EGU Meeting Minutes

EGU Meeting Minutes

9/4/15

Agenda:

I.  Graduate Student Organizing Committee- guest speaker

II.  EGU Co-chair meeting with Lee Medevoi

III.  Upcoming EGU elections

IV.  Representative Reports

Attendance:

Ana Ribero, Co-Chair (RCTE)

Safari Ross, Co-Chair (Lit)

Jan Bindas-Tenney, Secretary (CW)

Sara Wolfe Vaughn, Creative Writing Rep

Jayda Coons, Literature Rep

Anushka Peres, RCTE Rep

Jennifer Slinkard, SLAT Rep

Joanna Sanchez-Avila, D & I Co-Chair (RCTE)

Irene Ramirez, D & I Co-Chair (RCTE)

Rachel Buck, WriPAC Rep

Betsy Labiner, GLCC Rep

Jose Cortez, Graduate Grad OC Rep

Antonnet Johnson, Curriculum and Assessment Committee Rep

Casely Coan, RCTE

Emily Lyons, Lit

Jeremy, Lit

Kimberly, Lit

Alex, GWS from the Grad OC

Roberto Reyes, RCTE

Sonia Arellano, RCTE

Catherine, Lit

Michelle, CW

I. Graduate Student Organizing Committee- guest speaker - Alex

I’m Alex, a founding member of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee and a PhD student in GWS. Our committee is focused on taking action to improve the material lives of grad students. We are mostly focused on wages, but also healthcare and childcare. Beyond just establishing a living wage, we are also interested in getting comprehensive, affordable benefits and free on-site or subsidized off-site childcare. Last year we prevented a few negative changes to our healthcare: minimum payments and max out of pocket expense amounts. We are in the process of changing the culture around childcare at the UA. There is now $126,000 to help subsidize employee childcare.

GPSC functions through official recognized channels, which limits their ability to engage in direct action. Many people in the Grad Student OC come from labor organizing backgrounds. Around the country, graduate students are organizing. We believe that through direct action we can achieve meaningful results. We have representatives on committees in SBS. Some of our representatives know more about SBS budgets than the department chairs do.

Find us on Facebook, twitter, and join our listserv to learn about our upcoming events. Join one of our meetings. We run in a relatively democratic process and try to bring people to the table. EGU/English grad students are critical to our fight because you are in a critical position for the University, teaching most incoming freshmen. Please email me with any questions, etc. Hope to see you at one of our meetings/events soon.

II. EGU Co-Chair Meeting with Lee Medevoi

Safari and Ana met with Lee Medevoi this morning 9/4/15:

·  EL/L Hire: Department is recruiting for one EL/L associate professor with a specialization in corporate linguistics and online language acquisition. Jenny Slinkard will be the graduate student on the hiring committee.

·  Space changes: We talked to Lee about the loss of the graduate student lounge in ML and told him it was important professional and social space for us. Not great news about this. He said once things settle down, he’s “going to figure out what is going on with the third floor.” No clear promise to give us a new space, but at least it is on his radar.

·  New Pod Location: SBS has offered to move English grad students/adjunct lecturers to another building: School of Information Building, 1515 1st Ave. The move will happen fall of 2016. We will have the whole building (not just a room) to accommodate 164 desks for instructors, a space for Student Guide editors, Computer lab, kitchen, and bathroom. They will do a whole remodel using an SBS budget line. EGU Co-chairs will go tour the space next Wednesday (9/9). Emily Lyons agrees to accompany them. We want to be aware of accessibility.

·  Raises?? At the General Meeting, JP Jones said he is reviewing/thinking/looking into giving English grad students more money. We might see raises or course releases. Lee asked, “If there has to be a priority, would you rather have an increase? Or would you rather teach 1-2?” We don’t know anything yet, but Lee wants to know where he should put his energy. He says a 1-1 is impossible. We will poll the graduate students, but need more information. I.e. it depends how much of a raise? How would this impact current course release rules such as right-sizing? What about people with a RAs? Plan is to wait on this. Maybe we wait to poll the grad students when we have more information. Lee Medevoi wants to attend the October 23 EGU meeting, so try to get more information then?

