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GSS Council Meeting Agenda May 16, 2019 | Michael Kingsmill Forum, The Nest (4th floor) | 5:30pm

A. Attendance1. PRESENT: Alexa Tanner, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Arash Shadkam, Arezoo Mehrizi

(Andy An as Proxy), Andras Szeitz, Claire Preston, Conny Lin (Speaker), Eric Frieling, Farah Deeba (Claire Preston as Proxy), Hilal Kina, Jasleen Grewal, John Dupuis, Joseph Ogbede, Joyce Lam, Kate Sedivy-Haley, Kiana Yau, Negar Ghahramani, Nevena Rebic, Nicolas Romualdi, Phil Angel, Philip Karangu, Philip Wijaya, Pouya Rezaeinia, Razi Bayati, Rory Long, Sebastien Rettie, Solomon Atta, Teilhard Paradela, Temitope Onifade, Theresa Pauly (Siba Ghrear as Proxy), Timothy Luk, Victoria Gomez, Yee Fay Lim

2. REGRETS: Kamaldeep Gill, Arezoo Alemzadeh-Mehrizi, Theresa Pauly, Cristina Rubino3. ABSENT: Amber Shilling, Anjali Gupta, Anna-Catharina Wilhelm, Darren Touch, Gloria

Mellesmoen, Hamed Pouriayevali, Jakob Gattinger, Jeanie Malone, Karanpreet Matharu, Karen Thulasi Devendrakuman, Logan Lorenz, Lois Evans, Larissa Peck, Lily Takeuchi, Maria Jose Athie Martinez, Megan Holec, Omri Wallach, Rahaf Al Assil, Sara Hosseinirad, Teesha Luehr, Temitayo Olarewaju, Uyen Nguyen, Xana Mendez Prendes, Yangfan Zhang

4. QUORUM: 22 Councillors

B. Call to Order & Adoption of the Agenda1. The meeting was called to order at 5:35 pm.

2. Amendments to the Agenda:

Speaker: We have several Amendments to the Agenda. One is addition to seating on the AMS representative; second is a presentation of Vice-Provost’s, and third one is moving the SMART Goal review from G&A to a Discussion Item which has been approved by your President, who has the power to amend the Agenda before the meeting.

Given these changes, I need a Mover and Seconder to start talking about the Agenda.

MOVER: Arash Shadkam SECONDER: Alexa Tanner

RESULT: For (12): Razi Bayati, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Joyce Lam, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Nicolas Romualdi, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau

C. Introductions and Land Acknowledgement

Introductions were made. Land acknowledgement was done by the President.

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D. Approval of Minutes1. GSS Council minutes for approval:

a. Council Minutes - April 18, 2019

2. Committee minutes for approval: a. Code and Policy Committee - April 30th, 2019; May 9th, 2019b. Services Committee - April 11th, 2019c. Governance & Accountability Committee - April 4th, 2019; April 17th, 2019d. Executive Committee - April 26th, 2019e. Elections Committee - April 10th, 2019; April 25th, 2019

Kate: I don’t see the April Council minutes in the Supporting Documents folder. Am I missing them?Speaker: Anybody else not see the Council minutes in the package? Nicolas: I move that we resolve this issue in the next Council meeting. Speaker: So now we have an Amendment to the Motion – to move the Council minutes out of the Motion.

MOVER: Nicolas Romualdi SECONDER: Kate Sedivy-Haley RESULT: Carried.

BIRT the minutes be approved with the moved Council minutes.

MOVER: Victoria Gomez SECONDER: Negar Ghahramani

RESULT: For (18): Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Eric Frieling, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Joyce Lam, Timothy Luk, Temitope O., Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau

E. Urgent Matters

PRESENTATION #1Title: NATIONAL CENTER FOR FACULTY DEVELOPMENT AND DIVERSITY (NCFDP) Guest Speaker: Eric Eich, Vice-Provost & Associate Vice-President Academic, UBC Office of the Provost Presentation time: 5 minutesDescription: The NCFDD provides professional development, training and mentoring opportunities to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and administrators. Objective: All members of these groups at UBC are encouraged to register.

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Discussion

Eric: Creating your NCFDP account – it’s really straightforward. All you need is an @ubc.ca email, and there are no limits to how many programs you sign up for.

Alvionne: It sounds like a really great program, but I have more of a technical question: I know that some faculties – especially for Master’s students – restricts the use of @ubc emails, so actually it takes a bit of a process for us to go through and ask to get that, in place of our @alumni.ubc.ca email. So I am wondering if there’s an opportunity for us to use @alumni.ubc.ca or if there’s maybe even just a push towards our administration to just let us …

Eric: Yeah, it’d be a lot easier for me to push it than to give you another account number. I wasn't aware of this restriction, but worse-case scenario – we can just add the alumni email you were just mentioning. It’d be an addition to @ubc.ca, but it won’t be a deal-breaker. It’d be straightforward.

Alvionne: OK. Thanks.

Ty: My question is: How does the Provost office see this program to be the Graduate’s pathway to success that the G+PS is? Does this mean to complement the program? Or what has been the discussion between ….

Eric: It was really viewed as an independent entity. It didn’t really enter into the nexus that you’re talking about. It seemed like it might be something worthwhile to try out as an experiment. Keep in mind that we are only at 540 or so of people that have subscribed so far, but the completion rate has also been quite striking. Most people get into it and seem to flourish in it.

Speaker: Kate.

Kate: In response to the previous question, alumni.ubc.ca addresses are already accepted. I have an account using the alumni address, and they work with the system. I do agree that NCFDP is an excellent resource, so I recommend people sign up for it and spread the word.

PRESENTATION #2Title: Final Push for the GSS Student Satisfaction SurveyGroup responsible: Razi Bayati / Academic and External CommitteePresentation time: 5 minutesDescription: To present the current response rate to the 2019 GSS Student Satisfaction Survey and discuss outreach strategies so far.

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Objective: To encourage Councillors to reach out to the graduate students in their respective departments / schools.

Discussion

Razi: If you think there’s a way for survey completion that’s effective in your department, just share it with us so we can reach out to more students and increase the participation rate for this year.

Timothy: Could you remind us the deadline for that survey?

Razi: Most likely we will extend that deadline because the participation rate is really low this year and we need more students to participate, but I can send another email to remind you. I can send an email to all of you.

F. Strategic Theme 3: Our Graduate Student Society: Presentations & Motions

Vision: The GSS continually strives to improve its efficiency, transparency, accountability, and communication in order to better fulfill its Mission.

1. Matters to Note a. See final section for written updates from:

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i. Presidentii. Financial & Executive Oversight

Officeriii. Executive Oversight Committeeiv. Governance & Accountability

Committee

v. House Finance Committeevi. Code & Policy Committeevii. Human Resources Committeeviii. AMS Councilix. Elections Committee

b. Questions?None.

2. Matters for Decision

a. Councillor Seatings

BIRT the following Seatings of new Councillors be approved:

Alvionne Gardner-Harrison to be seated as departmental representative for the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies.

Philip Wijaya to be seated as departmental representative for the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

MOVER: Philip Karangu SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi

RESULT: For (18): Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Joyce Lam, Timothy Luk, Temitope Onifade, Theresa Pauly, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Kiana Yau

b. Committee Seatings All GSS Councillors are expected to sit on at least one committee.

Arash: Can I ask the Chairs of these Committees to motivate? Speaker: Usually I don’t ask the Chair to motivate unless the Chair wants me to ask you to … You want to talk about it? Arash: That would be appreciated. Speaker: So you are requesting for every single Committee. OK, Academic and

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External Chair.

