1. President Christopher Atkinson Called the Meeting to Order at 6:40Pm

1. President Christopher Atkinson called the meeting to order at 6:40pm

2. Approval of Minutes

 Motion to approve the minutes from the February 3, 2016 Senate Meeting

o Motion: Counseling, School & Education Psychology (CSEP)

o Second: Anthropology

o Opposed: 0; Abstained: 0; In favor: 73

3. Announcements

 Stephanie George announced that GSA Events for March include:

o March 4th- Java Junction, 11:00am – 1:00pm in 310 Student Union

. Free Tim Horton’s coffee and doughnuts for graduate students.

o March 5th- Sabres Hockey Game vs. Minnesota Wild, 1:00pm at First Niagara Center

. Tickets on sale at the SBI Ticket Offices (221 Student Union and 350 Harriman Hall) for $20 each. 2 per UB ID.

o March 7th- Discount AMC Movie Tickets Available

. Tickets on sale at the SBI Ticket Offices (221 Student Union and 350 Harriman Hall) for $5 each. 1 per UB ID.

o March 24th- South Campus Siesta, 3:30 – 5:30pm in 105 Harriman Hall

. Free snacks and beverages for graduate students at South Campus.

 GSA Office Hours for Spring Break

o March 14th – 17th open 8:30am – 4:00pm (closed for lunch 1:00 – 2:00pm)

o Office Closed Friday, March 18th

4. Report of the President

 MDRF Policy Changes for Spring 2016

o There have been some changes made to the MDRF grant review processes over the past year or so. Some of these changes inadvertently lead to a low grant approval rate in Fall, 2015. Only $12,000 in awards were granted out as opposed to the typical $30,000 due to an all or nothing funding approach. The E-board met with the Finance Committee, MDRF Review Council members, Graduate School representatives, the MDRF Director and professional staff and came up with a new compromised solution for reviewing grant applications. The new method will use a system of graded tiers for deciding funding awards, with the ability of the Review Council to be flexible with the tiers in order to meet funding goals. The E-board realizes that this is not a perfect system and Chris is calling for a committee to be formed in order to look into stabilized improvements for the future. An email will be sent out tomorrow to call for volunteers for this committee. If you are interested in serving, please respond to Chris directly. The committee will be formed in time to present the members and Chair at the April Senate meeting. They will then work over the summer to formulate a final recommendation for the Senate.

. Question: If you serve on this committee will you still be eligible to apply for MDRF funding?

 Chris responds absolutely, yes.

. Question: If the committee will not be formed until April, will these changes be implemented for the Summer grant cycle, whose deadline is in May?  Chris consults with the MDRF Director and they both agree that the current system will be applied for the upcoming Summer review sessions in order to gain some data on the impacts of the existing changes. The committee will present its recommendation(s) to the Senate for approval next Fall, in time for the Fall grant cycle.

. The MDRF Director requests that she be included as part of the MDRF Policy Review Committee and Chris agrees that she should participate.

 GSA Constitutional/By-Laws Review

o The MDRF policy changes have brought to Chris’ attention the fact that major decisions can be made solely by the E-board. He would like to move away from that practice to see more student input and Senate input on major policy decisions. He would also like to more clearly define E-board powers and roles in the Constitution and By- Laws, therefore he will be consulting with the GSA lawyers and proposing some By-Law amendments in the next Senate meeting. This will hopefully help to clear up some of the vague information that is currently listed in the document. All proposed changes will be listed out and explained in an attachment that will be included with the Senate Agenda email for next month’s meeting. Chris requests that everyone take some time to open the document and review the information before attending the April meeting in order to make informed decisions.

 Stewardship Committee Report

o The Committee has voted to pursue a $1 million grant to research clean energy sources. They will be collaborating with local organizations such as Solar City in order to try to qualify for the funding.

 Academic Integrity Committee Report

o This committee is looking to form a focus group of approximately 600 students to get some feedback on their ideas. They are discussing adding $10 to UB Cards and providing a free lunch to anyone who participates, so keep an eye on your emails for any additional information.

 Mandatory Fee Increases for 2016-2017

o Chris and Amy were invited to a meeting where they were informed that the comprehensive fee will be increasing by $82 next year. There is nothing we can do to fight this increase, but Chris asked a number of questions to try to get justification for the increases. From what he could gather, most of the increase goes to fund pre-negotiated contractual pay raises for staff and there is no actual increase to the services provided by the University. The only actual change mentioned was that two Psychologists would be hired for the Wellness Center.

 Recreational Fee Update

o The Athletics Department is investigating ways to get GSA and the professional student governments to pay the Athletics fee. They have missed their window to have the fee imposed for this coming year, but they may be trying to get it implemented for the following year. We need to keep fighting the implementation of this fee, but it will be up to next year’s E-board to handle.

. Questions: SA is pushing for the Athletics fee to be split in two, between Athletics and Recreations. Is this something that the GSA supports?

