Graduate and Professional Students Association

Graduate Assembly Meeting Minutes

Fourteenth Legislature – Eighth Regular Session

2:00 P.M. April 22, 2016

Armstrong Hall – Arizona State University, Tempe Campus

Agenda

  1. Call to Order
  1. Roll Call – Quorum Achieved
  1. Approval of the Minutes
  1. Motion to approve minutes. Minutes approved unanimously.
  1. Amendments to the Agenda
  1. None.
  1. Call to the Audience
  1. None.
  1. Executive Reports

Note: Per GPSA Bylaws, limited to 3 minutes per report with no extension currently

  1. President – Read Report Here:
  1. VP Internal Affairs – Read Report Here:
  1. VP Professional Development – Read Report Here:
  1. VP of External Affairs – Read Report Here:
  1. Assembly President – Read Report Here:
  1. External Reports

Note: Per GPSA Bylaws, limited to 10 minutes per report with no extension currently

  1. None.
  1. USG Report

Note: Per GPSA Bylaws, limited to 10 minutes per report with no extension currently

  1. None.
  1. Committee Reports
  1. Assembly Operations – Wrap up. New funding policy. Recommended to move applications online.
  2. Government Operations – Updated bylaws and language for government ops meeting.
  3. New Programs – See President’s Report.
  4. Internal Affairs – See IA Report
  5. Professional Development – See PD report
  6. External Affairs – See EA report
  7. Sub-committees – Cronkite Assembly Rep shares that in administrative engagement activities he had a conversation with his Dean, and his dean was not aware that there are many graduate students without advisors. His Dean is now working to make sure that all grad students get assigned advisors. The Assembly President thanks the outgoing GPSA president for her efforts in leading administrative engagement earlier in the year.
  1. Old Business
  1. None.
  1. New Business
  2. AB #41: AN ACT to approve the GSO April funding cycle
  3. Approved by hand raise majority
  4. AB #42: AN ACT to amend the Bylaws majority voting language
  5. Approved by hand raisemajority
  6. AB #43: AN ACT to amend the Bylaws that Assembly Directors “may” be Assembly Members
  7. Approved. 2 Nays, 1 abstention.
  8. AB #44: AN ACT to amend the seating allocation for CLAS
  9. Bill is introduced.
  10. One Assembly Member said that she could not see the bill on the Assembly Google Drive.
  11. Another Assembly Member said that Assembly Meeting files had been tampered with and deleted by an Assembly Member.
  12. Members of the audience spoke out of turn that there must have been some kind of technical error and that we should move on.
  13. Argument for bill: CLAS seating allocation is unnecessarily specific. Engineering, COPP, Teacher’s College, and WP Carey also have many seats and do not have such allocations. Most Assembly seats are uncontested, so in order to increase participation we should remove any unnecessary barriers to joining such as this one.
  14. Argument against bill cited that CLAS committee originally created this allocation.
  15. Denied by hand vote, count not recorded.
  16. The Assembly President asks the audience to give the Assembly Member a round of applause for proposing a well-intentioned bill even if it did not pass.
  17. AB #45: AN ACT to create a Fulton Engineering Committee
  18. Arguments for the bill: the Engineering students have been engaging administrative leadership similar to CLAS with much success. The Engineering committee should be formally established analogous to the CLAS committee. Student leaders will be more engaged in GPSA if they have a direct interest to get started with their own colleges, and will be more likely to participate actively in other committees as well.
  19. Arguments against: since not all schools are large enough to have their own committee (i.e. many only have 1 or 2 Assembly Members), no schools should have their own committee. Students should do these activities anyway without a committee. It is harmful to students from other colleges if some have committees and others do not. If schools have their own committees, then they will not participate in the base Assembly Committees.
  20. The Assembly President notedit was reasonable for one Assembly Member to be concerned about filling Assembly Committee seats as that Assembly Member is also a newly elected 2016-17 Vice President and will be a committee chair,which requires Assembly Members to do committee work. However, only15 assembly members are needed to fill the 6 base assembly committees (2 committees each).Committee assignments is the responsibility of the Assembly President, and since this incoming class is well engaged with 25~30 members filling seats for committees should not be an issue.
  21. Audience speaks out of turn that the Assembly President should not state a potential conflict of interest of Assembly Members who are about to move to the Executive branch.
  22. Audience suggests that the Assembly President turn over chairing of the meeting to the Parliamentarian. It is motioned, seconded, and fails 12/3/9
  23. The question is called.
  24. 5 yes, 8 no, 10 abstention. Denied
  25. AB #46: AN ACT to create a WP Carey Business Committee
  26. Argument for the bill: WP Carey Committee has historically not been engaged in GPSA, and the prospect of this committee and its proposed responsibilities to liaise with the WPC dean and other WPC groups has resulted in much enthusiasm from both WPC students and administration.
  27. Question is called and seconded.
  28. 3 yes, 5 no, 16 abstention. Denied
  29. Assembly President notes that abstentions are a functional equivalent to “No” votes, and are generally supposed to be used for conflict of interest. Assembly members should otherwise be voting yes or no. One Assembly Member states that the Assembly President’s comments are condescending. The Assembly President notes that the previous Assembly President (and newly elected GPSA President) interrupted his first vote when he was an Assembly Member and abstained for not understanding a bill, and then further explained it. The new GPSA presidentconfirmed. The Assembly President noted that the GPSA Staff Advisor shared the same sentiments after a bill failed due to abstention in October. The outgoing GPSA President speaks out of turn stating that not all votes need to be “yes” or “no.”
  30. AB # 47: AN ACT to remove language from the Bylaws regarding the ASASU Conference Committee
  31. Approved by hand raisemajority
  32. AB #48: AN ACT to amend the GPSA GSO funding rules and procedures
  33. Approved by hand raise majority
  34. AB #49: AN ACT to amend the GSO funding section of the Bylaws
  35. Bill is introduced to remove all language from the Bylaws regarding Assembly oversight of GSO funding, and replace the language with a sentence to defer to a separate GSO Funding policy document (from the previous bill) managed by the Assembly Operations Committee.
  36. The Assembly President notes that the proposed language to be removedis not specifically cited in the Bill and asks to see the Bylaws language on the projector screen. Further notes that there is significant content that is in the Bylaws that is not in the GSO funding policy, including the process for the Assembly’sapproval of GSO expenditures, Assembly and GPSA President’s signature to authorize that theexpenditures are in line with GPSA principles, and motions that the bill be sent to committee for further review.
  37. The question is called and seconded to pass as is.
  38. 14 yes, 5 no, 4 abstentions. Passes.
  39. AB #50: AN ACT to Adopt the 2016-2017 Strategic Plan
  40. Approved Unanimously.
  41. Graduate Student Forum
  1. An Assembly Member states that if we look at the revision history on the Google Drive folder that we can see that a particular Assembly Member has deleted and restricted access to today’s Assembly Meeting files.
  2. Multiple audience members speak out of turn to say that it must have been some kind of mistake.
  3. The Assembly President checks the folder (screenshots below) and notes that the history log shows multiple instancesof one Assembly Member restricting access to files and removing files that same morning. The Assembly President asks if that Assembly Member deleted the files.
  4. The outgoing GPSA Presidentinterrupts, “Anna did you delete the files? Did you delete the files Anna!?” Several people in the audience laugh, and another Executive runs across the room tothe Assembly Member, gives her a cookie and makes a joke, and there is more laughter in the room.
  5. The Assembly President notes that file permissions are supposed to be such that only the Assembly President, Executive officers, and Assembly Directors should have editing privileges per his directions to the Secretary/Parliamentarian to administer the folder. Proper controls on document sharing is important, and the next Assembly President should be mindful of document controls.After no issues all year, official Assembly Materials were tampered with on an election day.
  1. Announcements
  1. None.
  1. Adjournment at 4:00pm

