[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Welcome to the summary of GSS Council on April 15, 2021.
Congratulations to our new Councillor(s): Anurag Krishna (Civil Engineering), Mohamed Kamel (Civil Engineering), Saumadritaa Kar (Pathology and Laboratory Medicine), and Sofie McComb (Forest and Conservation Sciences).
We also welcome two new Affiliated Organizations: UBC Black Graduate Student Network and Children’s Literature Student Association at UBC.
This Council was light on decisions and heavy on presentations. We heard from two special guests:
- A year-in-review from the Alliance of BC Students (ABCS) President, Anne-Elaine Rempel about their advocacy efforts and work with the GSS and AMS
- A presentation on TA rights and responsibilities from CUPE 2278 President, Gillian Glass briefing councillors on important information for TA’s at this time of year
Notably, Council saw a traditional motion to confer honorary membership to some Councillors who had contributed significantly to the GSS for more than 18 months, granting them lifetime access to Council (no votes or fees, though!). New honorary members include: Alireza Kamyabi, Arash Shadkam, Christina Weismann, Kate Sedivy-Haley, Lily Takeuchi, Natalie Marshall, Nicolas Romualdi, Pouya Rezaeinia, Sarah Park, and Victoria Gomez.
Besides a couple policy amendments, the rest of Council was presentations, including on the general procedure for the 2021 GSS Elections and recommendations; a consultation on whether to merge the Services and Election Committee, which saw a lot of debate and was referred to the Governance & Accountability Committee; and finally, several presentations from the executive on year-end goal reports, as well as executive portfolio recaps. One of these was a moving presentation from Nicolas Romualdi as he finishes a 4-year dedication to the GSS. Thank you Nicolas, Alireza, and Sarah for your contribution to the GSS as execs during such an extraordinary time in 2020-2021! And welcome to their successors, Alison McClean, Ashni Gill, and Sam Kenston (respectively).
As always, minutes will be available once approved on the GSS website for more details. The next meeting will be on Thursday, May 20, 2021. All graduate students are welcome to attend!
Victoria Gomez[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