Ty: Hi, thank you. Our focus is on research and advocacy for graduate students, and we have a couple of presentations tonight. So if you are a new member of the Council you will be able to see what we've been focusing on in the last year. So, stay tuned. We meet once a month – the first Monday of the month from 5:30 to 7 pm, but there’s a lot of virtual work that we are doing.

Kate: The Code and Policy Committee revises and interprets the Policy manual, so if you ever read the Policy manual – we’re working on that. If you’ve ever seen anything that you want to fix about the manual, come and talk to us. We meet twice a month; meeting times are flexible based on members’ availability. They run about an hour and a half.

Philip K: This Committee, the EOC, is working very hard to become the next best Committee. Who wouldn't want to become the best? So, please come and join us, the EOC. We need one Councillor and about four Ordinary Members. We discuss issues to do with the Executives you see here. Of course, we don't meet quite often but we meet five times a month when we have to discuss issues to do with objectives and goals that they want to do for the Council. It’s very important because you get to know which direction the GSS is headed. So, if you want to know firsthand, join EOC. Thank you so much.

Arash: Just a quick question – did you say you meet five times a month?

Philip K: Sorry, five times when we are doing a view of the goals of the Execs. There are four Execs, so we meet four times in one day. Different hours.

Victoria: Hi, the Chair of G&A can’t be here tonight, so I’m motivating on his behalf. This is Victoria Gomez, the best Councillor of the year by the way. Alright, Governance and Accountability – just like how the EOC oversees the Executives, we oversee the Committees. This is part of the whole new Strat Plan, so we’re trying to make sure that the Committees are actually functioning, setting goals in a SMART way, committing to what they said they’re going to do. We meet twice a month and really make meaningful changes. We’re working on fun and exciting things, such as revising this horribly formatted Agenda and creating organizational charts to make it really obvious who is in charge of what, and where and why. Join us! Thank you.

Razi: Because we have Ordinary Members here, I want to mention that Ordinary Members can also be a member of Committees. If you are motivated about a Committee, you can become a member.

Speaker: As long as there’s an Ordinary Member seat, anyone who’s a graduate student of GSS in good standing, you can be sitting on a Committee.

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House Finance Chair? Are you here?

Nicolas: I can take this one. So, House Finance does a beautiful job of helping the Executives put together the budget. Throughout the year, it checks expenses and that they are in line with the budget and that none of the Executives are wrongly administering the money in the budget. So it’s the other face of EOC; it’s also a very important oversight Committee. They also make decisions for disbursements of the capital project improvement fund, so pretty much any fun thing that the GSS does that requires a lot of money goes through HF. It’s a nice place to be.

Rory: For anyone who’s an Ordinary Member – I was too, and I’m the Chair, so Ordinary Members can make it far. In terms of what the HR Committee is doing this year, we’re trying to revise the HR handbook, to update it, so we can take care of the great team that we have for staff. Additionally, we are coming up with … kind of like a five-year plan for staff and how we are going to hire staff in the future. Right now we have a good team and we’d like to keep a good team as we go forward, so everyone here can do the best job they can. So for this Committee right now, we are looking for Ordinary Members and Councillors. I am also thinking about stepping down soon as the Chair, as I’m going to graduate, so if anyone is interested in being the Chair of HR, let me know now because I’ll help mentor you and catch you up on what’s going on. Thanks for listening; I hope some people are interested.

John: Services Committee helps manage the event fund, plan orientation and oversees and reviews events throughout the year. We meet every two to four weeks for about an hour and a half – usually on Thursdays.

Speaker: Next is AMS Council. We need two more members to be seated on there. Any takers?

President: May I?

Speaker: Yes.

Nicolas: Many of you may be aware that we are coming out of a three-year rocky relationship with the AMS. We have put to rest the conflictive approach in our relationship with them and we want to leverage collaboration with them. In order to do so it’s important that we have representation in their Council, so that we can participate in their decision-making process and in their Committees. The way to do that through the GSS is to join the AMS Caucus, so I encourage you all to think about this. It’s an important place to be; it plays a big role in how we leverage AMS resources, which are much richer than ours in some aspects.

Arash: I’d like to motivate too, as someone who’s been there for more than a year. It’s

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super fun; the meetings are a bit lengthy but that’s the fun part. Four hours of heated debate – yeah, I’m motivating, come on. I learnt a lot, I got to and still am seated on the Finance Committee of AMS, dealing with a lot of money, a lot of stuff. You get to sit on their Committees, learn a lot more about AMS, your life as students, and you would have the chance to make an impact on students’ lives through AMS/GSS. So, consider it.

Speaker: AMS is one of the largest societies in the province if not in Canada; the network you make in AMS has still benefitted me today. Job-seeking, all that. All those people you met there are going to be somebody.

Ok, two more people needed for GSS Representative to the Faculty of Arts Council.

Ty: I think we need just one now because Alvionne was nominated and elected last Council. But to motivate, since we have a few graduate students from the Faculty of Arts, I would just like to say that this is the first time that the Faculty of Arts is including graduate students in their Council, so this is a way for us to influence academic regulations and policies in the Faculty of Arts. So please consider it, and if you’d like to know more, please email me. Thank you.

BIRT the following Seatings be approved:

____________to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Academic and External Affairs Committee (4 needed).____________to be seated as a Councillor to the Academic and External Affairs Committee (1 needed.)

Timothy Luk to be seated as a Councillor to the Code and Policy Committee (1 needed.)Andy An to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Code and Policy Committee (2 needed.)

____________to be seated as an Ordinary member to the Elections Committee (4 needed.)____________to be seated as a Councillor to the Elections Committee (2 needed.)

____________to be seated as an Ordinary member to the Executive Oversight Committee (4 needed.)____________to be seated as a Councillor to the Executive Oversight Committee (1 needed.)

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Alvionne Gardner-Harrison to be seated as a Councillor to the Governance and Accountability Committee (1 needed.)__________ to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Governance and Accountability Committee (1 needed.)

Claire Preston to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the House Finance Committee (1 needed.) ____________ to be seated as a Councillor to the House Finance Committee (1 needed.)

____________ to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Human Resource Committee (1 needed.)____________ to be seated as a Councillor to the Human Resource Committee

(2 needed.)

____________ to be seated as an Ordinary Member to the Services Committee (1 needed.)

Nevena Rebić to be seated as GSS Representative to the AMS/GSS Health and Dental Plan Committee (1 needed.)

____________ to be seated as GSS Representative to the Faculty of Arts Council (1 needed.)

MOVER: Philip Karangu SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi

RESULT: For (19): Razi Bayati, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Joyce Lam, Arezoo M., Temitope Onifade, Theresa Pauly, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau

c. Approval of Budget for the 2019/20 Cycle

Philip K: This year we are proposing a budget to you that is over $46,000 surplus;

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however, don’t get too comfortable with that number because that is all that we have. If we spend that we are done.

For Department 10, that is corporate – as you can see, there’s some sort of investment. Of course, this is from the place that we rented to Sauder Business School.

For Department 11, this is where we have the President – President, do you want to speak on your behalf?

Nicolas: Thank you. So, there is a Motion today – it’s been approved already by HF and has been circulated to CPC for approval later. Also, there’s a series of events that are hosted/organized by the President’s office this year – those are Lunch & Learn events. You might have attended them; they are around different topics: Sustainability, Mental Health, etc. That’s why those expenses are increasing. There’s also in that same Line, budget for non-academic career development events, to link graduate students with industry partners for graduation, in collaboration with departments. Rory is the one that brought up the idea. If this is successful, the office next year could expand this further.

