Proceedings of the February 4th, 2009 GSC meeting
Agenda
1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Shane!)
2) 6:00 Welcome with introductions and Announcements (George)
i. Please be aware that all meetings are audio recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approve minutes from the last meeting (1/28/08).
iii. Send any updates for the February Grad Announce to Polina by Wednesday 2/4 at 11:59pm.
3) 6:05 Funding (Addy)
i. Stanford Cycling Club Loan
ii. Special Fees Process Timeline
4) 6:15 Senate Report (Justin and Ryan)
5) 6:20 Programming (Justin and Adam S.)
6) 6:25 ASSU Update (Jonny and Fagan)
7) 6:30 IT Services (Bill Clebsch)
8) 6:50 Update on Budget Meetings with Administration (Polina and George)
9) 7:00 GHAC Update (Nanna)
10) 7:10 Publicity Update (Ivette)
11) 7:20 Elections Goals (Etosha and Briana)
12) 7:35 Elections Commission Public Financing Bill and Timeline (Etosha and Briana)
13) 7:50 Re-allocation of Funds for Valentine’s Day Party (Nanna)
14) 7:55 New Business (George)
Attendance
Voting members present:
At large 1: Aleksandra Korolova
At large 2: Adam Beberg
At large 3: Nanna Notthoff
At large 4: Ryan Peacock
At large 5: Mary Van der Hoven
Earth Sciences: Justin Brown
Education: Shane Moise
Engineering 1: Polina Segalova
Engineering 2: Addy Satija
Humanities: George Bloom
Law: Andrew Park
Natural Sciences: Fen Zhao
Medicine: Maria Spletter
Social Sciences: Hanna Muenke
Voting members not present:
Business: Rick Thielke
Other people present: Shelley Gao, Rae Brownsberger, Ping Li, Simone Manganelli, Ivette Estay, Adam Sciambi, Donna Winston, Andrew Danowitz, Jonny Dorsey, Fagan Harris David Gobaud
Minutes
1) 5:45 FOOD (thanks Shane!)
2) 6:02 Welcome with introductions and Announcements (Polina)
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i. Please be aware that all meetings are audio recorded and will be made available on the GSC website.
ii. Approved minutes from the last meeting (1/28/08) by consensus.
iii. Send any updates for the February Grad Announce to Polina by Wednesday 2/4 at 11:59pm.
3) 6:05 Funding (Addy)
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i. Stanford Cycling Club Loan – Stanford Club Sports is umbrella group for the Cycling Club. The Cycling Club wants to borrow $26,000 from Club Sports reserves, so Club Sports is asking for approval for that. The cycling club buys bikes at reduced cost from a sponsor, and this is the second of a two-year-deal with them. They sell bikes at the end of the year and use that to pay back the loan, which they did successfully this year. Approving loan transfer of $26,000 from Club Sports reserve to Cycling Club passes by consensus.
ii. Special Fee process has started. First meeting will be Feb 7th with mostly Undergrad Groups. Next meeting will be with primarily joint groups on February 15th, 8:30-5pm.
Special Fees are groups that work on a large budget that are funded directly by student fees. Legal Counsel is one example of a joint Special Fee, which gets money from both Grads and Undergrads. We’ll see budgets for any Grad and joint Special Fee Groups soon.
4) 6:10 Senate Report (Shelley)
2009_02_02_3_UGrad Senate##
Had a discussion on Campaign Finance with Execs and Elections Commissioners. Not really any more time for the Elections Commission to work out details of the program in time to put them in place for this year’s election, so took a straw poll vote on the pilot program as was presented to the GSC last week, was evenly split on support. Some senators are starting a working-group to address this issue to see if they can come up with an agreeable Bill in time, and would like our support. Etosha asked about the possibility of support for caps on spending (which some GSC members had expressed interest in), but that’s another can of worms that will likely not be addressed in time for this year.
Keep in mind that the pilot program would be funded by us, while future years would not be, so we should consider them separately if something does come up for a vote. Ryan reminds us that Undergrad Senate takes a week longer for votes, because Bills must be introduced a week prior to voting on them.
5) 6:13 Programming (Justin and Adam S.)
