Minutes
Nov. 14, 2005
Ursula, Adrianne, Elizabeth, and Sharyn were present; Morgan and Jeff were absent.
I. Meeting w/science members on the 28th:
Sharyn called everyone with a phone number, but only reached one person (who said he'd come--hooray!) She didn't hear back from any emails. Ursula will send her contact info for people in Geology too, and if she can get the contact info for that new person in Physics as well, that might help. But it is worth having the meeting even for one person! Adrianne also has someone she is trying to get to be the Math steward, and if so will try to get that person to come.
We decided it would be worthwhile to cast our net beyond our actual members. Sharyn will email the guy who said he'd come and invite him to bring friends. She will also go ahead and reserve a room, and Elizabeth will make up a flyer which we can then post in science areas. We can invite the folks who were there at the mass meeting to help us post them, but we need to start posting them this Wednesday or Thursday so people can see them before they leave for Thanksgiving. We should re-post on Monday/Tuesday of next week and early on the morning of the 28th!
At the meeting, we will mostly leave it free-form and ask them to tell us what their issues are, but if they have difficulty getting started, we can ask about things we've come up with in discussion.
II. IUSA meeting:
Tomorrow (Tuesday); Morgan and Adrianne will go [I just found this out for sure from Adrianne]. We want a resolution in favor of graduate employees getting dental--not in favor of any one plan in particular. On the other hand, we worry that with a vague resolution, it may give the university more justification for giving us a bad plan--we don't want one instead of a pay raise or requiring us to pay too much. Take dental tables to this meeting with the IUSA folks.
III. Health Benefits committee:
All agreed to join, including Julie, our official delegate to the university committee. Adrianne will send out an email to the members list inviting anyone else who is interested to join--they should respond to her before Thanksgiving and the committee will try to meet at least once before the end of the semester. The first task will be to come up with a dental plan we think is reasonable that we can propose to the university committee.
IV. BGSA--still not heard back from. If they contact us, great--otherwise, we tried.
V. Study of working hours:
Four people interested in doing it (2 Soc., 1 Ed., 1 English--Amy R., who expressed interest in this at the mass mtg.) They've started devising their study but need a list of grad employees in order to get a random sample. We couldn't get a list of grad employees last year, but perhaps because they're doing a study they'll have more luck? If this research is ever to be published, it should have Human Subjects Committee approval, which means a faculty sponsor (which could make it easier to get the list); Ursula will bring this issue up with them.
VI. Al Franken thing: while we were debating, he found someone to interview about Daylight Savings Time. Oh well. Elizabeth will send an email to Tera to let her know we tried!
VII. Mass meeting next semester:
Agenda:
A. Report from Health Benefit Committee on dental plan. (Given this goal, we decided that late Jan./early Feb. is the most realistic timing)
B. Stewards' reports? We don't want to put people on the spot too much, but we do want to provide some kind of accountability in the form of a deadline. They could report either on what they've done so far or on what they plan to do over the course of the semester, and on potential grievance issues they've heard about to that point. (And, of course, we will try to get more stewards.) If we do this, we will want to warn them this semester that they should be prepared to report. Revisit this question later.
We also thought it would be good to provide refreshments (e.g. us chipping in with cookies, chips, drinks, etc.)
VIII. Solidarity issues
A. CWA Blood Drive: we really need to support CWA, but it's a bad time of year--the most we can really do is send out an email inviting the members to participate. Ursula will combine with the Wal-Mart movie announcement.
B. NoSweat! support--we think the idea of sending out an email asking for disagreement, if any, is the best way to go. We will probably wait a few weeks to send it, though, since we have several emails coming out now.
IX. We have received an email at the geo account advertising a fundraising option. Elizabeth will forward it.
Next meeting: the meeting with the sciences on Nov. 28 (no meeting 11/21)