Officer Reports for Assembly Meeting
October 4, 2013
MCAA Report by Joel Balbi
The relationship with Dr. Shadrick has continued successfully through our first joint program the Welcome
Reception for Graduate Students. The welcome reception hosted by Dr. Shadrick was a complete success with over
100 students in attendance! The money allocated for the program was used adequately and the program helped to
solidify our relationship with the office of Graduate studies. I have continued to work on the Decolonizing lecture
series which will continue this semester with a decolonizing food lecture which would focus on the historical origins
of “ethnic foods” from different colonized cultures and their relationship to their colonizers, as well as their
relationship with the political economy and how that has affected their cuisine. I will also be organizing a
decolonizing language lecture series which would focus on the historical origins of certain discriminatory/oppressive
words that have been traditionally used to keep people in a marginalized state. The decolonizing language program
will be the first of these 2 programs to be hosted. The confirm date for the decolonizing language program is
Thursday October 17, the room and the confirm speakers are still TBD.
Programming Report by Amanda Levit
Preparing the Presidential Forum is currently my main focus. The Forum will take place on November 4 th 2013. We
will have a student preliminary forum from 3:30pm- 4:30pm and the President Q&A from 4:30pm-5:30 pm the
preliminary forum will give student the opportunity to discuss major issues with each other, and create structured
questions and thoughts for the President Q &A.
To prepare for the Forum both SA and GSA will reach out to their respective student body to find out what are the
top 5 main areas of concern. This will prepare us further for the day of the event. The Facilitators of the discussion
the day of will be Caitlin and Joel.
I am also currently developing a Programming Chair Handbook. This handbook will advise future chairs on how to
develop and put on an effective and efficient program. It will include certain process specific to UAlbany, as well as
checklists for a chair to follow when developing an event.
I am very excited to have joined the GSA team and I am looking forward to making this a great year!
Grants Chair Report by Kimberly Berg
The new grants guidelines and application process were approved at the first assembly meeting of the semester,
during the first week of September. By the following Monday, the grants applications and guidelines were posted
on the GSA website and graduate students could begin completing and submitting applications at any point
thereafter. The deadline for the fall funding period, for this semester only, is October 1 due to the need for assembly
approval on the new process. Thus far, there are 11 applications (9 PD and 2 Research) and I expect a few more on
or before the Tuesday deadline. The call for committee members has also been disseminated on the listserv and we
have a sizeable committee given the number of applicants. The informational meeting for member responsibilities
as well as distributing evaluation forms will be in the first couple weeks of October. Tentatively, grants will be
reviewed and grantees will be notified of their awards no later than the first week of November.
Officer Reports for Assembly Meeting
October 4, 2013
Vice President’s Report by Nic DePaula
The RGSO committee is currently reviewing applications. Information regarding awards will be provided by the
time of the Assembly Meeting on October 4th, 2013.
Complications have not allowed me to be present in the first-meeting of my committee (Governance). I thus cannot
report on this at the moment. The President, who was present at the meeting may provide information on this in her
report or in the aforementioned assembly meeting. I am no longer participating in the Campus-Community
Engagement Committee. Questions regarding these activities may be addressed to the MCAA chair.
This week has been a “celebration” week of the work of UAlbany, culminating in a formal inauguration of the new
President Robert Jones. I will be participating in the inaugural event on Saturday morning, at 10am, representing and
giving remarks on behalf of the graduate student body.
A review of the RGSO Guidelines is currently taking place. A few propositions in regards to training, requirements,
funding periods, and initial amounts allotted to the RGSOs will be proposed for discussion at the assembly meeting
herein referred. Please, see agenda items and subsequent meeting minutes for further information on this discussion
and propositions.
Treasurer’s Report by Jessica Aubin
-
We are currently in the process of moving our voucher system online using myinvolvment. The system is
built with the exception of the RGSO’s designated budgets and links to RGSO pages. All RGSO’s should have and
will need a page on MyInvolvement by the start of the Spring semester.
There will be mandatory training for all RGSO’s on the new online process. RGSO’s should have had
someone email me with a designated representative as well as contact information by Oct. 1, 2013. Anyone that
has not contacted me should do so ASAP.
-
- I am looking at late Oct early Nov. for trainings to begin. All designated representatives will be contacted
with date options.
