General Council Meeting
March 12, 2012
Minutes
Anthropology:
Biological Sciences: Yaw Adomako-Ankomah
Chemistry: Brian Graham, Tim Cunningham
Classics: Nic Thorne
Communication:
Comp. Science: Mike Lipschultz
Economics: David Klinowski
English:
French & Italian: Amanda Bock
Geology: Bobby Karimi
Germanic: Carrie Carlson
Hispanic: Emma Freeman
History: Chris Myers
H.A.A.: Madeline Eschenburg
H.P.S.:
Intel. Systems: Yuriy Sverchkov
Linguistics: Katherine Martin, Meghan Dabkowski
Mathematics: Ana Mamatelashvili
Music: Stephen Hager
Neuroscience: Dibs Datta
Philosophy:
Physics: Mark Steger
Political Science: Danial Hoepfner
Psychology:
Religious Studies: Lianghao Lu
Slavic: Irina Anisimova
Sociology: Jeff Tienes
Statistics:
Theatre Arts: Dave Peterson
Attendance by Sign In
I. Call to Order
by President Katie Moriarty at 6:05pm
II. Approval of Minutes from February 7, 2012 General Council Meeting
Minutes approved with no changes at 6:05pm
III. Additions to Agenda
IV. Executive Council Reports
A. President Katie Moriarty:
1) Pitt Day in Harrisburg is TUESDAY March 13; Harrisburg Day at Pitt: A&S Letter-writing campaign
all day in the WPU assembly room.
2) Tuesday March 27: ETD/Graduation Info Session with Philippa Carter, 6-7:30 in the Martin
Room, Food will be served
3) No report from University Senate. Pitt Day and Budget Cuts were on the agenda.
4) Last Thursday's Shooting @ Western Psych: 2 individuals died—shooter and a young man who
was a Pitt alumni. See Nordenberg's letter on the Pitt website.
As a side note: ENS alerts can be annoying but are helpful in real emergencies. To sign up for texts/calls, go to
my.pitt.edu.
A&S GSO minutes, 04/04/2012.
**NOTE: Opinions expressed in the GSO minutes are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the position of
the A&S GSO.
5) The Executive Council has updated the A&S GSO job descriptions; the only one fully explained in
the constitution is the AA (Article VI. Section 3). See job duties (handout) as some have
changed.
6) Nominations for President and Vice-President are now officially open! Email Adrienne at
asgso@pitt.edu to nominate someone. Positions start May 1.
7) Check out handout compiled by GPSA on PA budget and proposed cuts to the budget.
B. Vice-President Emily Bailey: A&S GSO annual Tax Workshop was held 2/16/2012; about 55 people showed up
and the H&R Tax representative did a good job explaining the tax form and fielding questions.
C. Administrative Assistant Adrienne Spillar
a) Grad Expo flyers are outside; please take some and post in your department. Before posting any
materials, please ask your department administrator what adhesive is to be used.
b) Regarding nominations: Email me with who you want to nominate; I will then email the individual(s)
to see if they accept/decline the nomination. Nominations will be open until April 10, 2012—we'll take final nominations
at the meeting too.
D. Faculty Advisor Dr. Tony Walters:
No Report.
V. Committees
A. GPSA (Graduate and Professional Student Assembly):
Meghan: Harrisburg Day at Pitt: 8:30-6pm in the WPU Assembly room; volunteers needed to help out:
sign up on line; 4/10/2012: Student Action Day for A&S, Location TBA. 3/16/2012: Governor Corbett Pancakes & Politics
go the GPSA Facebook Group Page (NOT the Organization Page) to RSVP and be entered into the Lottery to get a ticket.
3/22/2012: Pancakes and Politics in the WPU Kurtzman room.
Voting turnout was low...GPSA Executive board is trying to figure out why:
Adrienne: There seems to be a general lack of interest among grad students about organizations; also,
some of the events were at inconvenient times/locations.
