GSC BoD meeting: 5/3/01
Meeting Convened at 12:1? (When did the election end anyway?)
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Members and guests present:
Alejandro Backer, Jeff Bergthorson, Marco Casari, Catherine Cornu, Diego Dugatkin, Michael Fleming, Will Green, James Harrington, Benedict Hebert, Michael Johnson, Tobias Kippenberg, Fok-Yan Leung, Melvin Leok, Timothy Lesko, Chunhui Mo, Jose Mumbru, Steve Pracko, Florian Gstrein, Jason Cohen, Robert Rossi, John Ward, Martha-Helene Stapleton (ascit), Melissa Soriano (coffeehouse), Justin Ho (ascit), Joe Fassler (ascit),
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Election Results:
Please congratulate the following people on their election results!
Jose Mumbru --- Chair
Florian Gstrein --- Vice Chair, Academics**
Fok-Yan Leung --- Vice Chair, Social**
Steve Pracko --- Treasurer
Jason Cohen --- (yer humble le) Secretary
** = See later on in the minutes for an explanation
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The minutes from Aprils meeting were approved by consensus.
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The general idea for moving the agenda for the meeting to the BOD-List at least 1 week ahead of any given BOD-Meeting was discussed. This idea is so that all members of the BOD will have ample time to review what will be discussed at the meeting and make and recommendations/corrections ahead of time. To facilitate this, the Steering Committee will have to meet one week earlier to allow the secretary time to get all of this information compiled and sent to the list. This idea had no objectors and will be tried for next months meeting.
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GSC positions which have already been filled for the upcoming term:
Computer Czar: Mike Johnson
Gush Meister: Mike Johnson, Jeff Bergthorson
Club Funding: Steve Pracko, Mike Fleming
Quick Funding: Fok-Yan Leung
New Student Orientation: Fok-Yan Leung, Florian Gstrein, Jason Cohen, Jeff Bergthorson, Michael Johnson
TA Awards: Melvin Leok
Fridge-Meister: James Harrington (?)
Gradiators: Jeff Bergthorson, Michael Johnson, Benedict Hebert
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GSC positions to be filled, with people that we still need to approach. The person that we would like to confirm for the positions is listed next to each one:
Club Gush: Serena Guarnaschelli
Sports Czar: Fok-Yan
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Lab Reviews: Presented by Benedict Hebert
The survey for the lab review survey in its modified form was presented. Below is the email to the list and an explanation behind what changes were made for the current draft of the proposal which we are discussing in this section. Note that in the format it was presented to us in, that the proposal fills exactly one side of one page.
Ben: "I slightly changed the introduction, and changed question #13 from "what is your annual pay?" to "How fair (10) or unfair (0) was your annual pay?" I have [also] made progress on how to reach grad sutdents (sic): Heidi Dillon from the Bursar's office is willing to make it available to graduating student (sic) who go there and pass their financial exiting interview. But she needs it by mid-may "
" Are you, or have you been at some point in the past ten years, a graduate student/ postdoc (rotating or otherwise) in a Principal Investigator's (P.I.) lab? If so, we need your input to help an incoming student deciding whether this lab is a good match for him/her.
Remember that your responses will be kept anonymous and used only to generate aggregate statistics. You may rank more than one P.I. if appropriate, use one sheet for each P.I.
A. Are you a graduate student (G if you have decided to do your thesis in the lab, R if you only rotated there) or alumnus (A)?_____________________________________
B. Principal Investigator: __________________________________________________
C. How long have you been this P.I.'s advisee?_________________________________
Please rank your advisor/lab from 0 to 10 on each of the following items (note: 10 is not necessarily better or worse than 0; rather, the ratings are intended to provide descriptions of an advisor/lab that can help a student pick the best match for him/her). You may answer any question for which you do not have an answer or do not want to answer- with N/A.
1. How available is your advisor when you want to meet with him/her? ... .____
2. Is your advisor hands on (10) or hands off (0)? . ____
3. Is your advisor more inclined to support experimental work (0), theory and modeling (10) or both (5)? ____
4. How much freedom do students have to choose their own research project? ____
5. Did you have a thesis committee? (Yes/No/ N/A). . ____
6. How much freedom does your supervisor give students to select faculty members for their thesis committee? ____
7. How effective is your advisor at laying out a plan of what needs to be done for you to get your thesis done? . ____
8. How much do you value the advice of your advisor? (e.g. has great ideas, is always on the mark, is a great troubleshooter ) ____
9. How much mentorship do senior students and postdocs provide in this lab? ... ____
10. How willing has your advisor been to support you, advocate for you and push for your advancement? ... ____
11. How encouraging is your advisor about sending his/her students to conferences?____
12. How easy (10) or hard (0) has it been for you to get the financial support for purchases you needed to pursue your thesis work? .. ____
13. How fair (10) or unfair (0) was your annual pay? ____
14. How effective and fair is your advisor at resolving conflicts? ... ____
15. How highly do you regard the personal ethic of your advisor? . ____
16. How warm is the advisor/advisee relationship in this lab? ____
17. How collaborative is the atmosphere of this lab? ____
18. Did you graduate with a degree from this lab? . ____
19. How many years did it take to graduate? ____
Please provide any other comments (on the back) about the lab or P.I. that might be useful to a student deciding whether this lab is a good match for him/her."
