Graduate and Professional Student Council
General Assembly Meeting
1-29-2008 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Guest Speaker - Former Young Trustee Rob Saunders
Guest Speakers – David Jarmul and Kemel Dawkins, Emergency Preparedness
Convene: 7:01 pm
I. Approval of the Minutes from 1/15/07
Move to approve the Minutes from the 1/15/07 meeting (motion made and seconded)
Motion Passes Unanimously
II. Moment of Silence in Memory of Abhijit Mahato
III. Announcements
Alethea Duncan – Like Gautham, she is also on the NAGPS board as the Social Justice Coordinator. NAGPS will be having legislative action days in Washington from February 6th – 8th (with legislation activities on Thursday/Friday) to let them know about issues important to GnP students such as: immigration reform, untaxed stipends, etc. They would like to get about 5 people to come with them; if you are interested, send her an email at alethea.duncan@duke.edu. The Office of Grants would be covering housing and GPSC will cover transportation.
Jessi Bardill – For those in town next weekend, on February 8th there will be a Date Auction and a Trischool Mixer. If you know people who might make good dates for the Auction, we will be recruiting people. For those participating/winning bids, there will be gift certificates given to cover the dates. The event will take place at Shooters with the proceeds going to TROSA.
As far as other events, on March 1 there will be a rock climbing event for $10 per person at a very high quality place. Furthermore, pencil in the Spring Formal for roughly April 19th (to be held in conjunction with the Davison Council), location TBA.
Alethea Duncan – This Friday as part of Duke Performances, King Solomon will be performing. The Student Life committee bought 20 tickets and will be selling them for $2 (instead of $5).
Steve Misuraca – The event Going Green Focus the Nation will be taking place on Thursday January 31st. There will be several events as part of this, and all students at the NC State versus Duke game will receive green t-shirts saying “Live Green, Bleed Blue.”
David Kahler – If you would like to be involved with planning the GPSC Retreat for this year, see him after the meeting or email him at david.kahler@duke.edu
Gautham Pandiyan – What is the point of the Retreat?
David Kahler – It was started a couple of years ago to get all the Reps and Exec together to introduce people to GPSC. It also has other purposes such as to brainstorm ideas for the upcoming year, get everyone on board for projects.
Sara Becker – She was on Exec the year that the Retreat started at the request of the GPSC Reps because people did not think they had enough background when they began as GPSC Reps.
IV. Going Green Initiative Update
Supriya Munshaw – She wants to give an update on the GPSC Going Green Initiative that we started last semester as part of the Social Action Committee. First, the committee wanted to take care of the automatic flushes because sometimes they go off many times for no purpose. They met with Kemel Dawkins on Friday about what’s being done in addition to the auto flush situation. He’s going to get them in touch with people (e.g. Facilities Management) to assist them in their efforts.
Other changes that are GPSC-specific are that we will be putting the agenda on the board instead of printing individual copies for everyone. They are emailed out before every meeting and are also posted on the GPSC website. We also discussed not having cups for the GPSC meetings and instead providing subsidized Nalgene bottles, though a change like this would not occur without prior notice. They also wanted to organize a conversation event with speakers and giveaways (e.g. showerheads, lightbulbs). If you are interested in coordinating this, contact her or Jessi. They are thinking about this for sometime in March.
There is a big event going on this Thursday with a bunch of speakers as part of the “Focus the Nation” effort.
Here are a few tips for becoming more “green”:
- -Use the dishwasher, this saves water relative to hand washing
- -Report leaky toilets, faucets, etc
- -If you use a low flow shower head you can save almost 3600 gallons per year
- -If you get the low energy lightbulb you end up saving money
- -Reuse grocery bags. It takes about 1000 years for a bag to degrade
- -Turn your thermostats down when you leave your apartment
If you’re interested in helping contact her at supriya.munshaw@duke.edu.
Cong Jin – She is the Academic Officer and she is here to discuss opportunities for funding for academic conferences at Duke. Many students have not gotten the chance to go to a conference. For different people there may be different answers as far as why they have not, but finances are always a problem.
