GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL STUDENT ASSOCIATION (GPSA)
Second Senate Meeting Location: 346 CSC Date: 10-18-07 Time: 2:50 PM
ATTENDEES:
E-board Members and Advisors:
President- Chris Chanyasulkit
Vice President for Finance- Kristen Hudak
Vice President for Student Affairs- Vidit Shah
Vice President for Academic Affairs- Tammy Hartke
Vice President for Media and Membership-Ashish Jain
Vice President for Administration- Manasa Madasu
Advisor- Steve Gibson
Direct of Operations
University Health and Counseling David Winch
Services(UHCS
Senators College
Lauren Nicoll
Christopher Aragao
Allison Uzdella Arts and Sciences
Hiba Tannoury
Thomas Arruda
Ashley Hill-Jarraf
Cole Creighton
Stephen Morse
Adriano Ciccomancini Business Administration, Accounting and Taxation
Rushabh Lakhani Computer and Information Sciences
Rutwik Patel
Kalpesh Gupta
Ninad Satam
Devshri Desai
Keyur Gada Bouve College of Health Sciences
Rajiv Panwar
Brijesh Garg
Shweta Raina
Haripriya Addepalli
Arunkumr Dubey
Aparna Chavali
Madeeha Basharat
Prakash Potukuchhi Engineering
Yalcin Bulut
Ignacio Marin Garcia
Christopher Miller Criminal Justice
V-Tsien Fan
Jeremy Frederickson School of Law
Matt Sweet
Amanda Ligatti
MINUTES OF THE MEETING
I.INTRODUCTION
1.President Chris Chanyasulkit called the meeting to order.
2.The Senators were asked to sign their names in the attendance sheet.
3.Agendas for the meeting were distributed to the Senators.
4.The minutes of the previous senate meeting were approved after a small
amendment about the Bouve College of Health Sciences as suggested by Senator Shweta Raina.
5.David Winch, Director of Operations at the University of Health and Counseling Services
was the guest speaker and will discuss Health and Dental Insurance policies at Northeastern University.
II. COMMITTEE REPORTS
1. President (Chris Chanyasulkit)
President, Chris Chanyasulkit gave a report about a number of concerns and issues that were brought
up at the previous meeting including:
1.Health care and Dental Insurance: David Winch, Director of Operations for the University Health
and Counseling Services would give more details about this issue.
a.Guest Speaker -David Winch, Director of Operations, UHCS
Introduction
Vice President for Student Affairs,Vidit Shah has been working closely with David Winch to resolve
the issue of Health and Dental Insurance brought up at the previous Senate meeting. David Winch
answered many questions put forth by the E-board members and the Senators during the meeting.
The UHCS located in the Forsyth Building was formerly known as the Lane Health Care Center.
It is a Medical and Counseling center for the students of the Northeastern University.
David Winch has been working with Northeastern University administration since the past 6 years
and with the UHCS since the past year.
Issues
The University system does not recognize students for the Summer Semester if not enrolled in
classes and does not provide Dental Insurance
a.Graduate enrollment depends on current registration. Therefore, when students are not actively
enrolled for classes they cannot access UHCS, Snell library and any service that requires swiping
the Husky card since the Husky ID is deactivated.
b.This issue was brought up at the Senior Management Meeting and now students can access the library
and UHCS during the summer semester even though not enrolled in classes. Preregistering for classes
also helps keep the student profile active in the University system.
c.he administration is working on upgrading the student information system, both financial and medical
to a client server application system. They are working on a variety of service issues including
Housing, Financial aid and better Health care.
Health Care
Completely controlled by Northeastern University through Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) plan, which is
the administrator. University controls the plan and it is tailored to the demographic of the people
that it wants. This plan is chosen by MIT and NEU.
The University has an 20,000 Undergraduate population and most of the students are allowed in the family
dental insurance plan and hence do not prefer to buy the University's dental insurance plan .If this is
included, it would raise the cost of the total insurance for both undergraduate student s and graduate students.
The cost and benefits were carefully reviewed and the dental insurance plan could not make the cut. Once the
University administration is informed of the claims, a new plan will be designed for the next academic year
based on the percentage of claims, profit and need.
a.A different dental insurance plan can be bought from separate company such as Delta(Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
The committee is looking into the issue and will keep this in mind when designing the plan for the next academic
year and will provide uninterrupted access to students enrolled in the plan.
By paying $225, students can use the counseling services and get prescriptions from the UHCS with no supplemental
charges for the complete academic year starting September 1st to August 31st.
Access to Buildings after hours and computer support
a.Contact the chair of your department as they can help student s get a key to the building and this issue is dealt
on a case-by-case basis.
b.Computer support-Will get more information soon.