The other change that we made that also increases slightly the budget is, instead of having Councillor retreat once a year as a two-day event – given that we have intake of Councillors much more regularly than once a year – we opted it for having four, one-day Councillor training sessions. So we make transitions of Councillors easier to the GSS. At this point I’d like to thank the Chair of CPC for her collaboration in their execution of this event. So that’s why the budget has gone a little bit up.

Philip K: Thank you, President. Department 12, where we have the VP Academic, we have increment from the $5000 to $15,000 – this is for the Financial Aid. For those who remember, this was the fund that was called the Emergency Fund. Now we have a new one and it has more money. We gave them $5000 last year and they gave us back, but we’re giving them more money now this time – let’s see that money being used. We also have increment in the part-time staff that are supposed to be creating the Wellbeing Network coordination in Department 12, too.

Department 13: VP External. Unfortunately, we left CASA; that’s why we have money that goes to Department 10, 11, 12. And of course there is some sort of additional candidate event for the federal relations that are becoming sooner or later this year.

Last but not least, we have the events. They’ve gone a little bit high – that’s true, and we are expecting more and more things to happen. But some of things we’ve reduced is off-campus events.

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Pouya: So, last year we organized all the programs we had on campus for off-campus students as well, but we didn’t get enough participation, so this year we decided to remove some of the programs. Students didn’t actually need yoga or zoomba off-campus, but we are adding a separate budget for collaboration with off-campus students to organize events for them. We are not taking the money from the off-campus students; we are just rearranging and reorganizing the budget. Philip K: Yeah, technically those are the main highlights of the budget that we are supposed to be looking at and adopt/approve today. Don’t forget – we have surplus in this budget. Thank you so much.

Nicolas: I would like to follow up on the comment of the surplus. As many of you know, I was and still am a member, technically, of the House Finance Committee, and one of the tasks that HF had from last year was to do a financial sustainability assessment of the Society, which was what I was working on in the Committee, mainly. I want to address the surplus, that we are mindful of what that surplus means. One – we currently have leased out the Boardroom, the Pub, the Penthouse to Seedlings, so if we were to lose any of those contracts – not Seedlings but any of the other two – we’d have a deficit of $40,000 dollars. As much as it looks like we are in a solid position, and for the foreseeable future we will be, we shouldn’t get too comfortable with this surplus. We are working on a more comprehensive investment portfolio, and it’s not a bad idea to build the financial backbone to be able to have a contingency plan in the event that we lose any of these two streams of income. As much as we are ok, we should not get too comfortable and too trigger-happy about spending that surplus.

WHEREAS The fiscal year of the Society ends on the 31st of May each year, and that the House Finance Committee has undergone extensive discussion and consultation regarding the 2019/2020 budget, and is satisfied with the proposed budget.

BIRT the GSS Council approves and adopts the 2019-2020 budget as presented.

MOVER: Philip Karangu SECONDER: Kate Sedivy-Haley DISCUSSION

Arash: Thank you for your presentation. My main question or comment is – how does this budget compare to last year’s? And, having everything in text format is very hard for me to keep track of what’s changing in each portfolio – I’m a very visual person. So … if

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you are increasing the budget in one department, are you decreasing the budget of another department – so mainly the question is: What’s the comparison to last year’s?

Nicolas: The full budget is in the Supporting Documents, and if you look towards theend of the column, each of the budget lines has the projected budget from last year.It has both the budget number for last year and the forecast for the end of this year,as calculated at the end of June or February – at the time we started the budgetingprocess. So you can see line by line how it changed. I will say that we did anextensive job of cleaning up the budget so some of the variances look huge, becausethere were things that were misplaced in the budget last year – for example, itshowed deficit and we run a surplus. So, while you have all the information availablein the Supporting Documents, making sense of the variance sometimes may betricky. As far as the main things that have changed, it’s basically what was conveyed in the presentation – the goal of the presentation was to clear up the main changes from last year. Everything else stays along the same lines where it was.

Arash: Thank you for that information. My second question is: it would be a smart move to budget for the fluctuations in the spending, with regards to each Department. So the way it’s done so everyone knows, is that you basically forecast the budget for the whole year, you divide it by twelve months, so that’s basically your every month budget. But those do not reflect the fluctuations which means the reporting becomes almost close to nonsense or not useful, in other words. So, that’s it.

Nicolas: Thank you for your question. So, your concern had been raised before and we worked on addressing it. We are not budgeting total divided by twelve; in some areas, for example income from Thea’s Lounge, it’s clearly separate. If you look at it, the months in which we have Convocation, in which we have money coming from G+PS to support the graduation events, that’s a clear spike in income. Then, the rest of the year it is a little bit harder because we get on and off, so it’s a little bit flatter. Now, with the new structure of the event fund and the graduate student assistance fund that now actually run as funds, the budget will reflect budgeted $5000 spent as the $5000 get transferred into the fund, so the budget actuals will no longer reflect on the funds what we spent, but rather what we allocate to the fund – which means that this will correct a lot of that ridiculous variance that you are talking about. In some other items such as rentals – this will continue to happen because of the nature, but we are doing the best we can to keep it within forecast.

Victoria: I have a question about the budget – a specific line for marketing (line 61 on the spreadsheet, actual name of Line: 770). I noticed that it has gone down this year by around $7000. Would I be able to receive some illumination? Thank you.

Nicolas: If you look at the actuals forecast, the forecast at the time was $21, 000 – after that the actuals kept decreasing so the forecast got closer to $20,000. We

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decided to do bottom-up budgeting. After accounting for all the expenditures in marketing we came up with a new number, so instead of repeating from last year we did bottom-up again, and we came up with a new number.

Alexa: Are we putting money or saving money somewhere to possibly outfit the new building that’s potentially being built?

Nicolas: Not directly. The way that the Graduate Life Centre renovation is going to be financed and funded is not yet clear. We will have a presentation about this later today if we want to talk about it then. There is $55,000 which are directly going towards CPIP – so those can only be used for Capital Project and Improvement Projects, which means building improvement basically. The surplus could potentially go there; however, do not take this as that money is going towards the Graduate Life Centre because as I mentioned before, the funding is not yet clear where it’s going to come from, or who’s going to finance, how we repay, how much we repay, etc.

RESULT: For (20): Solomon Atta, Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Joyce Lam, Timothy Luk, Temitope O., Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau

d. Chair Honorarium

Group Responsible: House Finance CommitteeBriefing Note: The position of GSS Committee Chairs was created many years ago as the result of an external governance review. Since the creation of these positions, the roles of chairs have been expanded and Chairs now have more responsibilities and a greater workload. The individuals chairing Committees play a key role in ensuring the sustained function of committees, and by extension council.

WHEREAS the current honoraria of $100 per month is not in line with the current expectations and responsibilities of the position of Committee Chair.

BIRT Policy 7.7.4 be repealed and replaced with "Chairs will receive an honorarium of $150 per month.”

MOVER: Nicolas Romualdi SECONDER: Philip Karangu

Nicolas: I think the Briefing Note and the Motion are really clear – Chairs are

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currently given recognition of $100 per month, they work whatever amount of hours, and they put in excellent work. As much as I argued we should be careful with not being trigger-happy with our surplus, if there’s one position in the GSS that could have some more recognition it would be the Chairs. So I strongly encourage you to vote in favour of this Motion. RESULT: For (14): Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Victoria Gomez, Joyce Lam, Timothy Luk, Temitope O., Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner Abstained: Kate Sedivy-Haley

G. Strategic Theme 2: Community: Presentations & Motion

Vision: The GSS supports UBC graduate students by fostering a positive, inclusive, and connected community on and off-campus, and by actively supporting initiatives to improve health and well-being.


i. VP Studentsii. Services Committee

b. Questions? None.

