Senate Meeting Minutes – October 16, 2019

Graduate Student Government Senate Meeting
October 16, 2019
1:45 pm – 3:00 pm
333 Curry Student Center 

 

AGENDA

1. Officer updates by the Executive Vice President – Babatunde Aideyan
2. Academic Affairs – Harshita Gupta
3. CPS Referendum – Gagan Dep Prabhu and Babatunde Aideyan
4. Student Affairs – Deependra Singh
5. Questions
6. Lunch

 

ITEMS DISCUSSED

1. Officer updates by the Executive Vice President – Babatunde Aideyan

The Executive Vice President welcomed all senators to the senate meeting and discussed the following:

• Babatunde Aideyan introduced the responsibilities of his position and his work over the summer (assisting the President, building relationships with University offices, overseeing Programs and operations, and Marketing and Outreach)
• Budget Priorities Committee–Work on a survey distributed to graduate and PhD students to receive feedback and determine funding allocation for the academic year

 

2. Academic Affairs – Harshita Gupta

• Harshita Gupta discussed RISE (Research Innovation Scholarship Entrepreneurship) and the opportunity to present the Graduate Innovator Award (GIA) – sponsored by the Graduate Student Government
• RISE team

 

3. CPS Referendum – Gagan Dep Prabhu and BabaTunde Aideyan

• Introduction to exclusion of the College of Professional Studies (CPS) from the Graduate Student Government and current status (CPS does not have access to benefits other graduate students that pay the graduate student activity fee have access to)
• Need, goals, and vision for the CPS Referendum (to run a referendum that would officially introduce a graduate student activity fee that all CPS student will be required to pay leading to official recognition of CPS by the Graduate Student Government)
• Discussion of strategies, timeline and progress of the referendum (Referendum Committee, town halls, building connections)
• Questions by the Senate

 

4. Student Affairs – Deependra Singh

• Deependra Singh discussed available resources that students have access to at Northeastern University, funding policies (student group and individual conference) and student group recognition process
• Questions by the Senate

 

5. Questions

Gagan Dep Prabhu discussed the University lunch plan to determine why many students do not utilize the resource and addressed questions by the Senate:

• Are CPS students made aware of the CPS referendum?

Answer: Yes. We are working closely with CPS and ensuring the goals of the referendum are constantly being reached out to all CPS students through emails from their college administration. We will also be organizing town halls over the next month to interact with students.

• When will CPS officially be included if the referendum passes?

Answer: Depends on CPS. We are looking to include them by Fall 2020, officially.

• Why do we need to run a referendum?

Answer: CPS students don’t pay a student activity fee. Moving forward, if they are to be officially recognized by the GSG, they will be required to pay the fee. That would make a change at the college-level and a referendum needs to pass with majority votes of yes for it to be implemented.

• Why don’t students prefer the lunch plan provided by the University?

Answer: Senate – The plan is too expensive.

• Does mode of transportation matter to apply for travel funding?

Answer: To some extent, yes. You will have to communicate with the Vice President of Financial Affairs (Robert Hass) regarding that.

 

4. Lunch

 

ADJOURNMENT

The senate meeting was adjourned at 3:00 pm by the President.

 

Meeting Attendance

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