Senator, Shweta Raina, Graduate Student group, Bouve College of Health Sciences.
a.New Student Group Seminar met with Dean Suzanne Greenberg and is waiting for a response from the Graduate Committee
faculty regarding their advisor.
b.The group would like put forward issues regarding updating the policies on internship and coop, which they expect
to be resolved by the end of the current semester or early next semester.
c.Communication lag between the Bouve College and the International Student and Scholar Institute (ISSI) and issues
of overcrowding in labs.
2.Student Affairs (Vidit Shah)
a.Preparations for the President's forum are in process and help from the Senators is requested for advertising
and set up during the day of the event.
b.Advisor Steve Gibson asked the GPSA to promote the event among graduate students.
c.Work study is funded by the Federal Government and non-work study is funded by the departments of the University
and hence work study jobs cannot be converted into non work study jobs.
3. Academic Affairs (Tammy Hartke)
The academic initiative meeting held on October 10th discussed fund raising issues and increased space for labs and
classrooms. This was recognized as a priority issue. New purchases and improvements are being considered.
a.Focus is on Interdisciplinary and Translational research for Graduate students and experiential coop for
undergraduate students.
b.The respective departments will decide increase in scholarships and not the University. This plan is in the
implementation phase.
c.Steve Gibson’s comment-This issue will be discussed in future meetings and all the Graduate students are
welcome to attend.
Infrastructure:
a.'My Neu'system update- the committee is working on dealing with widespread system issues.
b.Suggestion was made to have the Graduate student E-mail migrated to the faculty and staff
E-mail but taking 1/4th of the users out of the system may not be enough to make an impact
and may have unexpected effects on faculty/staff E-mail system.
c.Print Quota-15 responses on the survey, common response has been to increase the print quota
from 400 pages to 800-3000 pages.
d.There was also a general sentiment that grad students should not have a print quota, i.e. are
more responsible than undergrads and so the quota is unnecessary.
e.Double sided printing-info commons does not print double sided as it takes longer and printers
break down faster.
f.Consistency of policies-flexibility in taking courses from other departments. Academic affairs
committee is gathering more information about these issues.
g.Provost's search committee-Tina Penman will represent the GPSA.
h.Academic integrity policy -Tracking cases of academic dishonesty have been taken up seriously
and creating guidelines for faculty to deal with issues of cheating, plagiarism is being considered.
Tammy suggested involvement of graduate students in drafting guidelines for the same.
3. Finance (Kristen Hudak)
Food Budget:
a.Pick up menu from Chartwells reduces the amount to be spent on set up and wait people.
b.The report on the backside of the meeting agenda gives details about the available balance
budget for the rest of the academic year.
Changes to the Funding Procedure:
a.Applicants are requested to submit the application before the deadline and avoid making last
minute changes at the committee meetings.
b.Applicants can attend the committee meetings but it is not a necessity.
Concerns:
a.Increasing conference cap for conferences.
b.The conference cap was set according to the decision made by the previous senate.
c.This may be possible for the next academic year because changing the conference cap mid year may
not be possible as it would be unfair for the applicants who already applied for the first funding period.
Fund raising:
a.Suggestions are welcome for fundraising
b.Student activities office is willing to help.
4.Administration (Manasa Madasu)
a..The Graduate student information session was successful thanks to Vice President of Finance Kristen Hudak,
the Senators Shweta Raina ,Rajiv Panwar and Kalpesh Gupta who volunteered their time.
b.Programs committee to help out with advertising for the President's forum.30 students RSVP'd on
Face book for the event.
c.The International Student and Scholar Institute (ISSI) has a 2 month long(Feb-March) International Carnevale
and as 70% of the Graduate student population is international, a cultural night can be hosted with support
from the ISSI.This was also suggested by Luis Falcon, Provost for Graduate education. This issue will be brought
up with the ISSI at their planning committee meeting.
d.Suggestion -Increase of recycling bins on campus.
Concern:
a.Locations other than afterHours (like west addition at the curry student center) should be reserved for events
as afterHours cannot accommodate a huge crowd as observed at the Welcome Night and there are other security
concerns to be considered as well.
b.Many other locations apart form afterHours cannot be reserved until midnight and hence it is better to host
future events at afterHours.However, we will find out about other possible spacious locations for our future events.
5.Media and Membership (Ashish Jain)
a.The GPSA website is being reconstructed and any help from the senators is appreciated.
b.Redesigning of new nametags can be considered if senators find need for them.
c.A photo gallery with pictures from the GPSA events will be added to the website in the coming months.
d.Senators are appointed on a first come first serve basis and senators will be chosen from the waitlist
if current senators have 3 unexcused absences for the meetings (including committee meetings).
e.The Graduate Sociology club is hosting a Halloween Party at Punter’s Pub on Friday,October 26th at 5 p.m.
Everyone is welcome to attend.
f.The senate voted for their choice of snacks and decided on coffee and cookies for the upcoming senate meetings .
President Chris Chanyasulkit adjourned the meeting.
The next senate meeting will be held on Thursday, November 8th at 346 Curry Student Center from 2:50pm to 4:30p.m
