In attendance: Mindy Crandall, Sneha Gantla, Lizz Hardardt, Thomas Morrill, Shannon Andrews, Araby Belcher; guest member from B-Team Kalbi Zongo; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon
Meeting called to order at 10:10 AM
Minutes from 4-17-2014 Meeting – Approved
Email Decisions – (1) Approved all-member email. (2) Approved crockpot purchase.
Convention Debrief Revisit – After all receipts are in, there’s $200 left in the budget for Convention, so it would be no problem to get some dinner for a delegates debrief. The question is whether we think enough people will attend to make it worth the effort. We will schedule it for next Wednesday, April 30, at 7 PM at Ashley & Shannon’s house.
Queer Caucus Debrief – This was on Tuesday. Turnout wasn’t huge, but it was a good conversation and there were several people there who haven’t come to meetings before. A few topics that came up are gender-neutral bathrooms and shower space on campus. This is something we’d like to bring up in bargaining. There was some discussion about whether CGE funds should be used if this group starts including undergrads as well as grads. Decisions will be made when that time comes.
Bargaining Update (with Kalbi) – The big news from last Friday’s session is that it was Jeri’s final session. The next news is that the session scheduled for today was cancelled; next session will be Friday, May 2. We’re a little uncomfortable with the admin team’s request that we present them with all of our financial proposals so that they can cost them out. We’re concerned that the admin team isn’t planning to make any decisions before June, which sucks for us because it’s really hard to organize actions in the summer.
AFT Higher Ed/AGEL Debrief (with Kalbi) – Solidarity is required among faculty/staff, students, and community to “reclaim the promise” of higher education: less student financial burden, better faculty/staff working conditions. Kalbi enjoyed the discussion about getting members involved: leadership needs to create activists by finding out what issues matter to members. There was some talk about separating the AGEL meeting from the AFT Higher Ed conference but no decision was reached yet. Two groups requested to host the Fall AGEL: OSU+UO (with PSU grad organizing in mind) and also UM+MSU (with MSU bargaining in mind).
HIAC Update – Yesterday the CGE contingent met to decide what updates we’d like to get prices on, related to transgender health coverage. One of the ACA-related changes coming up is that pharmacy spending is being included in out-of-pocket limits. This is a good thing, but PacificSource is proposing to increase OOP (by the amount of the deductible) to compensate for it. We’re going to ask them for data about how often people meet their OOP to see how much this would affect our members. We’re going to ask OSU to help with an education campaign about how to use health insurance. [We’d also like to put together a (brief) summary for an orientation handout. We’ll talk about this – and more! – at the Strategic Retreat.] Other HIAC stuff to get prices on is improving the vision plan and the dental plan.
Grad Seat on Institutional Board – Sneha met with Jock Mills (OSU director of Government Relations) on Monday to talk about how we could get a seat specifically for grad students on the Board. He feels that there’s “exhaustion” in Salem about the issue and we’d get a lot of blockage if we tried a legislative approach. He suggested we appeal to HECC to set up some informal involvement. Initially, at least, a few CGE emails will be added to the “there’s a meeting!” list.
ASOSU Elections Debrief – The constitutional amendment passed. This is now the time for us to draft suggestions about which groups should be included in the new representation system; Lizz will do this. Thomas met earlier and will follow up with the new speaker of the house, Saul Boulanger, who’s been working on the reform. Taylor Sarman was elected president: he’s the student on the Inst Board, so now he has extra influence and is someone we’d extra-like to be in contact with.
Ed Ray Meeting – Next week we’ll come up with an agenda and begin the scheduling process.
GMM Game Plan – We have a plan for making food and transporting it. We have a plan for raffle prizes. We have an agenda with speaking assignments. We have a plan for the 2-5 Years discussion.
ExplOregon – This is scheduled for this Saturday but we only have 3 positive RSVPs. Shannon is going to say tonight that we must have 5 strong yeses or we’ll cancel it.
AFT-OR Candidate Interviews – This is Saturday at 9:30 AM. Sneha, Araby, and Kevin plan to attend.
May Day Solidarity Fair – This will be on Saturday, May 3. Early next week we’ll begin pushing for turnout.
Women In Policy – This campus group Sneha is part of is planning an event about gender pay equity. They had hoped to have it on May Day but the timing didn’t work. Now they’re thinking about the week of May 12. The EC agrees that this would be a great event for CGE to co-sponsor.
Meeting adjourned at 12 PM