GPSS meeting reports

GPSS meeting reports:

Current GPSS representatives: Haseena Ahmed and Andrew Wells.

By Andrew Wells:
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This month's meeting was fairly short, so I have little to report. There was a presentation on sexual assault from the campus police department. If you or anyone you know has been affected by sexual assault, the Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) of Story County can help. They are fully confidential and require no identification from victims. The phone line is 29- ALERT and their website is http://www.dps.iastate.edu/sart/. If you are in the difficult situation of learning that one of your students has been sexually assaulted, this is a good place to refer them. There was also a presentation by Keep Iowa State Beautiful. They urge everyone to join the fight against littering. People who want to be more involved can check out http://www.fpm.iastate.edu/kisb/default.asp. That is all, have a good summer.
By Andrew Wells: The Graduate and Professional Student Senate met on 3/3/08.
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The Graduate and Professional Student Senate met again last night and had several issues to discuss. First, the merits of a plan to use some GPSS money to help expand the JSTOR and SCIFinder resources were discussed and likely will be voted on next meeting. Also there were nominations for the next year's executive council.
There was a report that the graduate council (a campus-wide committee with a lot of power over graduate programs) was considering changing the vacation policy for graduate students, RAs in particular, so that they have some guaranteed time off. Improvements to the maternal leave policy are also being discussed. There is no current timetable for when these changes might be implemented.
The main focus of the meeting was a vote on the proposed recreation renovation. Thanks to all of you who voted online last week. For those of you who have not already heard, the overall student body vote was 3,360 to 3,097 in support of the proposal. In addition GSB (Government of Student Body) supported the proposal 17-5-1. There was much discussion of the proposal at GPSS and the final vote was 25-20 against the proposal. In summary, it seems that graduate student voters are less supportive in general of the proposal for a variety of reasons. How the administration reacts to the GPSS rejection of the proposal remains to be seen. Thanks to all of you who talked to me about your feelings on the issue, I was able to voice a lot of your concerns to the Senate.
Also, there were some minor revisions made to the bylaws to correct out of date materials. As always, feel free to contact me with any concerns or issues you would like to see the senate address or discuss.
By Andrew Wells: The Graduate and Professional Student Senate met on 1/27/08.
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Thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out. Rich McBride attended what turned out to be a long meeting so special thanks to him.
There was a presentation about Relay for Life. This is an event sponsored by the American Cancer Society and is designed to raise funds and awareness. The scheduled date of the relay is March 28th. Registration is done in teams of 8- 14 people. Anyone who is interested in forming or joining a team should email nateisu@iastate.edu for more information.
There was a presentation on Teach for America. This is a program which takes recent graduates and sets them up to teach in impoverished areas of the United States. The commitment is for two years and a salary and benefits are provided. More information is available at http://www.teachforamerica.org/.
Finally there was a long presentation about the proposed recreation center renovation. This renovation requires a student wide vote which will occur online on February 25, 26, and 27. You will recieve an email with a link to the voting site. Please vote on this. The cost will be applied to student fees starting in 2009. In 2009 and 2010, rec fees will rise from 47 to about 67 dollars a semester, then in 2011 and for each year thereafter fees will increase to around 154 dollars a semester. Note that fees are not covered by our tuition waiver so you would have to pay this. It is a very significant fee increase, so please voice your opinion. More information about the renovations can be found at http://www.recrenovation.recservices.iastate.edu. Since GPSS will also vote on the issue separately, please let me know how you feel about the proposal so that I can better represent you on this issue.
There is a new program being offered by CELT for graduate students interested in teaching after graduation. It is a graduate teaching certificate separate from the PFF program. Details of the program can be found at http://www.celt.iastate.edu/gstc/.
Applications to PFF for the fall semester are due on the fourth Monday of February. Many people view PFF as a very positive experience, some do not. Find out more information at http://www.celt.iastate.edu/pff/homepage.html, or talk to people who have been involved in the past, such as Haseena, Aaron, Jake, or Liza.
The rest of the meeting was essentially spent amending the constitution and the bylaws.
I know this was a long report. Thanks for your patience.
By Andrew Wells: The Graduate and Professional Student Senate met on November 26th.
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First, we recieved a presentation about the 150th anniversary celebration on campus. Anyone interested in more information should visit http://www.iastate.edu/~isu150/ where there is an events calender and historical materials.
There was a presentation by Dean Holger of the graduate college concerning some administrative issues. Mostly this was about trying to more clearly delineate where post-docs fit into the existing bureaucracy. There may be some changes in the way Graduate Student tuitions are paid, but nothing that directly affects us. There is also an issue of improving the dental insurance available to graduate students, but nothing has yet been decided.
The senate approved the annual allocations bill which gives money to petitioning student groups. We did not request any money this year. In order to get money, a detailed form must be filled out explaining exactly what the money will be used for and what the academic benefits will be. If anyone has any suggestions for events or programs that might deserve such funding let me know.
Congratulations to two Math Department members who recieved peer awards at this meeting. Haseena Ahmed recieved an award for Research and Liza Kleiman recieved an award for Teaching.
In case you haven't heard, the recreation department is pushing to conduct pretty widespread renovations. In the Spring semester there will be a lot information about the exact proposal. It seems that this would require a fee increase in the area of $112 per semester. How this fee would be implemented is unclear at this time. A student wide vote will determine whether this goes forward, so I will be providing you with more information before the voting date at the end of February.
Any comments or questions can be directed toward Haseena or myself.

Mathematics Graduate Student Council