General Studies Lounge

Niko: Attendance.

Brody:

niko
nancy
no keith
no page
brody
alex
allen
no brendan
elizabeth
no helena
jake
no joel
late karly
late raul
no elie
no evan
monique
no chikodi

Niko: Asked Alex to introduce First year Class details.

Alex Katz: Introducing Joey Spitz. He came to me with a lot of interest, every time he talked about council he got more into it. Have been talking more about their vision and have been taking strides. Starting with Glass House Rocks last week. Also doing a cross council meeting of all four councils. More unified socially but also unified in policy with the rest of the undergraduate community. Helping out with swipe access.

Joey Spitz: What really attracted me is that this is a council that makes significant change and makes congruency between the schools. I am very excited to be here.

Alex: Alone, just in the past couple of weeks, the ability to work with other councils puts GS in a better light. It's a precedence that we'd like to set with every freshman class. There's a misconception about GS that we're older and from strange backgrounds. We are different but shouldn't be excluded. Other councils on the freshman level are realizing that.

Niko: Tonight is a task force email request for looking at the Student Life fee about possibly raising it to the level of CC and SEAS. Expenses are increasing and we want to send out an email to everyone that is interested in raising student fees. Also Jake wants to be Committee on Academic Affairs Rep and Dave Minchin wants to be Delegate at Large.

Monique: 15 responses to the senior retreat on Sunday. Working on plans for the spring about chartering the yacht, we have a quote, going to be submitting a proposal for the senior cruise. Two brunches this semester. One this month, one the thursday of reading week. Some seniors are interested in planning a hiking event - very preliminary. Chikodi isn't here but I'll talk about a project about his idea of doing a senior dinner - 3 or 4 around campus where we get together to talk about Senior week and what plans are. We're having a meeting with Meredeith Lefredo with University Alumni Affairs about our strategy for raising funds. We're very active and there's a cocktail reception for anyone who gives $50 or more to the senior gift fun.

Karly: Looking for a way to find inexpensive way to reach out to Junior class members. We found that coffee vouchers with the GSSC logo work pretty well, going to hand these out for office hours - every tuesday from 12pm to 1pm in the Lewisohn Lounge. A week from tomorrow, wednesday the 20th we're having a Junior class luncheon centered on career education. Met with Andrea Dimarco with CCE and GS to figure out how to maximize the utility we have to bring information to the luncheon. How many are juniors? a bunch of hands. We're just waiting for final finance approval from Keith, have Student Life approval.

Evan Madeo: CCSC notified everyone that Lerner hall is increasing their fees by 20% for rentals. Robert Taylor is the person in charge of that. CCSC wanted everyone to know about this so that budgets increase. CCSC wants other student councils to respond to that.

Joel: Glass House Rocks was great, lots of volunteers showed up at the last minute. Helped GS look like we're participating on campus.

Evan Madeo: One more thing, not sure how appropriate this to bring up. CCSC is working to take up the 6th floor for their exclusive news.

Also, CCSC voted on a resolution. It is demanding the Administration to offer financial aid as the other Ivy's have, to other middle income families. I think we should respond, and soon.

Niko: A problem for this is that this type of effort excludes GS. The fact is that we're not always on the same team. The fair coalition two years ago that got 1200 signatures and 200 signatures from GS students was changed to only call for changes

ccsc@columbia.edu - to all five undergraduate councils

Evan: I did ask Michelle Nicole Diamond about whether GS should be included. She said to me that she would, but she made it clear that our financial aid is separate. I am sure that there has been an effort by this board to increase financial aid, but this would be a great thing to be involved with.

Jake Matilsky: We're going to talk about the Latin diploma resolution. We have another resolution coming your way next week. Please come to the policy meetings, Alex is doing a great job with the swipe access and it's looking good.

Brody: University Wide Calendar.

Monique: We're planning a Barnard College and GS social - over at their campus across the street - open to the entire student body. 7-10pm next Thursday. They are starting recruiting people for next years council. People in GS can nominate Barnard people for a Barnard student government position.

Elizabeth: Food drive starts Thursday. Morton Williams is donating 190lbs of food which is great. We're looking for someone to head up the Relay for Life team, it's easy, we just need someone to be in charge. It's for the American Cancer Society. Food drive benefits local NYC food banks. They've started having Relay for Life team captain meetings so we should participate. You raise money by gathering pledges.

Niko: Anything else brewing?

Ok, so now let's talk about the Gala that's coming up in 18 days. As you know, Ashley has resigned. As of yesterday Keith has taken over the logistics. I have taken over the marketing. If this is going to work, it's going to require everyone to participate.

Niko: What has everyone heard? Has there been enthusiasm? Nonchalance?

Allen: Little enthusiasm in this style of event. People are troubled by everything. People are looking on this as a reflection of the student council this year.

Karly: I have a roommate that wasn't sure about going to the gala but her reason for not going is because it's not quite on their radar screen. She didn't go last year. She has nothing to compare it to, she is just on the fence. We can reach out to those people.

