The 7th meeting of the academic year 1995-6 was held at 5.30 pm on
Wednesday,
1st May, 1996 in the Graduate Student Lounge in Dudley House.
Officers Present: Carlos Lopez, Todd Bodner, Stephen Zatman,
Richard Boulware, Paul Callan, Gabriella Gonzalez Apologies: Officers Elect: Adam Fagen, Kyriel Muhammad, Christine Millett
1. Announcements
The following items were noted:
(a) Meeting with President Rudenstine, Friday May 10th at 5pm.
(b) Travel/Research Grant deadline Monday, May 6th, 5pm. Applications on
the door in the Graduate Student Lounge or off the GSC website.
(c) Next meeting - Wednesday October 2nd at 5.30.
2. President's Business
Spread the word about the GSAS survey. The initial response has been poor,
and it is vitally important for determining future changes to be made to
GSAS. New copies may be procured from the publications office. Carlos assured
us that there would not be a problem with lack of anonymity this time as
information such as year and sex would be screened off before the surveys
are passed to the department.
Carlos Lopez and Paul Callan were elected as our representatives to NAGPS.
Carlos acclaimed himself in a public fashion.
Barbara Whitlock from OEB and Jed Wyrick from Comparative Literature were
"randomly" selected to be the student representatives on the student
judicial board.
3. Teaching Fellow Referral Office
The council voted to up the contribution to the teaching fellows clearing
house program to $1500, to come from discretionary funds. It was made
understood
that this would not be a permanent budget item. A previous motion to up
the contribution to just $1000 was defeated.
The total budget for the office is $8000. It will be open from 11am to 4pm
Monday to Friday for the first two weeks of each semester, and will be staffed
by two people. It was made clear that this does not imply that these people
are being paid $40 an hour.
4. Elections of Computer Facilities Officer
This position remains unfilled.
5. Report of Information Systems Review Committee
Continued from the last meeting. Paul continued to go through the report
from the information systems review comittee.
There should be a second user assistant, paid for by FASCS, for help over
e-mail or via the Web, and who will run the computer information meetings.
The roles of the two assistants are distinct. The hope is that this user
assistance service should develop into a more general resource for GSAS
students than just the GSC computer room.
Homepages can be put on the GSC machine, either for individuals or student
groups. Links can be made from the GSC web page to other web pages of interest.
If you want either a web page or a link, e-mail paul (jpcallan@fas).
We shall be getting 2 Mac IIcis from FASCS, and all suitable computers in
the room will be connected to the network .
Security cards proved to be an unfeasibly pricey way to ensure security,
but we shall increase security both through having the second user assistant
around and by putting bars on the machines so that they can't be opened.
We should start a shareware library on one of the machines, and look into
laptop ethernet connections (whenever FAS begins to allow these). You can
already connect laptops to one of the GSC computers.
Provision of CD ROMs and individual filespace need further consideration.
It was noted that FASCS understands that the computer room still belongs
to the GSC; they are suppurting the computer room as they do with those
in the undergraduate houses. The GSC welcomed the commitment by FASCS to
improve services to the graduate student population.
The possibility of online elections for the GSC President or other offices
will be discussed in the fall.
The following motion was passed: "The council accepts the report and
approves its recommendations".
6. Budget for 1996/97
The council is solvent. We won't know how solvent until the summer comes,
when other people sned in their bills.
Richard presented the budget for 1996/97. The budgeted expenditure is greater
than in most years, partly because of rationalisation (taking regular expenses
normally included in the discretionary funds and putting them in different
catagories), and partly because of the average anticipated equipment expenses
recommended for the computer room. It is understood that such a large budget
($62,550 odd) can not be maintained permanently without an increase in GSC
income. But the implication was made that this large budget is a once-only
occurance.
7. Other Business
(a) Harvard Medical Area ballroom dance. Less competitive than Harvard Radcliff
ballroom dance. Basic training for weddings. See posters.
(b) Harvard Repetitive Strain Injury, a new group, shall be having a study
break. See posters. They will talk to the Health Advisory Committee.
(c) There was a long discussion on the 10 year cap on GSAS students, and
especially on whether it should apply to students who entered before the
cap was introduced. The matter will be raised at the CGE and the GSC meeting
with the GSAS Deans.
(d) Renovation of Dudley House will not happen this summer, but will happen
next summer for sure. The plans will be developed in a body with student
representation. We should discuss next meeting setting up a group to discuss
this all.
(e) Harvard rules say you can't teach more than 16 fifths, or 5 in any year.
(Two fifths is the normal teaching load for a semester.) Although exceptions
are usually made, this can cause harship.
The matter will be discussed further in the fall.