Meghan: Spring break may have been problematic for voting period. Congrats to Mike Lipschultz and
Dave Givens, who will be representing A&S in GPSA next year!
B. Grad Expo:
We would appreciate any help during the day of Grad Expo: Thursday, March 22, 2012 in the WPU. I will
be sitting at the Grad Expo table all day and would love some company!
If you know of faculty members who would be willing to judge, please let me know and I'll send a
request!
C. Teaching Awards:
Katherine Martin: 68 people who were nominated submitted applications; the first review round is in
swing; Thanks to Mike Lipschultz for his hard work coordinating all the review round 1 stuff!
The field will be narrowed through several rounds through March and winners will be determined on
April 2.
D. Social Events:
Bobby Karimi :Triva, Tonight 8pm, Bridges Bar at the Holiday Inn. Winners get $50.00 to use toward
next month's trivia tab! Last Trivia of Academic year will be Monday April 9 at Bridges Bar!
E. Website:
A&S GSO minutes, 04/04/2012.
**NOTE: Opinions expressed in the GSO minutes are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the position of
the A&S GSO.
Mike Lipschultz: Teaching Award Application was online. 2) GPSA Letter-writing campaign co-hosted by
A&S GSO. 3) Have been contacting the A&S Grad Studies folks to update links to our new site, have not received a
response.
Adrienne: I will ask around in Grad Studies to get this worked out!
F. External A&S Committees:
a. A&S Council:
Katherine Martin: Meeting cancelled. Instead, we attended the A&S PBC meeting to brainstorm means to cut
expenses.
b. A&S PBC:
Chris Myers: at the giant A&S PBC meeting Katherine mentioned, 84 people (dept. chairs,
administrators) from A&S departments and the A&S Council were in attendance. Department PBCs reported to
the PBC committee. Most proposals were conservative. Major suggestions: Enforce research inactive teaching
loads. 5-year strategic plan meetings are underway. Encouraging news for grad students: diversity and funding
are priorities!
c. A&S Grad Council:
Nic Thorne: A lot of interesting stuff was discussed; however, it is confidential.
VI. Old or Unfinished Business
Statistics department has been voted “inactive.” Question is now, what to do with $339.35 in their account?
There are several options: 1) reallocate to departments. 2) put into social events. 3) put into workshops.
Adrienne: As of now, we have the ETD workshop scheduled for March 27, but have only $7.00 left in the
workshop budget for the year. Some money for the forthcoming workshop would be most appreciated.
Mark Steger: Does anyone have any suggestions?
Nic: Social event!
Jeff Tienes: Sociology grad students have discussed what to do with this money and we think a social event
would be a less responsible use of funds given the needs of the GSO. About ¾ of Sociology students think that
workshops, professional development events, teaching award, sponsoring a film would be better ways to use the funds.
Also, redistributing the funds to the other departments or donating the money were also suggested.
Katie: keep in mind that the activity fees which every grad student pays are used to fund GPSA; GPSA then keeps
about 50% of the money to run their programs and distributes the remaining 50% to grad schools, including the A&S.
Jeff: we could also set the funds aside for emergency.
Irina: Slavic grad students think that funding an additional teaching award, using it for travel grants, or holding a
publishing workshop would be better uses for the funds than a social event.
Mark Steger: We could use some money for the upcoming workshop and carryover the remaining funds.
Katherine: Speaking for Linguistics, I think we should use some funds for the forthcoming workshop and then
use the remaining money for a social event or to redistribute among departments.
Katie: our goal for next year is to hold about 3 workshops per semester. Since the A&S has such a diverse
constituency, more workshops would be helpful to address the varied needs of grad students.
Bobby: I agree with Katie; if we have money to hold more workshops that are applicable to the widest array of
A&S Grad Students, that'd be the most responsible use of funds. Keep in mind that departments who want to hold
particular workshops that address the needs of their grad students can always use department GSO funds for those.
Katie: Also, extra funds could be used to help sponsor a dissertation boot camp. One was held last year, but only
had room for 18 students. Extra money could be used to pay for people to run the boot camp.
