The Catholic University of America Graduate Students Association

GSA Lectures Committee Info

Meetings will be held on the following dates:

January 23, February 20, March 12

GSA Office Room 107E Pryz Center @ 6:00PM

Requests can only be presented through senators.

Click here for Archive of Minutes for past meetings for the Lectures Committee

For scheduling purposes, please inform the Lecture Chair Joshua Potrykus (10POTRYKUS@cua.edu) that you intend to present a request at least one day in advance.

CONTENTS

Standing Rules
Appropriation Guidelines
Process for Requesting Funds
Forms

Lecture Committee Standing Rules

Introduction

The Lecture Committee is a standing committee of the Graduate Student Association (GSA) of The Catholic University of America. It is responsible for allocating funds for lectures in each academic semester to departments who request them. The Lecture Committee is governed by the GSA Senate.

Standing Rules of the GSA Lecture Committee

Article I: General Provisions

A. The name of this Committee will be the Lecture Committee of the Graduate Student Association of The Catholic University of America (CUA), hereinafter called "the Committee."

B. The Committee will consist of a chair, a minimum of two (2) other members of the GSA, duly appointed by the nominations committee and ratified by the GSA Senate. Additionally, the President and the Treasurer of the GSA will be ex officio members of the Committee. The chair will only vote in the case of a tie vote among the other voting members.

C. Non-members of the Committee are not permitted to attend Committee meetings. Fund requesters are admitted for the duration of their petition for funds. Exception may be made by Committee vote of two-thirds majority of those members present.

D. The Committee must have a quorum to enact legislation and appropriate funds. A quorum will consist of a majority of Committee members, excepting those serving ex officio.

Article II: Duties

A. The duties of the Committee will consist of the following measures:

1. providing allocation guidelines for lecture requests;

2. hearing requests for lecture funds from CUA graduate students representing departments or other organizations;

3. making specific motions regarding requests for lecture funds to the GSA Senate.

B. The duties of the Committee Chair will consist of the following measures:

1. scheduling the meetings of the Committee and notifying the Committee and the GSA Senate of this schedule, which will include date, time, and location;

2. preparing an agenda for each meeting and presiding at each meeting;

3. recording minutes of the Committee meetings, preparing a typescript of the minutes, and distributing copies of the typed minutes as needed to the Committee members;

4. maintaining an archive of minutes of the Committee meetings;

5. overseeing the use of GSA lecture funds that have been allocated by the GSA to organizations;

6. signing University Requisitions on behalf of GSA.

C. The duties of the GSA Treasurer will consist of the following measures:

1. providing a report of the current GSA general ledger upon request;

2. signing University Requisitions as needed in the role of a GSA representative.

Article III: Amendments

A. These standing rules may be amended by a two-thirds majority vote of the

Lecture Committee.

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Appropriations Policy and Budgetary Guidelines

Appropriations policy

1. All appropriations must directly benefit CUA graduate students.

2. All groups receiving appropriations must acknowledge the financial assistance of the GSA in any advertisements related to the events for which the GSA has appropriated funds, and they must send the GSA Lecture Chair a copy of such advertisements when they are distributed.

3. All fiscal matters must be tended to before a lecture takes place. Once a lecture has taken place, the requester has forfeited the right to monies allotted.

4. The GSA will not fund:

a. regular classroom teaching duties, that is any lecture which forms part of a for-credit course;

b. events or organizations that are primarily designed to influence directly federal, state, or local elections;

c. events or organizations that are primarily designed to directly promote or hinder proposed or pending legislation at the federal, state, or local levels;

d. any administrative or labor costs;

e. any capital expenditures;

f. any operating expenses for CUA regardless of the demonstrated need for such expenditures;

g. honoraria for CUA professors;

h. meals for more than the following parties:

A. one lecturer,

B. four CUA graduate students, and

C. one CUA professor

5. All petitioners for appropriations must be present either in person for the Lecture Committee hearings. No petitions sent by mail, either written or electronic, or by telephone will be granted by the Committee.

a. The ordinary requester for a given department is that department’s senator.

b. The requester assumes responsibility for all duties pertinent to a request from the process’s initiation to its completion.

c. A senator may send a proxy if and only if the senator has informed the proxy of Committee policies and procedures. The Committee may deny a request on the grounds that a proxy is ill-advised of policies and procedures.

d. The Committee reserves to itself the right to make exceptions to this rule.

Duties of the Requester

All graduate groups representing departments must itemize any expenditure for which they are

requesting an appropriation. Such itemizations will include:

1) a completed "Department/Organization Request for Funds" form

2) any additional sources of funding apart from the GSA.

Each graduate student group representing a department must provide a written report of all its expenditures using GSA appropriations since its last request for funds at a hearing or University Lectures Committee meeting. This applies only to appropriations made this academic year.

All Lecture Committee appropriations will conform to funding limits set each year by the Committee and published on the webpage.

