On Tuesday, March 16, the Graduate Student Association held
their monthly general assembly meeting.

The meeting started off with a quick approval of the agenda and
an approval of the last meeting’s minutes before heading into the
matters of business for the months of March and April.

GSA President Erin Kennedy addressed the proposal to amend the
GSA bylaws concerning the request that graduate students get full
reimbursement for two conferences attended during the school year,
including conferences in St. Louis.

The GSA bylaw currently states in section 7.2, point b, “GSA
will fund the following: up to $50 per request for poster
presentation/materials assistance; up to $100 per request for
publishing assistance; 50 percent of travel costs up to $200 for
academic conference attendance if the student is not presenting;
and 50 percent of travel costs up to $400 for academic conference
attendance if student is presenting.”

The executive board denied the request for two reasons. Kennedy
stated that these reasons were that not all students have the
opportunity to attend conferences in St. Louis and that there is
not enough equity in their funds to reimburse each graduate
student. But this will still allow all graduate students to get a
reimbursement for one conference a year.

GSA Treasurer Callie Kusto addressed the departmental
allocations of money for the graduate departments at SLU.

Kusto explained that the money comes from Saint Louis
University, based on census records for each department. The amount
of money is distributed by the number of students and faculty in
each department.

Kusto said that this money can cover the needed expenses of the
department, except food and drink.

Graduate Administrator Terri Fahrney announced that the Graduate
Research Symposium is ready for next Friday. The symposium will
have 55 people presenting posters, which will explain the research
conducted by SLU graduate students.

Fahrney also encouraged participation at the Academic Integrity
Forum on April 16.

This forum, Fahrney explained, is to look into the cheating that
exists on campus and the possibility of an honor code at SLU.

The executives of GSA discussed a social for all graduate
schools and for Graduate and Professional Student Association, in
the near future.

The next meeting of the general assembly of GSA will be held on
April 20.