The Graduate College 88 College Rd W

House Committee Princeton, NJ 08544

gchouse@Princeton.EDU (609) 258-3443

Agenda with minutes

2009 November 05 7p : Coffee House

Attendance: David Liao (Chair), DJ Sethi (Assistant Chair), Lorne

Applebaum (Treasurer), Noah Jafferis (RFO), Wenzhe Cao (Social
Chair), Kate Keets (dBar), Abhi Nellore (Athletics), David Lennington
(Librarian), and Olivia Martel (CPC). Liza Steele (Social Chair)
announced a schedule conflict ahead of time.

1. Van Dyke Library (Lennington)

a. Books: general and department specific (cf. proposal 2009
January 21)
b. Furnishings (cf. Bienia slide show 2008 December 5)
2. Halloween Party summary
a. Ways to ensure clean up after future social events
i. Kate Keets notes that the dBar pays about $300--
$400 to clean up the dBar.
ii. Scheduling concerns: If we move events to Friday
night, we can go to bed after completing initial clean
up. Remaining cleaning can be done the next day
during daylight hours. But that means that help
booked with Facilities would occur on the weekends,
which likely involves extra charge. We could do
events on Thursday night so that we could book
Facilities to clean up on Friday morning. This leaves
less of a margin for error for the initial clean up at
the end of the event. A Saturday event needs to be
cleaned up quickly so that dining room can be used
for Sunday brunch.
iii. We need to meet with dining services to figure out
the best clean up plan for the next event.
3. Holiday gifts (Liao) middle of December
a. $1200 budgeted (roughly $30 for each of 35 Building and
Dining Services staff). U-Store tote bags, umbrellas,
chocolates. Want gender-neutral, size-independent, and
non-alcoholic
b. Olivia noted that the Graduate School also provides the
staff members t-shirts.
c. Olivia plans an annual luncheon in the Coffee House. We
eat Chinese food and hand out gifts. Any available
House Committee members are invited to this event.
4. Dining committee (Sethi)
 The Graduate College 88 College Rd W
House Committee Princeton, NJ 08544
gchouse@Princeton.EDU (609) 258-3443

a. On 2008 July 6, we were trying to resurrect bimonthly

meetings with dining management we had in the past. See
for instance this email from 2008 March 3:
b. Do you often eat at undergraduate dining halls or rarely
use your meals at all? Dining Services is concerned about
declining attendance and is interested in hearing your
suggestions about how the GC dining hall can be improved.
Manager Don DeZarn will hold an open meeting with
residents on Tuesday, March 11, at 6pm during dinner in
Procter Hall.

If it is easier just to send an email, simply reply to

gchouse@princeton.edu with your comments, and the
House Committee will pass them along to Dining Services.
c. The GCHC members present gave DJ Sethi the go-ahead to
draft a letter for GC membership participation in a
committee to give dining services feedback.
5. Cleaning B1 (Liao): I will buy the shelves, sorry for the delay. We
need volunteers to assemble the shelves, shelve items so we can
access the floor, and then finally organize and discard items.
One volunteer need not do all tasks.
6. Eliminate Swing Night category?
7. Dates to remember
a. Santa Claus Social Hour December 4 8pm –know a good
Santa?
b. General meeting – usually early in the academic year.
c. It might be necessary to purchase a new Santa suit. The
suit from last year’s event was full of holes.
8. Tabled discussions
a. Payroll form is outdated and annoying to fill out
electronically
b. Some retailers ask that the credit card or check card match
the University’s tax exemption in name. Daniel Raburn
suspects some of this might be retailers who wish to avoid
paperwork rather than a genuine legal concern.
9. Surplus $9133.33 remain (not all allocated funds have been
spent, i.e. laundry upgrades)
10. Officer reports
a. Community Programs Coordinator (Olivia Martel) –
i. Social hour: please don’t advertise openly that the
position can be used to gain a social security
number.
ii. There have been no recent thefts, but please report
any new thefts to Public Safety, always.
 The Graduate College 88 College Rd W
House Committee Princeton, NJ 08544
gchouse@Princeton.EDU (609) 258-3443