There was some hot discussion presented surrounding item #13 on the list above. Someone raised the issue about asking how fair it is to ask how "fair the pay" is. Someone else raised the question if we really wanted to see the answer to how fair a persons pay was, noting that we can most likely raise the data of how a person was treated based on their responses to other questions. Someone else asked if there was even a scale against which we could be making a comparison. In response someone mentioned that in his department people got paid more money if they TAd or if they had been here for longer. Someone asked if we can really address a persons laboratory experience, based on his or her pay. Someone recommended a possible open-ended question about the pay. However that was seemingly deemed by consensus to be too out of sync with the multiple-choice style of the rest of the survey. Someone else brought up the idea to completely eliminate this question, as the information about the lab experience can be significantly obtained from the rest of the survey. His argument went on to say that the financial aspect, while having a bearing on the outside live, most likely has little direct impact on the laboratory experience.
Vote to remove question #13 from the survey --- Passes by unanimity
It came to our attention that postdocs are treated differently in their jobs than graduate students. We were told that it would not be possible to include postdocs in our survey, since there could be possible legal problems. It also was deemed that certain issues which pertain to graduate students do not to postdocs and visa-versa.
Another aspect of this discussion soon turned towards how we would get this survey out to the graduating people. The grad office did not seem to want to include it as part of their exit survey. It was recommended that since almost all Graduate Students (except those staying on as Post Docs) needed to settle their final bill at the bursars office that it would be a suitable location to get them to fill it out. The conditions were that it be only one page and that we would need to have it there soon. Usually people wait in long lines for them to be processed, so a short form would easily be amenable to people waiting in line. Heidi agreed to allow this to happen, so long as it was clearly spelled out as being optional for the people waiting to fill out.
We then turned our attention towards clarifying the survey. The idea of whether to continue with a scale from 0 through 10 was discussed. Since current teaching evaluations are done on a scale from 1 through 5 and are hence small enough to have checkable boxes next to them, this idea was raised. It was mentioned that people would both be more familiar with this format, as well as having the final results easier to understand, with boxes being checked instead of numbers being read (remember Florida?). It was also discussed and agreed upon to have the set of instructions specifically defining what 1 and 5 meant for each question, printed at the end of each question. This was to provide the reader with extra clarity.
Vote to change the scale to a 1 through 5 scale: Passes (6, 0, ?)
Vote to approve the survey, as amended: Passes (8, 0, ?)
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Faculty Training Survey:
There have been delays in the processing of the survey. Faculty seemed to like the idea of hearing if there were any problems that could be addressed. Faculty however in general did not like the idea of needing to undergo training to correct said problems discovered. The question was raised about how to create an absolutely fair survey.
In response to these recommendations, we are recruiting a professor from HSS who has much public polling experience to help us design a fair survey.
The survey was sent to a total or 970 graduate students, of whom 237 have already replied.
However many current students never received a copy, as the current graduate office list seems to be outdated. Almost all of the 1st year students have not yet received a copy, while many already graduated students most likely were unwilling recipients.
A general consensus was reached that we need to update our current mailing lists on our own. An idea floated was to have option reps contact their departmental secretaries to compile up-to-date and accurate lists.
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Coffeehouse party presentation: Presented by Melissa Soriano
We want to hold a party on Saturday 5/12/01 at the coffeehouse in the SAC. We want to invite both graduate and undergraduate students to this event. To help make it a raging success, we want to have a lot of alcohol. Specifically, some types of alcohol that we want and we think that graduate students would like include Beer, vodka and tequila. For a typical undergraduate party, $800-1000 is typically spent on alcohol. Since we expect graduate students to want to attend and drink, we would like to ask the GSC for $300 to help cover our expenses. In addition there will be two different rooms with music playing all night long, free pop (courtesy of the coffeehouse) and food available for purchase.
Melissa promised to advertise the party heavily by flyers in the CATS as well as emails to the graduate students.
There has never before been a coffeehouse party with alcohol. The one last year without alcohol wound up "sucking pretty badly"(sic).
Kim West has approved the party, with alcohol.
They want to provide 3 kegs of beer and think that the entire alcohol budget will come to about $550.
