Student Senate Agenda
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
1:30 Approval of Minutes (2 minutes)a. Myles: Motion to approve minutes with last weeks corrections.
1:32 Chair’s Report (3 minutes)
a. Michelle: I want to talk about last week’s meeting. It was frustrating and I want to apologize for losing my patience. I just want to remind everyone that respect is really important and everyone in this room is on the same level. I will not participate is what I’m trying to say unless this changes. There are some amazing things that we can do together in this room.
b. Hayley: I feel a lot of it was the lack of a parliamentarian acting in the way they needed to act.
c. Jay: I didn’t walk away from last week’s meeting particularly upset. I think there should be a high degree of speaking and listening etiquette. That for me is a source of frustration.
d. Michelle: Everybody in this room processes things differently and the way people communicate, it’s important to remember that.
e. Neil: I think respect is important but we need to make sure we talk about why people are frustrated. I feel like for me, it’s because we haven’t followed procedure. I think we need to revisit the rules. I was upset that, despite the fact that we voted, we did not pass the email last week.
f. Hayleigh: I think it’s important to listen when you’re actually listening and not just waiting for your turn to speak.
g. Vera: I really hope people give personal thought to their opinion. I see some lines being drawn and I’d really would like to see individual thinking.
h. Maddie: Myself included, a lot of people felt really upset. There is a huge space here for respectful agreement. That doesn’t mean we should forget that people do have a personal stake here.
1:35 Treasurer’s Report (3 minutes)
a. Neil: are we going to inform publications that there is left over money?
b. Hayleigh: We are going to re-allocate it next week hopefully.
1:38 Roll Call (2 minutes)
Maddie, Michelle, Hayleigh, Jasmine, Lenna, Bobby, Nadia, Myles, Hayley, Aiden, Angelina, Emily, Eliot, Lucy, Jay, Neil, Brian, Cat, Vera, Nellen, Amanda, Rebecca
1:40 Committee Reports (20 minutes)
SSSF
a. Aiden: As all of you know, auction was last Friday. It was successful. We raised around $5, 000 and our expenses were very minimal
General
a. Brian: Commencement committee want to move the lecture up a day so we can go to the beach. Lookout commencement week. I spoke with Karen and I think she really sees where we’re coming from. They
b. Cat: they told us about why we weren’t being allowed in the meetings, and it was more about privacy than trust, or a need of trust. In conclusion we’re not going to kick you out unless it’s really really necessary. It was more for economic conversations that were going on that they wanted to remain private. It sounded like the agreement is that we won’t be asked to leave unless there’s a discussion on faculty salary, personal issues.
c. Michelle: Were you satisfied with the conversation?
d. Brian: I think it’s important to not necessarily send the letter you guys wrote but instead a letter just about it being important that we’re present at meetings.
e. Cat: I felt okay with the way that the conversation ended.
f. Maddie: Would either of you feel more comfortable drafting the letter?
g. Brian: I want to help revise that.
h. Michelle: Do we still want to send a letter?
i. Brian: I think that’s the best plan of action, still.
j. Neil: Can we discuss underclassman staying for commencement week next week?
Admissions
a. Emily: So for the past week, we’ve been trying to hand in completed files. After some confusion, I gave them to Cecilia. We got confidentiality statements that we signed and gave back. Is this how admissions committee works every year?
b. Brian: I do know that student reps were never present for any ED things ever.
c. Emily: I feel that we were given the files to appease us and that’s it.
d. Michelle: i was hoping the open letter would address that
e. Maddie: I think admissions committee historically has met more in the past but it doesn’t meet as often as the other standing committees.
f. Jasmine: You’re not the only ones. I have a friend who has been trying to contact admissions all year long and she hasn’t been able to. I think there doing it to everyone.
Student Work
a. Lucy: We reviewed applications for the Cuba program.
b. Neil: Do you know how many people got accepted/rejected
c. Lucy: No, not yet and we don’t have the final say
Curriculum
a. Vera: We gave our update last week. The reason why administration wants to keep senior week closed to students open and for those 6 days, more damage happens to the campus than it does the entire year. On a side note, it’s Al Green’s agenda.
b. Brian: Why didn’t it pass before?
c. Vera: Because a proposal never came out of the committee.
d. Michelle: There have also been a number of parental complaints.
