Before attending to their regular business, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) remembered recently deceased doctoral student Mengyao “May” Zhao at their meeting last night, inviting one of her friends to speak to the members and having a moment of silence in her memory.

Fernando Gomez, an electrical engineering graduate student and a friend of Zhou’s, told the GSC that he is working with others to establish a fellowship in Zhou’s memory. The group aims to raise $1 million for the award, he said — though he admitted that their goals may become somewhat less ambitious if they are not successful.

“There should be more people like her, not less,” Gomez said, the tears welling in his eyes as he addressed the solemn GSC members. “That’s why we should remember her in a big way.”

He also mentioned that Zhou’s friends and family have decided to hold a small, private memorial service for her and warned that her death should not be manipulated for “political reasons.”

After Gomez’s remarks, GSC co-Chair (and Daily Senior Staff Writer) Jenny Allen J.D. ‘07 called for a moment of silence for Zhou, before the GSC moved to its prepared agenda.

Rebecca Kaplan MBA ‘07, who is in charge of the upcoming Graduate Life Survey, presented a budget for the survey, which takes half an hour to complete. Other members quickly chimed in, saying that more incentive was needed than the one iPod Video and the eight gift certificates that Kaplan had included in the plan.

“We need to sweeten the deal,” said GSC member George Bloom, a comparative literature graduate student. He suggested that there be more “big” prizes.

After some discussion, the council decided to allocate $100 to the prizes for every 100 respondents, with the exact prizes still to be determined, bringing the total cost of the survey to a maximum of about $2,800.

The council also listened to a presentation from representative Dirk Englund, an applied physics graduate student who will be one of two members visiting Washington to lobby on behalf of the GSC. They will focus their efforts on tax relief for graduate students, whose stipends have been taxed since a 1986 tax code overhaul under former President Ronald Reagan, and on “making life for international students easier.”

Some members asked Englund why the GSC lobbyists were not participating in a larger lobbying campaign organized by the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students (NAGPS) in two weeks. Instead, Englund and GSB student Maxim Afanasyev, the other GSC member accompanying Englund, decided to conduct their lobbying later.

In other business, the GSC approved funding for five student groups, including an additional $800 for the International Gala to meet higher than expected venue costs. They had already approved $2,000 for the Gala earlier this year, after increasing their budget for the Gala from last year.

GSC members also watched a presentation from Capital Group on the new online banking system for Stanford student groups.