Meeting Minutes- 05 October 2009

  • Meeting convened in the Newcomb Hall Board Room at 6 pm

Introductions

Reports and Old Business

    Potential Space in South Lawn Building
      * Working with administration to see who will be in charge of allocation those areas.
      * Being investigated by the Life Committee
    Life Committee
      * Discussion of graduate student space. Thoughts included how peer institutions allocate space for graduate students (what do they have and how is it used). Matt mentioned that a report of this type already exists and will forward it to Brett.
      * Issue of support of professional placement. Wendy Perry is the only graduate student career councilor here at UVA and she's swamped. How can this be changed and improved to get her help (and in turn, help out graduate students.
      * Discussion of UVA policy regarding graduate student versus professor child care options. At UVA, professors are actually placed higher on the list (and this is inverted from how things are conducted at other universities). What can be done to improve this situation? Tangential to that, what is the policy for graduate student maternity leave? Comments on how this various by department. Another issue to investigate.
      * Policy on dental care for graduate students to be looked into.
      * Regarding instructorships, how is funding determined for these versus TA-ships? Lots of discussion on how this various greatly between departments.
    StudCo
      * Not much to report other than there is a "Unity" project being conducted by Student Council. Also a discussion of parking tickets and how those are handled by the University.
    Social
      * Tailgating -- October 10th. Cannot call it a tailgate, must be called a Pre-Game social event. There will be free Wayside Chicken, an appearance by Cav Man, and Take-it-Away catering provided by the Athletics Departmetn. Still working on getting approval to have alcohol at this event. Meeting with Dean Laushway this week to discuss how alcohol could be handled/secured for the event since funds from GSASC cannot go towards the purchase of alcohol. A suggestion has been made to have it BYOB with wristbands and a cordoned off area to maintain order. We'll see what Dean Laushway says will work. This event will be held at the Dell on Emmett Street.
      * Halloween -- Friday, October 30th. Cannot advertise the specifics of the drink specials, but let your department graduate students know that they will be available.
      * The first Happy Hour at the Biltmore was very successful. The next Happy Hour will be a mixer with the Engineering School.

Funding Requests

    Grad Student Yoga
      * Vote for potential change to proposal: If attendees chip in, then it might be feasible for the graduate council to fund the renting of a room (which would be about $400). This proposal will be made to Kelly to see if she would still want to hold the classes under this agreement.
    Social Committee Events
      * Homecoming Tailgate -- Motion passed to fund at $100
      * Halloween Event -- Motion passed to fund at $1800
      * Happy Hour -- Motion passed to fund at $450
    New Speaker Suggestions
      * Wendy Perry, Dean Stegmaier, Athletics Department, more administration people
      * Life committee asks that people think of issues for questions to find University admin to approach