Student Life
a. Jasmine: Natalie Gross is a voting member because we changed the bylaws. We had a discussion on a global email the student union task force wanted to send out and after much discussion, we recommended that they revise their email.
b. Emily: it turned into a 1-hour conversation about specific points.
c. Jasmine: The majority of the discussion was about how the email should be changed, which is not student life’s place.
d. Maddie: I hope that in the future that the emails from the student union would come from them instead of senate.
e. Amanda: I was one of the people that did not vote for it. I also feel like we were talking earlier with issues we were having in senate that were coming into student life. I felt my authority of a senator was being challenged. It seems that is still occurring. It makes me very uncomfortable.
f. Myles: What is going on?
g. Michelle: We talked about this last week. I want to move on.
Publicity
a. Jay: Nothing new
Spring Formal
a. Michelle: We want to form a spring formal committee.
b. Amanda: I want to be on it
c. Rebecca: I want to be on it
d. Nellen + Hayley too
Club Liaison Updates
a. Vera: The folk music club had a wonderfully attended event. It was a success.
b. Lucy: The lit review is having a party on Thursday at 9 pm in A SPACE.
c. Neil: LASSO had its meeting. There were about 45 people there for 3 hours and it went really well.
Class President Updates
a. Neil: We are trying to secure more bands to sing in May.
2:00 Club Recognitions (10 minutes)
Arabic Language Club
presented by April Crewson (acrewson@gm.slc.edu)
a. April: So we’re doing the Arabic club. Learning Arabic is really difficult so we’re bringing in a tutor to help people and we’re just trying to increase cultural awareness.
b. Neil: That’s really awesome. Is your tutor someone from campus?
c. April: She’s a colleague of mine when I studied abroad. She’s advanced in Arabic so.
d. Maddie: When is your meeting time?
e. April: Tuesdays at 8:30 in Andrews 103
f .Angelina: Motion to recognize the Arabic Language Club. Seconded. No objections.
g. Maddie: I will be the liaison.
The Elite
presented by Robert Perkins (rperkins@gm.slc.edu)
a. Robert: The point of my club is to do social criticism of film, art, tv, and social events. We’re so close to NYC and so we’re trying to arrange things with that.
b. Nellen: How often do you meet?
c. Robert: Wednesdays at 8 o’clock
d. Amanda: Is that considered a publication?
e. Michelle: Clubs can have publications.
f. Myles: Motion to approve the elite. Seconded. No objections.
g. Amanda: I will.
NEW BUSINESS
2:10 Student Senate and the Office of Admissions (35 minutes)
presented by Amy Abrams
a. Michelle: I was hoping you could just introduce yourselves.
b. Amy: I’m the dean of admissions and what i’ve been doing is talking to different groups. I contacted Michelle about coming to you to get help approving the class of 2013. We’re reorganizing admitted student day. I wanted to throw some ideas out and see what you think. We’d like to do a phone-a-thon with you guys. Admitted student days are April 21-22. We’re going to have a breakfast and lots of events. No matter what year you are, you remember when you came to visit and the day you asked your parents to write the check.
c. Michelle: I’ll open this up to questions.
d. Lucy: I appreciate you coming. I love admitted students day. I know there are some concerns about reps reaching out to the admissions committee and those actions were rebuffed. Some of us feel a little bit concerned about that.
e.Amy: When I got the email from Angelina and Emily, I was on the road. Things changed a lot and the economy. I know there are meetings which make on regular basis, but scheduling is an issue. There are 7 faculty members on the committee as well. There is an email going out today about when to meet next. It wasn’t that we were excluding you it’s that we didn’t actually have the meeting. The admissions committee has never had input on early decision round 1 or round 2. Admission committee faculty and students have not in the past evaluated a large number of applications. It’s hard to get everybody together at one time.
f. Lucy: I appreciate you clarifying that. The impression that I’d gotten is that the representatives had been trying to contact the office much longer than the end of last semester so that was more my concern.
g. Angelina: The first email I sent out was to everybody in Sadie Lou off of the admissions link. Is there someone who is always in the office we can get in touch with, like a secretary?
h. Amy: We’re on the road a lot. Try contacting Cecilia. She’s in the office 4 days a week and doesn’t travel.
i. Jasmine: As long as we know that both of our senators are doing their job and are participating. I really do like the idea of Sarah Lawrence students talking to admitted students and it would make it easier for us to do that for you.
j. Vera: I know that it seems to be difficult to set up a regular meeting time. Planning way ahead is way helpful. I know that in previous years there was a different level of involvement so hopefully we can change that for the better. It would be cool to get an email about Admitted students day with the schedule and the time slots.
k. Neil: Do you think you need specific demographics of student interest? There are 59% more men coming next year.
l. Amy: When I spoke to Karen during the interview process we talked about bringing the gender balance closer together and creating a more diverse community.
m. Maddie: We can also check with our clubs to see if anyone would like to help with this process.
n. Amy: We plan on asking every student why they decided to come and why they decided not to come. We’ve never done that before. We’d also like to train students to be SLC representatives when they go to their hometown or to come to college fairs.
o. Maddie: The US News and World Report. Is the admissions committee active in getting SLC represented in publications?