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Catering run by the pub group will cater the formal, and are giving a good deal. The catering will serve beer and wine, and liquor will be bought and served separately. Will pay catering $9000 for beer and wine and food.
Have quotes from bus and entertainment companies as well, OSA appreciating the organization and steps so far.
Need to talk to Matt McLaughlin about SSE ticket service, would like to consider that to reduce the per-ticket fees that they’ve paid in the past with other options.
Other Programming note is that we had a good Stoplight party last week in the GCC.
Side note from GCC Operations meeting– the office downstairs is no longer Stanford Housing, but a separate security company, who deals with lock-outs, late check-ins, etc. They do not handle room reservations in the GCC. All they handle is access to the sound system for the first floor, so if we want to use that for events in the first-floor, we need to get in touch with them ahead of time to make sure someone will be around.
The online link for reserving rooms does go to the new correct place, rather than that office.
6) 6:16 ASSU Update (Jonny and Fagan)
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Jonny giving a State of the Association at 6pm this Friday, will have burritos. Would like to see us there.
Budget moving forward. More info on elections coming up later.
7) 6:17 Update on Budget Meetings with Administration (Polina and George)
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Polina and George met with the Provost last week, along with Execs and Shelley, to give them our thoughts on the budget process. They also met with the VPGE later in the day, after which they realized they had talked to sufficient people to gather necessary information, so canceled a planned meeting with President. There’s a letter handout of what they sent to the President, Provost, VPGE and VPSA with current suggestions about cuts that could be made to some programs. Also on the handout is the original letter sent with some programs that they find very worthwhile. In their discussion about funds for Thanksgiving, there was some push between people who wanted to cut it completely, and others who didn’t think it should be cut at all. Provost encouraged them not to cut it too much. The Provost also will be funding the Easter Egg Roll out of his own pocket this year. He’s very committed to making sure those programs continue.
Still some confusion about the original amount for the GSPB, recorded as $75,000, though the GSPB itself has never really gotten the full amount for (the $75,000) because it’s gone to other things. We think for next year, other sources of money will fund things like NGSO, so even if the $75,000 is cut, GSPB will still get their normal budget. Concern that the suggested 53% cut from the overall amount suggests that we don’t value the GSPB as much as other things, but in conversations, that should be clear that it is not the case, and that actual money to the GSPB itself should not decrease.
Another suggestion from the letter are to reduce NGSO funds by $31,000 (52%) to $30,000, by eliminating some of the food focused events of the week while still maintaining goals of providing new students with information and also opportunities for them to meet other new students. The third suggestion is to decrease the budget of Thanksgiving Dinner by $15,000 (33%), which would still allow the spirit of the event.
8) 6:26 IT Services (Bill Clebsch)
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IT services is responsible for on-campus computing, telecommunications, networking, etc. Bill gives a handout about their call from the University, and what their specific plans are to make that happen.
Nanna asks about separation between the Residential and the Campus networks, given that students who register as on-campus residents then can’t get help about the connection from department IT services, because those people don’t have access to that system. Separation is somewhat historical, in terms of how some things were originally installed, but also thinks it works out to have RCCs, who probably keep more similar schedules to other grad students than IT services and thus more able to help when we need them. Overall IT services still handle the actual network and such. Part of the problem is that the ResComp registration is somewhat set in its ways and tough to change quickly, but they’re working on it. Ryan points out that off-campus people have the similar problem in that if they’re registered with their department, but then visit a friend on-campus, they can’t use the residential internet.
Simone asks about wireless service on-campus, because he has had problems in places like Rains, Tressider and Bytes. IT doesn’t get separate money from the University for wireless access, because it’s seen as a “fringe benefit,” so they’ve been doing what they can to install wireless within their existing budget. Problem about connectivity has gotten worse, potentially because of all the IPhones on the campus. They’ve been adding some access to the quad, and have a contract with a distributed antenna company, which will increase cell coverage, especially for ATT, but also help for Verizon. This should happen this summer. Will put wireless systems up on the towers as well, which should help with service outdoors. Working on N-protocol, which would mean each channel would get more bandwidth. Rains is tough for wireless given its layout, but might get better in the next two years.