For example, there might be a situation where a graduate student wants to go to a conference but can’t present his data so he can’t get his PI or program to pay for his expenses. He also can’t pay for it himself.
She will be designing a survey to evaluate the current funding environment for conferences for Duke students. We hope to do something to improve this for students at Duke. Some objectives for this survey are as follows:
1) We want to learn about the conference experience of GnP students at Duke
2) We want to evaluate the funding resources GnP students can apply for from Duke (advisor, department, school, University)
3) We want to find out if the current funding resources are efficiently allocated
We hope to identify some potential problems that hinder GnP students from attending conferences. We will then use this to advocate for some changes. It will take around 10 minutes to complete. We want as much information as possible. Your opinions and suggestions are welcomed. Christie will send you a web link to this survey once it is ready.
Yvonne Ford – The proposed bylaw has been posted on the GPSC website for the past 2 weeks. This is being put forth by the Judicial Committee and is supported by the Young Trustee Screening Committee. Gautham Pandiyan, as Chair of the Young Trustee (YT) Screening Committee, will now answer questions.
Gautham Pandiyan – We would like to allow GnP students to run for YT when they have recently graduated. Even though this is not currently prohibited, we would like to clarify this in the bylaws. This is especially relevant to graduate students who are often not sure when they are graduating until about 6 months beforehand. This modification is suggested because we would like qualified applicants who are hoping to apply who might not be able to unless this is approved.
Unidentified Speaker – If this is approved, will the selected YT be able to stay in Durham for the next year to perform his/her duties?
Gautham Pandiyan – Trustees are not required to be here and, in fact, they most often are not.
Unidentified Speaker – Has there been a shortage of applicants?
Gautham Pandiyan – This is not meant to supplement a deficiency in applications, but to encourage good candidates to apply.
Eric Vance – How many applicants were there?
Gautham Pandiyan – The Screening Committee has decided to keep that information confidential, but there are 5 semi-finalists.
Wadia Haddaji – Typically people who run for this position do not have to be at Duke, but is there some limitation for the maximum distance away that they are permitted to be?
Gautham Pandiyan – The young trustees are flown in from wherever they are in the world. He’s pretty sure most of the BoTs do not live in Durham. They come in 4 times a year for a meeting.
Unidentified Speaker – What are the criteria that you use to identify the five semifinalists?
Gautham Pandiyan – In short, the application process involves 2 rounds of written application materials, which are used to identify 5 semifinalists that are then interviewed. The criteria used for selection involve leadership roles, potential for success in the role, etc.
Sara Becker – To make this revision, do we need any sort of approval from the University Secretary’s office?
Gautham Pandiyan – He has been in touch with this office and no, the office does not have a problem with this proposal.
Approval of the proposed bylaw revision
Judicial committee moves to approve the proposed revision to the bylaw.
Motion Passes Unanimously
VII. Guest Speaker – Former Young Trustee, Dr. Rob Saunders
Rob Saunders – He was a Physics graduate student and served as the Young Trustee in the last 2-3 years. He has been asked to come in to talk about the position of Young Trustee, in preparation for the elections for this position next month. Former President Terry Sanford started the 30 years ago when there was a large amount of antagonism between the students and the administration. He thought that this would be an opportunity to bring students into the process or retain an adversarial relationship. Now, there are 2 GnP, 3 undergraduate, and 2 alumni Trustees. The full board consists of 36 members plus the Ex Officio President. They come to Durham 4 times a year to talk about some of the high level things going on at the University, e.g. Strategic Plan, Financial Aid Initiative, Central Campus. One of the interesting parts about the position that differs from similar positions at other schools is that the trustee is actually a trustee. In other schools the young “trustee” is actually simply a student representative without voting power. However here, the student is actually a voting member who is there to represent the entire university with the benefit of having had a recent experience as a student.
