Facilitator: Hazel
Vibes Watcher: Micknai
Time Keeper: Clint

Attendance: Clint Mattox, Hazel Daniels, Emory Colvin, Mohammad Pakravan, Kali Doten, Azadeh, Micknai Arefeine, Alex Riccio, Jess Keune

Meeting Began: 5:36PM

  • Approvals
    • EC Meeting Minutes from 5/7/18 – approved
    • Food budget for Friday: $80 for lunch & dinner
      • Approx 7 people at the AFT-OR Convention Debrief
      • Folks gathering for the membership card audit
    • AME: Spring BBQ, Strategic Planning Survey, Strategic Retreat Invite
  • Ice-Breaker: Which fictional world would you live in if you could, and why?
  • Congrats to Elected Executive Council Officers! Our EC is now full (officially July 1 is when new EC takes office) Outgoing officers and incoming officers, make time to meet and talk about being on the EC, how to execute one’s new role, and any tips/advice for our new folks.
    • President= Erin Abernethy (Integrative Biology)
    • VP Grievances= Emory Colvin (Nuclear Science & Engineering)
    • VP Organizing= Kali Doten (Environmental Arts & Humanities)
    • VP Communications= Lzz Johnk (Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies)
    • Secretary-Treasurer= Clint Mattox (Horticulture)
    • Social Justice Chair= Micknai Arefaine (Applied Anthropology)
    • External Relations Chair= Azadeh Ghanizadeh (School of Writing, Literature, and Film)
    • Social Activities Chair= Valerie Fraser (Molecular & Cellular Biology)
  • Internal Audit: We need to do an internal audit of our membership in preparation for Janus. This will not be a big job if multiple people participate, so we need to set a date for a work party and get this done before June 2.
    • Friday 10AM and after
  • Spring BBQ:
    • Need to think of people to give awards (2 for longtime service, 1 for organizing, 1 for Steward of the Year, and recognition of outgoing EC officers and committee leaders)
    • Volunteers: The following people have said they will volunteer: Erin Abernethy (has truck), Shaan Sengupta, Rosa Michaels, Emily Esteban, Risako Sakai, Shardul Khandke, Polina Osipova, Robyn Morris, Erica Mercier
      • Driving/Transferring food to park: Erin Abernethy
      • Set-up/start grills:
      • Food prep:
      • Cooking during BBQ:
      • Carding near alcohol:
      • Clean-up: Kali, Micknai
    • Email to SC asking for volunteers
    • AME: 2 weeks out asking for volunteers – create google doc of times/duties
    • Reserve kegs (Mazama & 2 Towns)
    • Reserve jocky boxes (2 with 2 taps each) – Done on 5/24/28
  • Steward Retreat Decisions: The Stewards made a number of decisions concerning changes to the Steward Retreat. They want the retreat to take place during Fall term, not before; be cheaper and closer; and be more focused on relationship-building. They also decided to have trainings throughout the year to build a stronger Steward Council (such as a training on how to organize an event; doing an orientation; one-on-one; etc.) More specifically, bc the retreat will be during the Fall term the Stewards decided to have a end of year orientation-type training (called History of CGE), and then hold a training for how to do department orientations before the beginning of Fall term.
    • History of CGE Steward Event: This needs to be organized before the end of the term. We already have a template we can use, and the orientation could realistically be a 1-2 hour event.
      • Who can participate?
      • Food budget: $100 to cover both days
      • Held (tentatively) at Westminster
  • Strategic Retreat: Distribute a survey to our membership to learn about the goals members believe our union should have. Who will create the survey and when can they get it out?
    • Clint & Micknai will develop it
    • Look at bargaining survey’s answers and develop questions from that
    • The rough agenda has been shared on Slack – contribute edits. We have last year’s agenda in our shared google drive and can use that as a template.
    • Also we need to think of who we want to strategically invite (currently we have 11 confirmations, and still waiting to hear from 6 people)
  • Invitation to Women’s Center Connect and Collaborate: CGE has been invited to participate in a meeting at the Women’s Center, who are trying to create a stronger network of ally groups in town to be more in sync with event calendars, campaigns, resources, etc. This first meeting is being presented as a getting to know you kind of gathering and discussion on what this group is trying to accomplish. May 25th, 10-12 Horizon Room. We have to RSVP here: Women’s Center RSVP   