Working on a new research computing facility data center, trying to build it up at SLAC. It would be greener than other facilities, enough to help a long way towards the cost of those green processes. Data centers are important to get at the right capacity, because too small fills up fast, and large ones are a huge use of energy despite being underused. Want to build a modular system to help meet the correct need.
Addy asks about RCC criteria and training. This is ResComp’s deal, not Bill’s domain.
Andrew asks about support for Vista 64 bit, has had trouble with getting the Stanford registration software through. RCCs can do this manually, but that’s not a good long-term solution, because 64-bit will probably get more popular.
Fen asks about access to the new computing facility. It would be Stanford only, would be controlled by Dean’s ultimately, working with faculty. Transport time for huge datasets to current cloud computing systems is large, which is another benefit for having a facility on campus to use instead.
Aleksandra asks about point 10 on the plan, which is about the communications fee. The idea is that everything will ultimately be on one network, with all phone, voice, internet, coming in one form, so it might make more sense to have a single fee, rather than multiple. The last time they worked on fees for students, they communicated with the ASSU, so would do that again.
Mary asks about the Earth Sciences computer cluster. Theirs is externally funded, separate from the University. It’s probably out of space soon though, and the Clark center has had the same problem, so even departments who have some resources would likely benefit from the large scale computing project as well. Bill has been talking with those schools to see what works well for them and incorporating ideas into the new project.
Maria wonders about security of email addresses, concerned about the fact that her email address has been used to send out spam. Did not find ITs response very helpful, which was essentially that she just shouldn’t worry about it. In November, they did have a large-scale success in shutting down a spam server, so the spam went way down, but the spammers do ultimately get this up again; it’s always an ongoing project to try to stay one step ahead of the spammers. Overall, Stanford does seem to be doing better than other schools, but never going to be perfect.
Andrew asks about the reasoning behind the new antivirus software. Bill thinks the new product is a bit more advanced, offering a broader scale of services, and is also less expensive. Have a three-year-contract with them, would again re-evaluate all options when it’s time to renew.
George asks about potential for using GMail as a host for email. Faculty and staff are not interested in using anything with an off-campus service, due to the potential for sensitive information being sent around. We can’t be certain how data is stored off-campus, and Google for example, is more susceptible to subpoenas. Also, the medical community really needs secure transmission, with Zimbra (current system) does allow. It’s possible to do something different for students, who may not care as much about security. Using Gmail as a host instead of Stanford might allow SuNet email for life, which could be a nice benefit, but Alumni Affairs and Registrar have some concerns that would need to be addressed first.
9) 6:53 GHAC Update (Nanna)
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At the recent meeting, they talked about converted Couple’s housing 1-bedrooms, where the original living room is used as a second bedroom. Would like to put a full lockable door for that living room space. Working on converting Blackwelder completely, and also two floors of Quillen. Plan is to move out two floors completely into other EV housing, install the doors on those floors, then move people from another floor into those newly converted spaces temporarily for two-weeks while they install the doors on the new floor, then move back to their original space, which would now have the completely separate room.
220 people live in Blackwelder. The benefit would be that students would get to move back to the two-locked door place and keep their old rate through the end of the current contract year, even though those rooms would otherwise be more expensive than unconverted rooms. Some apartments will be kept in their current state, without doors separating the living room, to allow flexibility in space such that couples could move back in, depending on demand. Students were informed about this likelihood when they first moved into Blackwelder.
Ryan thinks the University should reimburse two-weeks rent or something for the inconvenience. Nanna thinks it’s unlikely to happen. Donna reports that when they did this a few years ago in a different section, students who were relocated were guaranteed on-campus housing for the following year (not just if they resign where-ever they get put for spring quarter).
Fen would like us to consider this as a broader issue, given that there is a lot of potential moving around upcoming, given Munger and other renovation plans.
There will be movers to help move stuff, apartments cleaned and such, to try and reduce the hassle on the students.
