Budgets and introductions dominated the Graduate and Professional Student Council's first meeting of the year Tuesday night, as the council reached out to its constituents by sharply increasing funds to social initiatives and group projects.
Treasurer Heather Dean, who opened the meeting with budget figures after a brief welcome from President Rob Saunders, said $20,000 would go to social programming this year, a major increase from last year's expenditure of $11,243.07.
She also bumped group funding up to $20,000, a figure significantly higher than the $11,065 spent last year and the $6,309 of two years ago. GPSC will allocate the monies in four cycles of $5,000, she said.
Another major change for this year, Dean said, has been the decision to wait until discussing specific issues before deciding on which GPSC committees to create.
"In the past, we kind of just presented things to the group," Dean said. "People weren't getting into it... there was only one other person on the child care committee, and there was another committee that had just one person on it."
Other notable budget changes include allocating $2,000 to advertising graduate and professional student events after not spending anything on publicity last year; putting the GPSC handbook exclusively online, which will save $4,000; and committing $1,200 for community service and $2,000 for an undergraduate interaction program, neither of which received funding last year.
After the budget presentation, participants broke up into small groups to introduce themselves and list key issues for the council to consider.
The meeting brought out many new and old members.
Kim Chi Trinh, a third-year doctoral student in business, said she does not think students from the Fuqua School of Business normally come to GPSC meetings.
"This is the first time I've been at this type of meeting, and I don't think Fuqua ever sends people here," Trinh said.
Lara Oliver, an electrical engineering graduate student and GPSC student life co-chair, said she would like to see more participation in events sponsored by the Duke University Union, such as movie nights.
"I don't think a lot of graduate students understand that they're welcome to go to these things, that they're paying for them," Oliver said.
At the end of the meeting, Saunders compiled a list of key issues, which included child care, construction, health insurance, social events and options for older graduate students and undergraduate mentoring.
"It really seems that the council is going to be an active agent for graduate students to become involved in the University," said Joanna Reynolds, a first-year master of arts in teaching student.
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