Minutes for 9/19/2008

1. Maria gave the President’s officer’s report. She talked about the last faculty meeting, focusing on the decision to hire a bio-ethics  faculty member. Justin gave the Treasurer’s Officer report. He noted that the AGSP’s current account balance does not yet reflect our budget for this fiscal year. Neither the secretary nor the vice-president had anything to report.

2. Maggie Labinski has stepped down as Treasurer, so nominations were solicited by email before the meeting and an election was held at the meeting to replace her. Kyle Thomsen was elected Treasurer.

3. We discussed the need for a Graduate Student to be on the Hiring Committee for future faculty hires. Russell Newstadt’s name had been mentioned for this position. Also under consideration for this position is Justin Marquis. No decision was made in order to consult with Andrew Cutrofello.

4. Because of funding issues and miscommunication with the faculty the Brennan Conference will not be held this school year. The Brennan funds are being used, in part, to fund events in honor of Diana Meyers. The grad students will be working on a proposal to host the conference next academic year. Contact Kristi Grob if you are interested in helping in any way with the planning or execution of the Brennan Conference.

5. We discussed the upcoming events to welcome Diana Meyers to the faculty. It is important that graduate students attend these events because it will increase our visibility in the department and hopefully add weight to our arguments that our interests need more consideration. Keep an eye out for announcements for specific events. We also discussed the possibility of purchasing a gift card to Metropolis Coffee shop as a welcome gift from the graduate students for Diana Meyers.

6. Instead of having student papers presented at meetings, we have decided to have separate grad student Colloquia over the course of the semester (1 or 2, perhaps more, per semester depending on interest). If you have a paper you would like to present at one of them, email Rebecca Scott.

7. Maria Kulp and several others are road-tripping to the SPEP conference in Pittsburgh next month. Email her if you are interested in joining us to see if there are seats still available. We will also be sharing a hotel room. This is a good opportunity to put Loyola’s name on the map again in the Continental Philosophy community and just a good way to have some fun and see the work being done at other departments.

8. We are currently collecting data about graduate student interests (I’m sure you’ve seen the emails) so that we can complete a letter to the faculty addressing our concern about the lack of courses in specific areas of philosophy (specifically Continental philosophy and non-ethics areas more generally). In the letter we will also be addressing the lack of faculty for dissertation and thesis support in these areas. This letter will be presented at the faculty meeting in November. Thank you to Russell and Rebecca for organizing this effort to make sure the graduate students’ needs are addressed. This letter will be signed by individual students and not the AGSP as a whole. Once a draft is completed, it will be emailed around so that everyone can consider if they want to sign onto it.