2. Matters for Decision a. Affiliate Organization Recognition

i. Motion: WHEREAS the following organizations have submitted a petition for recognition as an Affiliate Organization, thereforeBIRT the following organizations be recognized as Affiliate Organizations for one year, ending at the meeting of Council in May 2020:a. InterVarcity Graduate Christian Fellowship

MOVER: Philip Karangu SECONDER: Temi Onifade

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Nathan: Hi everyone, I am Nathan from InterVarcity Graduate Christian Fellowship. We’ve been on UBC campus for at least more than five years. We generally operate both within and off campus and all of our members are graduate students from different departments. I, myself, am from the Political Science department. What we do is host weekly gatherings where people from all political or religious affiliations can attend as they like. Currently we do have non-Christians in the Fellowship as well, and we hosted a couple of events on campus last year. The turnout was very good; we had about twenty to forty people in attendance. We basically come together and discuss our faith. I am happy to take questions.

Discussion

Pouya: Can I ask how many graduate students are members of your group?

Nathan: In total we have around over twenty people every year. Some of them are Master’s students … but on average our attendance is between fifteen to twenty.

Alexa: Probably not going to be able to be answered by you, but are other AOs non-departments? And, two – can non-UBC students join the Fellowship? Speaker: The first question I can answer – the answer is yes. Second question, please take it.

Nathan: Right now, we have no policy against non-UBC students coming to us. We are generally self-funded so we do welcome whoever wants to come, but given that it’s a campus-based organization, we don’t have many people from out of campus wanting to join us.

RESULT: For (18): Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Sara Hosseinirad, Philip Karangu, Joyce Lam, Timothy Luk, Temitope O., Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau Abstained: Kate Sedivy-Haley

b. Services Committee Terms of Reference Update Group Responsible: Code & Policy Committee

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Subject Description: Policy 8.9.1: Services Committee Terms of Reference Motion:

WHEREAS the Strategic Plan specifies that Services is responsible for “Engaging graduate students in an inclusive environment through programming and services on intellectual, social, physical, environmental, financial, emotional, and mental wellbeing," improving upon the Orientation, and holding Orientation at multiple academic terms subject to feasibility,

WHEREAS CPC has determined that the current Terms of Reference for Services do not adequately encompass the different types of wellbeing to be supported, or to improve on Orientations and their availability,

WHEREAS Services approves of these changes,

BIRT Policy Manual 8.9.1b and 8.9.1c be repealed and replaced with the following:

8.9.1b Create and develop programming that supports the well-being of graduate students, including mental, emotional, environmental and financial health. 8.9.1c Oversee the annual Society Orientation, advise how to improve it, and endeavour to provide welcoming events for students entering at all academic terms.

MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Arash

Kate: I can motivate briefly. So, the first part is adding a couple additional words to expand the types of well-being that we are hoping to foster in our graduate students – according to the Strategic Plan. The second line: We are looking to expand a little bit how Services will be approaching the Orientation, in terms of not just overseeing it but also improving it and then looking at wanting to provide whatever events are feasible for students coming in at additional terms – in order to help them adjust to university life. We’ve been discussing this with Services and we think that this is balanced in terms of addressing the Strategic Plan.

RESULT: For (15): Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Victoria Gomez,

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Sara Hosseinirad, Philip Karangu, Joyce Lam, Temitope O., Theresa Pauly, Nevena Rebic, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau Abstained: Jasleen Grewal Against: Pouya Rezaeinia

c. Policy 9.3.2 and 9.3.7, Apdx. VII Event Fund Communications Group Responsible: Services Committee Motion:

WHEREAS Improvements can be made to existing procedure for communicating with Affiliate Organizations regarding event reimbursement, and for receiving reports after the event, and

WHEREAS The Event Fund application form contains out of date contact information, and

WHEREAS The event report form should have room for providing a testimonial, optional event photos for promotion, and for providing evidence that the GSS logo has been included at the event as required by Policy 9.2.2,

BIRT The updated Event Fund application and report forms included as supplementary documents be appended to the Policy Manual Appendix VII, and Appendix VII be renamed "Affiliate Organization and Event Fund Forms."

BIRT Policy 9.3.2 and 9.3.7 be repealed and replaced with the following:

9.3.2 The rebate shall be based on the guidelines devised by the Services Committee during the annual budgeting process. It is the Services Committee’s responsibility to communicate these guidelines, which may include publishing reimbursement criteria or calculator on the GSS website.9.3.7 Money will be disbursed after the event is completed, and:

a. A report sheet of the event (see Appendix VII), including statement of expenditures with original receipts attached, has been submitted to the Vice President Students within thirty days of the event.b. The statement of expenditures and receipts have been reviewed by the Finance and Executive Oversight Officer. If requested and on demonstration of special circumstances, the Finance and Executive

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Oversight Officer may return hard copies of original receipts after disbursement to the respective AO.

MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Alvionne Gardner-Harrison

Kate: This is just making some changes to the flow of information to/from the AOs with regards to administering the event fund. Again, we’ve consulted with Services, with the FEOO, and with VP Students on this. We all think it’s a good idea.

RESULT: For (19): Solomon Atta, Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner- Harrison, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Joyce Lam, Timothy Luk, Temitope O., Theresa Pauly, Nevena Rebic, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau

d. Policy 9.4.1 and 9.4.2 Event Fund Amounts Group Responsible: Services Committee Motion:

WHEREAS The amount of reimbursement offered to AOs for events within the Centre is $500, and for events outside the Centre is $300,

WHEREAS The amount of reimbursement offered per AO per event has not increased since the Event Fund’s inception,

WHEREAS The relatively low amount of reimbursement offered per AO per event may be limiting the GSS’s ability to assist AOs in hosting events,

WHEREAS The Event Fund has been poorly utilized in the 2018-2019 academic year and thus only a small portion of the Event Fund was dispersed,

WHEREAS The wording “the Centre” in Policy 9.4.1 may be restrictive, as the GSS Loft

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in the AMS Nest is also a GSS space,

BIRT Policies 9.4.1 and 9.4.2 be repealed and replaced with the following:9.4.1 The maximum level of financial support for any event held in the Centre or the GSS Loft, located in the AMS Nest, will be the lesser of:

a. Net costs of the event incurred by the organizing AO(s), orb. $600 per AO involved in organizing the event, until April 30, 2020,

at which point the funds revert to $5009.4.2 The maximum level of support for any other event will be the lesser of:

a. Net costs of the event incurred by the organizing AO(s), orb. $400 per AO involved in organizing the event, until April 30, 2020, at which point the funds revert to $300

BIRT if the Services Committee does not initiate a policy amendment regarding 9.4.1b and 9.4.2b by April 30, 2020 then the Code and Policy Committee shall revert the policy to the existing text.

MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi

Discussion

Kate: So there are essentially two changes going on here – first one is expanding the first, higher maximum funding amount to include the GSS Loft in addition to the Centre as that’s also a GSS space now, and the second one is this temporary $100 increase in the maximum funding, which is meant to address an inability to properly utilize this fund in the last year. I would like to pass this on to John to further motivate at this point.

