STUDENT AFFAIRS AND LEARNING RESOURCES - Bill Weeks
Weeks said that making an upgrade to the Graduate Student Health Plan available is under consideration. The committee also made a recommendation to the Technology Fee Committee that tech fee dollars not be used to fund major facility renovations. Peeper will discuss this in his liaison report. The first recommendation is about Graduate Health Insurance. Six categories are covered by the health insurance. On the one hand, there are some students who are covered and are not aware of it. Even worse are the cases where students think they are covered and they are not. For instance, someone with a fellowship might not be covered. Weeks said that they are asking that students at the time of employment be informed whether they have coverage.

The Faculty Council Recommends to President Halligan that: OSU be required to inform graduate students of their health insurance coverage at the time of their employment.

Lawry asked whether the intention is that they be told whether they are covered or not covered. Weeks said that at the time of employment you would be told whether you are covered and that it doesnât affect those people who are unemployed. Lawry suggested that we also want to have it specified if they are not covered. Weeks agreed. Binegar said that if graduate studentsâ jobs change, they might lose coverage. Weeks said he was not sure how to respond to that. Weiser said there would then be a new Employment Action form. Moder asked if Binegar wanted the recommendation to take into account notification at the time of a change in employment. Binegar said, yes, if it were feasible. Weeks said they were trying to deal with a point at which someone would tell them about their coverage. He said he would hope that if there were a job change that they would be told about coverage. John Wood said that he hoped it would go a step further, because health insurance at the graduate level is very minimal. Some students think they have insurance for some things that are not covered. The GPSA is sending a survey out to see who is interested in an enhanced plan. He said his concern is not just that they tell them that they have insurance, but also that they point out the limits of the coverage and that the students might want to invest in better coverage. Binegar suggested that the phrase ãor when their employment status changes and affects health insuranceä be added to the end of the recommendation statement. Weeks accepted this as a friendly amendment. Woods asked whether something could be added directing students to check what the specific benefits were. Weeks said that there is an opportunity to inform people, however it is implemented. The recommendation passed unanimously. The second recommendation deals with the desire to have student input on committees and the frustration with the amount of time it takes SGA to assign people to committees. Weeks said we are either delaying the start of committee work in the fall waiting for students members or we are starting without students, who then come in the middle of discussion. The goal of this recommendation is to get student representatives by the time that those committees are ready to get started.

The Faculty Council Recommends to President Halligan that: OSU strongly encourage the Student Government Association to appoint student representatives to University committees for the coming academic year, prior to the end of the spring semester.

Sanders said that for the Academic Appeals Board it is essential for students to be represented. He asked if there were other committees where it was essential that students be represented or whether with the other committees it would be helpful to have them, but not essential. Weeks said he could not specify for which they were essential and for which they were not. Peeper said the University Technology Fee Committee required student representatives to conduct business. He said he had problems repeatedly with getting students appointed until they decided to go to the individual colleges to get student members, rather than the SGA. The SGA lost their opportunity to appoint members and he said that is not really what they would like to see happen. Edgley said that recommendations which strongly encourage people to do things also give them the opportunity to say no. He said if this is a really important issue, he thought we should include a clause that says what will happen if they donât, namely that these recommendations could be made by the Vice President for Student Affairs or individual colleges or some kind of alternative. Peeper said he recommended that we leave it like it is and give the SGA the opportunity to respond positively rather than trying to threaten them. John Wood from GPSA said they have a similar problems in trying to get students to go to University committees. One problem is that in some cases they donât even know who the representatives to GPSA will be in August. They have to wait for the first meeting to see who the reps are. He said they try to make appointments by late August or early September. Another problem is that all the student representatives are volunteers and tend to be very busy. The GPSA officers donât usually know if the representatives donât go to committee meetings, unless someone tells them. Weeks said one of the points considered by the committee was that the student representatives did not have to be SGA members, who are generally already overextended. They should perhaps consider submitting other names. He also said if committees were just given the names of students, they could inspire them about what a great time they can have on this committee. Wood said if the Graduate Coordinators would make sure the GPSA knew who the representatives were in the spring, he would have no problem appointing students to committees. He also said it tends to be the top 10% of group members who do 70% of the work, so itâs hard to find people who want to go to more committees. Edgley said he withdrew his threat. Lawry said he wanted to renew the threat and moved to amend the motion to add the sentence: ãIf the SGA is unable to make appointments by the deadline, the task of appointing should fall to the Vice President for Student Affairs.ä He said the Vice President can then go about getting the appointments any way she feels appropriate and effective. Masters seconded. Masters said they have had significantly more problems with SGA, that GPSA has taken care of the situation in a fairly efficient manner, but that SGA has not. Dickman asked how the students were selected and whether they had to be members of the GPSA or SGA. The answer was no. Diane Lafollette said she sent letters in March to SGA and GPSA listing the committees and asking them for names. The SGA has a committee chairman and Lafollette worked with him for months and copied Vice President Bird on everything. Finally, after she called Birdâs office in September, she got some names. Wood said his concern was that they needed the departments to help them out so they could appoint people in a more timely way. Moder pointed out that the resolution does not apply to GPSA, that it applies only to SGA. Weeks indicated that the amendment was not a friendly one, since his committee had not voted on this provision. The amendment passed with one no vote. The amended motion then passed with one no vote. Wetzel asked whether the lack of a student on a committee has stopped a committee from functioning. He said he had never been on a committee where they couldnât function without a student or any other representative being there. Peeper said the Student Tech Fee committee could not allocate funds because they could not get a quorum because the students were not there.