One thing he learned while serving in this role is that the informal meetings are as important as the formal meetings. Though there are the plenary sessions, there are also important social informal meetings where you can talk about important issues. He learned that having a set agenda as a Young Trustee is not really possible. When you elect someone to YT, you want them to say they want X, Y, Z. But, because they are one of 36 people, they are really there to suggest/nudge/remind people toward judgments and topics and questions that they feel are important. It is not very realistic to push an agenda forth.
Sara Becker – Can you discuss how someone living in California, for example, might still be effective in this position?
Rob Saunders – As was mentioned, the decision to have the Young Trustee be a graduated student (most often) was very deliberate. They did not want a student as Young Trustee that might be inflamed by the “passions of the moment.” They wanted people with some outside perspective on issues. The Trustees are flown into Durham from all over the globe. The way many of the Young Trustees stay in touch is though GPSC (especially the President and the Board of Trustee Representatives).
Catherine Brewer – Is there a guarantee that the YT is either a graduate or a professional student in any year?
Rob Saunders – The only thing that is required is what you saw in the bylaws. Though the current two are professional students, graduate students are also eligible.
Laura Johnson – What are some qualities that would make a good Young Trustee? For example, good diplomatic qualities, etc?
Rob Saunders – He can’t tell you what you should consider when you elect. He found it helpful as the Young Trustee to have diplomatic skills and to learn to meet high power people without being intimidated, while learning how to get across your perspective. The ability to communicate, speak up and be heard is key. You need to have some general analysis skills because there is a lot of very technical information to get through (endowments, building plans, master plans, utility plans, etc).
Gautham Pandiyan– Could you speak about the dynamic of being one of the youngest Trustees in terms of the preparation needed for each meeting?
Rob Saunders – It is a bit intimidating, to be honest. You need to be not shy with these powerful people. The young trustees tend to be the most prepared because of the investment and experience recently with Duke. That gives you a little more perspective to utilize.
Ali Saeem – We have talked about some specific qualities valuable in a YT, but what are some of the current pertinent issues?
Rob Saunders – Though he has already finished his term, some of the big issues he would guess are: central campus, the financial aid initiative (universities now need to raise money all the time so he would guess a new campaign would start and this would have to be worked out).
Cong Jin– As YT, how do you get an idea of student perspectives to act as an appropriate Representative?
Rob Saunders – Actually the YT is not actually a representative. You are supposed to provide a perspective, with having had a recent experience with Duke. He would keep in touch with the President and the BoT committee representatives who know a lot of the issues coming up. Otherwise he used very informal means of ascertaining student perspectives.
Gautham Pandiyan – Can you please talk about the role of the standing committees?
Rob Saunders – With 36 members on the board, it is unwieldy to hold a discussion amongst that many people. There are 5 committees that do most of the background work (Undergraduate Affairs; Faculty, Graduate and Professional Student Affairs; Business and Finance; Institutional Advancement; Buildings and Grounds).
VIII. Guest Speakers – Kemel Dawkins and David Jarmul (See Appendix A for presentation)
Kemel Dawkins – Thank you for inviting David and he to talk about emergency preparedness. They’ve been working on this for some time. Along those lines, in the wake of incidents at Virginia Tech almost a year ago Duke began looking at emergency response at looking how we would handle emergencies. It made us look hard at some of the things we may take for granted; for example, we began looking at organizational structure about how we respond to emergencies. Emergencies on campuses are not new or unique – several things have happened since the tragedy at Virginia Tech, emphasizing that we need to be prepared. They are thinking about things as they come up. It didn’t begin or end with what happened at Virginia Tech. They have been focusing on three things: 1) communication, 2) preparedness, 3) management in the case of the emergency.
What we did recently as a training exercise was to scramble their crisis response team to talk about how we think about and respond to emergencies. They have formed a management structure to deal with emergencies. This is led by the President and the Vice Chancellor of the medical center. They will categorize emergencies as follows: Level 3 – handled mainly within unit/school, level 2 – other key campus officials join, level 1 – senior leadership and presidents involved in making strategic decisions.