Munger is essentially on track, but the one building with the Great Hall may not be completely done by Fall. The top floor may not be done, which misses out on a few apartments. This is because they need it to stay open in order to build the Great Hall, and the permits for this have been delayed. The students living there now seem to be happy, and Andy Hernandez is working with them to address concerns, and to provide programming. They’ve found some problems with these “try-out residents” that they are now addressing, like insufficient capacity for electrical circuits, and that the building is so well sound-proofed that people don’t hear knocks on the doors, so they’re installing door bells. Also some concerns about pathways between buildings. There’s a special hot-line for Munger residents to let builders know of any problem areas. In terms of programming, have had a ski trip, and cooking classes (because they moved from Crothers, which doesn’t have kitchens). Crothers CAs moved over as well.
Gender neutral housing will be extended as regular program. Currently available in Rains and Schwab, and will probably be in Munger as well. Right now there are 16 graduate students taking advantage of this, seems to be more demand among Undergrads. It’s somewhat complicated with random assignment, and the need to keep equal numbers available for males and females, but Housing is working to make it possible.
Rates for next year, including for Munger, will probably be approved next week, when Trustees are here, but it’s not confirmed right now, and the discussions were confidential, so Nanna can’t give us an update yet.
Mary asks about DoorKing system, which is not in place in Munger yet, so people have to come down to let people in. Nanna thinks DoorKing will be set up there at some point.
Another problem with housing is that a lot of EV houses have radiant heat, which they’re trying to update because some pipes are leaking. Have a 10- to 12-year-plan to fix this. Doing 3 buildings at a time to try to limit disruptions to students (many families in those types of houses), but also can’t afford to reduce capacity by much. Also making some other changes like adding more insulated windows.
Will have more options for couples next year, including two-bedroom options if both members are students. As of now, they’ve assigned single students from waitlist, still working on families. Housing on-campus is currently very full.
10) 7:09 Publicity Update (Ivette)
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Next project is elections. Will try to visit a lot of upcoming Grad events to tell people about the GSC, hopefully get them interested in running for a position. Plan to hit up some department happy hours.
Would like to get some new publicity items. Thinking about party beads with GSC logo on medallion. Would cost about 0.90 each if ordered in quantities of 500, so $450. 1000 items would cost $750 total. Think they have about $1000 to spend on these items.
Reminder that all elected members can spend $100 each on GSC promotion, though Nanna reminds us that only $1000 total can be spend among all of us.
Adam B. likes that some of the other things we’ve done are more reuseable, like the grocery bags we gave out in the fall, doesn’t think that the beads would match that.
Shane wonders if we could make it an access thing, that if bringing them back to another event would get you something. Fen thinks it might work well as a party favor for the formal or something, rather than just distributing it randomly.
Fen wonders whether we could do reuseable cups. Donna says this didn’t work very well when they tried it in the past, because people didn’t realize they could keep the cup. Mary suggests having a benefit for keeping the cup and bringing it back, like a shorter line at parties to get a new drink.
Ivette also looked into shot glasses, but personally doesn’t think that people would be good at keeping track of them, can couldn’t find good options for getting those engraved.
We’re not really reaching a conclusion with our discussion. Ivette will look into other options at various price points and present them at a future meeting.
Ivette did look into LED things like lights and buttons, haven’t found ones that can be printed well.
11) 7:22 Elections Goals (Etosha and Briana)
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Missing the audio of the very first bit due to changing batteries on voice recorder.
Etosha’s goal is to have at least two people per position. Some ideas to make this happen:
– Coffee with the candidates. Encouragement for current GSC members to invite someone they think would be good for the GSC to have coffee and talk about it. Would be reimbursed $10 gift card, if you turn in receipt, the name of the potential candidate, and their permission to get contacted with elections updates and encouragements to run.
Addy suggests making sure Elections Commission use a Stanford address to send out information, not a Gmail address.
Overall, the anticipated budget for coffee with the candidates is about $300. There are also some bonus options if you take more people to coffee, or reach across to other schools.
Plan to be at happy hours with flyers, working with publicity committee to make this happen. Polina would like the flyer sent out via email as well so that we could give it to candidates we take to coffee.
Second goal is to increase grad voter numbers by 10%. The last few years have accomplished that, although we may be hitting a wall, with 25% voting in last year’s election.
Will send two emails to departmental Student Services reps and ask them to forward it to all students. One will be ahead of time, and one will be sent day-of to remind people to vote. Will also use Flicks ads, Grad Announce, Grad Events, and Facebook.
