EGSA Meeting Minutes – February 5th, 2016

Treasurer’s Report (Jake)

We bought the plane ticket, but it hasn’t come out of the account yet.

If you have any ideas about the budget, send that to Jake or Joseph.

Student choice speaker update (Karol update on plane ticket)

Jared’s schedule:

Tues. March 8: arrive in Pullman at 3pm, potential hike Kamiak?
Wed. March 9: coffee hour, meet with students, colloquium talk, pizza (or taco) lunch with students.
Thurs. March 10: Fly back home at 11am.

Thursday dinner reception, we need to decide how this should be handled: For people who are super interested in meeting the speaker. 2-3 people (including Karol). Maybe submit a name and a reason why, and then a drawing. Or it is open to everyone and they have to pay for their own way. The hotel is booked, the department paid for it. In a few weeks, Karol will be sending out an email to all the students letting them know the schedule.

Committee updates

Eli presentation, voting and brought in pricing options for the table cloth. In two weeks we will vote on what to purchase. Once we order, it should come in 8-9 business days.

Constitution: Still working on it.
Social Media: We have had some activity. People are liking the page and following us.
Outreach: executive committee proposal to appoint Rachel as the New Robbie. Simple majority vote needed to confirm.

Rachel was appointed by Robert to be the “New Robbie”. The vote was unanimous.

Congratulations to Rachel.

Faculty meeting update by Courtney

Jeb is going to schedule meetings with new students that are interested. He wants to make sure things are going smoothly.
Any problems with the website need to be brought up with Adam. You can either email Courtney or Adam. If we want to improve the website, maybe we need to make a plan. We should all review the site and make a list of our issues. Then we can discuss/compile them as a group and prioritize them. We will discuss at the next meeting.
Graduate student handbook: The hour requirement was one of the only changes. They will work on getting it updated.
Program of studies may become electronic.
The next meeting is the 19^th, does anyone have anything they want to ask? Tell Courtney.

GPSA updates

The ratio is now 1:59, so we have 1 representative. Elections are March 8.

Affiliate funding: Applications are open March 9^th
We usually ask for the fall festival. The events we promote has to be broad and have community impact.
They are looking to fund outreach
Maybe “Insects of the Night”, Rachel will be contacting the Palouse people about that. Speaker stuff probably won’t get funded here.
The “Professor is In” event is this weekend, you should check it out.
GPSA has been working hard to provide resources that will help graduate students get better placement.
Cougsync there is a calendar with all the GPSA event opportunities.

Event planning

Insect Cinema Cult Classic. Rob will politely e-mail Dr. Sheppard.—discussion?
Robert wrote a letter and shared it with the group. Courtney will present the letter at the next faculty meeting. The group voted, and it was decided that the letter sounded great.
Staff Appreciation Lunch: Rob will propose March 11 to the staff.
Insect Expo.: It will be in April.

New business

The GPSA might start offering groups discounts from BCU, could be 5% or 10%. Let’s send Robbie a Valentines day card from the club. Jake will buy it and circulate it.

Next meeting

Discuss the speaker’s dinner, and vote. Open to everyone or just a few?
Affiliate funding: Applications are open March 9^th
Cougsync tutorial at the end of the meeting. Emily has volunteered to run it. Robert is going to look up the Cougsync requirements.