David Jarmul – He wants to thank GPSC for having him. There has been a lot of thought put into the protocols to be used during disasters since the Virginia Tech disaster for many different types of events. He feels like we have much better protocols in place in terms of what to do in the case of emergencies. Communication is one of the most important aspects and is also really tricky in the case of emergencies. There are other people on the Duke campus that don’t use computers at all, some faculty like logging in to their email accounts at home while some do not. There’s no single solution for contacting GnP students and others in the case of an emergency – they will have to do an array of things. They have a series of protocols for communicating with everyone. A few months ago, they launched emergency.duke.edu. This has an array of resources for the Duke community. If an emergency event occurred, the middle of this site would be a blog to convey information. Duke.edu would have an EMERGENCY banner in place of the photos directing viewers to the emergency.duke.edu site. There would also be a link from Duke.edu and DukeToday – there would be immediate links to drive people to the emergency website where the realtime information would be.
Behind the scenes they have created a Wiki with templates for Dr. Dawkins, himself, and other relevant parties regarding possible emergency situations that might arise. Now they’ve begun to inform the Duke community about contingency plans. For example, what would happen if the website went down? There is a lot of redundancy on the servers. They’ve worked out something with Stanford so that in the case of a server crash, they would put up our website if necessary and so would we for them. They’ve been working with the Chronicle and Working@Duke to get the word out to everyone. There were brochures sent out for students, parents, and employees. In orientation programs they will have more info passed along about these plans.
Kemel Dawkins – Of course one of the questions is what should students do in the case of emergency. If you see a problem, call 911 or Duke’s Police Department at 684-2444. It’s more important to be proactive than to not act quickly. If you’re concerned about another student’s psychological well-being, contact CAPS. Again if you see something suspicious please report it.
One of the problems we have is the fact that contact information for many students is not accurate. Please periodically update your contact info at duke.edu/online. In an emergency, comply with the instructions of police and other responders. Contact your friends and family to inform them about your situation. One of the things that occurred at VaTech is that there was an influx of calls and website hits causing those systems to crash.
In terms of the education process, they’re going to continue to contact us and to carry out “drills” or “tabletop” exercises invoving the senior leadership of the institution in a test exercise. From this they’ll identify the things they do well and the things they want to work on. They want to avoid complacency and be ready – sometimes it’s easy on campus to feel very comfortable and secure, but as recent events tell us this is not always the way it is. They are working on different emergency situations. For example, the water situation is another type of emergency, they’ve mobilized the team on this subject. They’re also thinking about safety and transportation in the wake of the recent off-campus events. The police are in a higher state of readiness in wake of these events.
Wadia Haddaji – His concern is about the cost/benefit tradeoff. He’s worried that fear will take over and then we start spending a lot of money on things that may not be necessary. Who is making these spending decisions
Kemel Dawkins – We think about those issues in everything they do. Most of what they’ve done (as a committee) to date is internal organization in terms of what they need to do in case of emergency. Some of that has involved consultants and looking at what our peers are doing. One of the things that they’ve been looking at was a giant voice-over sound system – something like this would be an investment. Of course they’ll take the costs into account in their planning.
Unidentified Speaker – Why hasn’t that outdoor system been put in place; it has been almost a year since Virginia Tech’s shootings.
Kemel Dawkins – This is an investment and will require going to the CFE and perhaps the Board of Trustees as well. They are also making investments in other areas. They’re trying to get a lot of things supplemented, in order to get it done and get it done efficiently. They are hoping to have it in place by the end of the semester. The other things they’re looking at are the things they discussed today (regarding communication) and this is in place.
Heather Endriss – She remembers watching about people who had identified a problem with the student in VaTech but hands were tied due to privacy issues. It looks like something that might be well-served to work on prevention versus response.
Kemel Dawkins – They have identified their own mechanisms about identifying students like this that may be experiencing one problem or another to work on providing resources for students who might need help. They’re in a process of constantly looking at this.
David Jarmul – That’s a perfect illustration of how hard this can be.. DukeReach is a program that is for students to ID potential problem students. We need more training for the faculty and leadership to get in touch with people about getting in touch with CAPS with concerns about students. It’s tricky, though, to do this.
