Student Senate Agenda
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
1:30 Approval of Minutes (2 minutes)
Lily: Motion to approve last week’s minutes. seconded. passes by silent consent
1:32 Chair’s Report (3 minutes)
Michelle: I really want to congratulate our new Executive team, Eliot, Amanda, Nate
1:35 Treasurer’s Report (3 minutes)
Durga: We funded Lily’s drive-in movie. We funded the senior class beach day for transportation and food. We funded Hillel’s dinner for Israel independence day and a show in the Blue Room on May 8th.
1:40 Committee Reports (15 minutes)
SSSF,
Aiden: Mayfair is this Saturday. It is a rain or shine event. We have a sign up for different booths and time slots. You must sign up for at least one spot they are in 2 hour shifts.
General
Cat: We had a joint meeting with curriculum last week and visual culture is now back in humanities. We also talked about the academic calendar and we changed spring registration to spring.
Admissions
Angelina: Admitted students day happened and we’ve heard it went well. I wanted to find out how many admitted students we got as a result but I haven’t heard back.
Student Work
Lucy: We saw two appeals for reinstatement
Curriculum
Hayley: Most of our meeting was confidential
Student Life
Jasmine: We approved a Spring Fest outdoor even on Friday May 8 and 9 on the north lawn.
Spring Formal
Nellen: It’s Friday at 9 pm.
Task force for Student Union
Vera: We met on Sunday, nothing really relevant.
Club Liaison Updates
Lindsey: Christian union had a dinner last night it was good
Bobby: Music Club is always doing stuff
Class President Updates
NEW BUSINESS
1:55 Final Discussion: Civic Internship Proposal (35 minutes)
Presentation by Pam Julian
Pam: We deliberated over this proposal quite a few times already. Basically, the premise is to ask my fellow students to fund an ongoing student activity effort outlined in my proposal. We have pending Massachusetts legislation, we’re meeting with Senator Klein on Monday in Albany and we also have a New Hampshire congressman Paul Hodes so we’ve got three efforts going on right now. I spoke to Ray Seidleman’s wife and got permission to ask Senator Klein to name the bill after him.
Myles: How much money are you asking for Senate?
Pam: The total proposal is $17, 350 and it would provide 5 civic activity liaison positions for $15 dollars an hour. This is a proposal. I am presenting this to you and asking you if you a. agree with the merits of the proposal itself of b. would like to fund the proposal itself. We are completely open to any friendly amendments. It is my understanding that SLC senate has funded conferences off-campus, is that correct?
Hayleigh: Yes.
Pam:I don’t know what the total is for those activities but the average budget is over $200,000 and I know last year you had about $25,000 left over. All students can submit an application and a short bio and they would be selected via a lottery.
Michelle: So I have a long call list, let’s stick to it.
Vera: I think that we’ve debated at length and have discussed the merit of this proposal. i think everyone in this room can agree that we need to support this work but this is more than 60% of our remaining money. We need to roll over money to next year and we need to seriously consider how we can make this work and I think this is a difficult sum of money to conceptualize dealing with.
Angelina: I have thought long and hard about this. If we had the very beginning of this year’s budget, she is asking for over 6% of this year’s budget. I move to deny funding to the civic activity proposal.
Michelle: We are going to move into a discussion
Lindsey: Do we have the power to fund this?
Michelle: Because of the issue of the non profit of the college, it would require a recommendation directly forward to the president of the college
Maddie: I do agree the the request is very significant but that we all support the proposal, i think we should have a conversation about funding a portion of this. It’s not $17,000 or nothing.
Neil:Today Vera mentioned the need for rollover. It’s meant to serve as a buffer but if we want intentionally want to roll over, we can use it. I dont know where else we can spend it. I’m not saying we can spend it because this is here but a lot of thoughtfully constructive work has gone into this project. We funded the Green Roof and we should be funding more initiative than just having parties. Maybe we could fund a portion of it with a stipulation to see the progress and re review.
Bobby: My objection is that if this motion does not pass, we can’t fund anything again during this meeting.
Myles: I also agree that $17,000 is too large for us to justify funding in full. As for the rollover, I think this money would be better spend in student wages and maybe going into the SSSF.
Bobby: The notion of student wages, we actually cut student wages this number. The wages on this proposal is way more than SLC student are currently earning
Emily: I’m confused Pam, are you saying that alumni would be applicable to apply for positions?
Pam: It’s just a proposal
Emily: If we pay $7.25, which is the SLC base minimum wage, it would reduce the proposal to $9578
Jasmine: We do have $30,000 left over and we need to move it to the SSSF. I know first hand students who want to come here but cannot because they didn’t get the aid that they need.