A bar tender has been trained and hired. He was a bartender at OPI (a party which we jointly sponsored last quarter). He will make sure that people do not get too much alcohol to drink and that the drinks are prepared and served professionally.
When asked about charging a minimal amount for hard alcohol, Melissa responded that all undergraduate parties must have free alcohol. She again noted that the bartender would make sure that people did not slosh around too much.
It was noted that this party is the same night as the Club Latino Salsa party, which we have already chosen to financially support. It is a policy not to support two events that occur at the same time. While the general consensus seemed to be that if the party could be moved, it would be supported, the fact that it was on the same night ruled out our being able to support it.
This brought up the discussion to better coordinate the event calendar. This was quickly tabled until the next meeting, in the interest of time.
Vote on funding the Coffeehouse party for $300: Fails (by consensus)
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Some discussion came up if we should release the results of the vote for the Vice-Chair election in the meeting, since the format was not typical. However the results have been issued in the past. It turned out to not be a moot or trivial point. Both people received 7 votes, with one abstention.
There was some discussion about the bylaws and what we should do. It was pointed out that the BOD could decide to add extra positions if it deemed the need to do so. Since both candidates we so wanted and had so much motivation, it was decided to form a vice chair responsible for overseeing academic concerns and another overseeing social concerns. Both candidates agreed to this.
Vote to select Fok-Yan Leung as the Vice-Chair, Social and Florian Gstrein as the Vice-Chair, Academic. Passes (10, 0, 0)
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Alejandro now gave a special cutting of a tree to Jose. Jose received much applause as he took reign officially for the next year. It was an extremely cute moment, worth asking a meeting-attendee about!
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Pub-Crawl: Presented by John Ward
After finishing their tour, there was a loud after-party in the GSC penthouse. There were many of us who were unhappy with the situation and filed complaints. Many of us who live in this building have little kids. We do not want the party to happen up here and it is not acceptable behavior so late at night.
Someone mentioned that the only reason it went up there was to retrieve mugs for the crawl. Next time however, these will be available for pick-up in the Catalina Rec Rooms.
It was promised that this would not happen again.
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Formation of a Budget Committee:
After the last meeting questions arose about how we could altar the budget part of the way through the year. It would be desirable to have a diverse group of people participate when the annual budget is made, so that clubs and other groups from across the spectrum could be represented. This committee would be responsible for determining and prioritizing the various line items in the budget, as well as deciding upon their allocated dollar values. This is a very influential position!
Committee Members: Steve Pracko, Jose Mumbru, Florian Gstrein
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Ascit news: Presented by Martha-Helene Stapleton (ascit president)
ASCIT FORMAL:
Ascit did not like the conditions that we attached to our money which we offered them for the ascit-gsc formal. Instead, they chose not to accept our offer of money and to call the formal the ascit formal. They will charge $50 for grads for tickets and $40 for undergraduates.
Gsc: There was some confusion over tickets last year. This should hopefully not occur again.
Martha-Helene:
There would be no restrictions on how many tickets were available for graduate students this year. There will be 300 total tickets available for purchase this year.
Most of the undergraduates did not want to arrive on a bus (aside -- do most of the undergraduates even have access to cars??)
There will be both a band and a DJ at the formal.
Gsc: we wanted the inclusive name "ascit-gsc" to show that the event was open to everyone and that it was an inclusive event. However, if we need to we can cheaply help to fund our own students to attend.
BEACH TRIP:
Last year this event was put together in 1 weeks time. The GSC and the Caltech Y both offered support last year. Last year this was a great success.
The date has been set for May 19th and the beach location is yet to be determined. We are being asked to support the event with $300. Last year there was a large graduate student turnout.
The event was slotted to run from 10am until 4pm, with busses transporting people back and forth all day.
Vote on supporting the beach trip with $300: Passes (7, 0, ?)
JAM ROOM:
In the basement of Winnett there is a jam room, where members of the Caltech community can practice their music. Currently, ASCIT members pay $10/term and non-ASCIT members have to pay $30/term. This is an ASCIT bylaw. This space includes a recording studio. ASCIT also covers the expense of a manager for the facilities. There are a total of 50 members, of whom 40 are graduate students.
ASCIT wants to hire a grad student manager. Their bylaws demand that an ASCIT member supervise the entire operation. They want us to fund them for the cost of the extra grad student manager.
We wanted to know why grad students had to pay more if we were being asked to help cover the cost. We discussed possibly paying enough to reduce the graduate members fees to those that the undergraduates pay.
We wanted to know the exact ratio of students who used these facilities. Some of what they said about costs confused us and them not having any written figures did not allow us to easily overcome this confusion.
The general consensus would be that any funding would first cover the cost difference incurred by graduate students, and then if any money were left over, it would be used to help hire a manager or cover other expenses that they may incur. If the cost is actually a $10 difference, this will cover the $300 they are asking for.
