GSA Officer Meeting
May 6, 2015
11:00 am – 12:00 am
Lattimore 531
Attending:
President
Wei Lai
Communications Officer
Hongying Sun
Academic Programming Officer
Allison Browar
Student Advocacy Officer
Jingqiu Li
Social Programming Officer
Amanda Davis
Information Technology Officer
Carmen Cortazar
Treasurer
Stephanie Daifuku
Advisor
Janice Van Opdorp
New Student Advocacy Officer
Stephanie Daifuku
New Social Programming Officer
Orkhan Abdullayev
New Information Technology Officer Fabrizio Buccheri
1. Introductions
-Self introduction of GSA officers
President
Wei Lai (Physics)
Communications Officer
Hongying Sun (Biology)
Academic Programming Officer
Allison Browar (Mechanical Engineering)
Student Advocacy Officer
Jingqiu Li (Biology)
Social Programming Officer
Amanda Davis (Physics)
Information Technology Officer
Carmen Cortazar (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Treasurer
Stephanie Daifuku (Chemistry)
New Student Advocacy Officer
Stephanie Daifuku (Chemistry)
New Social Programming Officer
Orkhan Abdullayev (Chemical Engineering)
New Information Technology Officer Fabrizio Buccheri (Optics)
New Treasurer
Valerie Fleischauer (Chemistry)
Advisor
Janice Van Opdorp
2. Officer duties (GSA website.)
-President
Acts as the liaison between university administration and faculty, and graduate students of the
College, bringing forward graduate student concerns to the attention of university administration
and/or faculty. The GSA President also sits in on some GSA Committee meetings and
organizes Officer Elections at the end of the academic year.
-Social Programming Officer
Organizes social events which are a fun break from work and allow graduate students from
different departments to meet and get to know one another. Facilitates social events planned by
River Campus graduate students and groups. Past events have included: wine & cheese
parties, skiing trips, ice skating, a canal boat cruise, bowling, and salsa dancing lessons.
Academic Programming Officer
Fosters discussion between graduate students concerning topics that cross disciplinary
boundaries. The Academic Committee hosts workshops, seminars, discussion panels and
invited speakers. An example of past conferences includes the Creating a Career Conference,
intended to help graduate students envision non-traditional careers outside of academia. The
Academic Programming Officer is responsible for organizing the review process for the
conference travel funding applications. The Academic Programming Officer also consults on the
conferences and events GSA should fund. In the past, the Academic Committee co-sponsored
conferences on women’s studies, epistemology, and film studies.
Student Advocacy Officer
Works for material change that will benefit all graduate students. The Advocacy Officer works to
provide a voice for graduate student concerns with University administration and communicate
useful information to graduate students in response to those concerns. In the past, the
Advocacy Officer has worked to improve the University’s bus service and student health care,
attended regular university committee meetings on transportation and health services, gathered
information relevant to grad students (e.g. housing, health care & tax preparation) for the GSA
website, and sent a student to D.C. to lobby for tax reform at the national level.
Treasurer
The role of treasurer is to oversee the funding of GSA. More specifically, he/she is responsible
for approving funding requests from other graduate student groups or organizations and working
with accountants to handle all reimbursement or refund processes.
Communications Officer
The Communications Officer takes minutes of the GSA Officer and Annual General Meetings
and distributes the minutes to the GSA Webmaster and its Officers and/or the graduate student
population (as applicable). The Communications Officer also forwards GSA communiques to the
College’s graduate student population via the college grads mailing list.
Information Technology Officer
The Information Technology Officer’s role is to maintain the website including all hosted
applications (forums, photo gallery, etc.). In addition, he/she solicits information and resources
from other officers and UR students for inclusion in the website. The Information Technology
Officer also shares GSA promotional responsibilities (i.e. flyer and poster design).
3. Budget funding
GSA budget comes from 10 dollars mandatory fee per semester from ASE graduate students
and there is 12,000 dollars available every semester.