-
As of 10/1/2013 we have taken in, $72, 600.00, allocated $21,200.00 and actually spent $14,200.00 (See
table 1 for budget breakdown).
Table #1:
GSA Budget as
of 10/1/13
July 1, 2013June 30, 2014
Revenue
Projected Revenue:
$ 194,788
Actual Revenue:
$72,600
Officer Reports for Assembly Meeting
October 4, 2013
UAS Cash:
$ 30,000
Actual Budget:
$79,500
Contingency Budget:
$ 22,500
Total Allocated:
$21,186
Total Paid as of 9/24: $14,174
Total:
$ 202,288
Expenses
Budget
Allocated
GSA Direct Sponsor Events:
$ 6,000
$1,725
RGSO:
$ 35,000
$2,781
MCAA:
$ 6,000
$500
Programming:
$ 6,000
$340
Grants:
$ 35,000
$8,000
$5,324
GSA Orientation Picnic:
$ 2,000
$2,000
$1,188
GSA End of Year Event:
$ 2,000
GSA Assembly Meetings:
$ 1,000
Total:
$ 93,000
$15,346
$8,297
Budget
Allocated
Paid
Services
Operation
s
Office
Paid
Notes
$1,785
New Computers
$ 6,000
Copier and Printers
$ 35,000
$3,135
$2,991
Telephone and Fax
$ 1,000
$353
$295
Organization Liability
Insurance
$ 1,000
$886
$886
Office Supplies
$ 15,000
$1,091
$730
Notes
Officer Reports for Assembly Meeting
October 4, 2013
Total:
$ 58,000
$5,465
$4,902
Stipends Grants Chair
$ 3,000
MCAA Chair
$ 3,000
Programming Chair
$ 3,000
Treasurer
$ 3,500
Vice- President
$ 3,500
President
$ 4,500
Lead Senator and Senators
$ 1,000
Total:
$ 21,500
Office Managers (5)
$ 20,000
$975
Web Master
$0
$0
Total
$ 20,000
Salaries
$375
$375
$0
$0
$975
President’s Report by Caitlin Janiszewski
I want to thank Nic for filling in for me at the President’s inauguration. I had a personal matter that day and was
relieved that Nic was able to attend in my place. I have confidence that he did an excellent job and represented us
well.
The first order of business is our purchasing of new technologies. Since the last assembly meeting when you
approved printer purchases I have worked on negotiating the service contracts. There were substantial difficulties
with our Xerox salesperson. We could not seem to clarify where in the written parts of the contract this
salesperson’s verbal promises were reflected. Besides small issues such as the fact that they still had the wrong name
of our organization on the contract, there were substantial issues such as exactly what is included in maintenance,
what the cost per print is once we reach a certain number of prints, as well as what we can expect in terms of
Officer Reports for Assembly Meeting
October 4, 2013
service. I know you are all familiar with coming into the uptown office only to find out that the printer is down and
we are waiting on the tech. There is nothing in our current maintenance contract which indicates a time limit within
which the tech must arrive. I am trying to negotiate for some stipulations or at least clarify what our contract
contains. The salesperson was not clear about these issues, delaying our signing of anything. I had a discussion with
the salesperson’s boss, and he apologized profusely. He will now be handling our purchase at the pace we are
comfortable with. Once all of the nuances of the contract are clear we will sign the purchase agreement and
maintenance contract then schedule a day to deliver the printers to East and Downtown. I apologize for the delay in
opening Downtown, but I was not going to sign anything that was not entirely clear.
Because we are opening Downtown soon, we are also going to buy at least 2 of the 8 computer we planned on
purchasing before the April deadline. Currently, we are looking into whether we can utilize an account the UAS has
with Staples to get us a discount.
As Amanda noted in her report, we have scheduled a date for the President’s forum. We hope to establish a
precedent and a protocol with this event that allows it to be repeated every semester. It is unique for a University
President to agree to a public forum every semester. I am working closely with Joel and Amanda and a rep from SA
to make sure that we establish an inclusive and focused program. What we need to do as an Assembly is attempt to
identify our top 5 issues we would like to see discussed at this forum.