Pam: We need to look into the federal work study wages. As I said before, certainly whatever the Senate feels comfortable with but i disagree that the money could be better used that this money should go in a pot. We also need to consider the 50 signatures I’ve collected in support of this proposal. We don’t know how much money was spent totally on the retreat and on conferences and we don’t know if we can make a fair determination. I’d like to know how much the Green Roof cost?
Neil: The roof and wages of students working for a sustainable cause.
Pam: The premise of this proposal is to fund students who need compensation working on a civic activity. I’d also like to say that not every student can participate in SLC events, there always is a cutoff.
Michelle: We’re going to 2:25 so we’re running out of time
Nathan: It seems to me that it’s worth reminding everyone that we are responsible for giving back to the SLC community and putting the money in SSSF definitely benefits the SLC community more.
Vera: There is roll over and we are free to spend it and we have $30,000 left. We need to think about wages. I proposed last week that we fund a grant program. I absolutely have a problem paying alumni.
Lily: I want you answer your question Pam about how much money we spend on off-campus retreats this year is less than $10,000 and that served around 60 people. It’s a lot more people and a lot less money and I don’t think they’re on the same plane. I also agree with Nathan and Jasmine. If we do want to fund this, we should have a quality of life fund so that people can suggest other things, too. You’re the only one proposing because we haven’t publicized this yet.
Lenna: My biggest thing is when Neil said just funding for the summer, the $17,000 is for the summer. I don’t think we should be paying wages for people off campus from the student activities fee. One this that Pam keeps addressing is that this will help everyone and I believe it will if it gets passed, but everyone here has registered to vote.
Eliot: I’d like to clarify that to fund from the quality of life fund requires 300 signatures. Pam, are you student that the 50 students who signed this knew that it was coming of of the student activities fund?
Pam: yes, it was written into the petition
Neil: The idea that we should put this money in to the SSSF doesn’t acknowledge that this proposal benefits students on financial aid and i really question how this challenges SLC’s non-profit status. Overall, I’ve never seen this much bureaucracy put into something and I don’t think it’s because we’re sticklers for the rules. The fact that this is something that was brought forth without being publicized is something that deserves to be commended. I would move to fund $9000 and this is something senate can be proud of funding instead of inflatables on the lawn.
Lucy: I’d like to motion to extend the time by 5 minutes. Seconded. No objections.
The wages that senate funds are for publications and spaces and we approve the people and we don’t have the same kind of process here and I think that’s a concern.
Maddie: First, a lot of expensive budgets came up this year. Bacchanalia was $15,000 and i didn’t hear anyone suggesting we put the money in to SSSF. We should not punish someone for taking initiative and coming forward with a proposal. We fund a lot of things with distinct interests. Eliot, last year for the Quality of Life Fund it was 300 signatures but we reduced this number significantly. If this is something we want to support, then I think we should support this.
Jasmine: The year we discussed wages for managers, we weren’t comfortable funding them from the Student Activities fund. Most people agreed that they should be paid by the school, I think it’s the same for this situation. There are other avenues one can take to get funding.
Myles: I call the question
Michelle: The question has been called and we need to vote on the motion to deny funding in full. We are going to vote on voting now <18 Yes> We will vote now in the motion. <11 yes 5 no and 2 abstentions> Funding is denied.
2:30 WSLC Proposal (15 minutes)
Chelsea: Hi, I’m the general manager of the WSLC. We’ve decided to restructure our staff for next year. We’ve decreased by 2 staff members and have eliminated the position of general manager. Last year, we had a stipend of $6000 and next year, we’re asking for each of the managers to be paid $8.50 an hour at 5 hours a week.
Michelle: I just want people to know that we can’t control next year’s funding so maybe it would be better to talk about the space
Chelsea: We want to increase listenership and we’ve been looking at other college radio stations to see how they function within the college community. Currently there are about 36 shows with an average of 4 DJs per show. We’d like this to be much more than a club and part of us coming to senate is to get WSLC recognized as a space like the Black Squirrel or the Teahaus.
Michelle: So the majority of the conversation is about us transforming WSLC into a space
Lenna: Would we have to change bylaws to make it a space?
Michelle: It is a bylaw change and would require a 2/3 vote
Jasmine:For all the other spaces, we decide who the space managers are for the upcoming year. Also, what would the open hours provide for the community.
Chelsea: We’re having applications open tomorrow for space managers tomorrow. It may be short notice, but we’re more than happy to have senators sit in on the application process.The station is open from 5pm to 2am and anyone can come in to the lounge and hang out.