John: Basically we got some AOs coming to us, asking us if there’s any ability to increase the amount of money that is possible to be reimbursed, because $500 and $300 doesn’t go as far as it used to, and as far as I am aware, these values haven’t changed since the Event Fund was created. The last two or three years we haven’t really been fully utilizing the Event Fund – I guess three years ago we were $500 short of utilizing the full Event Fund; last year we were about $7000 short of the full Event Fund. So basically there is sort of giving AOs a bit of a leg up, as we know the Event Fund isn’t fully utilized. Then, the addendums here for reverting the funds to $500 and $300 is just because we are in a bit of an unique situation right now, where Pouya is a returning VP Students … we don’t want to shoot any VP Students in the foot for their next term, right when they come in the door, so this is like a test run to see if it’s viable or not. Thanks.

Claire: I think this is as good idea based on what it sounds like was a drastic underutilization of the fund, but my question for the Services Committee is: Is this being coupled with an

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effort to better market the Event Fund and the usability to AOs – which I understand may have been a problem last year.

John: I think the problem with the Event Fund being underutilized is actually due to the GSS website. It was undergoing a bit of a rearrangement and the Event Fund kind of got buried in some of the links – I think it’s been fixed now; we talked to Ben about it. We are making an effort to make sure that the word gets out a little bit more and if need be, Pouya said he can speak to it now as well.

Pouya: So, the answer to your question is yes – we started organizing orientation for all the AOs that we approved. Starting last month, we’ve been doing 15-minute orientations for them to know what the GSS is, what we can do for them, and what they can do for us. Thank you.

Arash: I have two questions; one is, how would increasing the amount help with the underutilization of the budget? The second one: Was this increase forecasted in the budget that was just approved?

John: Ok, I would say that increasing it specifically will not help with getting the word out so to increase utilization, but if we know that it’s being underutilized we can help the same amount of AOs with more money, basically. That’s how I would view it – but as Pouya said, we are also making an effort to reach out to AOs more so that they are more aware of the fund.

And for your other question – Pouya, do you want to take that one?

Pouya: That was the budget that we had put aside for Event Fund. It was underutilized, so there’s no point. We don’t actually need to take this into account when budgeting. So the budget is the same – it’s still $12,000 per year. But the amount that we reimburse per event would increase.

Kiana: From my experience, I know that for an AO to be reimbursed it’s per person, right? You get pre-imbursed by the number of people that attend your event. Is that going to change as well?

Pouya: That’s a really good question. We haven’t considered that yet; we will definitely discuss it further in the meeting with Services. It happens that some AOs apply for funding and they have gone over $500 and they have attendance of more than around seventy students, which means that they will be reimbursed for $500. So, if we increase this budget – this funding limit – then if they have more attendance they’d be able to use more of the money in their Event Fund. We can definitely consider that in the meeting and see if we can increase it.

Nicolas: I totally agree with the statement that the values were set at the time before subsequent inflation happened through the year, so it makes sense to actualize the values – so I’m fully in favour of that. I am a little confused – and maybe Kate would be the best

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person to answer this – about the convoluted wording of the Policy, that it reverts back and if they don't initiate then it goes back to the original text… Why did we do this and we didn’t just increase the limits? That's what I am confused about.

Kate: So, the reason for the convoluted wording – it was because of the request from Services and VP Students to make this a temporary change. We determined that the best way to implement a temporary change was to both hard-code into the Policy Manual that the funding will revert, so that if nothing is done to change it, it will still be clear from the Policy Manual that this was a temporary change. And secondarily, to pre-authorize CPC to change it back, so that there doesn't need to be another Motion from Council in order to change it, which gets us the best chance of actually being able to make this change temporary and not accidentally permanent. With respect to the reason for the temporary change, my understanding is that this is because there was some question about whether it is best, in the long term, to have a higher amount, but potentially have money for fewer AOs, or whether in the long term it is better to give out less money to a higher number of AOs if we can get the uptake of the program up. So, given that there’s a set amount – I believe it was $12, 000 for the Event Fund – do we want to be having that at up to $600 for twenty AOs or do we want it to be up to $500 for twenty-four AOs? That’s the reason for this being temporary and not permanent.

The alternative would be to just change it and then it would have to be actively changed back at a later date. I do know there was a concern raised in this discussion about CPC over whether having a temporary change was going to be a good idea in terms of the expectations of the AOs, and whether that was something that might cause some trouble for Services or VP Students in terms of changing it back and having AOs be disappointed. CPC decided that was not a good reason to be NOT approving the Motion from CPC’s point of view. Given the temporary change has been raised in Council, I would like to mention that now so that Services and VP Students can speak to that and so that Council can consider that as well.

Temi: So my question is not about the increase – I was just wondering if someone could fix the GSS website. I tried to apply for the Event Fund once and I found different formats of the same form, and filled the wrong format, and had to get details from my department – details of like, how much to spend, all those …

Speaker: Sorry, Temi – we are focused on the Motion, we're talking about the money. Temi: Yeah, I am talking about the Event Fund form, the application form. Speaker: But we are talking about reimbursement. So…Temi: Ok, just to churn that in ... It’s time it got fixed.

Speaker: The President has ordered me to be stricter on talking on the Motion and on the Motion itself, so yeah. That is applied to everybody.

Philip.

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Philip K: One question: How many times can an AO request for the fund in a given budget?

Pouya: For the first time, it’s almost guaranteed. For the second time, if there’s enough budget, again it’s kind of guaranteed. More than that, then it completely depends on the status of the finances and the budget. So, if there are more applications and more AOs looking for funding then we wouldn't approve more than two applications from the same AO.

Kiana: What is the rate per person for this Event Fund?

Pouya: We have published the Calculator online, so now you can go online and see for any type of events how much it would expect. It can be $6 per person, depending on the event, or up to $12 per person.

Sebastien: So does this change the total amount of money you have available to all the AOs? Or is it just, they get a bigger chunk of the same pie?

Pouya: If they have more attendance, they’d be able to get a bigger chunk of the money, but if they don’t have high attendance – if only twenty students go, then this Motion wouldn't matter to them.

Sebastien: Yeah, but the same total amount of money that was not fully being utilized – this doesn’t change? Or gets increased because of this increase?

Speaker: Kate, what do you need?

Kate: I would like to respond to the question, Madame Speaker, because this question has come up several times and I think there’s still some confusion.

Speaker: Ok, I need the VP Students to yield to you.

Pouya: Yes, go ahead.

Kate: So, I believe this question is about whether this impacts the total amount of the budget that is allocated to the Event Fund; the answer is no. So the budget allocates a certain amount of money – the budget we just approved of – for the Event Fund and this doesn't change that. What this changes is the amount of that pie – as you put it – that can be allocated to any event through the Event Fund. So, previously there was however many thousands of dollars in the Event Fund but still the maximum amount that any one AO could get for an event was $500 if it was held in the Centre. And this is saying that now since we were not able to use all that money that was in that pie, we are wanting to try adding in an extra hundred dollars we can give out per event, so that more of that pie actually gets distributed to the events. So that’s what this does – it allows us to give out more pie per serving to the AOs rather than actually touching the total pie involved in the budget.

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Nicolas: So, what we are doing in effect, though it’s not worded that way, is suspend the Policy and implement a different Policy for the period of a year. Because we have a current policy, basically we are saying this is temporary for a year, so it’s a suspension and implementation of a different policy that’s contrary to what our bylaws permit, in which we can only suspend the policy for thirty days. So if we were wanting to remake this change we should either make it permanent or don’t make it, and with the reminder that if at any point we want to back pedal the change, it’s simple as bringing a Motion to go back. That raises some concerns about the way this Motion is worded, and the legality of it. Given that, I am going to opt to do the same thing I did last time, with the Graduate Student Assistance Fund. This looks like it should go back to Committee to polish that portion of the Motion. Sorry, Kate, I move that we refer this matter back to the CPC, to bring it back to Council in the month of June.