iii. The repair for the Coffee House table was slightly
over budget. The House Committee members
present did not object.
iv. Olivia has sent an email inquiring about getting a
printer for the Annex.
v. Air conditioning in the Coffee House: There will be a
meeting with Paul LaMarche. At this time, the
University aims to install air conditioning in the
spring, so as to avoid disruptions during the cooling
season.
vi. On October 28, Olivia demonstrated the low levels of
lighting in the New Graduate College TV and music
rooms. Matt Ferry and someone else whose name
David Liao has transcribed as Melissa Masconi, but
who does not appear in the University directory in
that form, will investigate. In the remainder of these
minutes, we will refer to Melissa Masconi as though a
person in reality.
vii. There had been previous interest in getting sensors
to control lights in common areas. Olivia suggested
emailing Art Murphy at Sustainability for connections.
viii. We do not expect the ability to acquire new tables
for the BBQ grills on the Graduate College’s south
lawn.
ix. TV room furniture has not been cleaned despite
previous notice from other staff otherwise.
x. Prox card installation will not be done by the end of
next summer as had previously been announced.
Four ornate doors make installation difficult.
xi. Cabinets in Old Graduate kitchens 4 and 9: In kitchen
4, a wall of new cabinets from the carpenter shop
might be possible. In kitchen 9, existing furnishings
could be improved and locked. Upgrades in both
kitchens are subjects of continued investigation
during the present financial situation.
xii. New Graduate College laundry room sink: We could
install a sink in the NGC laundry room at the expense
of a washer. The arrangement of plumbing in the
room makes other options difficult.
b. Assistant Chair (DJ Sethi) – As tabled.
c. Social Chair (Wenzhe Cao) – As tabled.
d. Regular Facilities Officer (Noah Jafferis) –
i. We still have no good answers from MacGray re: the
necessity of or consequences of foregoing the
 The Graduate College 88 College Rd W
House Committee Princeton, NJ 08544
gchouse@Princeton.EDU (609) 258-3443

$150/mo. service contract for maintaining card swipe

readers.
ii. The Chair suggested that the RFO ask MacGray for
references so as to ask other customer Universities
for their opinions on the necessity of the $150/mo.
card contract.
iii. Can we collect dues separately?
iv. GSG has spoken with Janet Dickinson, VP for Campus
Life. The GCHC is interested in whether the
University would be open to doubling the GCHC dues
if the GCHC in return made laundry free. The
doubling of the GCHC dues corresponds in dollar
amounts to laundry income that we would lose.
v. Olivia was interested in whether the University paid
per service event or monthly for laundry machines
controlled by an swipe-access reader.
vi. Someone suggested we get a laundry endowment.
Uh huh.
vii. In conversations with Jeff Dwoskin after the meeting,
the Chair learned that University accounts permit
cash advances when organizations submit forms
indicating the specific nature of the anticipated
purchases. Could this provide us with enough liquid
cash to allow us to stop relying on the existing PNC
account? Could we then collect the “laundry portion”
of our dues through the standard GCHC dues
deducted via student accounts?
e. Athletics Officer (Abhi Nellore) –
i. Bought a scale
ii. The Athletics Officer indicated he would pursue
firewood everyday until its delivery had been
arranged
f. dBar (Kate Keets) –
i. The existing foosball table was falling apart, so Olivia
suggested pursuing a warranty remedy. For
example, if we could get a partial refund, we could
direct that money to the purchase of a second table
selected according to the dBar’s standards. The
GCHC would be happy to reimburse the dBar if it
could select a model, and if the dBar were interested
in installing the table itself. To be reimbursed under
the category of athletics spending, forms require
Abhi Nellore’s signature.
g. Treasurer (Lorne Applebaum) –
 The Graduate College 88 College Rd W
House Committee Princeton, NJ 08544
gchouse@Princeton.EDU (609) 258-3443

i. Some upcoming reimbursements might be delayed

while we process a reimbursement request with the
University to move some of our funds from our
University account to our PNC bank account.
11. Next meeting: 2009 November 18 7 pm in the absence of
objection. We agreed to this date.