March 28, 2022

April 1, 2022

JP Reps Meeting Agenda

March 28th, 2022 @ 9:30am

Attendance: MJ, CW, CD, SB, MD, PN, LF, Ann Tarrant

 

  1. Communication (Ciara D)
    1. CD: I know there was a lot of confusion saying there was a lot of confusion about this first agenda item.
    2. LL: Love slack. @channel works really well
    3. CD: I know PN and LF you said you don’t love slack.
    4. PN: That’s all good.
    5. LF: If you @ me it works really well on slack.
    6. CD: One thing I thought of is it might be a good idea if the reps were CC’d on email communication about the Reps to other members of the APO like Meg and Ed from the last email thread.
    7. LF: I think what happened was I misunderstood it. Thanks for your patience.
    8. CD: I know when you said constitution confusion, I wanted to check in and make sure we’re on the same page.
    9. LF: I wasn’t at the last meeting which kind of made me confused.
    10. MJ: I second this idea 
  2. Violation of constitution/ASA membership requirements (Max, 10mins)
    1. MJ: History lesson: Union reps approached regarding potential support letter for the union. Can the Reps do that? Let’s have a look at the institution! Wow, our rule is actually fairly undefined. BUT: The biggest point that got my attention regarding the membership status. Looking into the MIT ASA rules, one can see clearly that non-JP students and even non-students should be able to become members. Since we violate this rule, we are at the risk of getting audited from the ASA. Four things we can do (and should do fairly soon):
      1. Memo, saying sorry to spouses/partners, and inviting them to include them in the community and living by the rules 
      2. Constitution amendment: exclude non-students
      3. Combination: Include non-students (memo), but strengthen advocacy through amending the constitution 
      4. Any other amendments that adapt the suggestions from ASA (we can do whatever we want, we just need to put it into the constitution)
    2. SB: I think the most practical consideration would be the fact that they can apply for funding as equals. I also think we also have a very plush amount of money.
    3. CD: I agree with Max that WH is a difficult place to live, and I can’t imagine how much harder it is for partners.
    4. PN: We do have about $20,000 but it's important to note that it may not always be that way.
    5. SB: When was the last time the budget was tight?
    6. PN: Not sure, but it's worth thinking about.
    7. CW: Only about ¼ of students have partners and not all would join the organization.
    8. AT: We should make sure that OGE funds are okay with partners applying for.
    9. PN: The funds that we get from OGE are the student life funds, and according to the ASA constitution students must propose events.
    10. MJ: I’ve been emailing Alex Bookbinder the president of the ASA and he gave me different advice.
    11. CD: Current organizational problem: Touchstone authentication is needed to submit a funding request; probably need to change sth. 
    12. MJ: ACTION ITEM Follow up with Alex
    13. PN: POSSIBLE ACTION ITEM Reach out to OGE (if we need to) - I don’t think we should raise flags where we don’t need to. If you can get it written from the ASA you should be good.
  3. JP childbirth accommodation policy (Ciara W., 10mins)
    1. CW: We all know parental leave is really important. The current JP policy is there is up to 8 weeks provided to only the birthing parent. This is off with international recommendations and with MIT’s own parental leave as well. There is no reason that I’m aware of that the JP policy should not match the MIT policy. It feels very unwelcoming. The lack of good parental leave (esp. for the non-birthing parent) Is a DEI issue. I’ve drafted a memo to advocate for that.
    2. AT: I don’t know if you need a memo. We try to bring things in line with MIT. I think this an easy sell.
    3. CD: I think we put things in memos because we want them written well and so we have a record for the future.
    4. LL: This also can be something we should talk to with the postdocs since they can’t benefit from the MIT.
    5. MJ: Is the memo system helpful? Is it nice to have our thoughts in writing?
    6. AT: It can be hard to respond thoughtfully and quickly. But we always appreciate the memos. Having a conversation with us about this like that is also very helpful.
    7. CW: It can be our way to talk to someone without going through Tricia and Lea who already do so much.
    8. We had a discussion about what a good format for talking to the APO is. MJ, AT, PN, CW, and LL all talked on this.
    9. ACTION ITEM: CW will send the memo around and talk to the postdocs
  4. Buffins (5mins)
    1. CD: Now we can buy food! We can bring buffins back!
    2. ACTION ITEM: CD Reach out to cape cod bagel and see if we can still get day-olds.
    3. MD: What about the snacks?
    4. CD: We are bringing them back.
    5. CW: Noah volunteered to help as well.
    6. SB: Can we make sure we reach out about vegan/gluten-free etc.
  5. Partner/spouse housing policy (Ciara D., 5mins)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  6. Open house feedback (5mins)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  7. Pending action items (20mins)
    1. Winter meeting (Shavonna)
      1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
    2. At-large/PO Steinbach scholar status (Max/Michael/David/Lukas)
      1. PUSHED TO REGULAR MEETING
    3. Winter/spring retreat (Shawn/Shavonna)
      1. SB: PN and TF, I need to set up a meeting with you to talk about food and catering. I’ll send a message on slack about it.
      2. MJ: If you need help reach out.
    4. MIT GSU Statement (Max)
      1. MJ: Elections are away a week from today. Thus, we should act if we’d still like that to do. We’re stuck with the limited feedback we 
      2. ACTION ITEM: Everyone has until lunch tomorrow to submit comments
      3. ACTION ITEM: Max, Shavonna, and Lukas will eat lunch tomorrow and edit the union statement into a final draft based on the comments.
  1. WHOI housing pet policy (Ciara D.)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  2. New safety czar/students on committee policy (Lukas)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  3. How students are selected for committees (Ciara D.)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  4. Integration of Bio Oce in EAPS (Ciara W./Michael)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  5. Covid cramer cruise (Max)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  6. Big ideas funding (Max)
    1. PUSHED TO WORKING MEETING
  1. Funding requests (5mins)
  1. Library of Things: Shellfish Edition (Shavonna)
    1. SB: Katie and Noah are working on finding space
  2. Guest Lecture: Jobs Outside of Academia in Climate Management (Shavonna)
    1. SB: The speaker is having a personal emergency.
  3. Dance Party
    1. ACTION ITEMS: CW is reaching out with our questions
  4. REFS’s Social Hour
    1. APPROVED!

ACTION ITEM: CD will look through and talk about what’s the best set-up for the working meeting

ACTION ITEM: MD will put a letter in the slack about EAPS/bio oce

ACTION ITEM: CD send our Penteleyev award decision