Olga Voronina – When people panic, how are you going to provide people with a sense of direction?
Kemel Dawkins – That’s one of the points of the tabletop exercises. They’ve committed at Duke to run a simulation 1 time a year. It’s one thing when you know what’s going on, but one thing when you are confronted with an unknown situation.
David Jarmul – This will be a continuing process. You never know what you’re going to tell people to do until it happens. We do drills so that we have the systems in place to get the necessary things worked out.
Wadia Haddaji – When we look at what happened recently (in terms of the homicide and robbings off campus) is that there is a concern that Duke is reasonably good compared with many schools around the country in terms of crime. However, the statistics for Durham are pretty bad. There’s a long term issue about trying to work with the Durham government in terms of improving safety by attracting businesses, etc.
Kemel Dawkins – They have been working with Durham PD and the Mayor and Mayor’s office. Around the issue of water, they’ve been working with the water department and other corporate leaders. Duke has been active in terms of supporting development downtown. There are a whole set of issues in terms of the Duke-Durham partnership. Duke takes its citizenship in Durham very seriously. To have a great university, you have to have a great town.
Jaqueline Moeller – You talk about these tabletop simulations. Is this going to be similar to what emergency workers do with “fake casualties”?
Kemel Dawkins – The precise scenario hasn’t been worked out. He has been working with the consultant but it is quite possible that the exercise will have that, the exercises are designed to be relevant to the institution and the area.
David Jarmul – They did one with the communications. It was on paper, thinking about what things would happen, but it was very helpful even though it was just on paper.
Rebecca Boone – She’s a parent of a student who was at Virginia Tech during the shootings. Is the intent of these arrangements to prevent what might happen or to be prepared about what happens when/if it does? You have to be really observant and paying attention all the time.
Kemel Dawkins – Yes you are quite right, key elements are preparation, mitigation, response, and recovery. We are trying to be prepared and there are a whole set of preparation steps, mitigation steps, response steps and recovery steps to prepare for.
Yvonne Ford – As a person who’s in health care she knows that there are disaster plans in place in Medical Centers. Is there an interface between the University and Medical Center in terms of these preparations?
Kemel Dawkins – Yes, they are an integral part of the preparations; they in fact are required to have similar plans. They are working with them to make sure that their plans are coordinated with the University’s.
Sara Becker – You are right now trying to communicate the preparations with populations, but we are about 1% of the constituency of GnP students. Other than us sharing the presentation with our constituents and sending that link out what can we do for you? Are there elements of feedback we can provide?
David Jarmul – He worries about GnP students because of the ease of communication with other populations like Undergraduates relative to the diverse GnP student population. He would like to identify a couple of people to work with him on providing some feedback. They’ve talked to DSG about Facebook and other things but would like some GnP feedback as well.
Kemel Dawkins – He’d like to get the GA’s sense about transportation, especially transportation off campus and particularly in reference to safety.
Mary Turnipseed – She has two good friends who live at Anderson and Old Chapel Hill. Apparently Saferides won’t take them to their homes even though they fall within the range. Also, apparently they’re rude about it. Then there’s also an issue about putting bicycle racks on the vans.
Kemel Dawkins – They will look into it in these concerns about Saferides. There have been issues in the past about the boundaries. Some of that has to do with the fact that they were solving different problems then than we are right now.
Ashley Brown – Sometimes the dispatchers or drivers are rude, making it very inaccessible because people are less likely to call.
Kemel Dawkins – We’ve got to look into it to make sure they are doing their job.
Jacqueline Moeller – Sometimes, even when people use SafeRides, while the drivers drop you off, they won’t wait and sometimes they will refuse to wait. Sometimes it takes so long, people feel they need to walk.
Laura Johnson – Even if they could give an estimated amount of time it could help, something as small as that would
Adjourn: 8:30 pm
| Attachment | Size |
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| 080129 Appendix A.pdf | 782.74 KB |