Irina: Is the boot camp going to be held again?
A&S GSO minutes, 04/04/2012.
**NOTE: Opinions expressed in the GSO minutes are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the position of
the A&S GSO.
Katie: As of now, there isn't anything in the works...funding may not be available.
Motion: Use $175.00 for March 27 workshop and leave the $164.35 remaining to be earmarked as seed money for
future workshops. Proposal seconded; straw vote, 20 Ayes/0Nays. Motion carries.
Katie: Note: grad students cannot secede from the GSO: all grad students must pay activity fees. If departments
choose to be disengaged from the GSO, they are still required to pay activity fees.
Adrienne: For example, Bioethics was voted “inactive.” We contacted them repeatedly about becoming involved
with the GSO again and they responded that they were not interested in participating.
Meghan: do current Bioethics students know about this?
Adrienne: good question. We'll look into it and see if they want to re-engage with the GSO.
VII. New Business
Budget: (see attached document for proposal)
Katherine: Rather than pull funds from the emergency reserve, can't we simply increase the amount of a line
item in the budget? Where would those funds come from?
Adrienne: Yes. We can increase the amount of any line item on the budget without reducing the emergency
fund. The GSO balance at the end of the fiscal year includes department fund carryovers and extra money not spent
from the GSO budget. The department carryovers are earmarked and the remaining GSO funds are added to the GPSA
subsidy. Then, all the budgeted funds are subtracted from the GPSA subsidy; what remains is the Department Allocation
for that fiscal year. So, increasing a line item would essentially reduce the Department allocation funds. However, since
we've made sure all department funds are accounted for with cash backing, the allocation for next fiscal year will be
larger than this year.
Mark Steger: What happens to the emergency reserve at the end of the fiscal year?
Adrienne: All remaining funds from the GSO office budget are added to the GPSA subsidy amount. i.e. it is
reabsorbed into the fiscal allocation.
Katherine Martin: Motion to add $100.00 to Workshop line item. Motion seconded, straw vote. Motion passes.
Bobby: Motion to pass the budget with the amended line item.
Mark: Seconds motion.
Brian Graham: What about the Social Events allocation? Motion to add $150.00 for Happy Hour
Chris: How much will be left of the current happy hour budget at the end of this fiscal year?
Adrienne: there are still two trivias left; bobby still needs reimbursed for a previous event
Bobby: there will be about $150.00 left.
Irina: The Slavic department would like more happy hours and less trivia!
Bobby: GSO trivia is supposed to be fun, not competitive .
Mark: If we rollover the Happy hour funds, won't that cover summer events?
Motion (above) to add $150.00 to social events not seconded. Dies.
Motion to pass budget with workshop amendment still on table and seconded. Straw vote, motion passes.
BUDGET PASSED.
2) Bobby: Proposes an amendment to the GSO Constitution:
Section 3: 1) Elections shall occur as a special election prior to the start of the April GSO general council meeting.
2) Eligible voters are members of the General Council.
3) Only one vote will be tabulated per department.
4) Voting shall be by secret ballot with no abstentions
5) In the event of a tie, the President, Vice-President and Administrative Assistant shall submit a vote by secret ballot to
be counted by the faculty advisor.
Discussion: Ryan Moore: What happens in the event of a 3-way tie?
Adrienne: While there are numerous possible scenarios which may be imagined, I would hope that the delegates
of the General Council will use their critical thinking skills to come up with a reasonable solution in a pinch.
The Proposed Amendment is tabled until the next meeting.
A&S GSO minutes, 04/04/2012.
**NOTE: Opinions expressed in the GSO minutes are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the position of
the A&S GSO.
VIII. Announcements
VIX. Having no further business, President Moriarty calls for motion to adjourn meeting
Meeting adjourned, 7:30pm.
A&S GSO minutes, 04/04/2012.
**NOTE: Opinions expressed in the GSO minutes are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the position of
the A&S GSO.