AGSA Minutes - December 10, 2003

In Attendance:
Heather Fried, Dustin Keeler, Brandon Lundy, Alex Priebe, Rod Salisbury, Amanda Shero and undergraduates Jordan ?, Dave Ingleman, & Kate Whalen

1. The Social and Preventative Medicine GSA invites all GSA graduate students to present a poster on their research interests on December 16th from 5-8 pm in the Center for Tomorrow, North Campus. This promises to be a great networking opportunity.
2. The Gender Institute is organizing a Graduate Student Symposium on Gender, and is interested in submission of papers. All abstracts are due January 28, 004.

1. The AGSA is agreeing to co-sponsor the Graduate Student Symposium on Gender for $25.00. Heather Fried is responsible for notifying the correct people.
2. Brandon Lundy agreed to investigate how much a replacement toner cartridge for the laser printer would cost.
3. It was agreed upon to find out how much a "check-up" visit by Town & Country Office Machines, Inc. would cost to find out what's wrong with the copier in the lounge and how much it might cost to fix it. Heather Fried will contact them over break.

Finally, the big issue to be discussed was the Sub-Board grant and the formalization of the colloquium series.

The AGSA has been granted $300 to support our spring colloquium series, and the UAC is working on making this a formal one-credit course option. In order to meet everyone's needs, it was decided to invite a speaker in every other week (starting the second week of the spring semester).

Most of the speakers will be local and will be asked to speak for a $25.00 honorarium to be shared by the AGSA and the UAC. (Not much, but what we can afford!) Alex Priebe agreed to contact Peter St. Jean from the Sociology department (local Buffalo ethnography), Christopher Lee from Canisius College (Middle Eastern anthropology), and Liz W. from the local community. Louy Rotsos has already contacted Sarah Elder from the Media Studies Department (visual anthropology).

It was tentatively planned to invite these speakers to come on Friday afternoons at 4:00 pm. (The line of thinking here is that Margaret can schedule Happy Hours to coincide with Colloquium Fridays, so that there's a "reception" afterwards.)

It remains unclear whether or not the department will kick in $200.00 for the series. Alex Priebe agreed to feel out the situation. If the department does pay, it was agreed to ask them to sponsor Judith F. from Chapel Hill (does medical anthropology). This leaves us with $300.00 that we could divide between a cultural, a physical, and an archaeologist. Possible cultural speakers might be Michael Lambek (who Mariella is bringing in) or another speaker that the English department is bringing in. No physical students attended, so there are no suggestions for this subfield. (E-mail suggestions were considered, but were generally thought of as unrealistic. Speakers need to be fairly close, because $100.00 isn't so much money!) Archaeologists considered were Chris Rafferty at SUNY-Albany (analyzes resin from pipes), or Kathy Mitchell or Robert Dean from the Seneca Nation.

After this discussion, the meeting was adjourned.

Repectfully submitted,

Heather Fried,
AGSA President