EGU Meeting Minutes

10/2/15

Agenda:

  1. Representative Reports
  2. Co-Chair Report

Attendance:

Ana Ribero, Co-Chair (RCTE)

Safari Ross, Co-Chair (Lit)

Jan Bindas-Tenney, Secretary (CW)

Jayda Coons, Literature Rep

Anushka Peres, RCTE Rep

Jennifer Slinkard, SLAT Rep

Jessica Malordy, CW Rep

Lauren Harvey, EL/L Rep

Joanna Sanchez-Avila, D & I Co-Chair (RCTE)

Irene Ramirez, D & I Co-Chair (RCTE)

Rachel Buck, WriPAC Rep

Betsy Labiner, GLCC Rep

Jose Cortez, Graduate Grad OC Rep

Antonnet Johnson, Curriculum and Assessment Committee Rep

Caitlyn Rose-Meyers, Lit, UGCC Rep

Madelyn Tucker, RCTE, GPSC Rep

Catherine Fakler, First Year Rep

Casely Coan, RCTE

Daniel Casper, Lit

Roberto Reyes

I.Rep Reports

Betsy Labiner, GLCC Rep

Working on a survey for graduate students about the curriculum and course offerings. Almost finished drafting and planning to send out next week or the following.

Jayda Coons, Literature Rep

Going to meet with Tenney Nathanson to talk about Lit-related issues. Does anyone have suggestions for topics I should bring to him?

  • What happened to the faculty-student mixer? It hasn’t happened in a very long time.
  • Get permission for the EGU Rep to attend Lit faculty meetings. See what he says? EGU can provide backing, if he is resistant.
  • Ask him – what do you think we should know? What’s been going on on your end?
  • Plan to ask about 300-level survey courses. The curriculum for 373-A covers a very wide range and 373-B covers two continents. 373-C is no longer taught. Why not? If it is reintroduced, will that produce more GATships?

Jessica Malordy, CW Rep

New CW Rep! Planning a transition meeting with Chris and Sara. Faculty agreed to have me in the faculty meeting, but only “for a few minutes.” So, need to have a conversation about what that means.

Lauren Harvey, EL/L Rep

New EL/L Rep!Also on the EL/L student association board. The student association board mostly deals with travel reimbursement, plans colloquia, and hosts happy hours.

Madelyn Tucker, GPSC Rep

New GPSC Rep! There hasn’t been a GPSC meeting yet, but there will be before next EGU meeting, so will report back then. Ana has some things that GPSC might be able to help with. (See Co-Chair Report).

Caitlyn Rose-Meyers, UGCC

New UGCC Rep! There hasn’t been a meeting yet. Talked with Linda about when it’s happening, should be soon.

Irene and Joanna,D&I Co-Chairs

We’ve started a couple of advocacy projects. Talked with Anushka about getting involved around the Adela/Maritza situation: we want to gain a better understanding of what’s happening and figure out what we might able to contribute.

Cart Service – not available after 5:30 p.m. So instructors and students who teach/take classes after that time don’t have access to the carts. We wanted to start by getting information. What do people do when they teach evening classes? From Caitlyn: WP gave me a class that ended at 6:15 p.m., so it was taking me until 7:30 p.m. to walk back to my car. Parking and Transportation was firm: no carts after 5:30 and told me to call Safe Ride. So now Safe Ride picks me up: but they have a car, which cannot access all buildings on campus and there is also a gap. They don’t start until 6:30 p.m. They also are somewhat rude and treat you like a drunk kid.

We’d like to try to identify other students/instructors who face these issues – how many students is this happening to? How can we talk about this issue in terms of urgency? Also, the fact that it’s happening to one person is enough.

We called Parking and Transportation and they did not have any answers. They claimed to never have heard of this problem. Somebody transferred us to “Special Events.”Seemed like they were just trying to get us off the phone.

Maybe reach out to DRC to get their help with advocacy? Maybe also reach out to Susan Miller-Cochran and Dev Bose. Because they’ve been interested in figuring out what can students vs. instructors access on campus and through the DRC?

