Student Government Association Senate 3/1/2016 7­9 Campus Center Carroll Room Minutes: 1. Minutes Approved a. Approved 7:11 pm. 2. Voting on Charters a. Smith Baking Society i.
Rules Committee recommend that we do not Charter this org ii.
Senator Sarena: Issues on space, funding, sustainability, mission of feeding the campus iii.
Senator Ellen: Issue of trying to service multiple food allergies iv.
Vice Chair of ORC Rebecca: Do not see ORC funding them v.
Vote: 0­12­4­­​
Charter Not Passed b. Consulting Club i.
no comments made ii.
Vote: 9­0­6­­​
Charter Passed 3. Presentation of Treasurer Name Change a. Gillian Tisdale, Treasurer of SGA b. sometimes called Chair of Finance Committee, ORC Chair or Treasurer, need a more streamlined system c. change would be up in spring elections starting in 2016­2017 Academic Year d. proposed name: VP of Finance, used in other comparable student governments e. put on ballot for spring election to campus wide vote, ​
Motion passes in Senate 4. Laptop and Senator Participation Discussion a. Only two people emailed Rose but more people brought up issue last week b. Accessibility: people might not want to be pointed out that they have an accessibility issue, obvious based on who has laptops, people aren’t comfortable declaring it c. main issue is with guest speakers, close laptops for speakers and discussions d. Senator Miranda: This is an accessibility issue: and outing people on their disability should not be something that we “enforce” e. Senator Zoe:We are all adults, and should be held accountable to monitor ourselves in terms of laptop usages f. Senator Sarena: Possibly banning laptops when we have speakers g. EnA Chair Laura: Let’s respect ourselves, this space, our fellow Senate members, and our student body that we represent. In terms of just forming a banning, the accessibility issue is present, and we will always be excluding someone no matter what. So let’s just all be adults, and monitor ourselves h. Senator Emily: There’s another accessibility issue in terms of how Senate is run. Having things like 3 opinions on one side, and 3 on another, and making sure that we make Senate a place for all voices to be heard. i.
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SGA VP Rose: I found a website (free) that we could use that could increase senator participation and “text in” anonymously our opinions. Hearing every voice will only improve the conversations that we are having Senator Ellen: Let’s bring back the microphone! i.
SJE Chair Aba Micah: I agree. This makes it so that we have one voice being heard at a time. Last week was my first time, and the amount of talking over each over helped to make Senate more hostile and aggressive. Senator Emily: I motion to have the text in opinions start next week i.
The motion passes. EnA Chair Laura: We can have a conversation, and then have like a window for people to text in their opinions, so that it is essentially contained. And so that there is no awkward pause where we are hearing no voices and no opinions. And then we can look at those, address those points, and it could end the conversation pretty well. Senator Sarena: I think the issue of texting is problematic. Because we will be anonymously texting and not in person engaging and interacting with others, which is contradictory to us being an elected representative of student body in student government EnA Laura: This is an accessibility issue and encourages more responses and more participation. The anonymous issue, is a non­issue because a good idea is a good idea, and we should respect that and trust each other. Junior Class Vp Ninea: I don’t always feel comfortable voicing my opinion, or bringing up a “dumb idea” so this is a great idea. Senator Zoe: I vote that we do a trial run with the text in i.
The motion passes. ii.
SGA VP Rose: This is a good idea, and it’s a building block that we can improve upon for the future. Board of Trustees Planning with SGA President Meghna i.
Just want to debrief on the email. We planned a meeting and elected senators etc. However, BOT will not be coming and visiting us on Thursday. But the dinner will end at 9pm this year, and this will conflict with our idea of having the round table talk in Neilson, so unfortunately, this will not be happening this year. So I hope to have a legitimate round table discussion during the BOT meeting. Thank you to all the Senators for all their effort. So let’s put in all our effort for this Friday meeting, and just roll over things from thursday into Friday. We’ll be having a round table discussion for the elected SGA members (the ones we voted on last meeting) and the BOT. The ones who were elected to go are: ​
Julia (Chair of Curriculum Committee), OUSR member Alyssa, Senator Ellen, SJE Chair Aba Micah, Senator Miranda, and Senator Emma. ii.
