iowa state university senators/15-16 senate meetings/03...iowa state university graduate &...

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

Graduate & Professional Student Senate

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GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL STUDENT SENATE 1Remarks and Reports 2

3I. Report of the President 4

i. I will be able to provide updates about meetings with Dr. Holger, the Policy Library 5Advisory Committee, and the Provost after the meetings. For now, the plan is to simply 6discuss Resolution S16-05 and the revisions to Chapter 9 of the Graduate Student 7Handbook. These meetings are scheduled for this week. 8

ii. I met with Student Government and discussed the GPSRC, potential scholarships for 9Graduate Senators at Large, permanent Graduate/Professional Student representation on the 10Student Government elections committee (to prevent future instances of the issues 11presented during this election cycle, which included failures for some students to receive 12proper ballots), and revisions to the Articles of Cooperation (which have not been updated 13in several years). It will be up to the next Leadership of GPSS and the next Senate to ensure 14that these discussions are continued, and appropriate action is taken. 15

iii. In the Policy Library Advisory Committee (PLAC) meeting, we discussed progress with 16the Chapter 9 (Graduate Handbook) revisions. The PLAC is a committee that has different 17stakeholders so when policy is revised, the different entities that it impacts can provide 18feedback. The Chapter 9 Review Committee (part of the Graduate Council, and includes 19me and GPSS URLA Chair) has been reaching out to different stakeholders by default. 20Still, this meeting was productive because the Graduate Council will have a member sit on 21the PLAC committee in the future, so communication is enhanced. 22

iv. My meeting with the Provost was cancelled by me, due to illness. The Provost is working 23with the GPSS URLA Chair on a professional development seminar. In April, I will be 24sharing information about the Faculty Senate’s conference about research ethics and 25misconduct. It will open up to Graduate and Professional Students in April and I highly 26encourage attendance. We have several GPSS members involved with a panel at the 27conference. 28

v. Dean Holger will investigate statistics to determine the costs and benefits associated with 29the current late registration / registration change fee that we discussed in our last meeting 30(regarding S16-05). Having different policies for undergraduate students and graduate 31students is quite complicated, and I do not believe the Registrar will be interested in dealing 32with those issues. However, the Dean is (as usual) open to discussion and I passed on 33arguments and points from a constituent in the HCI program. These discussion points were 34considered very helpful. The discussion continues. 35

vi. The Chapter 9 Revisions were discussed in the Graduate Council Meeting. Discussion was 36limited to the Rights and Responsibilities statement. The whole chapter will (hopefully) be 37voted on in the April meeting. If approved, it is expected to be passed on to the Provost and 38President for final approval. Faculty provided constructive criticism about the Rights and 39Responsibilities statement. A simplified version of the feedback follows: 40a. Some of it reads as contentious, and it is unclear what happens if there is a 41

disagreement. Language should be softened. It is also unclear what is encouraged as a 42



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best practice and what is a fundamental right. The format does not fit with the rest of 1the handbook. 2

b. Based on this feedback, the URLA Chair and I are leading a revision to this section of 3Chapter 9 which will convert the rights and responsibilities to narrative format, begin 4with a preamble that contextualizes the section and describes the recommended 5approach for dealing with grievances. It will also, critically, distinguish between 6fundamental rights (e.g., right to be respected) and best practices that are encouraged by 7the graduate college, that are also discipline-appropriate (e.g., encouraged to attend 8conferences and workshops). We were asked to work on an aggressive timeline, but that 9is OK. It is too important for us to do otherwise. 10

c. The URLA Chair and I will pass along our revisions to the rest of the committee before 11getting feedback from the Deans and the faculty members who raised concerns during 12the Graduate Council meeting. Hopefully, we can bring forward a document that gets 13approved in April. 14

