GPSO Assembly Meeting Minutes
November 7, 2008
Start time: 3:30 PM
1. IUSA Seats-Every year when there is a new IUSA incoming president and a
GPSO president, confusion for what each organization does.
a. IUSA-student government is the student body for the graduate and
undergraduate student body and typically have not focused on the
graduate student life
b. GPSO-also a government for the graduate and professional students
c. GPSO wants to appoint students for the IUSA just like the BFC so that
we develop a partnership like a lower and upper house.
d. There are two seats available on the IUSA. One seat for any student for
in the graduate school and one seat for a graduate student that lives
off campus
e. Meets once every three weeks and last less than one hour, meets on
Tuesday 8:30
f. GPSO representative would need to attend meetings and make a
report to the assembly. Is there anyone in the assembly that is
interested?
2. Provost Karen Hanson
a. What is your job and where do you sit in relation to the important
people? All school deans report to the provost and other units that are
related to the academic mission report to the provost office. All other
universities have the chief officers for academics. Executive vicepresident chairing the academic leadership council and involves the
other IU campuses and discusses the academic issues and last root for
new degree approval before the trustees.
b. What programs have you instituted or that have addressed graduate
education? Lot of new deans within the last couple of years and each
has been doing some planning. One thing they are looking at are the
overarching issues that they are helping with the schools. Larger
issues that are at the campus level in relation to the budget include
quality of life concerns, spousal employment, space issues (graduate
common space-need to find the funding for this issue), new
fellowships and scholarships for other students, monitoring inequities
for funding graduate students, benefits for graduate students. One
area that she would like to work on structured programs that work on
the multidisciplinary interests to play a role in the IU community.
c. What do you think of a committee for SAA salaries? Karen encourages
this kinds of committee and this kind of structure is need for getting
support for funding. Increments in salary will require a lot of
discussion. What is going to make a difference is if you can recruit
graduate students internationally and nationally in relation to other
departments from other schools. Used some of the money from her
office to raise the salaries of some stipends. Can be a long process but
can arguments can be made.
d. What is the current status of the IRB? IRB has had a string of
compliance issues, which stem from notifications from health and
human services from the grants. Whistle blowing occurred about
whether or not the procedures were being followed. This occurred in
BIACUC as well because some of the compliance issues with primates.
An outside source has structured an outside organization. Some of the
elements of the IRB structure are not where they need to be and some
issues whether or not a medical model has been imposed? Issue that
we need to take up with how IRB should work but we also need to pay
attention to the federal standards. Everything was stopped and a lot of
the protocols had to be redone. There was a huge amount of man
power and had to be shipped to IUPUI. Currently they are trying to get
back on track with more people to help.
e. Is the primate research going to be reinstated? Not likely.
f. What about the merger that is being considered right now? Provost
Karen is not sure about the merger right now. There has been some
push for a Vice President for Research because it plays a role in the
collaboration with the medical school. We want to be competitive
from the granting agencies and more are requiring collaborations
with other schools. It is difficult to manage and therefore, needs
another individual can oversee these transactions. Not sure about the
motivation behind the merger that is being considered right now
between University Graduate School and the Vice Provost of the
Research (OVPR). Wants to make a Vice-President office for these two.
3. University Information Technology Committee
a. Strategic Plan (Frank Acito-Associate Dean in the Kelly school and
currently chair of UIT committee; Laurie Antolovic, Jan Molloway)
b. Michael McRobbie was the vice president for technology and there
was a plan for technology in the late 90’s. This plan helped lay the
foundation for the IU and the 68 action items have all been
implemented. This plan took 10 years. There has been a lot of
progress and it is regarded as one of the top universities in the
country.
c. How important is information technology in your role on campus? A
lot of it is used for teaching, libraries, research, etc.
d. How much is the library is going to be digital? All of it. IU has been in
collaboration with google and is starting to digitize everything.
Starting with Michigan and then going to IU to digitize everything. Can
scan 30,000-35,000 books a week for shipping and returning them
back to the university. There are a lot of copyright issues and what
should happen are the books that are in the library are going to be
available to the students. There is a news release and the keywords
are: hathi and there is a trust that google has the money and
motivation for this project right now.
e. Can you pay to print out books that have been scanned in? This may
be a possibility, however they are waiting for electronic ink that
allows you to carry it around electronically in a device.
f. Can IU lead a movement for recapturing the intellectual property that
was generated by the university.
g. One has for maintaining the structure that IU has to build out the fiber
optics and continue to support the labs and buy the software for the
discounts.
h. Human interface work-there needs to be work to make the interfaces
more manageable for the students and faculty. For example, making
the calendar more efficient.
i. Use of technology for collaborations-“cloud computing”. Idea of
working together and jointly edit documents is about to come to the
forefront and become a bigger of the environment.
j. By December 1st, would like feedback for the plan.
4. Resolution on Committee SAA salaries
a. Discussion about the SAA salaries. There are so many efforts that can
be made to increase the salaries of the students.
b. Motion carries with 30 in favor of the Resolution
5. Resolution on University Graduate School
a. Motion carries with 27 in favor of the Resolution and 3 in abstaining
6. Executive Committee
a. Moderator Nominees
i. John Radez-4
ii. Nick Clark-25
iii. Boyd Khaatim-1