Alex Backer, Magali Billen, Marco Casari. Catherine Cornu, Bob Gingrich, James Harrington, Anil Hirani, Ying Huang, Fok-Yan Leung, Piet Moeleker, Athanasios Nenes, Steven Pracko, Cindy Quezada, Adam Rasheed, Claude Seywert, Georgios Zamanakos

Directors absent:

Ioannis Chasiotis, Sandeep Sane

Guests:

Rob Rossi (CHCC), Diego Dugatkin (CHCC), Parandeh Kia, Helen Hasenfeld, Janis Schonauer

Chair Piet Moeleker presiding

1. Introduction of Guests

Piet welcomes the guests. The ombudsperson Helen Hasenfeld introduces Janis Schonauer. Helen will take a leave of absence for 6 month and Janis is going to replace her during that time.

2. Additions to the Agenda

Added point III D for the Everhart Lecture Series.

The minutes are unanimously approved. There were complaints about the minutes being late – the secretary promises to be faster in the future.

1. Announcements
• The first JPL tour was very successful. Both tours cost about $250 (for lunch). The Alumni association will pick up half of the bill.
• We want another company tour next term. The directors should think about possible candidates.
• Piet explained our response to the Graduate Studies Committee on ‘Advising and Thesis Supervision’. The classification of the options into the categories good – satisfactory – bad is based solely on what those options wrote in the catalogue and not on how they actually deal with the subject (remember: we want to have a fixed framework in each options that everyone, faculty and students, can look up in case of conflict). George would like to get more details. Fok, George and Anil think that we should have more student input if we present this response as the opinion of the graduate students. Piet noted that there was a survey about faculty-student issues last year going out to all graduate students, but only about 80 persons responded at that time.
• The GSC gave $250 in Quickfunding for a Halloween party in the South Catalinas. The party had a costume competition and was a big success.
• Magali gathered all the email addresses for the various graduate students in each department. These forwarding addresses should be used by the option rep (or the designated person for an option) for social events. Academic messages will still be send out through the directory staff.
• Jim and Adam (GRB chair and secretary) have been designated to be on the student grievance committee. Piet and Brad Behr are the alternates.
• There is a new health care committee looking at insurance costs. The grad student on this committee is Emily Brodsky (in GPS).
• The GSC requested funding from the Alumni association: $500 for gradiators as well as money to organize the NSO BBQ and trips to companies.
• TOTEM, the Caltech literary publication wants to reach more graduate students and maybe get some funding.
• Piet will have a meeting with Bill Irwin; the GSC would like to be informed earlier about general stuff (construction,…) on campus.
2. Catalina Housing Update
• The survey got an amazing 160 replies. The CHCC are working on the results. They got quite a few suggestions, some negative comments but in general the comments were positive. They will address the issues raised by the survey. As a first result, the Catalinas will finally get coin machines!
• There were problems with lost/stolen mail. As a first fix new (extra) mail boxes will be installed for the mail that went to a wrong address and the mail that needs to go back to the sender. There will be no more mail lying around freely accessible (hopefully). As for the credit card fraught that resulted from the stolen mail: the Pasadena police is investigating (they have received about 6 complaints from the Catalina apartment buildings).
• They organized a welcome BBQ on Sat, Oct 16, which attracted about 200 residents. The CHCCs cooked the hamburgers, and the salad and desserts were catered. After the dinner, many people stayed to play pool, foosball and games.
• On Sunday, Oct 31, they had a Halloween Special Movie Night. We showed two Halloween movies, served pumpkin pies and other desserts. About 20 people participated.
• They also cosponsored the Halloween party organized by Sarah and Mag (the same one GSC sponsored).
• In the next month, they are planning on a foosball tournament (non-residents are welcome to join too!), and a Thanksgiving event (likely to be cosponsored by ISP).
• The meeting CHCC – Tim ended without any news (i.e. Tim is not changing his stand on opening up the positions). His attitude is ‘you need to trust me on this one’. There’s not too much more we can do, but we should definitely encourage more regular meetings between the CHCC and Tim.
• Student affairs has opened a new subject of discussion (this is just a floating idea, nothing is decided yet): they are thinking about an RA type position in the Catalinas to cover the emotional needs of graduate students. This is obviously a consequence of the suicide and we are skeptical – however we are open for discussion and will follow this subject.
3. Future Term Parties

George thinks he can keep the outside (of GSC) funding flowing. He is sure that once these parties become a fixture and word of mouth is spreading we will attract more people. The concept is good. He distributed the final budget which came up to $2120. He plans to organize another party in January (end of January as Alex is already organizing a millennium party) and one in spring. In our budget we had planned 3 parties so that leaves the GSC with an extra $1000 that we can distribute on various activities.

4. Everhart Lecture Series

The selection committee received 21 applications/nominations and picked 3 (one for each term). There will be 2 subjects in biology/chemistry and one in astronomy. The selection criteria were (among others): presentation skill / research topic (command of subject) / general appeal.

1. Ice Skating

The Ice Skating will be on Sunday, November 14 from 8:30 to 10:30 pm.

2. ClubGUSH

The chinese GUSH was ok but had an unfortunate accident: the food was delayed (by a flat tire) which caused some people to leave early – too bad for them (they missed out). This month OASIS will put on a GUSH on November 12.

3. Wine Tour

The winetour is scheduled for November 13. We will visit wineries in the Temecula Valley.

4. Ice Cream Social

The Ice Cream Social is planned for Wednesday, November 24. Anil and Marco volunteered to help out. There was some discussion about the date as it is right before Thanksgiving when a lot of people are out of town. We decided not to move it, but maybe should consider these things in the future while scheduling.