II. Report of the Vice President 15i. Constitution will be brought before the Senate again for a second procedural vote. No 16

amendments will be allowed, but we will allow discussion. No other legislation on the 17agenda at this time. 18

ii. Our March 3rd social at Es Tas was quite successful. Thank you to everyone for your 19contributions! Appetizers were available at the beginning and all students were offered two 20tacos. At one point we hit capacity and had a waiting line outside. In total about $938 (tip 21included) was spent leaving about $62 remaining in the mid-semester socials budget. We 22estimate that this served approximately 170 students, which during my tenure would be the 23highest mid-semester social attendance that I've seen. If it wasn't the highest in attendance, 24then we can at least say that the quality of food and venue might have been one of the better 25ones. 26

iii. Spring social has been scheduled to be close to the GPSRC as it has been in years past. It 27will be Friday, April 15th @ 6:30-8:30pm in Perfect Games. It would be ideal to advertise 28this alongside the GPSRC as much as we can to try to get the maximum number of 29attendees. The cost of this event will be about $1758 (tip included), which is over budget 30for the spring, but with left over from the fall and mid-semester budgets I have been told we 31should be fine. 32

iv. UT Arlington graduate students are considering a bill for maternity and paternity leave. 33We provided them with our parental leave policy and hopefully that will help shape their 34discussions. To remind ISU about our policy, GPSS President has suggested to the Daily 35an article covering it and investigating its level of usage over the last 3 or 4 years since 36adoption. 37

v. Student Government elections were March 1st and 2nd. There were some hiccups to say 38the least. We tried to quickly and calmly address those, but the entire thing should have 39been better. GPSS President is working with SG to improve processes for the future. 40

vi. As a reminder, any senator may join the Rules Committee and Social Committee by 41emailing [email protected]. 42



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vii. Please forward any suggested speakers for Open Forum to [email protected] 1III. Report of the Treasurer 2

i. Approx $12,000 in Regular Allocations funding 3ii. Many clubs seemed to not understand the Allocations process 4iii. Focus groups in April to discuss the effectiveness of the on-line allocations request system - 5

all comers welcome 6iv. I'll send out an e-mail to Senators and club representatives in early April with proposed 7

dates and scheduling 8IV. Report of the Chief Information Officer 9

i. ElectionsandOperationsCommitteemettodiscussexeccouncilelectionsand2016-201710Senatestructure.Thenewstructure,basedonFall2015statistics,isaddedbelowina11table.12

ii. Openednominationsfor2016-2017Senate.13iii. MetGPSScontactinRegistrar'soffice,JonathanCompton,todiscusswhatdatawas14

providedtoSGElectionCommission,nexttomeetMarciaMcDowell.15iv. Checkedall103clickers,theyallregisteredvoteandhavefullbattery.16v. NominationsforGPSSExeccouncil2016-2017:17

a. President:GeorgeWeston,VivekLawana18b. Vice-President:FabianCampbell,BharatRajAgrawal19c. Treasurer:20d. ChiefInformationOfficer:HuanjiaoDong21e. UniversityRelationsLegislativeAffairsChair:ShivaniGhaisas22f. ProfessionalAdvancementGrantsChair:MuhammedWalugembe23g. ResearchConferenceChair:AkshitPeer 24

25GraduateandProfessionalStudentSenate2016-2017

GraduateDepartment Students SenatorsAccounting 39 1AerospaceEngineering 100 1AgriculturalandBiosystemsEngineering 90 1AgriculturalEducationandStudies 74 1Agronomy 316 4AnimalScience 80 1Anthropology 13 1ApparelEdSt&HospitalityMgmt 99 1Architecture 56 1Biochemistry,BiophysicsandMolecularBiol 65 1BioinformaticsandComputationalBiology 9 1BiomedicalSciences 71 1BiorenewableResourcesandTechnology 1 1



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BusinessAdministration 161 2ChemicalandBiologicalEngineering 70 1Chemistry 148 2Civil,ConstructionandEnvironmentalEngineering 209 3CommunityandRegionalPlanning 43 1ComputerScience 164 2Ecology,EvolutionandOrganismalBiology 64 1Economics 94 1Education 344 4ElectricalandComputerEngineering 380 4EngineeringManagement 3 1English 133 2Entomology 17 1Family&ConsumerSciences 51 1Finance 12 1FoodScienceandHumanNutrition 128 2Genetics(Interdisciplinary) 13 1GeneticsDevelopmentandCellBiology 53 1GeologicalandAtmosphericSciences 38 1Gerontology 2 1GraphicDesign 34 1History 32 1Horticulture 20 1HumanComputerInteraction 37 1HumanDevelopment&FamilyStudies 61 1Immunobiology 2 1IndustrialandManufacturingSystems 196 2IndustrialDesign 14 1InformationAssurance 9 1IntegratedStudioArts 18 1InterdisciplinaryGraduateStudies 14 1InteriorDesign 16 1JournalismandMassCommunication 35 1Kinesiology 36 1LandscapeArchitecture 25 1MaterialsScienceandEngineering 75 1Mathematics 88 1MechanicalEngineering 257 3Microbiology 8 1MolecularCellularandDevelopmentalBiology 4 1