·  EGU Interdisciplinary Speaker Series: We have a budget from the department of $800-$1000 per year for our speaker series. We’d like to pursue holding more lunch salons preferably with people here on campus. We got some feedback that it would be great to make this interdisciplinary, and limiting our pool to people on campus would certainly do that. The money can go to pay them/pay for a small lunch for everyone, etc. Everyone please start to think about people on campus who would be good for this.

·  Patrick Dissertation Fellowship: Is not on the English Dept. website, but “is still a thing” and applications are due in November. “Keep ears to the ground” about it.

·  Student worker: Lee agreed that the English Dept. student worker can come here to CCIT for an hour per week to refill printer paper, check the sign-up for conference rooms, etc. They will fix the light in the bathroom.

·  EGU Travel Grant: We have a yearly $13,000 budget. Applications go to program assistants (Sharonne or Marcia). What about SLAT? Maybe Marcia because she does Lit and EL/L. Follow up with Marcia? Still on a first come/first serve basis. We want to revise these procedures/guidelines, got halfway through the process this past spring then the 451 extra course stuff started happening and EGU travel grant got sidelined. Need to revisit.

·  Safari and Ana’s overall goals for the year are to increase financial transparency for departmental processes. We’d like to do an anonymous survey about grad students’ experiences with financial transparency, then figure out our demands for Lee based on real stories from the survey. For example, paychecks are wrong today. Why did that happen? Somebody took out FICA fees when we should get a student exemption. Same thing happened last year. Perhaps an issue of transition from summer to fall as FICA fees are withdrawn for summer employment? Business staff had no idea until we pointed it out to them.

III. Elections

Current Open Positions:

Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Rep

EL/L

CW

First Year

GPSC

Timeline: Co-chairs will send out an email asking for nominations on 9/8. Nominations due by 9/10. Candidate statements due by 9/14. Voting 9/15-9/18. Election results announced at the 9/18 EGU meeting.

Nominations:

CW: Jessica Malordy

First Year: Catherine Fakler

IV. Representative Reports

Jayda Coons - Literature

We have an accessibility issue here at CCIT and in general. On game days, the handicap entrance is locked and the only way into the building is through an entrance with stairs. Also, cart service stops during game days, but not just on game days. Cart stops around 5 p.m. everyday, but many people teach classes in the evening. Isn’t this a university-wide accessibility issue? Maybe we can partner with the Grad Student OC to do something about this?

Sara Wolfe-Vaughn – Creative Writing

We are trying to get the CW EGU representative invited to the CW faculty meetings. What other program EGU reps are able to attend faculty meetings? RCTE yes, and the EGU rep has a vote. Lit is not invited to the faculty meetings, but has a spot on the Graduate Literature Curriculum Committee. SLAT – Jenny doesn’t go, but the SLATSA rep goes (EGU for SLAT). Sara talked to Chris about it and he is open to it and plans to raise the issue to other CW faculty at the next meeting. Sara will work on drafting a joint statement from EGU asking for a place in the meeting for the CW EGU Rep, but allowing for executive sessions without the student present.

Ana Ribero (for Anushka Peres) – RCTE

RCTE had two faculty members dis-affiliate from the department: Adela Licona and Maritza Cardenas. Students are freaking out. Adela and Maritza are now faculty of the English Department, but not RCTE. The speculation is that they wanted to leave English, but this was some kind of resolution to get them to stay in English. There are a lot of questions and uncertainty. They are two faculty women of color who left at the same time. One is the only faculty doing queer studies. This is all very symbolic. A lot of people who just started are concerned, and people who came here to work with the two of them want assurances that we can continue to work with them through receiving our degrees. Can they sit on the comp exam committee? RCTE only has one committee for everyone. Will they be on that committee? What about dissertation committees? Can they chair them? What about labor in the department? RCTE student body is the same size each year, but faculty keeps getting smaller. We are asking for answers by beginning of October.

RCTE Department chair invited graduate students to the next faculty meeting. Faculty are supposed to be voting about whether Adela and Maritza can chair dissertations.

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