Someone expressed frustration that the undergraduates seem to assume that as graduate students we are wealthy and have funds sufficient to place us a more secure than the undergraduates.
We decided that we need more information. We decided to contact their current manager to see what else we could learn about this operation/
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COURSE EVALUATION GUIDES:
The undergrads working on this project are expressing frustration that they can not get the professors to turn over the results of the surveys to them. The chair of the Engineering department wants us to use the forms but expressed concern that they may not be able to turn over the forms to us, unless they are first properly processed by the department. We were told that the processing procedure is slow and arduous and that certain results may have to be removed.
Members were asking if this could be done in a timely and cost effective manner?
At the current time, Divisions are encouraged but not required to report these results to us. If we get the individual divisions to support us, we can possibly get the information. The people looking into this expressed optimism that, in the long run, there will be a way worked out to actually get this feedback.
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Student / Faculty Conference:
There will be a student-faculty conference next February. These can be good ways to address the various aspects of student life here at Caltech. This is a forum where some students who are selected to work on the project can address specific problems that they feel are here at the institute and then present their findings to the faculty. There is a desire for helping to air and solve quality of life issues this way. The organizers were searching for 4-6 grad students to join this student committee.
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Housing shortage issue:
There is currently a shortage of housing for students. It seems that there needs to be some type of long-term solution thought up and worked out to alleviate this situation. Caltech undergrads are guaranteed housing, but for graduate students, only 60% of the total are housed. In relation to other universities, this is a large percentage however. But, when we look at the local market, we notice that the cost of a rental in Pasadena has gone up by 50%, between January 2000 and January 2001, with an additional 33.3% rise between January 2001 and March 2001 (for a total of an effective 100% rise over that time period).
Some immediate solutions which may be implemented are conversion of a few small undergraduate used houses (such as 555 Catalina Ave) to graduate student apartments. We need to work with the president and the provost on these issues to help establish a long-term solution, as we also continue to seek out immediate and temporary ways to alleviate this situation to the best of our ability.
Someone asked if Caltech could rent an outside complex and thus use this for students. This is an issue which we will raise with Tom Manion over the next week.
Other questions raised include using postdoc/faculty excess housing, building more housing, using dorm style housing, and asking to have the expensive Avery board plan waived for graduate students.
We currently are petitioning the administration and are planning meetings with some high level members of the administration. More to follow for the next meeting on where we are currently at.
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Steve will organize an Ice Cream Social. Stay tuned for more information on this event
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Club Gush has been dormant. APSU talked to us. We do not currently have any requests. We need a way to reach out to clubs and to encourage them to apply for this type of activity.
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The current Bylaws are very questionable with respect to the election process. The ambiguity stems from the difference in how the BoD and the Officers are elected. It also stems from the timing of these subsequent elections. To help clarify this issue, a concrete proposal will be offered for the next meeting to be voted on.
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Graduation is coming along soon. Local area companies would like to see some grad students. WE can meet them in August sometime, and arrange a Bus ride over to places where we currently have alumni already working. We need someone to organize this, both the logistics and to help choose a time. This person should coordinate with the Career Center.
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The annual GSC Wine Tour will happen this upcoming Saturday.
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The technique editor has contacted a publisher. The rates are similar to last year. A webmaster was privately contracted to help place the contents online. Chapters 1 and 2 are in a working condition. The editor is making progress and will continue to send us an update each month.
The current deadline, which we were told about, is 1 month before the day that the grad office wants the copies, since the publisher is demanding that much time to make the finalized product. She needs to find out from the grad office exactly when they want the publication, so that way this issue does not confuse the actual distribution of the technique.
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Health insurance for graduate students with dependents is going to be looked into over the next few weeks. Under the current plan, it seems that students with dependents have to pay an extraordinarily larger amount than post-Docs do given their coverage plan. In general there was a consensus that the current system for graduate students as individuals was a very good system.
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Not all of the clubs that participated in the international week celebration have submitted receipts for reimbursement of their expenses. These need to be turned in as soon as possible.
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CHCC Issues:
The food served at the last Italian night was not sufficient to feed all of the people in attendance. There was no food left by the time that people who were socializing wanted to go and get some to eat. For future events, this needs to be worked out in a better way. Someone suggested serving the food considerably later than the posted start-time. This way, people would have to participate and socialize, before getting food. More seating was also needed to accommodate the huge crowd in attendance.
At the past movie night, there were insufficient vegetarian pizzas. Those people who did not eat meat, did not get fed until a second round was bought, yet everyone who wanted meat was content.
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I do think this wraps up the first meeting. If there are any corrections or suggestions that anyone has to how these can be improved, please send me an email at:
gscsecretary@its.caltech.eduCheers (and thank you for taking the time to peruse all the way to the bottom),
GSC SECRETARY