Joel: People still believe that the gala is an event to go to. It's the one you go to over other events. Even though the food always sucks. The purpose is to dress up and have a good time amongst other people. I don't know that the marketing has been that poor, I know that before Ashley resigned I knew she was promoting it. And usually our marketing ramps up near the end. Our budget was decided later than usual, which impacts the marketing.

Alex: Freshman don't know what to compare it to. People don't know about it, or what it actually is. Gala doesn't mean anything to students yet. I am not sure I even know what is going on.

Raul: My interaction is with a wide group of people. There are some people that are not going to come. There are a lot of people who are undecided. It's our job to help them decide. In terms of back and forth about who did what, I don't know about that, if we want people to attend, we need to make it exciting, to get them information about why they should show up. We need to stop the back and forth, I don't know what happened with who, and it doesn't matter, for 9 years and for me personally if we didn't have it it would suck.

Julia: First-year student: Not sure what it is. Messaging conflicted. We need to find out more. It's out there, but we need information.

Allen: What I was saying earlier is that it's all our job to promote the gala. I went last year was great and fun, my first year. What don't know what the senior class is doing, it would be really nice if the Gala could remain the crowning jewel of the senior year. Something that is going to be fun.

Kristine Keeler: I am graduating in May and have heard that it was fun, but hearing that it is going to be a wine and cheese party was very disappointing. I am dismayed that Susannah left behind a relatively intact treasury and I am not sure where the money went. I haven't bought a ticket yet, but I still could because it's a big social event. I am very disappointed with why this is the case with the budget.

Ashley: The budget is smaller because we bought into student groups more than ever before, also we passed a vote on the Gala budget, which was small, but still large enough to cause other GSSC budgets to shrink. Most of the budget problems are due to the GSSC striving for parity. Also, I put the notes about why the budget is constrained (7 points) on the gslounge.com.

Karly: is there is before/after marketing plan?

Niko: who has bought their ticket? Small number.

Joel: is the budget still 11500?

Ashley: no, it's up in the air, my creative control was being questioned. The resolution as we passed it isn't being respected.

Joel: my point is to make sure the council is being respected.

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lost this section of the minutes :-(
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Summary of the conversation is that the council believes that we need to work out the constitutional details before we pursue the marketing. The reason for this is that the vote of the council appears to have been overridden about the gala budget.

Ashley: Yes, we got nickeled and dimed the entire time we worked with the Finance committee. It wasn't about the line item with the umbrellas, it was it getting changed, and not getting respected.

Nancy: For the record: it wasn't a resolution, it was a proposal the council approved. You are not constitutionally allowed the freedom creatively to do whatever you want with the gala. If you or someone else was appointed to be social chair decided to spend $20,000 on pink tables it wouldn't be approved.

Paige: Just a question so I understand exactly what is going on. We passed a budget resolution. Was the resolution changed offline? That's unconstitutional. Both by letter and by spirit. If that's not what happened then I am fine.

Niko: Allen, what does the Finance committee do?

Allen: We discussion about each line item of each item we consider iffy given our financial constraints. The decision to support the gala at 11,500 was never contradicted, we were concerned about the senior class. If we consider there will not be the turnout then we need to make sure we aren't getting deeper into this. The finance committee didn't decide to decrease the budget.

Dave: no, they decided to decrease the individual items of the gala budget. On December 1st we had a meeting for four hours with no resolution, they said it would be irresponsible to fund the gala at their budget. Next meeting on the 4th of December the council passed with unanimous consent. then the gala committee began to establish contracts but then they started getting denied.

Allen: did any of your b-forms get denied?

Dave: yes

Niko: did your numbers vary between December and now?

Dave: no. If you look at the proposal we put in, it wasn't vendor specific, it was a cap, and we were striving to save and hadn't proposed new line items.

Raul: this is personal. this is a personal "I don't like that purchasing" decision.

Evan: I have a couple simple questions. I am new. #1 does the gala still have money? do we need to make decisions on marketing?

Niko: we had a social chair that resigned, so we now have to divy up that marketing role.

Evan: I am very interested in this conversation for some sort of special hearing or the agenda next week so we can continue with our agenda this evening.

Karly: we need to duly honor the two conversations. We need to move on. Ashley: do you value for us to spend our energy in this moment rallying to get the gala into a more fierce direction or spend our time right now with this group of people who only meet once a week?

Ashley: i love the gala but I don't want to have any involvement since my creative control was removed. I am here every Tuesday and will be. Let's move on the marketing plan.

Karly: can we do some sort of proposal to dedicate time to this?

Allen: Motion to table the constitution conversation until next week.

Niko: we need to review the constitution

Brody: this is not a review

Karly: can we table this?

Allen: Motion to table this topic and honor it's fullness next week at the GSSC meeting.

Niko: we don't have quorum. We can leave or talk about the marketing.

Karly: If we don't set our sense of urgency when these people leave the room.

Dave: explain what the gala is.

Conversation continued: gala marketing.