Attendance

Assembly Members / College/School Represented / Standing / Attendance
1 / Katie Brown / CLAS Humanities / Good / P
2 / Bobby Abdallah / CLAS Nat. Sciences / Good / P
3 / George Brusch / CLAS Life Sciences / Good / P
4 / - / CLAS Social Sciences / -
5 / Yanqin Liu / CLAS At Large / Good / T
6 / Alyssa Sherry / <At-Large> CLAS / Good / P
7 / Claire Crowther / <At-Large> CLAS / Good / P
8 / Richard Simpson / CLAS At Large / Good / UA
9 / Marteze "Tez" Ward / WP Carey / Good / P
10 / - / WP Carey / -
11 / - / WP Carey / -
12 / - / WP Carey / -
13 / Jessie Green / Health Solutions / Good / P
14 / - / Health Solutions / -
15 / Liza Gashi / COPP / Delinquent / P
16 / Kevin Rutherford / COPP / Good / P
17 / Nada Adeeb / COPP / Good / UA
18 / Yesenia Castaneda / COPP / Delinquent / P
19 / Colin Kavanagh / Teachers College / Delinquent / P
20 / Anna Cirell / Teachers College / Good / P
21 / - / Teachers College / -
22 / - / Teachers College / -
23 / - / Teachers College / -
24 / - / Teachers College / -
25 / Tyler Brown / At-Large / Delinquent / UA
26 / - / At-Large / -
27 / - / College of Letters & Sciences / -
28 / Guy Harrison / Cronkite School of Journalism / Good / P
29 / Jay Alabaster, / <At-Large> Cronkite School of Journalism / Delinquent / P
30 / Vincent Brancato, / Herberger / Good / P
31 / Mohsen Garshasby / Herberger / Good / P
32 / Adithya Balasubramanian / Engineering / Good / P
33 / Kerem Demirtas / Engineering / Delinquent / UA
34 / Yash Garg / Engineering / Good / P
35 / Daniel Burillo / Engineering / Good / P
36 / Engineering / -
37 / Sushrut Dabir / Engineering / Delinquent / UA
38 / Yudhvir Saharan / <At-Large> Engineering / Good / P
39 / S. Alireza Golestaneh / <At-Large> Engineering / Good / T
40 / - / Int. Arts & Sciences / -
41 / - / Nursing / -
42 / Mukunth Natarajan / Sustainability / - / T
43 / Franz Ferguson / Thunderbird / Good / UA
44 / David Bakardjiev / Law / Good / P
45 / - / Law / -
46 / - / Future of Innovation in Society / -
30 / Voting Assembly Members
15 / Must be present for quorum
24 / Present

Note: there are 41 seats total. Any apparent discrepancy is due to notation in the allocation of at-large seats.