Speaker: I have a Motion on the floor to defer this to Committee.

Kate: CPC has already discussed the question of making temporary changes to the Policy manual. It was decided with the aid of a member of CPC who is a student in the Law department that it is allowable to make temporary changes such as this. I don't think our discussion would bear any more fruit if there were further concerns about making temporary changes to the Policy manual. I would advise instead moving to amend, to simply make this a permanent change – rather than moving to send it back to Committee. I don't think it’s going to be useful sending it back to Committee, given that we’d already discussed that.

Arash: I’m not sure sending it back to Committee is a good idea; it seems like a well-crafted Motion and if there’s any concerns about the legality, we can just cross out the “until” part.

Nicolas: As far as interpretation goes, it lies with us. Sorry, we disagree. That being said, I don't mind amending this and fixing it now, if we want to vote down the referral. If you feel comfortable, do it quickly. I’m ok with that. We can just vote this down, amend it and make it a permanent change.

Speaker: Any further discussion on deferring this to Committee? If you vote FOR, we are moving this to Committee; we are not talking about this anymore. You vote AGAINST, we continue talking about this.

MOVER: Nicolas Romualdi SECONDER: Temi Onifade RESULT: For (2): Hilal Kina, Kiana Yau Against (11): Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Victoria Gomez, Philip Karangu, Timothy Luk, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz Abstained (3): Razi Bayati, Nicolas Romualdi, Alexa Tanner

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Kate: Given the suggestion, I might as well move to Amend. I will move to amend the first BIRT clause to strike on the 9.4.1b. Everything after “$600 per AO involved in organizing the event” ... so starting with the comma through “until” to the end of that line. Similarly, on the 9.4.2, the comma, “until”, and then the whole second BIRT clause can also be struck. That would then make the change that has been discussed a permanent one or at least permanent until actually modified.

Alexa: Does this make this policy completely not financially sustainable? Because it’s not in the budget?

Nicolas: That’s slightly incorrect. The way we structure the fund – we no longer budget year-to-year but we allocate money to the fund – then it builds up – so there may be a follow-up policy which needs to draft a target value for the fund, but there’s currently already a leftover of $11,000 or $10, 000 – somewhere there. It’s not a question of whether we grow the budget or not – we can only spend what’s in the fund. We can’t go past that because there’s not going to be any more money in the account. Depending on how much we spend throughout this year, we may want to allocate more or less next year.

Motion: BIFRT Policies 9.4.1 and 9.4.2 be repealed and replaced with the following:

9.4.1 The maximum level of financial support for any event held in the Centre or the GSS Loft, located in the AMS Nest, will be the lesser of:

a. Net costs of the event incurred by the organizing AO(s), orb. $600 per AO involved in organizing the event, until April 30, 2020,

at which point the funds revert to $5009.4.2 The maximum level of support for any other event will be the lesser of:

a. Net costs of the event incurred by the organizing AO(s), orb. $400 per AO involved in organizing the event, until April 30, 2020, at which point the funds revert to $300

MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi RESULT: For (17): Solomon Atta, Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner- Harrison, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Sara Hosseinirad, Philip Karangu, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau

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Speaker: Now we are back to the main Motion without the red lines.

Motion:

BIRT Policies 9.4.1 and 9.4.2 be repealed and replaced with the following:9.4.1 The maximum level of financial support for any event held in the Centre or the GSS Loft, located in the AMS Nest, will be the lesser of:

a. Net costs of the event incurred by the organizing AO(s), orb. $600 per AO involved in organizing the event

9.4.2 The maximum level of support for any other event will be the lesser of:a. Net costs of the event incurred by the organizing AO(s), orb. $400 per AO involved in organizing the event

RESULT: For (16): Solomon Atta, Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner- Harrison, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Jasleen Grewal, Sara Hosseinirad, Philip Karangu, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Kiana Yau Abstained: Alexa Tanner

H. Strategic Theme 1: Academics: Presentations & Motions

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Vision: The GSS empowers UBC graduate students to succeed in their academic endeavours by conducting data-driven advocacy.


i. VP University & Academic Affairsii. VP External Relationsiii. Academic & External Affairs

Committee

iv. Graduate Councilv. Senatevi. Board of Governors

b. QuestionsNone.

2. Matters for Decision

a. Policy 15: Graduate Student Financial Aid Group Responsible: Code & Policy Committee Subject Description: Policy 15: Graduate Student Financial Aid Relevant Materials: Policy15_GSFA.docx Motion:

WHEREAS the current Graduate Emergency Fund is not functional, and as a result has not been administered,

WHEREAS outgoing VP Academic Sarah and the Academic and External Committee have developed a new policy to serve students in need of financial support,

WHEREAS the Code and Policy Committee, with the assistance of the AcEx chair and one other member of AcEx, has revised this policy in response to the April consultation with GSS Councillors,

WHEREAS it is appropriate to develop more comprehensive implementation guidelines after observing how the process works in practice,

BIRT Policy 15 in the GSS Policy Manual be repealed and replaced with the text contained in the supplementary document Policy15_GSFA. docx

BIFRT the GSS Academic and External Committee will propose implementing guidelines for the GSFA by April 2020 Council meeting, following the recommendations of the GSFA Adjudication Committee based on their initial two terms of disbursing funds.

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MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi

Discussion

Kate: First of all, we’ve had quite a discussion on this. There was a preliminary discussion at the last Council meeting, when it was referred back to CPC. We took a bunch of comments from the Google Doc and addressed as many as we could in the resulting document. There were a few that CPC thought would be best addressed at Council, so if you still have any concerns about the Policy then please do bring that up here. I do have two friendly amendments to be making at this point, given some concerns that were recently raised.

On of them is that there was a bit of an error in that second BIFR, where it says “the GSFA Adjudication Committee” – that should be “Panel”. In our revisions we determined it should be “Panel”.

The second one is – in our document, where there are references to referral from Enrolment Services, that should be changed to “an UBC office or department” as we have other UBC offices that have expressed interest in referring to this program. So we wanted to make it more general.

BIFRT Reference to the “UBC Enrolment Services” be changed to “an UBC office or department”.

MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Ty Paradela

Kate: The intent of this Policy is to make this a functional Financial Aid policy because this Policy has not been able to be administered. There has been some expressions already from one of these offices that they have students they currently would like to refer to us, if this Policy is implemented. So, if we approve this, we will be able to help students in a way that we are currently not able to. A lot of work has been put in by AcEx in making sure that this is a Policy that is not something that likely be exploited. The actual adjudication is done largely through staff not students, so there’s a relatively low risk that students will be biased and awarding money to their friends. There’s a strong Conflict of Interest clause that enables real penalties, including for the staff members involved, for example loss of employment. We think this Policy is well-positioned to help students. We open any discussions.

Temi: The term “department” might cause some problems, as they have different terms that they use according to their academic unit. So, I think the better term to use is “UBC office or academic unit”.

Speaker: Any objection to this amendment to “UBC office or academic unit”?

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Seeing none. Ok, Nicolas – you can go back to the main Motion.

Nicolas: I strongly encourage everyone to approve this Motion as presented. If this is a particular issue with one of the items of the Policy, we can review the Policy again and propose a new change – nothing stops us from doing this. But, we are currently unable to service our members, so let’s be able to service our members and then we can deal with minutiae after.