Caitlyn says person at the DRC who works with instructors says cart service is not run through DRC, but Parking and Transportation. This is not very helpful. Might be helpful to re-articulate the issue: why don’t carts run at all times that classes are in session? Many places are not accessible by car, so Safe Ride is not viable for everyone, plus there is the time-gap.

DRC is probably a good place to start: try to get a meeting and get them on our side because they probably have some power with decision makers to change things. Maybe start by meeting with the DRC person responsible for accessibility and transportation?

CCIT doorissue: the front doors are locked on game days (and people are supposed to use the back door that does not have an accessible entrance). Even though the doors were locked, could have been opened with a Cat Card or by calling someone to get it opened. But this information was not available to us. Going to make sure the building manager knows that we need to be able to call to the get the front door open on game days.

Anushka Peres, RCTE Rep

Faculty are planning a forum in November – “Future of RCTE” 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a happy hour after. Open just to RCTE students? Or open to everyone? Not clear. There is a team working on planning and they are interested in input. Susan Miller-Cochran is helping to plan. We are going to talk about Wildcat Writers? Email was a bit incoherent. Drop in? Are people going to attend? Also unclear.

Some RCTE students are hesitant about the forum and want to see an agenda. Some of us went to the faculty meeting last week and understood that we would be able to speak. But there was no space to speak. We want to know the format before we decide if we want to go. There is another faculty meeting next week. Hoping that we will know about whether Adela and Maritza can chair dissertations before the forum.

RCTE Faculty sent an email to Lee about payment issues over the summer. Lee responded that he is working on fixing all the issues.

Maybe EGU should consider having a RCTE curriculum rep like Lit has? There is a lot of work for the RCTE rep. How would this person serve? Are there structured meetings? There were last year. We can write up a proposal and vote on it in the next meeting?

Daniel Casper, New Directions Chair

We have a committee. We are inviting Jack Hablestram and Margaret Atwood to keynote. The date is set – April 15. This is a really good experience for first year students to present. Much more low-key, baby step, generous audience.

  1. Co-Chair Report

We have the results of the financial survey, which showed pretty overwhelming evidence of ongoing financial issues. We brought the survey results to our meeting with Lee this morning.

  • Do you know where to find the answer to financial questions– 55% No
  • Financial issues? 80% said yes.

Some really intense quotes about the problems dealing with ongoing financial issues – bullying, hopelessness. Lee was interested, eager to hear. Lee responded that he is working to get these problems resolved. He seemed very angry, which was refreshing.

Main issues we’ve asked him to deal with– NOAs, summer pay, back pay. We’re supposed to get raises at different milestone moments: after we pass our comps, supposed to get a raise. Tony “didn’t know” he was supposed to put the raises through or how to do it. Some people might not even know that they are owed a pay raise. We think the pay scale should be public, maybe on WIRE? Lee agrees that the payscale should be public.

FICA taxes issue- seems like it would aUniversity-wide payroll problem, not the business office. Madelyn, can you talk to GPSC folks to see if this is a University-wide issue so we can prevent it from happening over and over?

If people have financial issues, Lee is happy to advocate personally. Write an email to Tony, copy Julieta and copy Lee. Please spread the word about this to constituents. Also spread the word about payscale raise after comps. Some people might not know they were owed a payraise.

EGU Travel Grant

  • Ready to revise the website to have really specific instructions.
  • International travel is okay.
  • Holly is in charge of it. Lee is going to talk to her about keeping track of travel grants, and letting people know when the money runs out.
  • We asked that stipend get divided into two chunks for fall and spring. We’ll have the spring money open on January 1, so people can’t reserve it in advance. Have to apply on January 1 for a spring grant.
  • New form for the travel grant is a little confusing. We are going to put a mock-up on the website so folks can see an example.
  • There are about 36 grants available. GATs/Non-GATs get funded the same amount.

Co-chair stipend has been eliminated. Used to be that Co-chairs got a course release or could cash-out. Lee says we should have never been doing that. Lourdes was using money out of the temporary hire budget, which is not allowed. SBS said it has to stop. There is no other budget that the can come from. But, there is still a course release available. Could you use two course releases during the same semester? Or same year? Need to figure out.

Lee also reiterated that he is working on GAT workload/payscale.

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