In attendance: Thomas Morrill, Chris Mihiar, Zhian Kamvar, Stephanie Parreira, Vance Almquist, Kris Osterloh; Ashley Bromley, Angela McClendon.
Meeting called to order at 5:35 PM
Minutes from 3-1-2016 – Approved.
Email Decisions – (1) Approved all non-member email about bargaining. (2) Approved all-member email about bargaining. (3) Approved circulating the UIUC petition.
Social Hour – This will be next Thursday the 17th. Thomas will host! He’ll call Bombs Away on Tuesday the 15th about reserving a couple tables. Stephanie will make an event on fb and Thomas will email the Social List.
Bargaining Debrief – We have now given OSU our full financial proposals package. We had sessions last Friday & yesterday and proposed language on parking, child care, international student support, and partner tuition benefits. Zhian had a conversation about our interest in English language professional development with Javier Tabima in BPP, who is interested in helping with feedback and collecting support for CGE’s proposals from international student groups on campus. Zhian will connect Javier with Thomas & Ashley for further conversation.
Fair Share Refund Issue – There’s a nonmember grad employee who previously received the fair share refunds, did not request them for this year, and became unhappy last week when he noticed he wasn’t getting them. He said he didn’t get the notice; we know this isn’t true because he replied to the notice email. He also said we should have presumed he’d want refunds and he should get special treatment on the deadline; we let him know that (as confirmed by the Steward Council) we don’t treat some people differently from others since he got all the same information as everyone else. Kris met in person with him last Thursday to reiterate all that and will reach out to him again with a concise final response after the EC gets eyeballs on it.
AFT-OR Convention Resolution Updates – Ashley has printed out the three Steward Council-approved resolutions with minor edits as suggested by the SC: ending the block on gun violence research, awareness campaign about public education as a public good, and AFT-OR accountability to its membership. The resolution about implicit bias and anti-oppression training went to the SC yesterday for edits/comments in a shared Google doc and today for an up-or-down vote.
PSU Home Visits – AFT organizer Jan from the PSU grad campaign asked us if there’s a crew of CGE members who could come up for house visits on March 17, 22, and/or 26. We’ll email the Stewards list and Kris will draft an email for the all-members list (including the GTFF birthday party as well).
GMM Guest – Allison Dorko, SMED steward, emailed Ashley about inviting Tori Byington (assistant grad school dean) to speak at the Spring GMM for about 10 minutes. Tori had recently talked with folks in SMED about grad school success and grads’ physical and mental wellness. The EC thinks it’s a great idea to have her as a GMM guest. Ashley will confirm with Allison and ask her to invite Tori.
GTFF Cover-Up – We need to start thinking about getting some CGE bands together! Ashley guesses the Cover-Up will be the first or second weekend in May. Thomas will email the Social List since he has the most relevant knowledge, and Ashley will email Shawna about whether they’ve set a date yet.
GTFF 40th Birthday – They’re celebrating this Saturday the 12th. As discussed above, Kris is going to email the members about this. He won’t be able to drive anymore, but we’ll make sure he gets there, and he will have fun.
Spring Schedules – Ashley has gotten a couple schedules. Still need a few more to be able to figure out when we can meet next term. Officers will please send them ASAP.
Meeting adjourned at 6:35 PM