May General Body Meeting

Monday May 1st, 2023, 6pm Eastern

Over Zoom

1. Call to Order and Welcome (2 Minutes)

2. NEW BUSINESS (25 Minutes)

a. Executive Committee: Sympa Moderation Guidelines (Max, 3 Minutes):

i. Sympa list will be cleaned up, your participation in rep survey will help this. Once listserv is cleaned out, new guidelines will go into place.

ii. New rules for GSASC list to be implemented this summer; pretty heavily restricted in the past, guidelines loostened. We will not require messages to be run through moderation; we all agree we don’t want to get inundated by emails.

iii. Principles: limit yourself to 2 emails per event, think carefully about whether or not to reply all.

b. Finance Committee: Funding Requests (Tyler, 5 Minutes): last reqeusts for the year, and for our current budget. If we account for these 2 requests we are still falling within our alotted money. Budget is use-it-or-lose-it.

i. Motion to approve $300 for English/Women & Gender Studies Conference: will go toward breakfast and other food items. Conference is already happening but with some additional funds they can invite more people.

ii. Motion to approve $75 for IM Soccer Reimbursement: “bees are dying at an alarming rate” team, primarily EnvSci but other depts represented. Request came in later than expected given timing of soccer season, but finance committee recommends funding.

iii. Both motions pass.

c. Research Committee: Grant Recap (Eric, 2 Minutes)

i. Thank you to everyone who helped. Most applications Eric has ever seen. 75 total applications, typically we get 15-30. More $ given out, and more grants given out, than ever.

d. Bridge to the Doctorate Discussion (Shy’Anne, 15 Minutes)

i. Circling back to last meeting when Max expressed interest in developing a stronger relationship with bridge program

ii. Alex Torrez in the sociology department, will representing B2D program. Looking to form a stronger community and relay messages back to B2D community; they are a rich and diverse community of scholars.

iii. Clarifyication: bridge fellows can also serve as departmental representatives.

3. Constitution and Bylaws Discussion (25 Minutes)

i. Has been worked on over the last academic year; MJ, Aaron and Achintya all have been working on this.

ii. Summary sheet shared and discussed

b. Motion to approve changes to the Constitution: see summary sheet for more information. approved!

i. In terms of deciding department representation, we learn # of grad students in each dept. Directly from the registrar.

ii. Difficult to fill another position; is this the job of the President? Or the Vice President of Admin? Could be useful to have this done by a non-voting member, Tyler is non-voting, Max is non-voting.

iii. Previous experience with Robert’s rules and how they are communicated with the general body. Ian: believes it can’t be the President, president is a representative of the whole council, this particular position needs to be someone who can make sure things are done properly, efficiently, effectively.

iv. In the absence of a filled parliamentarian, somebody can take on this position and it ideally should not be the president. One possibility: VP Communications can assume that role when a parliamentarian is unavailable.

c. Motion to approve changes to the Bylaws: see summary sheet for more information. Approved!

i. More substantive changes include election procedures (discussion happens at the meetings, votes happen online) and committees: initiatives committee was a catch-all for issues of underrepresented students, research issues, TA issues, advocacy, etc. Some of that has been rolled into grad-ed, others we have been able to handle on an ad-hoc basis such as Childcare initiatives (thank you Eric and Aaron!). In general can formalize ad-hoc working groups to address all these issues.

d. We will ask reps to circulate the changes to the departments!

e. Similarly: thinking of a monthly newsletter that we can circulate to all of GSAS through Dean Scherz

4. For the Good of the Order

a. Please fill out the survey of reps; we’ll be using it to update the lists

b. Have a good summer!

5. Breakout Rooms for Leadership Transitions

a. Any incoming and outgoing executives/committee chairs who need to meet can do so now