GSAS Meeting
January25, 2011
6:00pm LIB 421
President Miriam Makhyoun called the meeting to order at 6:05pm. Secretary Brandy Hopkins began with role call. For those in attendance, please see the GoogleDocs roster.
- Updates
Holly Hirst provided an update regarding the budget situation. There has already been a 12.5% cut with an additional 10% to 20% to come. This last week, college deans submitted proposals for budget cuts and preliminarily, it looks like they are protecting assistantship budgets. However, this is not the final word. At the end of February they will have to provide final reportsfor where cuts will come from.
To not take it out of assistantships is phenomenal. In the graduate school, these cuts amount to $360,000. Its budget is made up of $60,000 for phone, postage, paper, etc. and the rest is in people. This means it has to come out of something else. Original cuts would have done away with 30 full assistantships out of a total of slightly more than 400.
Miriam reported that last year we saw a $600 increase in tuition with similar increases this year, next year could be worse. This is the time that students must step up. There have to be other ways to fix the problem;perhaps people in higher tax brackets should pay more for education.
- Students Day at the Capital, February 9th
North Carolina is unique in that under the constitution, residents have access to higher education at the lowest possible price. Susan McCracken will be speaking at our next meeting on the current state of the budget. She will also be available on February 3rd in 11am in the Chancellor’s boardroom. Jeremy Hanes from government studies will be involved too. ASG organizes this event and the agenda is yet to be announced. It was clarified that tuition will be increased regardless of any lobbying. However, there may be other options to limit increases. Someone suggested charging a $1 or $2 fee at football games since a large component of our budget goes to athletics. Many thought this was not possible due to state restrictions and private parties involved with the stadium.
The point was made that students are very reliant on student loans and cannot afford further tuition increases. A senator suggested proposing a statewide 0.25% increase in sales tax for education. Kyle Nelson reminded the group that currently there is virtual zero support for raising taxes in this economy. Brandy Hopkns informed the group that there is a portion of the state sales tax scheduled to expire on June 30th and perhaps we could propose extending it for education.
It was clarified that GSAS can only pass resolutions, rather than legislation, and put these forward as recommendations. Perhaps we could do this in conjunction with other school organizations.
- ASG Resolution
Next, discussion ensued regarding the previously distributed resolution regarding a graduate position on the ASU ASG delegation. It is expected that the SGA President will veto this because he believes that we should have either this or BOT representation, not both. However, we are hoping this will open the lines of communication about this topic with undergraduates. Unfortunately, we have requested an open communication night with SGA but have yet to be successful. To summarize, we are asking for one graduate delegate, selected by GSAS, to attend ASG statewide meetings. A subcommittee brought forward this motion already moved and seconded,senators attending voted and passed the resolution unanimously.
- BOT Resolution
This followed with discussion on the previously distributed resolution regarding a position on the BOT as an ex-officio, non-voting member. We have been informed that the Faculty senate would support the resolution as well. Miriam attended the last BOT meeting and was invited to the retreat, which turned out to be good fortune for GSAS and this resolution. The next meeting is in February and will be the Chair, Jeannine Underdown-Collins’, last meeting. She is considering opening the floor for this resolution at that time. A subcommittee brought forward this motion already moved and seconded; senators attending voted and passed the resolution unanimously.
- Election of Co-Treasurer
The graduation of Co-Treasurer Brandon Holland left his position open for spring semester. After calling for nominations, statements of candidates Heather Davis and Brandy Hopkins were distributed via email. Subsequently, at tonight’s meeting the candidates restated their statements and then left the room for the vote (recorded by Vice President Vicki Lewis). Brandy Hopkins was affirmed as Co-Treasurer with a majority vote leaving her position as Secretary open.
- Endowment Fundraisers
Matt Hepler informed the group the group that the fundraiser is set for April 1st at Char at 8pm and is currently being advertised on Ray’s Weather, Todd’s Calendar, and Facebook. It will also be on our website and radio station soon. However, he needs help with the flyer. We need at least 50 people there and we need your professors there. We would like to have a guest judge, preferably someone prominent from campus. When discussing the event, it can be sold as a great end to the Art Crawl experience with the proceeds benefitting graduate student research on campus.
It was explained that after the endowment fund has a balance greater than $10,000 for one fiscal year, the interest could be redistributed for funding GSAS grants. Also, next year is the 30th anniversary of GSAS and we feel that this is a prime time to reach out to past executive council members for larger donations through a reunion event. This will be discussed more in the future.
- Treasurer’s Report
Kyle informed the group that there is a new required addendum to the GSAS grant funding process. This is a personal letter from the individual student that describes how the award will benefit the student. This will be required at the first call in February and applies to all grants. Kyle shared an example and cautioned senators to remind their constituents that all documentation must be attached and all monies are given in a post-hoc manner.
- Other Business
The annual GSAS Newsletter will be going out next week. Please send in any stories, pictures, etc. to Miriam as soon as possible. The Research Symposium will be held in April. However, it is too late for GSAS to sponsor a poster contest.
Kyle Nelson motioned to close the meeting, Vickie Lewis seconded, and the vote unanimously passed. Miriam closed the meeting at 6:25pm.