December General Body Meeting
December 6, 2021 6:00-6:45 PM
Newcomb Hall Commonwealth Room | Zoom
Call to Order and Welcome
Committee Reports
Graduate Education Committee
Not much new to report but there is talk of a future meeting with Dean Barnaby and the general body of GSASC
Finance Committee
French Department Request
French dept would like $300 funding to host French film festival (has history of funding fest with success)
Chemistry Department Request
$300 for catering
Both requests were approved without any opposition
Research Committee
Fall grant currently under review; 28 submissions with highest number from SSciences (overall highest number of apps in the last 2 terms)
Aaron: Is there any way we could involve GSASC in more publicly displaying winners? → Eric: open to public display; not a history of doing anything substantial; Aaron thinks it would be interesting to feature several winning projects on our website
Social Committee
No updates. Still working on winter formal plans, but nothing to announce.
Representative Reports
Honor Representative
Nothing to report
Student Council Representative
Had a productive meeting with Tyler and discussed how resolutions are crafted → Ed committee will work on this and getting a resolution drafted; there’s a meeting early next semester to discuss resolution- Student council is aware of and happy to hear that GSASC is working on a resolution. Resolution is to encourage the rep body of DC to join concerned members of Council and GSASC who are looking for the PhD funding to increase to a liveable wage minimum to match Cville’s rising cost of living
UJC Representative
Updates from Aaron:
Other old business
UVA Union (UCW) has been invited to the February meeting in hopes of collaborating to advance common goals
Reached out to union of campus workers and though they could not come this meeting, they are planning on visiting future meetings and looking forward to discussing common values and collaborations (meeting soft scheduled for next week)
Looking for ways to streamline communication between UVA orgs and students
Parking & Transportation Changes
PandT doesn’t have a way to directly communicate news or updates directly to student body → setting up a list serve for them so they can communicate more directly with grad students. If there are any org.s ppl would like to hear more from, let Aaron know and he can work on setting up a communication channel
Thoughts for Aaron’s meeting with President Ryan
Meeting with other grad/prof student leaders with Pres Ryan tomorrow (12/6); will by trying to discuss broad idea of compensation increase and grad students economic needs as they already address with other grad students; hope to also talk about how grad students’ role in undergrad ed has changed and how that should be addressed in terms of loads and lengths of program
Lucie brought up other schools’ compensation (engineering - particularly material/science/aerospace engineering - school was brought up as a reference) and how that might be used as a data point for a conversation about financial compensation when humanities’ students begin teaching, adding value and doing more work in years ~ 2-5
Aaron: brought up 10 year plan and asked how grad students are supposed to fit into that- what does the uni expect us to do to contribute and help enable UVA’s advancement?
Committee chairs: submit info to Google folder by Dec 17, 2021
Working on transitioning to Microsoft365. Please send to Aaron by December 17 so he and Max can start transitioning files to M365
For the Good of the Order (5+ minutes)
Parental Support as a Graduate Student at UVA (Eric Donarski), 10 minutes
Inspired by last meeting’s conversation refunding and dependents at grad school
At UVA, nothing above what the gov mandates on public unis; this pretty much extends to paid maternity leave (8 weeks with no extension apart from late graduation)
UVA provides daycare for $200-300/week → daycare costs ~10k which is not supported in any way by UVA/depts → Eric estimates that ppl would be left with ~7k after rent, which is clearly not liveable → digging further, he found that any additional support must come from the department
Q: are there any departments that offer extra assistance? (Eric notes that chem does not)
Eric looked at comparable unis (Michigan, Maryland, UNC Chapel Hill, Wisconsin, Kansas, etc) → all these institutions offer extra assistance with child care in some form or another (grants, community support system, tax deduction, lump sum credit; Michigan (arguably with the most direct assistance/most generous package) offers up to ~6k per term for child care and subsidized daycare
Two things UVA must realize: 1) there should be financial support for childcare resources - showing Mich’s number would be a strong example to advocate for some kind of middling level of support; if not provided, they should be more heavily subsidized; 2) there should be a support page/community website with nannies, resources, etc
Math dept offers 2 semesters off paid and you can choose to use them for whatever you want, it does not have to be tied to research, so you can use it for childcare
Lucie pointed out that this could be tied into the discussion for higher wages/the 10-year plan - if other elite institutions are offering these benefits, UVA will lose students with kids or who want kids to schools who account for this
Eric: Wisconsin has an entire website designated to resources and support - so the resources don’t have to be entirely financial
Aaron was told that there was ~2 million put aside to help students with kids (not just grad students), though he is unsure of the source or distribution of the funding
Loren pointed out that we should broaden our attention to focus on all caregiving, not just childcare; many people have dependents who are not children
MJ: people from Darden, Law, and nursing tried to push for this as well but it never went anywhere → consider reaching out to them and collaborating