Graduate and Professional Students Association

Graduate and Professional Students Association

Graduate Assembly Meeting

Fifteenth Legislature – Spring Special Session

4:00 P.M. April 22, 2016

College Avenue Commons 359 – Arizona State University, Tempe Campus

Agenda

Call to Order @ 4:30pm

· Roll Call – Quorum Achieved

Approval of the Minutes

· Motion to approve minutes. Skipped.

Amendments to the Agenda

· Assembly President motions to change order of business to confirm all new members and conduct election prior to Executive Reports noting that several Assembly Members have expressed need to leave the meeting soon. Motion approved unanimously.

Call to the Audience

· None.

New Business
AB #01: AN ACT to confirm new members
The class committee had three open seats and agreed that the one committee member who was elected to a CLAS at-large seat would switch to an eligible CLAS program specific seat to allow the other two members to join the Assembly uncontested. There were no objections.
All new member applicants who were present were appointed by the Assembly President uncontested.
AB #02: AN ACT to confirm the Assembly President
Assembly President introduced the bill, stating that he was self-nominating for re-election. The bill cited the GPSA Constitution for eligibility requirements, including that nominees must be an Assembly member who has served in the Assembly for at least one semester. Specifically, this means that only Assembly Members who have been members since at least January are eligible, regardless of any other Director or VP positions held in the GPSA such as one of the new members has.
There were multiple outbursts from the audience, and neither the Assembly President nor Parliamentarian maintained order.
The outgoing GPSA President asked, out of turn, what happened if one person runs uncontested. The Assembly President responded that that person would win by default.
Several side conversations started about how to work around the Constitution.
The Assembly President asked if there were any other nominees.
The Parliamentarian asked, out of turn, if the Constitution could be suspended with a motion to suspend the rules.
The Assembly President stated that a motion may be put forward to suspend Robert’s Rules of Order, but not the Constitution or the Bylaws.
The Parliamentarian said the Assembly president was being a dictator and trying to rig the election to win uncontested.
The outgoing GPSA President said it would be wrong if the Assembly President was elected uncontested.
Representative Brusch self-nominated.
Representative Brusch gave a brief speech wherein he stated that he will be a “lame duck president” until we can figure out a way around the constitution.
The Assembly President gives a speech, including reading a 40+ point list of accomplishments for the year. He states that his objectives for the next year are to follow the recommendations from the recent ASASU leadership retreat and invest in more scholarships for assembly member engagement and retention, as well as leadership and management training for assembly members and assembly chairs. He suggests $300 at the end of the year for any and all assembly members “in good standing”, and better advertisement of the $500 awards for outstanding committee members to make the positions more sustainable. He notes that he advocated in the Executive Committee, that Representative Brusch and the Parliamentarian be awarded $500 service scholarships for their work on the CLAS and Summer Assembly Operations committees respectively, even though GPSA has not historically awarded those committees. The Assembly President insisted that these Assembly Members did good work this year and should be rewarded for it, which they will be at the internal awards ceremony. He also notes that he has confirmed one speaker for leadership training at the Assembly Orientation.
The outgoing GPSA President speaks out of turn that the GPSA Advisor said that the Assembly can suspend the constitution.
The incoming 2016-17 GPSA President notes that the meeting is 20 minutes over time and suggests that the meeting be paused and moved to another special session and that Assembly Members should do their homework on the issues.
Motion to postpone to Friday 4/29 at 2pm approved.
Adjournment @ 5:22 pm

Attendance

Assembly Members / College/School Represented / Standing / Attendance
1 / Claire Crowther / CLAS / Good / P
2 / Yanqin Liu / CLAS / Good / P
3 / Michelle Sullivan / CLAS / Good / P
4 / George Brusch / CLAS / Good / P
5 / Francis Agbemade / CLAS / Good / P
6 / Richard Simpson / CLAS / Good / P
7 / Marteze "Tez" Ward / WP Carey / Good / P
8 / Faryal Mushtaq / WP Carey / - / P
9 / Mudassir Muztar / WP Carey / - / P
10 / - / WP Carey / -
11 / - / Health Solutions / -
12 / - / Health Solutions / -
13 / Kevin Rutherford / COPP / Good / P
14 / Isaac Bernal / COPP / Good / P
15 / COPP / Good
16 / COPP / Good
17 / Colin Kavanagh / Teachers College / Good / UA
18 / Anna Cirell / Teachers College / Good / P
19 / Kevin Winn / Teachers College / Good / P
20 / Earl Aguilera / Teachers College / Good / EA
21 / - / Teachers College / -
22 / - / Teachers College / -
23 / Tyler Brown / At-Large / Good / UA
24 / Taruni Kancharla / At-Large / - / P
25 / - / College of Letters & Sciences / -
26 / Jay Alabaster / Cronkite School of Journalism / Good / P
27 / Vincent Brancato / Herberger / Good / P
28 / Derrik Hester / P
29 / Adithya Balasubramanian / Engineering / Good / P
30 / Swaptik Chowdhury / Engineering / Good / P
31 / Yash Garg / Engineering / Good / P
32 / Daniel Burillo / Engineering / Good / P
33 / Yudhvir Saharan / Engineering / Good / P
34 / S. Alireza Golestaneh / Engineering / Good / P
35 / - / Int. Arts & Sciences / -
36 / - / Nursing / -
37 / Mukunth Natarajan / Sustainability / -
38 / Franz Ferguson / Thunderbird / Good / UA
39 / Marsha Durr / Law / Good / P
40 / Kevin Morrow / Law / Good / UA
41 / Carlo Altamirano / Future of Innovation in Society / - / P
31 / Voting Assembly Members
16 / Must be present for quorum
24 / Present