Last week, we discussed Tabling for OUSR, Fair Labor practices etc 1. I talked to Najwa, and we talked about how ineffective we are in just bringing up to Najwa, with no context and just hashing things out with Mike Howard and Katherine Rowe. So I motion to take this issue off the agenda for the BOT meeting iii.
a. Senator Emily: I think we should still casually mention it, even though we are not formally presenting it. b. SGA President Meghna: I think we can talk about it. It will help facilitate conversation, bring viewpoints from all points of campus. Another thing I want to bring up Universal Accessibility, endowment relocation, and general funding and management of athletics. 1. Curriculum Committee Chair Julia: What in terms of Athletics? 2. SGA President Meghna: The GetFitSmith program, funding intramural sports, funding Club Sports etc. 3. SGA VP Rose: A point on GetFitSmith: Students are paying for ½ of it, and a lot of the community come in, for ex. Pilates is filled with only community members but students are the ones paying for it. 4. Junior Class VP Ninnea: I know that this is a huge problem. For ex. spin classes have 13 bikes and they are all filled with faculty. And as hassling as this is, we should be respectful because people like Dean Lisker come to boot­camp workout. So not shutting out faculty members is something we should think of and hold as valuable. Connecting with faculty outside is quite nice, BUT this is still a solid issue, one of importance. 5. SGA President Meghna: I agree, recreational and athletic events definitely help us students with our well­being and standard of living etc. 6. EnA Chair Laura: I’m the one that pushed for GetFitSmith to get off of ORC funding. So ½ of it comes from Athletic departments (through dues from the community and others) and ½ is from the students in their Student Activity Fees. So you guys voted for the increase of the fees to specifically pay for GetFitSmith, in an all­campus election. The other side, is ESS and Athletic Department DO NOT communicate with each other. So I think that if these two would speak with each other, we could find more funding. The reason that GetFitSmith is in Student Activities Fund is because at first this was all student run, but in terms of classes and paying people, no student was directly involved in the program. So that put the ORC in an awkward position to fund a non­student run organization. That to us, was very strange and not the purpose of these funds, so we decided that if students wanted to support this organization, they would pay for it themselves which is $24,000 to run, and students pay $12,000. The issue is, there still isn’t direct student involvement in the running of this and day­to­day workings of it. 7. Senator Ellen: I was thinking that we could bring this to our communities and see what they think of this. 8. SGA President Meghna: If you guys can get this to your communities by this Friday, this would be a good idea, so we can have fully formed opinions and ideas by the time the BOT come to campus. iv.
9. Senator Alina: Having an accessible Gym closer to the Quad because of accessibility issues 10. SGA President Meghna: I think that this could be something that you could bring up to BOT if needed 11. Senator Emily: Something relevant to GetFitSmith is the club sports. How club sports have trouble accessing athletic services 12. Tamra Bates: I think it would be good for someone for Athletic Services come into this conversation and talk about this, maybe Kristen 13. EnA Chair: Funding for club sports come from Student Activities Fee and as we charter more club sports, the burden falls on us more and more SGA President Meghna: So how do people feel taking off the fair labor practices off the agenda. I have a proposal­­what Najwa is doing is amazing, and she suggested having a working group and have them form a resolution­­and then we can talk about taking steps forward from that point 1. SJE Chair Aba Micah: I feel uncomfortable taking this off the agenda. There is no for sure structure of the agenda in regards to athletics, so I don’t see why we should take this off when we don’t even have a resolution for athletics. Also, Smith is hiring contractors now, so we should do this now. Advocating for this issue in the Fall is too late. I don’t think we need to go to the Board with a resolution. There job is to be aware of this and have this on their mind. 2. Senator Emily: On that topic as well­­this is supposed to be a conversation with the trustees already. So why not just let them know that a resolution is in the works, and the students are dedicated to this. So getting BOT feedback would help us with making a resolutions. 3. SGA President Meghna: This type of topic is relevant to student needs, but is directly under the power of Mike Howard. So even if BOT hears about this, Mike Howard would still be the first person to go too in terms of contracting and fair labor practices. As far as your concern about Athletics being brought to the main table­­it is a lot more concrete, and we have a lot more diverse feedback, and this is something directly under the control of the BOT 4. SJE Chair Aba Micah: I understand that this is under Mike Howard. But if the BOT tells Mike Howard to do something, he has to 5. SGA President Meghna: Actually, the BOT don’t have legislative power. When administrative issues come up, it’s Mike Howard, Donna Lisker, Katherine Rowe etc. the BOT can’t actually force anyone to do things, other than kathy 6. Tamra Bates: The BOT, if they REALLY want something done, they can have us explain things to them etc. which makes the administration respond. 7. SGA President Meghna: I still think it’s a good idea to bring up the Fair Labor Practices, but I don’t know how good of an idea it is to dedicate a whole table for it 8. SGA VP Rose: If the BOT ask us more probing questions, I don’t think we are as well versed on the issues as possible, if we are not experts. I think mentioning it is good but… 9. Continued from Open Forum a. SGA President Meghna: To Clarify: the 4 Topics are 1) Undocumented students and future of their funding, 2)Fundraising 3) Universal Access 4) Athletics and Recreation v.