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Process for requesting and receiving funds from the Lectures Committee:

Anticipate the event as far ahead as possible, try to begin at least a month and a half before

the event you would like to have. More time may be necessary, since this accounts only for our

processing time; you may need more time to accomplish your tasks. Delay in the submission of

forms may result in significant delays in payment.

1) Read these instructions completely before moving on in the process.

2) Fill out a Department/Organization Request for Funds form.

3) Contact the Lectures Committee Chairman at 10potrykus@cua.edu, and make an appointment to appear at the next meeting of the Lecture Committee.

4) Bring the form to the Lecture Committee meeting, with information about the speaker (C.V., Resume, etc.) as well as a sample flyer that should contain information about GSA sponsorship of the event.

5) If the committee approves your request, it will be presented to the GSA Senate at its next meeting. If the request is approved by the Senate, you will be informed by the GSA Lecture Committee Chair or your academic senator.

6) Honoraria: Read the Cover Letter and fill out the pertinent information (fill in the blanks) on the GSA Speaker Contract and e-mail it to the GSA Lecture Committee Chairman, for approval by UCSPE and the Office of General Council. Once approved, have the speaker complete and sign the Vendor Application (unless the speaker has come to CUA before and you know the speaker has a vendor ID number) and the approved Speaker Contract. You should also complete the parts of a Universal Expenditure Form (UEF) that relate to the speaker. This is the form that actually requests the speaker’s honorarium. This will be a “Requisition for Purchase Order”. Make sure that all relevant parts are completed and signed. You do not need to worry about the fields marked “transfer from” and "transfer to”, the Lecture Committee will handle this information. If you have any questions, contact the Lecture Committee Chairman. This step is to be completed three to four weeks in advance of the event. The speakers check should be available to pick up at Accounts Payable before the event takes place. Late submission results in significant delays.

7) Travel: Get the speaker to make travel arrangements or make them for the speaker. If the speaker will be making the arrangements, inform him or her of the amount of money budgeted for travel. Insure that the ticket is purchased as far in advance as possible, so that the price will be more reasonable. Also look into various accommodations in the area. Have the speaker submit original receipts for his or her travel expenses. Attach them to a Universal Expenditure Form and a Travel Expense Report and submit them to the GSA Lecture Committee Chairman.

8) Catering: Before planning the catering, read the CUA alcohol policy. Begin planning any receptions and dinners for your speakers. There are several ways of doing this:

a) To Pre-order food for catering the event: Find one or more caterers who will be able to provide food for your event (for example, Aramark, Peapod, Pizza Hut, etc.). Plan a menu. For Aramark orders (click here), you will need to submit the contract to the Committee. The Committee will review and submit it to the office of The University Center, Student Programs and Events (UCSPE). For an outside vendor, you may either 1) submit an invoice along with a completed UEF to the Committee; or 2) place a phone order by getting written approval from the Committee and arranging a time to place the order by phone with Steve Krider of UCSPE, who will pay using a PCard. Pre-ordering food is the preferred way to handle catering, since you will not have to pay sales taxes (UCSPE is not-for-profit) and you will not have to wait for reimbursement.

b) A less efficient way, Reimbursement: Hold the pre-approved event with catering provided by a graduate student or other person at the university. After the event, submit separate Universal Expenditure Forms for each person who funded the dinner and the reception. Attach to the UEF’s itemized original receipts along taped to a blank sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper. This will be handled as a “Direct Payment” on the form. A check will be sent in the mail after several weeks.

9) Dinners: Either follow the reimbursement procedure above or arrange with UCSPE and a restaurant for UCSPE to pay the bill at a restaurant, either up to a certain value or for a pre-chosen menu.

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Force of this Document

This document supersedes all previous University Lectures Committee guidelines, policies, and rules. Any contrary principles in previous University Lectures Committee legislation are hereby revoked.

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'2007-2008 Appropriation Guidelines'

In order to fairly distribute funds among Graduate departments, we have established the following rules and limits. Some departments will hold many small events over the semester, others will hold one large event. The choice is yours, the limits are set.

These are the upper limits of funding per semester for a school/department with less than one hundred graduate students:

Honorarium $1000.00

Travel $500.00

These are the upper limits of funding per semester for a school/department with one hundred to two hundred (100-200) graduate students:

Honoraria: $1350.00

Travel: $700.00

These are the upper limits of funding per semester for a school/department with more than two hundred (200) graduate students:

Honoraria: $1600.00

Travel: $850.00

Food is divided into two categories, reception and dinner. Reception is strictly on-campus, during the event. Dinner is permitted to be off-campus, but limited to 6 people, including 2 graduates. Food is dealt with each event and currently there is no semester limit.

Reception $4.00/ person.

Dinner $30/ person. No more than 6 people: 4 graduate students, 1 lecturer, 1 faculty member.

Please note: The actual allotments for a request are left up to the discretion of the committee, but will not exceed the upper limit total for Honoraria and Travel expenses.

FORMS

Last Revised 15-Mar-08 05:33 PM.