RESULT: For (19): Razi Bayati, Farah Deeba, Alvionne Gardner-Harrison, Negar Ghahramani, Victoria Gomez, Jasleen Grewal, Philip Karangu, Hilal Kina, Yee Fay Lim, Timothy Luk, Nevena Rebic, Sebastien Rettie, Pouya Rezaeinia, Nicolas Romualdi, Kate Sedivy, Arash Shadkam, Andras Szeitz, Alexa Tanner, Kiana Yau

I. Matters for Discussion1. Strategic Theme 3: Our Graduate Student Society:

Presentation #1Presentation Title: The Graduate Life Center ProcessProposed objective: To inform Council on how the process for the renovation of Thea Koerner House will be managed and how to participate in it.Group Responsible: GSS PresidentPresentation Time: 5 minutes

Nicolas: Thea Koerner House is in dire need of renovations. We are in what’s called a pre-design process; this process consists of identifying needs and wants. Needs are infrastructure – for example the elevator is inaccessible. Then there’s the wants – what do we want out of Thea Koerner House after the renovations are finished.

One of my goals for the year – should EOC be ok with this – is to move to the design-development stage. In the middle of this stage, we go through what’s called schematic design – which comprises loose lines of what we want the building to be. It’s not final design with dimensions, but it’d be an idea of what kind of rooms we want (child-friendly rooms, bookable rooms, etc.).

On the infrastructure side, there’s a committee formed that’s led by the Building Ops. This is composed of a representative from Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, Architecture, a

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consultant, the GSS General Manager Vivian and me. There’s another Committee that works on the functional side run by Planning Ops – this is the one what addresses what we want. They have a representative from the other Committee, plus the GM, and me. Everything flows through Vivian and me.

It’s important that if you have input, if you want to discuss this, you need to discuss it now. Moving forward, we need to have consensus on what we are doing. If we don’t and we start backpedaling, there’s a high chance of UBC abandoning the project because we don’t know what we want.

Right now we have a lot of momentum going, we have commitment from Santa himself – let’s not ruin it by being disorganized. If you want to participate, please do. I will frequently update the process in the Agenda.

Any questions?

Claire: Thank you for the presentation. It looks like a great plan. I am wondering for the consultation process with grad students, what work has been done to gather their needs and wants, what attempts have been made to reach out to graduate students who may not necessarily care about the GSS, but who may have wants and needs about the Graduate Life Centre. I am also wondering about what efforts have been made to reach beyond GSS, to graduate students in a different way, and what are further plans for this.

Nicolas: The workshop that was held was advertised in the newsletter and on the website, and open to all graduate students to participate. This was the first workshop, so it wasn’t going to come out with a definite functionality of the building. However, the output of this workshop – I was promised a report which should be delivered to me sometime tomorrow. On that report we will know whether Planning Ops will need to continue to identify functionality. The plan is that once we get to a stage where we have identified what we want out of the building, we hold a graduate student-wide consultation. Once we narrow it down to specific potential plans, we bring them to Council and all decide which way we want to go.

Victoria: Everyone, please go to your Departments and ask everyone whether they have anything that they want for the GLC, and then direct that to the President or the General Manager. The more feedback, the better. Thanks.

Arash: Thanks for your presentation. So I was involved in this Koerner’s Library transformation project for graduate students, which was killed. We got to the stage where we knew what the graduate students wanted from that centre, from that library area – so

29


my question is, are we addressing that for this one? Are we considering them at all? What happened to the lessons learned from that project and the needs of graduate students?

Nicolas: There are a lot of parts to your question. Graduate student needs are always considered. The focus of this project is to address community building needs; so, quiet study spaces are not a top priority, but we work with UBC to recuperate the option to create quiet study spaces. But we don’t currently see it in the vision of the Graduate LIFE Centre. That doesn’t mean we won’t advocate for those spaces – those conversations are still being had but pursued differently.

I hope I could wrap it up.

2. Strategic Theme 1: Graduate Student Academics:

Presentation #1Presentation Title: Beyond CASA / CFS / ThinkGrad: Alternative Approaches to Federal LobbyingGroup responsible: Ty Paradela / Sara Hossenirad/ Academic and External CommitteePresentation time: 8 minutesPresentation description: Present ideas generated by the Academic and External Committee on other approaches to federal lobbying Proposed objective: To open the discussion on alternative approaches to federal lobbying

Presentation #2Presentation Title: Financial UpdateProposed objective: Financial Update to the GSS Council.Group Responsible: FEOOPresentation Time: 5 minutes

3. Strategic Theme 2: Graduate Student Community:

Presentation #1Presentation Title: Off Campus GSS EventsGroup responsible: VP Students

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Presenter: Jasleen Grewal Presentation time: 10 minutesPresentation description: GrasPods presentation on off-campus events supported by the GSS Proposed objective: Updating Council on off-campus activities of the GSS, and highlighting their impact (e.g. adopt/ratify)Relevant Materials:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HOeC5UgV8Eu9rdl42pNTd51gnjN-ofxPLoYfNSH52Go/edit?usp=sharing

Discussion

Pouya : Can I ask you to please include me in the email list for your newsletter? And I would encourage you to invite me to at least one of your Graspods meetings. Thank you.

Jasleen : Sure.

Presentation #2Presentation Title: Wellbeing Strategic FrameworkGroup responsible: VP StudentsPresentation time: 2 minutesProposed objective: Announce that the Wellbeing Strategic Framework is finalized Updating council on off-campus activities of the GSS, and highlighting their impact (e.g. adopt/ratify)Relevant Materials: https://wellbeing.ubc.ca/framework

Presentation #3Presentation Title : Mid-Term Progress ReportGroup Responsible : Victoria Gomez / Governance and Accountability CommitteePresentation time : ~5 minutes Proposed objective : To update Council on progress of Committee goals

J. Adjournment

Kate: I have a very quick final Motion. I move that the Amendments to Policy 8.9.1 be applied to 8.8.1.

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https://wellbeing.ubc.ca/framework


BIRT The 8.9.1 Policy that was just approved in this Agenda be changed to 8.8.1. MOVER: Kate Sedivy-Haley SECONDER: Nicolas Romualdi RESULT: Motion carried.

BIRT there being no further business the meeting be adjourned at 7:54 pm. MOVER: Ty Paradela SECONDER: Kate Sedivy-Haley RESULT: All in favour.

K. Notices1. Notice of Next Meeting

a. Date: June 20, 2019b. Time: 5:30pmc. Location: Michael Kingsmill Forum, the Nest (4th floor)

2. Notice of UnseatingsLois Evans to be unseated as departmental representative for the School of Library, Archives and Information Studies.Omri Wallach to be unseated as departmental representative for the School of Journalism.Arash Shadkam to be unseated as AMS Council Representative.Claire Preston to be unseated as departmental representative for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.Claire Preston to be unseated as a councillor to the House Finance Committee.Razi Bayati, Sara Hosseinrad, and Rory Long to be unseated as Ordinary Member from the Academic and External Committee.Rahaf al Salil to be unseated as Councillor from the House Finance CommitteeAnuradha Ramachandran to be unseated as Ordinary Member from the House Finance Committee.

3. GSS Updates (~100 words, sent in advance and included in the final agenda)a. Strategic Theme 3: Our Graduate Student Society

i. Presidenta. TransitionThe Executive transition process in now finalized. Meetings have been held with UBC VPS and FGPS for introductions and to discuss priorities for the year.b. BudgetThe corporate and president’s budget (departments 10 and 11) were updated, finished and approved by the HF Committee and are ready to be presented to Council in the May meeting.