Just a reminder for those who were elected to go to the BOT meeting, it is ​
THIS THURSDAY IN THE CONFERENCE CENTER AT 7pm 5. HPA and SGA Relationship a. Head of HPA Anna Sofia: Basically, we had a discussion on trying to rebuild the relationship between our two organizations, for NEXT YEAR for the incoming HPs and Senators. The HPA has already made our culture that we are entirely separate from SGA. b. EnA Chair Laura: Just to hit on more things, as part of transitioning the new team, we are going to bring HPA into the progress. So we will be working together, not going to each other only when we need them. So that every area has a team of people in SGA, HPA, and Reslife working together to help the students. c. SGA VP Rose: There was this notion that HPA believes that they are not a part of SGA d. Head of HPA Anna­Sofia: This notion still stands. HPA understands that administratively we are under SGA, but it is not an even relationship. And frankly, there is no relationship. e. SGA VP Rose: Seeing as this is all for next year. How do you suppose we rectify this issue for this year f. Head of HPA Anna­Sofia: Ellen can speak on this g. Senator Ellen: Katie will continue to send area emails, and there will be a tab and weekly postings on E­Digest. h. Senator Emma: We need an improved relationship. And a clear way to reach the people in our area. It’s been hard trying to reach out to people. I think things like going to scheduled teas would help as well. i. Senator Zoe: I was a senator during restructure last year. One idea was having Senators send an email to their respective areas­­so having a full mailing list of their areas. And also going to teas etc. j. Head of HPA Anna­Sofia: To get a full mailing list, you need to talk to Hannah Durant. Also, a lot of people have idea and complaints about their houses (for ex, change a stop sign) and when I tell people to go to Senate, people are intimidated and nervous. So I was thinking that we could propose a Google Form, and also make Senate easier to approach etc. k. SGA President Meghna: I propose that we use the Social Network for this, instead of Google Forms. l. Senator Zoe: I suggest that we use Google Forms now, and Social Network last year m. Senator Emily: There’s a form on the Social Network. If I fill out a form and I want it to get to my senator, how do we know that it reaches them? n. Tamra Bates: If you did it on the Senate Page and put it in the form there­­every senator has access to it and can view it. We can make this possible immediately. o. Head of HPA Anna­Sofia: HPs send out a weekly newsletter to our houses. So if you send us a link and show how to do this, I can tell the Hps to do this p. Head of HPA Anna­Sofia and Senator Emily: I think that anything and everything should just go through to us and we can filter through them. I also think we should have some sort of service that after people send in something, they receive ve an email saying that we saw this, talked about this and etc. and this could be done during Area Meetings. q. EnA Chair Laura : I motion for this to be active by next Senate Meeting. i.
Motion Passes r. Tamra Bates: I can make this open tomorrow, and Ellen will help Tamra on what questions will be asked on this form. 6. Open Forum a. BOT Trustees Conversation continued...look at Board of Trustees Planning topic b. EnA Chair Laura: I would like time next week to talk about Senate Elections. Something will be sent to all of you, beforehand­­just to prep you for the conversation c. Senator Sarena: Something brought from my house­­Spring Break is coming up. On accessibility, Smith has Students pay to stay here and (some have to) move to other houses. This is a question of what is the background of this possibility. i.
Curriculum Committee Chair Julia: There is Financial Aid available, that the amount that you have to pay becomes proportional to your aid at Smith. ii.
Senator Sarena: This is more of an issue on the principal of the issue d. Senator Zoe: I have a real interest in starting a restructure committee. Things about how the restructure has been happening, what has worked and what hasn’t, how we can improve this with transitioning etc. i.
Senator Emily: We had an extensive talk on how this is a general Senate issues, not just one committee issue. ii.
EnA Chair Laura: I agree with this. But the issues of this is nitty gritty, and having 40 people work through it every month is hard to do. The purpose of this committee would be to lay down a road map and then bring it to Senate. We would not be making any decisions on behalf of Senate. iii.
Senator Emily: I move to table this to next week. We need to think about it, have a more extensive conversation, and then possibly form a committee if needed. 7. Area Meetings a. Please go over what we talked about with communication issues with the houses. 8. Meeting Adjourned at 8:59pm