Amy: Any kind of opportunity that gets SLC out there, Karen wants to jump on it if its appropriate. I would really like to make sure that we’re getting out and doing all we can to tell people in demographics where SLC students don’t come from to come to SLC. We’re also going to stay open on Saturdays in the month of April.
q. Emily: You’ve mentioned a lot of wonderful things like getting students involved in the recruitment process. I tried to get involved with things like presenting in college fairs and i got no support from the Admissions office. We signed up for this position to be available to you for physical labor and we’d really like to be used. We’re happy to meet one on one anytime to express our opinions.
r. Amy: We can schedule a meeting for the three of us.
s, Michelle: Great.
t. Brian: You said you worked at a women’s college?
u. Amy: Scripps.
v. Brian: One of the reasons i chose to come here was the ratio and I’m wondering if you’re taking into account the ratio and the fact that it’s what has made SLC so special for the past 40 years.
w.Amy: We’re not done selecting our class yet. I went to Skidmore. I’ve been in that situation.
x. Brian: I’d just encourage you to talk about the ratio in a positive way and to have an open mind.
y.Amy: We’re working right now on an admitted student website. Our rankings will be premiered on that website. I think for some families, when you talk about the value of an education, the validation from someone else is also very important. We do understand that.
z. Lucy: Maybe we could have some sort of confab about recruitment.
aa. Angelina: I want to encourage clubs to do something because I feel we have a stigma that there is no social life.
ab. Neil: In terms of us, if we had a list of deadlines, that would be great.
ac. Jay: Thanks so much for coming. I have a question about the video thing. Can students contact someone to have some sort of voice in the marketing scheme. Sometimes I find that being a senior, there are things that could have helped me make that decision a lot easier.
Parliamentarian Discussion
a. Michelle: Do people want to talk about the parliamentarian for 10 minutes?
b. Vera: I don’t think we need one for the rest of the year. Can we do this internally instead of having another election
c. Maddie: I support not having one for the rest of the year and not electing one within this body
d. Neil: I don’t see us enforcing any rules at all. There is a downfall to that I hope we recognize. Like what I said at the beginning of this meeting.
We’re supposed to treat groups equally on this campus and I’d like us to go back and remember all the problems we had initially.
e. Hayley: It’ confusing because we had so many meetings discussing the role of the parliamentarian. Not having one? What does that say about all of our discussions?
f. Lucy: I’m fine not having one. However, I see that people disagree with this. If we had an election, do we really think we could find someone who understands the job and really wants it. The idea of having a rotated one within the body is interesting.
g. Nellen: I like the idea of sharing the responsibility.
h. Maddie: The job is to be fluent in the bylaws. There are a lot of them. It would be difficult to elect someone within the community at this point to do all of this so soon. At the same time, we’re all able to call point of order and point of information.
i. Bobby: Abandoning the role of parliamentarian is saying that we’re not going to follow our constitutional bylaws. Maybe we should re-examine the way we use these words. If we all took on this role, it would be a good idea to take on the responsibility. I am in favor of having a new parliamentarian within this body in this meeting.
j. Lenna: At lunch today, someone said that if they got one more email about an election, they would go crazy. I’m in favor of a rotating member.
k. Angleina: I echo. but what do we do about bylaw committee? Who takes charge of the draft at the end of the year?
l. Neil: I agree with the rotation. A particular person to be the arbitrator but we can all be more responsible. If we each focus on particular aspects like communication and funding and maybe we could reiterate some things next meeting.
m. Michelle: We’re out of time
n. Vera: I motion that for the rest of the semester, the parliamentarian should be a rotating position within our body. I volunteer to do it for next week. Seconded. Objection
o. Myles: I don’t think we’ve discussed this enough and the bylaws. I think we should have a permanent parliamentarian
Jay: I agree with Myles. I don’t have the time commitment to share this responsibility right now.
q. Emily: Can we choose on a volunteer basis? Can we choose before the meeting.
r. Neil: I object to this.
s. Vera: Point of order. We’re out of time. Let’s table this.
3:10 Announcements (5 minutes)
3:15 Adjourn
a. Jay: Motion to adjourn.
b. Michelle: I forgot to say last week we made a decision about having this meeting being a student-only space. We need to inform the committee. It has to come from within this body.