SASgov, General Body Meeting, October 7, 2008, 5:30-7:30 pm, 1st floor, 3619 Locust

Next Meeting: October 21, 2008, 5:30-7:30, Location TBA

Reps Present: Miriam Clinton, Kevin Funderburk, Kyle Somerville, Serena Rezny, Peter Clericuzio, ZiaoyuPeng, JosLavery, Allison Sullivan, Madeleine Wilcox, James Bedison, Jonathan Fedors, Matthew Closter, Andrew Hogan, Jacob Eder, Kathy Koo, Dan Nelson, Levi Thompson, Sarah Abichandani, ElskeStraver, Bryan Chen, Rosella Cappella, David Bateman, Patrick Brown, Junhow Wei, Steven Vose, Tim Shokair, Robert Lannon,Wenting

Exec Present: Caroline Bishop, Carla Cue, Chris Schaefer, Rafael Walker, Deidre Loughridge, Andrew Rupinski

Agenda:

1. Committee/Dinner Time (5:30)
2. Approval of the Minutes (6:30)
3. Reminder: Nov 4 Meeting (6:35)
4. Health Insurance Survey (6:40)
5. Jonathan Lukens, GAPSA VC Research (6:55)
6. GAPSA update (7:05)
7. Officer/Committee Reports (7:10)
8. New Business (7:25)

Details:

1. Committee/Dinner Time (5:30)

2. Approval of the Minutes (6:30)

Minutes Approved!

3. Reminder: Nov 4 Meeting (6:35)

Meeting is only from 5:30-6:30.

4. Health Insurance Survey (6:40)

Rafael Walker: The health insurance survey was passed around. It will be on Survey Monkey. The reason for the health insurance survey is because there needs to be SAS feedback because we are in the process of going up for bids for new health insurance. They want a general idea of the general sentiment of the present health insurance plan. The survey is particular enough to detail the problems students are having with the plan. This will then be compiled by Rafael to take to his SHIAC committee. There will also be a demographics page at the end of the survey.

Kristin Sincavage: Kristen Sincavage and Najat Khan authored the survey. The aim was to prioritize aspects of the policy when they hear the bids next year. They will also add something at the beginning of the survey about the aims. Q: Will there be any more explanation about the survey and what is needed?

Najat: First they will have the overall goal of the survey, then the instructions to fill out the survey and then definitions such as deductible.

Kristen: Definitions will be throughout the survey so that someone can easily refer to them.

Amy Fuller: Maybe the survey is too long. Any way we can cut anything out?

Najat: We already had a first draft that was longer and cut out a lot. However there will be a note at the beginning which says how many questions there will be in the survey.

Sarah Abidichani: Maybe people should be asked if they are interested in more than one plan.

Rafael: When you buy a group plan, it is a blanket type of coverage.

Leslie: The survey is too terminology oriented. The opening paragraphs are very important and this needs to be remembered. The terms are far too abstract even with accompanying definitions.

Kristen: Yes there is a lot of terminology but the only way to simplify it is to read a long hypothetical and people would get too tired of reading. So that is not necessarily a better format. If there are any alternatives, Kristen would like to know.
One possibility is to just ask what people think because people may not make it all they way to question 29. Then it would capture all the people who don’t care to even fill out the survey.

Andrew: You can get rid of some questions if they are asked at the beginning questions that might forward them to other questions.

Deidre: Maybe have a more straightforward ranking of all the issues so you can directly compare the issues.

Kristen: We can have a ranking system and then only go to the questions that apply to the issues which are most important to the students.

Mirko Visontai: I support the idea of multiple coverage so that students may decide to get extra coverage, etc. Try to make the survey more understandable.

Rafael: Surveys should get back by December.

Amy Fuller: This is going to be difficult because we do not have a meeting in two weeks.

Steve: Demographic information about dependents should be included in the condensed version.

Caroline Bishop: For now, we will be approving the new survey. There will be 10 issues which you have to rank and then people will be asked about their top 3 issues.

Motion to vote in favor of approving this survey. All are in favor except for one person. There will be a revised version to be sent out and voted on November 4th.

5. Jonathan Lukens, GAPSA VC Research (6:55)

Jonathan Lukens: This year on the docket, which is provisional, is funding for advanced PhD students. In SAS you have some very advanced students so they will look at support for them, how much they are paid for teaching, etc. However, they don’t know the scope of the problem. They don’t know how many people are “advanced”. They will also look at family services but money has already been allocated. A grievance policy will be made. A PhD exit survey needs to be looked at. A campus climate survey will be put together and cover a broad range of topics. Healthcare: Berkeley and Stanford just cut their insurance for their students. Jonathan will be looking at this to make sure this is not going to be a trend among all graduate schools. Last, there is a rise in Master’s in professional studies so they will be looking at that to see if draws away money from research degrees. Be in touch with him is our advocate!

6. GAPSA update (7:05)

Leslie Warden: We elected Jonathan Lukens to GAPSA VC Research and a new VC International Students. There is a Halloween party on October 30th.

7. Officer/Committee Reports (7:10)

Andrew (Social)- We will soon be figuring out how to do online sign-ups for events. Nothing is settled yet but there will be an online form to be sent out to reps. We need reps to test the system. It is a google document so watch out for it! We are still figuring out what we are doing for the rest of the semester. Halloween happy hour next Thursday the 30th.
Chris Schaefer (Public Affairs)- We will be getting navy blue hoodies with SASgov logo. They will be about $5 each for the reps. Website should be up this week! Applications for SASgov funding will be on it.

Rafael Walker (Policy)- Evelyn Weiner from Student Health Services will be coming to talk at the next general body meeting.

Deidre Lough- Apply for department funding as well as interdisciplinary funding! The committee is starting to address saving for retirement for graduate students.

8. New Business (7:25)

No new business.