BGSA Meeting Agenda – December 5, 2016

Start: 4:32 Stop: 5:39

  1. Call to order
  1. President’s Report (Abby)
  2. Grad Office Updates
  3. Student Host Lunch
  4. Thursday, December 8,2016
  5. 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
  6. Room 1101 Scaife
  7. BGSA Interview Weekends
  8. Tentative dates: Jan 6&7, Jan 20&21, Feb 3&4, Feb 17&18, March 3&4
  9. Amendment to the Constitution
  10. Dr. Horn formally approved the amendment: If any member of the exec board has to vacate a position, the president will fill in the first empty position if no one else wants to, but they don’t have perform more then two Exec positions.
  11. Room location for Spring BGSA meetings
  12. BST is 1295 reserved for the spring, but is not available in February. So in February we will be in Scaife 1105. However in the Scaife room you have to do UPMC catering.
  1. VP of Records (Paige)
  2. No corrections of the minutes. Motion to pass the minutes.
  3. Minutes pass.
  1. VP of Finance Report (Lisa)
  2. SORC account and grad office account declared.
  3. GPSG is requesting our budget for the academic year. We only have to currently submit the budget using SORC account, as that is the only money we directly have access too.
  4. There was a tie for the December travel budget. Lisa sent out emails and asked people who voted in November to vote, however another tie happened.
  5. Aliyah- wanted to know how many times people had to vote before we just declare it a tie and give the money to both people.
  6. Rachel suggested sending it to an odd number of people
  7. However people are not guaranteed to respond.
  8. Abby suggested to send it to January voters and if there is still a tie, then just award it to both people with a tie.- the agreed upon decision
  1. VP of Communications Report (Ana)
  2. Ana has made the newsletter and brought several copies to meeting.
  3. Student Spotlight- got one new response (Nolan for Pharmacology),Shareen (from Pharmacology) was also nominated on August 3rd.
  4. Ana is therefore going to go through all the expired people and email the statements out so people can vote.
  5. People want to make sure that everyone who got awards at the BGSA symposium are clearly listed.
  6. Ana received all the articles for the newsletter.
  7. Ana has been using a different poster making software (Canva) and it is ~$80. She wants to put it forward to get paid for.
  1. VP of University Relations Report (Eileen)
  2. The Formal happened this past month
  3. No upcoming events.
  1. VP of Programming Report (Adolfo)
  2. Past Events
  3. Bowling on November 28th. Had 12 attendees half wereRSVP’s, half just showed up. Reserved 3 lanes, but only used 2 lanes.
  4. December
  5. End of the Year Happy Hour (Nikki and Chris). Reserved at Stack’d for 50 people.
  6. Extra $50 leftover from the budget
  7. From 5-8.
  8. Abby- what happens at 8? Do we have to leave or can people stay and drink?
  9. Ana had a question about if she could show alcohol in the posters. It is currently unknown, but appears to be unlikely, so it was suggested against.
  10. Suggested that first years and second years in BGSA invite other first years and second years to join the BGSA Facebook group.
  11. Ice Skating at PPG Place (Adolfo)
  12. $8 for admission, BGSA could cover so it is $3. People would prefer weekday (4 people voted for this)
  13. Aliyah- what about doing Schenley skate instead as a better location?
  14. Potentially do it the week of the 19th, Monday or Tuesday.
  15. Voting for a budget of $150-Motion Passed .
  16. Abby suggested requiring RSVP’s and if 3 or less people sign up, then we cancel it.
  17. January
  18. Software Tools for Creating Professional Figures (Abby)
  19. Adobe and Photoshop will be gone over with how to make figures. Will most likely be held in Scaiffe library.
  20. Kiln-n-Time (Greg)
  21. January 12 & 26
  22. Will not be “throwing” the pots on spinning wheels, instead you etch into the mugs. And then it is fired and the second day you come back and paint it. And then you come back later.
  23. Shelby asked about mold allergies.
  24. We need to have a minimum of 15 people who attend.
  25. $40/person, we need to figure out how much of it will be subsidized. Covering $20-$25 for BGSA members, non-BGSA members have to pay full price. The max is 30 people for the Kiln-n-Time, and we can cover up until then. Budget for $600
  26. Additional budget for food/drinks- $150
  27. Motion for budget of $750, motion passed.
  28. Going to want to start advertising next week, need to make sure people know they need to be at both days.
  29. Ski Trip (Nikki and Chris)
  30. Tentative date Jan 28th, on a Saturday. Not an Interview weekend. Tell them 2 weeks before we want a reservation. We tell them 3 days before what we actually want. Last year it cost $1700, a large amount of the cost was the bus.
  31. Lisa proposed a budget of $2000 if we have the bus. People are strongly supportive of keeping the bus.
  32. Claire should be contacted to reserve the bus.
  33. No one at the meeting has any conflicts with Jan. 28th as a date.
  34. Professional Headshots for LinkedIn Profiles – March (Abby)
  35. $65/hour, can accommodate up to 50 students in 2 hours
  1. Community Outreach Committee (Aliyah)
  2. Past events – STEM Saturday, November 5
  3. 4 people went and made rollercoasters out of marbles and other items. They ran the STEM section.
  4. Upcoming events – STEM Saturday, December 10
  5. Have enough people already for the event. This is an ongoing monthly event, so people can take part later.
  6. Enrollment for PRSEF Judges now open –event is March 31st
  7. Grades 6-12 present science fair posters. You can sign up to be a category judge. Runs like an NIH review panel where there are 2 reviewers.
  8. You are then qualified to judge at the international science fair.
  9. Make sure people take it seriously and don’t back out, multiple people backed out last year.
  10. Nothing else has been suggested. If anyone has any volunteer events/ideas they want to do, they should email Aliyah.
  11. Ana wants to know if there needs to be a scientific focus, there doesn’t. However we should avoid working with organizations that could be political.
  12. A lot of people are suggesting soup kitchens and making lunches.
  13. We could do a coat drive, Helen suggested doing it in February as less coat drives happen then as it is after the holiday’s.
  14. Rachel mentioned Veteran Toys for Tots where they stuff school busses with new toys for children. It is too late to do it this year, but we could do it next year.
  1. BGSA Symposium 2017 (Sarah and Matt)
  2. Sarah is planning the symposium for next year. It will be on October 4th/11th/25th, she is still determining the date. She is going to find a speaker first.
  3. If anyone has an idea for a neuroscience speaker they can send it to Sarah.
  4. Matt Manson, and Roberta Diaz were both suggested. Richard Yule was also suggested. Lisa suggested Dr. Brian Kobilkawho won the Nobel prize for establishing structures of GPCR
  5. Professor Vincent, does a podcast
  6. It was suggested that Path should start contact people for BGSA Symposium 2018
  1. WSMA Update (Gaelen)

-None

  1. Old Business

-None

  1. New Business
  2. Vote on Canva Subscription for VP of Communications
  3. Cost $80 on top of Adobe subscription for website.
  4. Completely web based
  5. Did a blind vote to reimburse Ana the $80 for Canva Subscription
  6. Need to make sure to send emails to Helen and Hiroshi as they are reps.
  1. Adjournment