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Meeting Minutes for October 17, 2012 (Emergency Meeting)

Meeting Minutes

Meeting Type:           Fall Senate Meeting

Date:                           October 17^th, 2012

Location:                    Room 238, Broun Hall

Time:                         7:00 PM

Core Meeting Agenda: To inform senators about the Graduate Student Fee and have a discussion    about it

Call to Order

            Speaker: Dana Lashley, GSC Vice-President

Welcomed and called to order the GSC Senate.

Old Business

Speaker: Winston Crowder, GSC Treasurer 

Topic- The proposal for a new Graduate Student fee applicable to all the around 4000 graduate students was explained before the senate and the need for this fee was explained. The exact details about this fee which were presented to the Senate are provided in the Appendix. The floor was opened for discussion after the presentation and a few questions from the senators are noted below.

Senator Question (Senator Gabriel Karns): Where does the money for the travel grants currently come from?

Response Summary (Treasurer Winston Crowder):  The Graduate School provides the funds for Travel Grants

Senator Question (Senator David Adams): On whom the fee would be levied? Will graduate students who are not enrolled in actual courses but paying the continuing enrollment fee by enrolling in the GRAD 8@@0 dummy course be assessed for this additional fee?"

Response Summary (Treasurer Winston Crowder):  The fee will be levied on all grad students even if they are taking a dummy course.

Senator Question (Senator Bretford Griffin): Will the funds generated by this fee be added to the funds from the Graduate School or will their funds be capped?

Response Summary (Treasurer Winston Crowder):  The funds from this fee will be added to the funds for travel grants from the Graduate School so that an entire year can be covered.

Senator Question (Senator Lowell Brown): What are the sources for the current enrollment data and what are projections for graduate student enrollment in the future?

Response Summary (Treasurer Winston Crowder):  The data was acquired from the Division of Student Affairs and is an estimate based upon the average enrollment during an entire year. The graduate the student enrollment is expected to increase in the future and may double in a few years.

Senator Question (Senator Victor Agubra): Can we have a physical copy of the GSC budget? What about the possible ‘duplication of services’ like thesis writing seminars held by the Library and those held by the GSC under the new budget?

Response Summary (Treasurer Winston Crowder):  The GSC budget is put up on the GSC website. Also, every aspect of the spending money generated by the fee will have to be voted on by the Senate and hence the Senate has the opportunity to remove any ‘duplication of services’ which may occur.

Senator Question (Senator Ami DuBois): Instead of a fee can we look at activities like fund-raising, etc. to generate money for graduate student events?

Response Summary (Treasurer Winston Crowder):  We have looked into this aspect a bit but have not looked into it actively. This is definitely a suggestion we will look into in the future.

Senator Question (Senator Hector Hernandez-Corzo): Can we get details about the approval process for tavel grants and how they are awarded every year?

Response Summary (Treasurer Winston Crowder):  We will ask the Graduate School for details and should make it available for the senators as soon as it is made available to us.

Senator Announcements

Speaker: Christopher Perr, Senator from Math department

Topic- SGA Committee Updates

Senators were informed about the new access control policy restricting card access to all students to any building on campus during home games. This has caused several academic and research related grievances for graduate students. It was suggested that the Welfare Committee take up this issue and it was also suggested to all the senators to talk to their GPOs to get card access authorized for every graduate student who needs it.

Created On: Nov 05, 2012

Last Updated: Nov 05, 2012