Thursday, February 1, 2001

Alex Backer, Jeff Bergthorson, Tanja Bosak, Marco Casari, Diego Dugatkin, Michael Fleming, Bob Gingrich, Will Green, Serena Guarnaschelli, Benedict Hebert, Anil Hirani, Ying Huang, Michael Johnson, Fok-Yan Leung, Melvin Leok, Timothy Lesko, Chunhui Mo, Jose Mumbru, Athanasios Nenes, Steve Pracko, Claude Seywert

Magali Billen, Catherine Cornu, James Harrington, Tobias Kippenberg, Adrian Lew, Nick Pornsinsiriak, Hui Wu

Loretta Hidalgo

Chair Alex Backer presiding.

a. Introduction of guests and new directors

Chunhui Mo will be new director for Biochemistry. Loretta Hidalgo will present the proposal for the Yuri party.

None.

The minutes of October, November and December 2000 as well as January 2001 were approved.

1. Health coverage for dependents

Diego said that he has contacted Anita Jarvis form HR Benefits Office to look for statistical data about how much money Caltech spends on Health Plans for postdocs. As it is now, the Health Insurance for students is better but expensive. Postdocs have less coverage but the insurance is more affordable. Students have only one choice for insurance, and it costs $400/mo per dependent, while postdocs can choose among 4 different providers and different premiums. He also said that, according to Parandeh, we should wait to see changes in the student policy. Chunhui volunteered to start a survey for other schools. Grad Office has been contacted to get data about how many students with dependents there are. Alex said that a survey on Health Insurance for dependents is going to be sent out in a few days.

2. Mechanisms to deal with faculty-student conflicts

Alex asked if somebody knew about other universities where they had in place mechanisms to solve conflicts between faculty and students. He asked for volunteers to do research in this topic but nobody seemed interested.

3. Distribution method for Lab Reviews

Students and alumni will participate in the evaluation of the lab. There is concern about what the best way to distribute the results of the review is. The administration does not want this information to be on the web openly accessible to everybody. One solution would be to have it IP restricted to Caltech, although this is not a very good solution since prospective students could not access them. Jose proposed to provide to new admitted students with some type of temporary passwords to access this information on the web.

4. Meeting with Chris Brennen & Parandeh Kia

The steering committee will meet with Chris Brennen, Vice President for Student Affairs, and Parandeh Kia for dinner on February 6. They want to have feedback from GSC. Among items to be discussed is the management training for incoming faculty for relation with students. If anybody wants to attend or has some issue that we could add to the agenda, please email Alex.

5. Term Party

Brian Zid and other Biology students will organize a Winter Hawaiian party on February 10. They also organized the TTT party, and there are some concerns about having hard alcoholic drinks at the party. There was a motion to reduce the amount of hard drinks, or not serve it until after 10:00pm, and have more beer and snacks. Three abstentions: Tanja, Ying and Steve.

6. Ice skating

There will be an ice-skating night sometime this term. Will accepted to organize the event.

7. Members leaving BOD. Nominations for officers

Four new directors have already joined the BOD. However, we need to know the members that are going to graduate or leave the BOD. Also start thinking about the positions that need to be filled, like Chair and Secretary. Elections in April.

8. Yuri Party

Loretta presented the proposal for a party to take place on April 12. This is going to be a big party in L.A. and open to all L.A. area and the reason it to celebrate 40^th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin flight to space, among some other space-related anniversaries. The party in L.A. will have 8 DJ’s and it will be broadcast to other cities in the world. The overall budget is $22,000. They currently have $17,000. She came to ask the GSC for $2,000 and for that she would offer free admission to Caltech students. She expects about 100 Caltech students attending the party. There was a motion to fund them with $1,000. I was passed with only one abstention (Steve).

9. Scientists as Citizens of the World

Marco presented this initiative that tries to relate scientific issues to the impact they have on society. The format could be a debate with a panel integrated by people from very different opinions about the ethical issues that are involved in scientific research, like cloning of embryos. Marco proposed to encourage clubs to organize such type of seminars and set aside some money to fund them. There was a vote to set up the intention to go ahead with this initiative. Only one vote against (Anil). Diego, Alex and Marco volunteered to help but a leader is still needed.

10. Volunteer for Committee for Organization of Institute Programs

This committee helps Caltech Public relations to make a list of the performances to be held at Beckman Auditorium. The committee meets around 4 times a year, and there are two undergrad and 2 grad students in it. Thanos agreed to replace Claude.

11. Volunteer for Health Committee

1. Company visits

Tim has been gathering information. Through the Alumni Association he has got in touch with alumni working at or owning companies in a driving distance from Caltech. Raytheon, and another couple of companies, are willing to have students go to visit them. The visits will not probably start before spring term.

2. Wine tour

1. Technique editor selected. Recommendations of Selection Committee

Marco explained the proposals of 4 candidates have been reviewed, and after that Ying has been selected to be new editor for the Technique. $5000 will be paid to the editor for her work. There will be three meetings with the editor to have an update on the status of the work. The new Technique should be out by August.

2. First two volunteers received for shadowing program

Two CEOs from two companies doing online customer service have expressed interest in taking part in our shadowing program.

3. CHCC Report

Ying updated on the activities for January. There was an ice-skating trip at the Staples Center on January 17 (25 people attended), a dinner to celebrate the Chinese New Year on January 24 (60 people), and 200 people showed up for a BBQ on Superbowl Sunday. The next events they are organizing include a movie night and a ski trip. There were some inquiries about the issue that apartments are not cleaned if the date when they are due for a scheduled cleaning happens to be on a holiday. Linda has been approached at this respect but it does not seem to be a quick solution to this problem.

4. News