Senate Councils and Committees – here is the good news, I am told this is the earliest the GSA has assigned people
to Senate Councils and Committees in recent history, but our attendance has not been and will likely not be perfect. I
don’t expect it to be. I have shared a little bit with the Senate Executive Committee and more with the Chair of the
Senate about our plan for addressing these issues. From year to year the expectations associated with being a Senator
or sitting on a Council are unclear and people over extend themselves. I told the Senate Chair that we will do our
best this year, but more importantly we want to lay a foundation to do better next year. Here is what I mean. I was
misinformed at the beginning of my term that the Senate would contact me when they figured out how many
Senators we needed and that we would start putting people on Councils after that. It turns out all of the Senate
Councils form in the spring, but since we held our elections so late, they didn’t even think to bother us. At this point,
it is just kind of expected of us and SA that we will scramble to put people on Councils and have spotty attendance
all year. To address this issue, I am working with the advice of the SEC and the Senate Secretary to put together a
GSA-Faculty Senate guide which indicates to GSA Presidents from year to year a recommended course of action.
This includes, ensuring that our elections are held early enough that a call for Senators and Council reps can be sent
out and people appointed at the last GSA assembly meeting in May. That way we will have the summer to smooth
out all the issues. It will also include sections of the Senate charter which clearly indicates the activities and
expectations of each council.
On that note, we have not put a person on every Senate Council yet. We still need someone to sit on UAC and LISC.
This does include sitting on the council and a committee of that council. We also only had one person volunteer for
the Special Election committee and no one for the Wages and Benefits committee. This leaves us unable to hold an
election for a new Lead Senator. I want to emphasize that we should have a Wages and Benefits committee because
of what may happen this year regarding the CNSE split.
As most of you know, the primary concern of GSA thus far has been staying up to date on information so that we
best know where to position ourselves to serve our interests. The frustrating component has been that information
does not flow at a comfortable rate. As some of you know, over the summer, SA and GSA sent a joint letter to the
President, Chancellor, and Chairman indicating that we needed to be meaningfully integrated into this process to
represent our interests. At that point it was unclear what the re-structuring process would look like. At the first SEC
meeting this year I discovered there is an “Implementation Group” which is the group planning at the system level,
and there is an advisory council to the President which is going to advise President Jones at the campus level. Since
Officer Reports for Assembly Meeting
October 4, 2013
our concerns are at the campus level, this was the space I was concerned about getting a graduate student voice. But,
by the first SEC meeting on 9/16, I discovered that a list of 15 names had already been sent to the President’s office
by GOV. If the President chooses 51% of those names to be on a 12 person council he has gone through formal
consultation with GOV. I went to the first GOV meeting and expressed concern that student names were not on that
list. The Chair of GOV agreed that they had missed that and both the Chair of GOV and the Chair of the Senate have
suggested that they will encourage the President’s office to address this issue and give us space on this advisory
council. GOV asked for a name to give the President’s office and since 1- I could not commit someone else on the
spot and 2- it fits with my responsibilities as President to fulfill this task, I gave them my name.
If given a role on this board, I intend to push the 2 main issues that have been brought to my attention from the
moment the split was announced; proper compensation for GTAs and the restoration of the humanities at UA. My
plan is to work with Dean Williams to understand how University funds are allocated to the pool of money that he is
able to use to fund graduate students. While this advisory council will likely deal with everything from payment for
services to who will clean the toilets, the important thing is that we are be in place to bring up our issues at the
appropriate time.
This is why I believe it is important that our Wages and Benefits committee be in place. If we do succeed in getting
GTA compensation on the table, the next question will be whether to use that money for raises, 4 th and 5th year
funding, or if we want to tackle issues of childcare and healthcare. Having that committee already discussing these
things will allow me to speak with confidence on this council (hopefully). The other key issue which is bigger than
graduate students is the restoration of the humanities. I personally support this issue and have had a few students
bring it to my attention. But I do not feel I am in the position to state that the GSA as an organization supports it. I
think it is something we should discuss and consider taking a specific position on.
Due to the fact that I am taking on extra responsibilities in the Senate, our former Vice President Genevieve Kane
has agreed to take my place on the UAS board of directors. They just recently changed their bylaws offering us a
place on the board so Genevieve will use this opportunity to better understand our relationship with UAS, our
financial operations, and how we can get UAS to support us better as graduate students.
See you all at the meeting!