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NaturalResourceEcologyandManagement 42 1Neuroscience 2 1NutritionalSciences 6 1PhysicsandAstronomy 100 1PlantBiology 5 1PlantPathologyandMicrobiology 41 1PoliticalScience 28 1ProfessionalAgriculture 8 1Psychology 67 1SeedTechnologyandBusiness 31 1Sociology 37 1Statistics 142 2SupplyChainandInformationSystems 112 2SustainableAgriculture 1 1SustainableEnvironments 4 1SystemsEngineering 11 1Undeclared 253 3UndeclaredDistanceEducation 5 1UrbanDesign 3 1VeterinaryClinicalScience 4 1VeterinaryDiag&ProdAnimalMed 17 1VeterinaryMedicine 584 4VeterinaryMicrobiology&PrevMed 41 1VeterinaryPathology 13 1WindEnergyScience,EngineeringandPolicy 2 1TOTAL 5680 104 1

V. Report of the University Relations and Legislative Affairs Chair 2i. 3

VI. Report of the Professional Advancement Grant Chair 4i. Distribution of PAGs in accordance with the PAG policy on April 2016. 5

a. Three students cancelled their March grants giving $540.00 to the month of April 2016. 6b. Total money available on April 2016: $9,536.74 7c. March applications: 8

1. Submissions Total: 76 92. Approved Priority 1: 47 103. Approved Priority 2: 5 114. Denied: 24 125. *Lottery performed on March 15th at 8:40 pm in presence of Senator Neeva 13

Benipal. 14



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6. Leftover money that went to the month of April 2016: $156.24. 1ii. On March 11th, the PAG Committee and the Graduate College talked about the suggestions 2

to improve the Margaret Ellen White Graduate Faculty Award. New changes in the form, 3format, and clarifications suggested will be worked with the next GPSS PAG Chair and the 4Graduate College. 5

iii. The PAG Committee is working on the GPSS Teaching, Research, Leadership Awards, and 6the Wakonse Fellowship. We will have final results on April 8th. 7

iv. I want to publically acknowledge the good work and dedication of each member of the 8PAG Committee. They have done a great job during the time I was GPSS PAG Chair: 9a. Martha Ibore – Senator of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology 10b. Nadia Jaramillo Cherrez – Senator of School of Education 11c. Neeva Benipal – Senator of Chemical and Biological Engineering 12d. Armando Figueroa – Senator of Electrical and Computer Engineering 13e. Juan Duchimaza Heredia – Senator of Chemistry 14f. Muhammed Walugembe – Senator of Animal Science 15

v. Special thanks to Senator Anna Prisacari and Senator Darlene Sanchez for their help with 16the evaluation of the GPSS Teaching, Research, Leadership Awards and Wakonse 17Fellowship. 18

vi. Thank you to all Senators who informed their constituents about PAG applications and the 19faculty and student awards. Without your help it would not be possible to have historic 20records of applications. 21

vii. During April, I will work together with the new elected GPSS PAG Chair. We need to 22work on training in the PAG system, information and suggestions for the faculty award, and 23information and suggestions for the GPSS student awards. 24

VII. Report of the Graduate and Professional Student Research Conference Chair 25i. Abstract submission tally- 26

a. Poster- 65 27b. Oral- 78 28c. 3MT- 07 29d. Impactful- 05 30

ii. Judging committee is working on abstracts 31iii. Met Rob (Provost office). He will get the news out to IS daily, Tribune. Local news 32

channel may cover the event and may be Des Moines Register too!! 33iv. The GPSS Spring Social will be on the April 15th, 2016 at Perfect games. 34v. We are going to do a raffle for participants. 35vi. Please encourage graduate students to register. The registrations will close on April 5th. 36vii. Please sign up for volunteering on the conference day. 37

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