GSC Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, October 6, 2004
6:30 p.m., Graduate Student Lounge,
Dudley House
Introductions
Zoe Trodd, GSC
president, explained the role of the GSC as the voice for graduate students in GSAS. The GSC represents students to the
Deans, awards grants to students traveling to conferences, funds student
groups, and runs the Mentoring Awards program to encourage better advising. The monthly meetings are meant to be a
forum for discussion of graduate student issues.
Melanie Adrian,
last year's president, described some of the GSC's successes last year, including extended library privileges
for G1-G3s, evaluations for graduate student courses, and an in-depth look at
teaching fellow issues to be continued this year.
Members of the
executive committee were introduced and Mike Westover, GSC secretary, explained
the roles of the department representatives.
Josh Yaphe, GSC vice president, discussed the conference grant and mentoring award programs, the possibility of an open
forum on teaching fellow issues, and course evaluations.
Matthew Mosca,
at-large representative for the humanities, described the roles of the at-large
representatives from each GSAS division.
Executive
Committee Positions
Luigi Adamo was elected to fill the vacant position
of At-large Representative from the Division of Medical Sciences.
Lashkar
Kashif was elected as
the Parliamentarian / Ombuds coordinator.
The position of
Information Coordinator remained vacant.
Committee Positions
Students elected to committee positions:
GSC
Budget and Funding Committee
-- Imad Kordab, Fan Zhang, Pascale Lafountain, Ernst van Nierop, and Diana
Valencia
FAS
Library Committee -- Richard
Short and Sarah Carter
Graduate
Student Health Advisory Committee
-- Rob Cliver and Carrie Thiessen
Committee
on Graduate Education -- Sally
Marshall and Christine Thomas
Housing
Committee -- Allison
Binns and Ernst van Nierop
GSC
Social Committee -- Ruwan
Ratnayake and Hsiu-Chen Daphne Liao
Harvard Graduate
Council
Dominic Longo described
the Harvard Graduate Council's
roles including fostering communication between schools. Zoe Trodd emphasized that the GSAS representatives
must communicate well with both the HGC and the GSC. There was a question about the relative roles of the two
organizations. The GSC has been
around for a long time and represents GSAS students directly to the GSAS
Deans. The HGC is newer,
represents all graduate students at the University, and is just starting to
address advocacy issues; their contact with the University administration is
mainly through the Provost's office.
Dominic Longo, Ben
Lee, Josh Yaphe, and Ernst van Nierop were elected as the GSAS representatives
to the HGC.
Other Issues
Carrie
Thiessen was chosen as
the representative for interdisciplinary students.
The position of
international student representative remained vacant.
There was a
question about health insurance coverage for students with families living
outside Massachusetts. The Blue
Cross / Blue Shield plan only allows three out-of-state visits per year, and
other insurance is expensive.
Ben Lee and Josh
Yaphe requested that any students having problems with Harvard's policies on patents
or copyrights contact them.
Adjourned at
7:32.
Respectfully
submitted,
Mike Westover