    • This is the description we received: “ Women’s Center Connect & Collaborate  This gathering is a chance to introduce your group/organization as well as mix and mingle with others. Based on the amount of interest/feedback we receive during this event we will decide how to move forward.”
    • We have to register by tomorrow if anyone wants to attend- any takers? I’m also sending this out to the Steward Council.
    • So far Parisa Ataie, Lisa Fernandez and Regine Yaites (two of our incoming Stewards) are planning to attend.
  • CPT/OPT: [Redacted owing to sensitive information being contained within].
  • Campus Accessibility:
  • The campus bus routes were significantly altered on Friday May 18th, with the only notification being a difference in routes shown on the map(not shown here):
      • Looking at this, it appears that the only changes are to the yellow and green lines. This means that anyone out on 35th (which is already pretty inaccessible due to the construction on Jefferson) is out of luck. Corvallis public transit also does not run up there.
      • After speaking to the transportation office, I was told there was nothing they could do. Speaking to Disability Services, I was offered a wheelchair or a bicycle. A bicycle is not going to be helpful for someone dealing with knee problems, and not only do I have no idea how to navigate with a wheelchair, I’m not sure if you can actually get to the radiation center from the rest of campus without using the road (even bicycling requires a combination of roads and sidewalks), I can make assumptions about the process I would need to get into my building once I got there (which would be calling the receptionist to have someone let me in a back door, because the doors that are unlocked to non-full time employees are only the front doors), and I would not be able to get to my desk.
      • It’s completely unacceptable to have no options to get someone with limited mobility to an entire section of campus.
      • Proposal: OSU needs to have accessibility options when transportation services are limited in a particular area.
      • Write a formal complaint
  • Great Cover-Up: Who is going? Thursday, starts at 6 goes until 10 in Eugene. We should organize a carpool. Hazel is going!
  • Upcoming Events- Help Promote: May 22nd, 6-8pm Westminster House, Movie Night!! (We need chairs/bean bags for the movie)
    • May 24th 1-4pm WOC Fest SEC Plaza
    • May 30th 3:30pm Gilfillan Auditorium, The Poisoning of Flint Michigan and Racial Capitalism with Laura Pulido (we are a co-sponsor)
    • June 2nd, 12-5pm Central Park, 7th Annual Solidarity Fair
    • June 4th, 4-6pm Westminster House, Final Bargaining Session
    • June 6, 4pm Snell, Q&A with EOA (need to send out AME)
    • June 15th, 5-10pm Avery Park, Spring BBQ!!
  • Committee/Caucus Meetings:
    • May 24th, 5pm Westminster House, Budget Committee
    • May 25th, 1pm Westminster? Constitution and Bylaws Committee
    • May 25th, 2-3pm Westminster House, Housing Initiative Strategic Planning
    • May 25th 6pm AFT-OR Convention Debrief
  • Future Meetings:
    • Hardship Loan: We need to finalize our protocol for members receiving a hardship loan from CGE over the summer. For context: last summer we offered to give a zero-interest loan to members who had been charged unexpected health insurance premiums. We did not have a system or protocol so we did this fairly loosely. Now, we need to determine criteria in which people can receive a loan, a cap on the total amount, a timetable for repayment
    • Translated Documents: We’ve waited way too long to get this done. We need to move on getting at least our fliers and a handbook translated into different languages (bear in mind the largest population of International Grads are from China). Likely we’ll have to pay for this, but we will shoot ourselves in the foot come Fall when trying to sustain membership if we don’t have translated documents.
    • Clear out the All Member, SC & EC list serves
    • Protocol for printing at AFT-OR Convention
    • Create a running google doc/sheet of campus events & signup slots for EC ?
    • Additional discussion
      • Kali & Micknai were approached by HSRC in regards to doing a drive (we pick spices, cleaning supplies, baby products, etc). Ask Stewards if they want to participate, if they do we can give them boxes. We could also bring a box to the Solidarity Fair and the Spring BBQ. Getting clarification on the type of drive to do.
    • Need to make a decision regarding Hustle in the next EC meeting.

Meeting adjourned: 7:37PM