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Department 10 was updated to reflect the new roles (GM and no office manager) as well as the new staff benefits approved by the HR committee. The honorarium for Chairs was increased to 150/month. General cleaning and organizing of lines throughout. The budget for conferences for the president was reduced and the budget for meetings with stakeholders increased. Department 10 now reflects the return of investment based of the new Bank Account setup (~3300 CAD/year).c. Tuition Consultation CalendarMeetings with UBC and AMS have been held to better structure the tuition consultation process to ensure that the relevant student population is present on Campus when the consultation is held.d. GSS BrandingBranding based on the new GSS Logo and colors. The website, newsletter, email signatures and business cards have been adapted. The Communications manager is currently obtaining quotes for a steel made logo for the exterior of TKH.e. Document Management / ArchivalThe GSS has started migrating to an integrated document management and collaboration platform based on Microsoft Teams. The data is hosted in Canadian Serves, which makes it compliant with Canadian Privacy and Security regulations.The system is currently in ‘alpha testing’ in the GSS office. It will be rolled out to two committees for another trial period in June.f. Tuition/Stipend AdvocacyThe President has communicated to UBC VPS and the student representatives to the UBC board that there is no current automatic mechanism to update stipends year to year for graduate students in the research stream. g. Statutory Pay AdvocacyThe President together with the Councillor from the School of Libraries and the Chairperson of the Academic and External Committee have drafted a briefing note outlining the issue and met with the UBC Ombudsperson. The UBC office of the Director of Employee and Labour Relationships has been replied back to the President to organize a meeting and work towards a solution.h. Public Realm Advisory CommitteeJordan Hamden has been appointed to represent the GSS to this UBC committee. The committee meets 3 times a year and they want to increase the frequency to 4 times a year. The committee decides the direction of projects of campus like businesses that may be coming to campus (e.g. marihuana dispensary). The composition is UBC faculty. The committee is in the process of re-evaluating how

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it functions and its objectives. It has been identified that private donors are a key player in capital projects on campus. This committee discusses the possibility of asking for a fee increases for projects, so it’s important to weigh in. The AMS does not currently have representation to this committee.

ii. Financial & Executive Oversight Officer

iii. Executive Oversight Committee

iv. Governance & Accountability Committeea. General UpdateThe G&A committee and its activities remains to be an active and integral component of the governance structure of the GSS organization.

Notwithstanding, the committee itself, continues to actively work towards achieving its very own SMART goals. Key milestone for the period in review includes:

1. Continued refinement of the new GSS Council Agenda Templates. These drafts are currently being reviewed by the committee; ultimately to be narrowed to the most appropriate, comprehensive and user-friendly agenda for these meetings. 2. The team is in the process of implementing the proposed organization chart for the GSS website.

Finally, the G&A committee continues to press forward with its mandate, which is to ensure proper governance within the GSS structure.b. SMART Goal Mid-Term ReviewSMART goal setting process for committees is now complete and the G&A committee has officially requested mid-year goal reports from the respective GSS committees. These the mid-term progress review is consolidated in a presentation included in the meeting materials.

v. House Finance CommitteeIn the past month, the House Finance Committee has mainly been working to assess and approve the 2019-2020 budget. We have been working with the executives to ensure the budget is ready for council approval at the May council meeting, and have updated the budget format so that it is more reader-friendly. We have also been working with the Code and Policy Committee to draft a motion to increase the chair honoraria, as well as to change the scope of CPIF.

vi. Code & Policy Committee

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CPC has finalized recommended changes to Services’ Terms of Reference and brings them to this Council (Apr 9 minutes). CPC members have consulted with House Finance and Governance & Accountability on changes to their Terms of Reference, and revised a drafted Terms of Reference suggested by Elections Committee (May 9). We discussed the reasons for eliminating or maintaining the Chief Electoral Officer position (Apr 30) and will shortly begin a review of amendments to Elections Policy drafted by EC.CPC revised the GSFA policy in response to consultation (Apr 30 and May 9). We have approved changes to the Event Fund Policy (Apr 30 and May 9) which will be brought to Council by Services, and has approved a policy update to the chair honourarium (Apr 30), which will be brought to Council by House Finance.

vii. Human Resources Committee

viii. AMS CouncilSee supporting document: AMS Summaries_Apr24.pdf

ix. Elections CommitteeAlice Miao, the outgoing chief electoral officer was elected by the Elections committee to serve as the Deputy Chair of the committee. The elections committee intends to continue its meeting at a monthly basis to discuss student engagement strategies with Ben Hill, GSS Communications director.

b. Strategic Theme 2: Graduate Student Community i. VP Students

1. Budget was discussed with the Event Manager and the Services Committee and sent to the HF to be presented in the Council meeting in May, May 2.

2. Events held: GSS Lunch and Learn: Eat Well to Live Well, April 29; Curling, April 27; GSS Academic Bootcamp, April 27; GSS Year End Grad Social, April 26

3. Wellbeing Advisory Committee Meeting, April 10. Finalization and Activation Plan for the Wellbeing Strategic Framework to be presented to UBC executives

4. Meeting with the Services Committee, May 2:a. Winter classes surveys were discussedb. SC goals were discussedc. Making Event Fund changes official

5. Meeting with AMS and VPS, April 29:a. Tuition increase vs. fix stipends was discussed

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b. Mental health was brought up as one of the priorities of the GSS VP-Students for 2019/20 year.

c. The idea of holding a symposium around mental health in September was brought up. This symposium is proposed by Lily Ivanova. To be further discussed with Janet Teasdale in order to obtain the support of the VPS office.

6. Meeting with G+PS, Dear Porter and Jacqui Brinkman, May 6:a. Conversation around GLCb. Conversation with Jacqui about collaboration between GSS and GPS on

topics such as academic support for graduate students; to be followed up with Jacqui.

7. Wellbeing Advisory Committee updates: a. The Wellbeing Strategic Framework is finalized and can be found here:

https://wellbeing.ubc.ca/frameworkb. I highly encourage all the students to go through the framework and send

us their thoughts and input.8. Meeting with Liam Monaghan, Program Coordinator of the Centre for Writing and

Scholarly Communication (CWSC), May 14: a. CWSC is holding a Graduate Writing Retreat on June 11-13, 2019. Details

can be found here: https://learningcommons.ubc.ca/improve-your-writing/b. I brought up potential collaborations with the CWSC, as well as the

services that we provide for the students such as the two dissertation bootcamps that were organized during 2018-19 year. To be considered by the CWSC.

ii. Services Committeea.

c. Strategic Theme 1: Graduate Student Academics i. VP University & Academic Affairs

See presentation in meeting materials (VP UUAA Progress Report May 16th.pptx)

ii. VP External Relationsa.

iii. Academic & External Affairs Committee

iv. Graduate Council

v. Senate

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vi. Board of GovernorsThe Board of Governors is in the process of orienting our new governors, Max Holmes (UBC-V student) and Jassim Naqvi (UBC-O student). As student representatives, we are in the process of developing our advocacy goals for the year in collaboration with groups like the GSS and AMS. The next Board Committees will meet on the following dates (all in the Alumni Centre Board room):• Indigenous Engagement Committee – May 31st 10:30-12:30pm • Board Governance Committee – June 3rd 2-2:45pm • Other Board Committees – June 5th 8:30-4:30pm • Full Board Meeting – June 13th 8:30-4:30pm

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