GSS Full Senate Meeting

GSS Full Senate Meeting

February 15th, 2012

Waterman Lounge

1. Call to Order - 12:05 (~20 Senators attended)
2. Talk with President John Bramley

- I love UVM, it’s like a family to me, but that doesn’t mean you can’t see the faults.

- Focus seems to be 18-22 year olds.

- Not intentional, but that’s what drives the University. We have built paradigms around undergrads.

- For grad students, things don’t work out as well.

- I’ve talked to Tom Sullivan and SIP about changing these things.

- Going to be tougher to maintain this same model (due to loss of undergrads).

- 10% of Vermont residents started, but never finished secondary education. There are lots of reasons to address these groups better.

- If I could, would make undergrads population smaller, while growing the grad population.

- If we are actually a Research University, need to support Graduate Students.

- We are making progress on stipends

- Also working very hard on Health Insurance. When I was provost, insisted that students have Health Insurance.

- Tom Sullivan cares a lot about grad students too.

- What are other things to change?

Lane – What about Housing?

- Redstone Lofts – building these will open up more space in Redstone apartments.

- Spoke with Mayor about housing.

- Want to build housing with Graduate student priorities. Maybe downtown, but probably not on hill.

- Want to keep it in mind for new housing or rearrangements.

Eduardo – What lessons have you learned from being Provost?

- Health Insurance, Stipends from Grants

- I wanted to rearrange things (Ex. Such as moving communication science to the Medical School). When I came back 8 years later, they had moved it!

- There are whole areas, especially Humanities, that have very minimal Grad Education.

- The way we allocate GTA is bad. Give to teaching needs, not toward scholarly needs.

- Need to do this in order to advance/expand grad programs.

- Want to change things through the positive, not the negative.

- I came in when P.R. at UVM was very low. Had to increase moral.

- But now need to focus on more fundamental issues with Graduate students, etc.

- Do it with a smile though, and say thank you. It goes a long way.

Narine – What about Business professional degrees? Offer classes on weekends, make it easier for workers.

- Talked to Grasso about that. Combining Continuing Education and Grad Education, because there is usually a lot of overlap.

- Spoke with colleagues at Northeastern about how they implement similar ideas. Can’t create this climate with 8 different schools.

- What do Vermonter’s need? How do we address that?

- They recognize this sort of audience at Champlain College. If we don’t start recognizing this, we are going to get our butts kicked.

So how feasible would it actually be to decrease undergrads/increase grads?

- There are a lot of untapped revenue sources (Groups that want to support continuing Ed.).

- Another fundamental problem is Appropriation. The governor is setting up higher Ed. focus groups. It’s not easy to turn around appropriation for higher Ed.

- Problem is we have a (undergrad) model that is not financially sustainable. We fund Vermonters by charging out of state students.

- Have to have alignment with state funding, can’t just keep raising the burden on out of state students.

- We now need to look at how to appropriate funds for higher Ed. Can’t have the same standards for 2 year college, 4 year college and Community College, etc.

- Need to fix financial aid support model ($85 Million in financial aid)

- Have to look at these financial models (especially undergrad) and fix them. They are broken.

- We need a more strategic allocation of these funds in terms of tuition/financial aid.

- Would you recommend to incoming President Sullivan an expansion of the Graduate Program?

- Yes. But don’t want to get too specific. For instance, the Economic School has ZERO graduate students.

- Also I want to focus on vocational related programs

- Also might think differently about alignment in schools

- Business school, for example, very skewed toward undergrads.

- Education too, heavily focused on undergrads. We already have 5 schools in Vermont doing this. Maybe offer a more grad focused program in Education.

- One thing I’ve noticed since being back. Very happy GSS is legit. Incoming President Sullivan is a very good ear to have. Please tell me 3-4 suggestions for “homework”, and I will relay the message to President Sullivan.

1. Officer Reports:

a. Edu

–Meeting about tuition.

Kyle - Recommend that tuition should be paid for (Grads).

- Should have a simpler and a more fair distribution for tuition.

- Need a clear implementation plan

- Some faculty thought this was bad idea. Other programs TA positions.

- New student averaged out even across the board.

- Would allow a GRA student to take classes if requirements are done.

- Might screw a couple people at the end of a GRA, but in the long run, save a lot of money.

Edu – many different departments, have lots of different situations.

Kyle – Neuroscience and MMG don’t like it. MMG says Jeff Marshall didn’t present what others agreed upon.

- Different sources of income means different scenarios.

Amil–Can’t we just avoid paying out tuition and then having grad students pay?

Narine – Need to solve 3-4 problems, not just one.

Amil – Why doesn’t this simple structure work?

Edu – Maybe there are some financial issues for not immediately changing this.

Kyle – The language used in implementation was very vague.

Edu – Because the initial proposal was not supposed to be specific, so now implementation isn’t that great yet.

c. Lane

- 3nd round of Mini-Grants is due April 6th. Please make sure to get them in.

d. Narine/Kelly

- Kick-ball team for summer. Have to field an entire team of grad students, otherwise will have to pay money.