Vera: I think we should recognize WSLC as a space. It’s a space by definition
Eliot: How does funding come from senate?
Michelle: We pay for equipment.
Neil: How much funding is going to come from senate?
Chelsea: This year we didn’t ask for a lot but the some years are more expensive than others in terms of equipment.
Lily: How does making it a space make it different?
Chelsea: All the other space functions essentially the same in terms of having managers and a staff of people who don’t get paid. For us, it’s bringing it in line with every other space on campus so it’s senate sponsored.
Lily: So it’s taking the stipend to pay for the managers from senate? My worry is that every other space on campus has programming that’s open to everyone. The managers are in charge of having campus-wide events. Would you be adding a programming element to this, too?
Chelsea: We are going to do 2 community events per semester and we’re also sponsoring the orientation band
Myles: I’d like to make a motion to accept WSLC as a space
<13 yes 3 abstentions>
2:45 Proposed Bylaw Amendments (25 minutes total)
Anti-Oppression Training Vera: In our bylaws, it says we have to attend an anti oppression training after election. What is not in here is who is supposed to organize this so my proposed bylaw change is to mandate this as the Chair’s responsibility and to have one training per semester Eliot: Why do the club chair have a say in choosing a third party group? Vera: Because the request to do so came from a club chair Myles: How much does a training session cost? Michelle: For one and including food, it’s $1200 Myles: I understand the spirit in which we do this, but is it worth over $2000 in the budget Durga: The point of having 2 is checking up on ourselves through a process. I personally think there should be more. Senate changes throughout the year and new members definitely need anti oppression training. SLC requires that we do this. Angelina: I motion to approve Vera’s bylaw. Seconded. <15 yes 1 no 2 abstain> SSSF Aiden: There are 4 separate bylaws. Changing 4 to 5. The second one is mandating a training process for the SSSF Chair elect. The third one relates to our rollover. Current any money not spent by the SSSF committee goes into the general rollover fund and i think it would be more appropriate to have that money go back into the SSSF fund. It would also encourage responsible spending. The final one is regarding Mayfair, and I’m proposing that it be funded from the special events line. I’ve looked over the documents from the past decade and it has not made a profit in 10 years. It’s not a fundraiser anymore but rather a community outreach event. Michelle: Let’s go one by one with these bylaws. Bobby: I motion to approve the first one. Seconded. No objections. <18 yes> Myles: I motion to approve the second one. Seconded. No objections. <18 yes> Myles: I motion to approve the third proposed bylaw change with the grammatical correction. Seconded. Objection Neil: This money is not being used to generate more ways to fund raise and it’s just going into the pot and that could take away from potential profit Maddie: I call the question. Michelle: We’re going to vote on voting <17 yes 1 no>. We’re going to do a roll call vote <12 yes 1 no 5 abstain> Maddie: Abstentions should only be used in the case of their being a serious conflict. It is our responsibility to engage and make decisions Durga: Decisions like these deserve more time. This is too rushed and we need to keep this in mind. We’re making a lot of decisions really fast and I don’t know why. Michelle: We’re moving on to the next bylaw change Lily: Can I take an informal poll of people who feel uncomfortable with the decision just made? (about 7 people) Hayleigh: Then why did 5 people abstain from voting? Nate: My conflict was I was confused, like Durga said. Bobby: I abstained because of the immediate call to question. Pam: Can someone explain the referendum process? Michelle: We’ll d this after the meeting Vera: How much did Mayfair cost? Aiden: Between $6000 and $10000. I dont think it would be remotely problematic to limit the budget to 6 or 7 thousand. I want to clarify that the SSSF does change from year to year Neil: I feel like both of these bylaws are taking away from the objective to fund raise and just conceding and saying, I think we should donate a portion of the Student Activities fund to SSSF Jasmine: This year’s auction cost $40 and we raised thousands of dollars. And Mayfair hasn’t made a profit in 10 years. I’m saying the more money used for events doesn’t mean more profit is made Maddie: Mayfair is not a fundraiser. It’s an expensive community event. Michelle: We are so out of time. Maddie: I motion to extend the time by 10 minutes Michelle: The meeting would to 3:25. Seconded. Objection. Seth wants 2 minutes of your time for next week’s meeting. Seth: I wanted to speak with you all about collecting information to prepare the budget for the Teahaus. The 2 general issues i want to talk about are funding. This year, Teahaus was underfunded by $7,000 which caused this year’s managers to come to senate to request 75% of their wages. If anyone has questions, please email me. Michelle: And we’re talking about this next week. Recording of Student Senate meetings Roberts Rules3:10 Announcements (5 minutes)
3:15 Adjourn
Lily: motion to adjourn