With legislative business beginning only after pizza had been distributed and substantial praise had been given for the previous week’s wine tasting social event, the Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) meeting last Wednesday held important discussions of issues pertaining to both graduate students and the student body at large.

On the issue of national policy as it pertains to graduate students, GSA continues to talk with President Cohon about the difficulties that international students have had obtaining student visas to get back into the United States when they go home on vacations. A significant percentage of Carnegie Mellon students are international students, and the effect of current government policy is coming down hard on these members of the campus community. Cohon is part of the sixteen-member Homeland Security Advisory Council. GSA hopes that if Cohon pressures the government for a better student visa policy now, his agenda can be coupled with the private industry push to streamline the general visa policy down to a thirty-day turnaround time.

A great deal of time was spent reviewing proposed costs for next year’s University-sponsored health care. The University requires that all students have health insurance, and getting health care outside of the University system has been consistently too costly for graduate students to consider as a viable option. Murmurs of shock ran through the room as robotics representative Damion Shelton clicked through his Powerpoint presentation, revealing a $1,100 increase in the first plan’s premium.

“The moral of the story is, ‘Don’t get married and have kids,’” joked Shelton as he showed that the Plan I individual plan cost is projected to rise 56 percent from last year.

Two other plans are available that might be more cost effective for people who typically get sick very infrequently. The GSA took an informal straw vote to decide which of three Plan II options they would recommend to Health Services: the first plan kept costs at the same level as this year; the second plan raised the premium to $826 and lowered the deductible $350; and the third raised the premium to $865 and lowered the deductible to $250. Overwhelmingly, the second option was preferred and will be the recommendation to Health Services from GSA.

Little discussion was necessary over whether to support the next topic of debate, the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students’ “gradtax” initiative, officially called the Higher Education Affordability and Equity Act. If passed, this policy would grant limited income tax exemption for graduate students receiving stipends for their room and board and increase the deductibility of student loan interest.

Following that brief discussion, a special allocation of $500 was granted for the publication of the Heinz School Review, a scholarly journal recently started by Heinz School students.

GSA members were encouraged to attend the Town Hall Meeting regarding the conversion of the Danforth Lounge into an additional exercise room to voice their support of the conversion. The GSA unanimously voted to endorse the Undergraduate Student Senate’s Freedom of Information Policy for all documents that are jointly owned by GSA and the Student Senate, but that they will not be held responsible for distributing documents under this policy. Constitutional amendments regarding the Joint Funding Committee (JFC) and the Student Activities Fee that were passed by the Senate were also passed by GSA during this meeting.

Leslie Jumper, philosophy representative and the GSA member on the JFC board, continued discussion about the JFC with her report to the general body. Currently, the JFC is working on creating more specific budgets for student organizations. Jumper explained the JFC’s plans as instead of giving an organization a generalized amount of money, the JFC would specify how much of the budget could be spent on things such as U-hauls, etc. The JFC is still working on slimming budgets; out of the $1.2 million requested, the JFC only has approximately $800,000 to allocate.

Jumper also brought up a concern about University funding of the Greek Council. As a sorority advisor, Jumper strongly supports the Greek system, but believes that the Council should be self-sufficient and not reliant on Student Activities Fee money as it is now.

“You’re not the only one concerned about that,” Student Senate chair Vito Fiore said in support of investigating the matter.

Finally, the GSA considered proposed resolutions to express GSA’s objections to the publication of The Natrat. Copies of the April Fool’s Day publication of The Tartan were passed around to approximately half of the GSA members, who had not seen the issue or had not heard specific details about the controversy.

Student Body Vice-President Gilbert Dussek started off the discussion by explaining what thus far has been done regarding The Natrat. In addition to the rally, question-and-answer sessions, and formation of a judiciary committee, Dussek reported that the JFC will still make a budget for The Tartan for next year, but if the newspaper has not reformed by the fall semester, then the money will be given back to the Senate and GSA.

Debate was heated as the wording and intent of the resolution were discussed.

Representative Craig Stewart objected to the phrasing that The Natrat was “distasteful and objectionable” because he thought those words were not strong enough to condemn “making light of the rape and mutilation of women.” Stewart proposed an amendment to their resolution that would ask the University administration to call for the resignation of all those involved in creating and signing off The Natrat, in addition to saying that GSA supported any decision that the administration saw fit in line with the Student Handbook’s guidelines for disciplinary action.

One especially critical objection to Stewart’s amendment was that suggesting the resignation of all of the staff members who contributed to The Natrat would include those who had created non-offensive material, such as the Eye of Sauron superimposed on the Cathedral of Learning, in that group. Most representatives objected to suggesting any sort of disciplinary action to the administration. In the end, the amendment failed to pass.

Shelton objected to treating the situation too harshly because of the issue of free speech. Offering a previously-submitted amendment to the resolution, Shelton emphasized that the GSA should not overlook the fact that The Tartan staff was not given a hearing before they were publicly proclaimed guilty, especially in light of the fact that members of the campus community are calling for the staff to be expelled.

Robotics doctoral student Alik Widge supported Shelton’s amendment, which he also co-authored, saying that GSA should “be careful in saying that they [The Tartan staff] had racist intent.”

“They should not have thought that everyone would find this funny,” said Lema Bostock in response, emphasizing a common feeling about The Natrat regardless of the creators’ intentions.

At this point, the president of GSA was told by a University Center employee that the room needed to be vacated for the next group who had reserved it. The general body passed Shelton’s proposed amendments, despite some representatives who still did not want the resolution to comment on disciplinary action, and postponed their final decision on the resolution. Another amendment to add statements of GSA’s support of free speech may be brought up again along with the already-amended resolution.