 Chris responds that he has met with representatives of SA who have tried to persuade him into supporting this argument, but in reality that would just lead to GSA students paying a fee that we do not currently have to pay at all. Chris is personally against this idea and suggests that we avoid supporting any initiatives that would impose new fees on graduate students. Any new fee that is implemented will be difficult to remove and will only go up over time, so we need to do everything in our power to avoid consenting on new fees.

5. Report of Vice President

 Early Recognition Packets are now available for International and Special Interest clubs. o The deadline for submission is Friday, March 25th. o Clubs who missed three or more Senate meetings are not eligible for early recognition, but will be able to apply for recognition in the Fall.  All clubs must make sure that their most recent Constitution is posted on UBLinked. o If you have not yet heard back from Amy about your club’s revised Constitution, you will soon. Amy apologizes for the delays, but due to the volume of Constitutions and required revisions needed for review, it has been taking longer than expected to complete. She was at least able to stop Student Life from freezing club budgets until the process was completed. 6. Report of the Treasurer

 Funding Account Balances: o Special Activity: $25,000 to start, $3,470.00 allocated this month, $21,000.00 remaining o Interdepartmental Activity: $3,600.00, $0.00 allocated this month, $2,433.87 remaining o Symposia: $18,600 to start, $7,650.00 allocated this month, $5,850.66 remaining o Scholarly Publication: $11,800 to start, $0.00 allocated this month, $5,465.00 remaining o Community Outreach: $2,000 to start, $250.00 allocated this month, $1,000.00 remaining o Conferences: . Beginning Balance: $140,000.00; Allocated: $16,012.47 for March; Remaining Balance $56,624.77 . March: 53 requests, 49 applications approved for $16,012.47 7. Old Business

 No Old Business

8. New Business

 Funding Requests: Symposium Funding o RLL Symposium- Romance Languages & Literatures . Requested/Recommended: $1,400.00 o GSE Research Symposium- Counseling, School & Education Psychology . Requested/Recommended: $1,400.00 o Oui, the People- Comparative Literature . Requested/Recommended: $1,400.00 o Roundtable: Women & Linguistic Fieldwork . Requested/Recommended: $675.00 o Social Sciences Symposium Series- Political Science . Requested/Recommended: $375.00 o Buffalo Graduate Music Symposium- Music . Requested/Recommended: $1,200.00 o Symposium on Computational Science: An Industrial and Career Perspective- Computational Science . Requested; $1,400.00 . Recommended: $1,200.00* . *STIPULATION: Should be considered as a Special Activity request o Motion to approve all Symposium requests as a block at the recommended amounts

. Motion: History

. Second: Library & Information Studies (LIS)

. Discussion occurs regarding whether or not the Computational Science Symposium should be considered for full funding as a Symposium. It is clarified that the organizers have only added one graduate student speaker to the event with five professional, invited speakers. The GSA President states that there is a motion on the floor and if you wish to continue this discussion and consider fully funding Computational Science’s request then you must vote down, by opposing, the current motion on the floor.

. Opposed: 16; Abstained: 3; Passes by consent

Special Activity Funding

o Pharmaceutical Science Distinguished Alumni Symposium- Pharmaceutical Science

. Requested/Recommended: $1,070.00 o Fed Up Screening- Community Health & Health Behavior

. Requested/Recommended: $1,200.00

o Tango Weekend- Argentine Tango Club

. Requested/Recommended: $1,200.00

o Motion to approve all Special Activity requests as a block at the recommended amounts

. Motion: Global Gender Studies

. Second: Theatre & Dance

. Opposed: 0; Abstained: 0; Passes by consent

Community Outreach o Meals on Wheels- History . Requested/Recommended: $250.00 o Motion to approve at the recommended amount . Motion: Social Work . Second: Philosophy . Opposed: 0; Abstained: 0; Passes by consent  Election Committee Update

o Petitions are due by March 7th, 2016.

o The Candidate Debate will take place during the April 6th Senate meeting.

o Elections will be held online April 11th – 14th.

. Question: Is there any way to record the Debate and put it online for those who cannot be present at the meeting?

 Chris responds that we do not have the recording equipment necessary, but we will see what we can do to make that happen. He asks if anyone in the Senate has access to recording equipment and is willing to help out, but no one volunteers. A suggestion is made that WRUB could stream the audio of the Debate, but we are unsure of the logistics involved with that request.

. Question: How long is the Debate going to take?

 Alex responds that it depends on the number of candidates and the number of questions. Stephanie suggests that once the Debate format has been finalized by the Election Committee that it will be sent out to the Senate along with the Senate meeting agenda for next month’s meeting.

9. Roll Call and Adjournment

 Motion to Adjourn at 7:32pm o Motion: Classics o Second: Anthropology o Opposed: 0; Abstained: 0; Passes by consent