Straw poll suggests about 9 people think it’s good to advertise the amount of money we control as a teaser for getting interest, but 3 don’t think that’s a great idea to list that detail.
Specific plans for grad students:
Meet, greet, and eat brunch with the candidates. Plan is Sunday, April 5th, Ryan concerned that it’s the same time as the NAGPS Western regional conference. Suggestion to move it to noon, rather than 10am. Adam B. concerned about off-campus students coming for this, but can’t please everyone.
Will have Rock the Vote again, with student groups performing. Will be on a Wednesday April 8th 8-10pm. Would like to introduce the candidates at this event.
Now moving on to timeline. Have ‘Elections Commission Bill 02’ with the proposed dates that they would like us to approve.
Highlights:
2/4-2/25 Coffee with the candidates
2/11 and 2/25 Intro sessions after GSC meetings
3/2 Grad candidates declaration of intent due
3/9 Candidate Handbook statements due (submit online)
Campaign week will like have Grad Student Brunch on 4/5, Exec debate on 4/7, Rock the Vote 4/8.
Voting 4/9 and 4/10, tentative Vote and Dine one of those evenings depending on budget.
Results party 4/11
13 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining. Timeline passes.
Now for an update on Campaign Finance:
Still a lot to be ironed out in order to make a pilot work this year. Jonny and Fagan and some Undergrad Senators would like to work on this, inviting GSC people to work along as well.
Ryan would like to bring the discussion back to caps. Asks about Constitutional Council. They’re currently trying to fill some spaces on it, have some law students who should be on it soon. Ryan is not convinced by the arguments that caps shouldn’t be okay, would like to hear from Constitutional Council what they think. Suggestion to separate the issues of caps and public financing on bills, because we could approve one and not the other.
Mary concerned about the article that showed up in the Daily on two accounts, first that it implies the issue is dead in the water, which it may not be completely, and also that it implied that the GSC was also there and part of the discussion (which we were not, because it was an article about the Undergrad Senate meeting). Also, the Undergrad Senate did not take an official vote, just took a brief poll to see where people stood.
Etosha was at the meeting, thinks that the biggest concern from the Undergrad Senate was about the caps and the opt-in part of the system and whether it would work, with less concern about the actual amount of the money.
Justin asks what Etosha thinks is possible with these bills. Based on the Undergrad Senate, Etosha thinks there may be more support for caps than we had assumed, though still an issue that would need work and compromise before it would pass.
Fen wonders how we would enforce caps, in the pragmatic sense of checking how much candidates have actually spent. Jonny and Fagan agree that it would be hard, and we may not have much in the way of law or actual consequences for those who don’t follow caps. Honor code probably doesn’t help much in this case. If we wanted it to apply, University would need to be involved. Otherwise, we could probably just disqualify them from the race.
The issues of caps and public financing are somewhat related, in that we don’t want people taking public financing and then spending a lot of their own money in addition to that.
Even with caps, might be helpful to have public financing available, because of the initial goal of reducing the barrier to entrance. Ryan and Polina and Andrew volunteer to work on this. They will present some bills (three probably) soon.
12) 8:00 Re-allocation of Funds for Valentine’s Day Party (Nanna)
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Valentine’s Party is often done by the EV CAs, have $3500 allocated for them for this event in the budget. However, the EV CAs don’t want to do it this year, and GSPB would like to take it over, so just need to approve the GSPB using the money for the party instead. Planning to spend $2500 for beer, $500 for security, and $500 for a DJ. Shifting $3500 from EV CAs to GSPB passes by consensus.
13) 8:03 New Business (George)
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i. Good Stoplight party. They ran out of beer at 11:30pm, they ran out of wrist bands so at least 700 people were there, and people came dressed up in appropriate colors. All sorts of people came, including couples and singles. Equipment was all returned, no disasters.
ii. Mary points out that the website really needs to be a fixed, that this should be a way that new people can learn about us and what we do, and why they should want to join us. The website is the first place she had looked to learn more before becoming more involved, and was disappointed at the time about information available. The current website is very out of date, including the events that are advertised, and the people listed as members. They’ve tried to find another webmaster, but have not managed to get one yet.