Officers Present: Carlos Lopez, President; Ian Richmond, Vice President; Stephanie Abundo, Secretary; Zoltan Maliga, Treasurer; Gabriella Gonzalez and Kyriell Muhammad, Social Officers.

Departments NOT Represented: Anthropology, Astronomy, Business Economics, Chemical Physics, Economics, Germanic Languages and Literature, Government, History and East Asian Languages, History of American Civilization, Inner Asian and Altaic Studies, Linguistics, Medical Sciences (DMS), Molecular and Cellular Biology, Psychology, Public Policy, Regional Studies--Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Romance Languages and Literature, Slavic Languages and Literature

1. Announcements
   • GSC Conference and Summer Research Grants: Application deadline is Monday, May 10. Completed applications are due in the GSC Office by 5:00 p.m.

   • GSC Pub Night: Friday, February 12, 1999, from 9pm to midnight at Longwood Medical Area.

   • Open Community Meeting with Christoph Wolff: Christoph Wolff, Dean of GSAS will hold an open meeting for all GSAS students, Wednesday February 17, from 4-5 p.m. at Dudley House. There will be no agenda for the meeting. All GSAS students are welcome to attend, and discuss their issues of concern.

   • GSC Open House: Wednesday, March 17, 1999 5 p.m.-6 p.m. This open house is planned to provide information about the GSC officer positions to anyone interested in running for a GSC officer position in the upcoming April 7 election.

   • Meeting with President Rudenstine: Monday, March 22, 1999 5 p.m.-6 p.m. This is the GSC's annual meeting with President Rudenstine. An agenda will be distributed before the meeting. University-wide issues of concern to graduate students will be discussed. Eight to ten people will attend the meeting.

   • GSAS Student Environmental Group: Scott Hess announced that the first meeting of the GSAS Environmental Group will be held on Wednesday, February 17 in the Fireside Room of Dudley House. All are welcome. This group is considering sponsoring environmental campus activism, service projects, academic research and speakers.

   • GSC Excellence in Mentoring Awards: This award will be presented at a reception held in conjunction with the Spring Student-Faculty dinner on Thursday April 29 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. Nomination forms are available at the GSC office, or web-site. The deadline to submit a nomination is March 15.

   
   
   
2. Matters Arising from the minutes of December 1998 meeting: None.

   
   
   

3. Treasurer's Report
   • The GSC approved the following funding requests: $270 for the GSAS Christian Fellowship, $54.56 for the Jewish Students in Arts and Sciences, and $100 for the Canadian Club.

   
   
   
4. Committee Reports
   • Committee on Graduate Education: The CGE has not met since November. The CGE has the GSC document Advising in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences: A Proposal on Strategies for Effective Advising but has not taken any action on it.

   • FAS Library Committee: The digital library initiative is planning to make more digital information available. The Widener stacks will be renovated this summer, which will require closing sections of the stacks one section at a time. During that time the books in the sections being renovated should be accessible by request, but not by browsing. Pusey and Lamont have scheduled renovations this summer.

   • Graduate Student Health Advisory Committee (GSHAC): GSHAC will hold its next meeting February 8, at 4 p.m. in the Fireside Room of Dudley House. Anyone interested in graduate student health issues is invited.

   • Harvard Graduate Council: The HGC will be having a Valentines Day Party, February 13 at Club Joy in Boston Check out its web page http://gs181.sp.cs.cmu.edu/harvard/info.html for more information.

   
   
   
5. Discussion: Proposed changes to the GSC Constitution and Bylaws
   • The draft of the proposed GSC constitution and bylaws was distributed to the GSC together with the current constitution. Currently there are no bylaws. Comments on the draft proposal may be emailed to the GSC. Necessary changes will be incorporated into the documents. The final proposals will be mailed to the GSC representatives before the March meeting. At the March meeting the GSC will vote whether to accept the proposal.

   
   
   

Respectfully submitted,
Stephanie Abundo