-ordinate that (paid position starting right now until Thanksgiving)
Approximately 3-4 hours per week. Get food from Coho, funding is arranged
Open to all

Activities Fair
On Friday at White Plaza from 12:00-4:00 PM
Hand out flyers, bike lights, whistles

Summer Update from SSE
15 Items from Summer -
Biggest thing – focus on ASSU on Customer Service – focus on student groups
Promoting SSE’s services, understand ASSU/GSC roles, services
Partnerships starting up with ASSU Senate + GSC

New Operations Team -
Meet weekly on financial, accounting, state of affairs

Two things that will affect GSC in upcoming months -
2 new line items take effect soon (no exact timing)
Event Services – Student groups come in with specific orders on certain services (includes facilities rental), cannot be done as funding rules do not allow it. Will allow easier funding, excludes food + alcohol
Alcohol: Food does not contain alcohol anymore, it has its own line items.

Financial Manager has taken care of debts from ASSU/GSC Buffer – ~$450,000 remains on GSC side. Debts are due to groups that closed down and owed SSE.

ASSU Open House will be next Monday (for Freshman + transfers) [7:00-8:00 PM at Old Union]. Event to be put on GSC Calendar

Access to ASSU Offices after hours: If door codes are needed, it can be provided by Chairs

Fee waivers available – 125 students have waived their Graduate Special Fees

E-Groups service has closed. It has been replaced by two options – EventBrite (for events), Stanford Bookstore (for physical products)

Accounting staff – working on audit of all books (to be completed by middle of October). SSE had a great summer – turned a profit.

Graduate Student Services – Housing Issue
The issue was brought up by Ashveer. Housing Office limits students from sub-letting to once a year. This is a problem for departments where fieldwork is a requirement for graduation – students can be taken away for longer than a quarter. Explore avenue to negotiate an exemption with Housing Office for these students.
Need to find out ⇒ How many people/estimate are in that category?

Advocacy and Projects
Check out new GSC website. New Initiatives Section needs fleshing out. For GSC-run events, there is an Initiatives Events where people will put up events in a blog post. If tagged, the event will go on the Events page.

Projects
Each GSC Voting Member should have at least a project to work on, which is to be displayed the website for everyone to see. Allow more transparency to the Graduate Community about GSC. These projects are to be updated on a regular basis – show what is currently being worked on and to keep everyone in the loop. The link to the site will be emailed out to Graduate Community next week. It’s good to add completed projects (GSC Welcome Party, Whistles initiative..etc). Trevor will send out link tonight, so voting members can add their projects. Down the road, may have separate completed/ongoing projects pages.

Stephen T’s recommendation to ASSU/GSC
Projects get done better when there is funding. Look into providing funding (~$2000) to members to go do something in the community to improve it

DAC Update
DAC being re-initialized as a 10 member committee composed of “Ambassadors” from VSO’s and interested students. GSC clarified that funds allocated to the DAC are to be spent on the DAC’s discretion, although it will have to keep the GSC updated with their plans. Johnny will work with GSC to identify key VSO’s to represent and how to compose the final committee.

Header photo credit: Alexander Zoellner

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