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Call to Order by 82
Roll Call nd Speaker, Ben Shakespear
PJ Piotrowski 22-0-0; David Schieler 18-3-1; Elizabeth Anderson 14-7-1; Arnold Bagamba 29-3-0;
Fred de Ruiter 22-0-0; Noel Leul 16-5-1; Nolan Brinkman 21-1-0; Kyler Schoner 21-0-0; Tyler
Conlon 20-0-1 ; Connor Martin 17-4-0; Ashley James 19-1-1; Miesso Wako 16-4-1; Marshall
Tromborg 18-3-0; Patrick Riesterer 12-10-0; Becky Wegscheid 22-0-0; Elizabeth Jacobson 22-0-0;
Nick Kragness 17-5-0; Michael Hanson 22-0-0; Faical Rayani 15-2-0; Karli Heroff 14-2-0; Wayland
Hunter 7-1-0; Abdul-Hafeez Nakumbe 18-1-1; Siavash Sadeghi 4-2-0; Josh Atencio
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Presentations a.
Senator Farah – ISA/CCS b.
Elizabeth Jacobson – Elections Commission i.
Overview of Election Rules
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Open Forum o Bryan Schneider – ITS
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List of IT recommendations (fees for FY16) will be distributed to MSSA and then brought back to Tech Roundtable Committee. Final recommendation then goes back to Ed Clark. Lastly, request will be given to SAC by April 8 th .
 Queen Booker – Diversity Requirement Feedback
Schieler: Although it makes sense in concept, I didn’t feel like it gets to the complexities of how to experience diversity. It seemed to be more policies for graduation requirements. Seems like just more hoops to jump through.
Queen: This came about when walking through the CSU with Dr. Davenport and what he found was people not bridging gaps. He did something similar to this when in Michigan and it was successful so wants to try it. It seems artificial, however, until it is implemented we won’t know. He wants to see you all talk across backgrounds and borders.
Conlon: Will there be a projection of event dates a year ahead or so?
Queen: Yes, ideally we’ll have a cultural –wide event calendar ready when you register for classes.
Hartman: Think that another approach would be to instill some more ice-breaker events instead. Think requiring students to go to speaker events doesn’t necessarily enhance a student’s experience.
Queen: We already do some ice-breaker events (i.e. Safe Sex event) and hoping to do more of that as well. He wants you to look at this over your career and want to know how to make it happen.
Schieler: Why then haven’t we then looked at this as a FYE requirement. Maybe we look at a second year experience program (i.e. COB). Feel like there is another way to do this.
Queen: You’re talking about some of the same challenges as we are looking at.
Sadeghi: What other schools has this worked at?
Queen: Well, as I mentioned, Dr. Davenport has seen this be successful at Michigan. I haven’t seen this, however, the school I attended (Harvard) had a community requirement and as a result of that, it did change our perspective and forced me to deal with a group of people, predominantly white people that I otherwise wouldn’t have. I believe it made me a better person.
 Kellian Clink – o Campus-wide event calendar would be very beneficial but has rec’d some push back.
Student support needed to see this actually happen.
Schieler: This group has already done that in the past via the approval of purchase for the Mavsync software. However, the colleges have done nothing with this.
Bulcock: It is not entirely available for the whole campus

Constantine: This is currently being worked on and will soon be rolled out. Think we’ll be in a better place once we have it.
A.
Approval of Consent Agenda
: Becky Wegscheid, Parking Advisory Committee ( Schieler dissented so moved to New Business)
B.
C.
Recognized Student Organizations:
Nick Kragness, Arnold Bagamba
D.
Student Allocations Committ ee:
1.
Recommend allocating up to $200 for non-food related student travel expenses to assist 4 students of the MSU Chapter of the American Fisheries Society to attend the Minnesota annual chapter meeting in Brainerd, MN March 2-4, 2015.
Approval of Minutes: 2.25.15
Consent Agenda Approved.
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Officer Reports
President Haffield o Cupcake Wars & a MSSA team. o HLC Accreditation Mtg. o IFO/MnSCU post on FB. Progress made as now they’re working together. o Visited Edina campus last week. Biggest item was them is wanting their fees decreased as they’re not receiving all services. Also, not really interested in the college experience and just there for the learning. o Senator of the Week – Fred de Ruiter o Wish all a fun and safe break.
Vice President Wolf o Attended Tech. Roundtable – some IT services/licenses will be cut due to budget shortfall. Also, passing around IT goals. o Have safe spring break.
Speaker Shakespear – Absent
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Senator Reports o Senator Hartman
 COB initiatives/events;
 March 17 th , Glenn Stolt speaking event;
 Wall Street Journal Trivia – Will recognize RSOs that attend the event.
Prizes given.
 Junior Achievement Camp this summer. If questions, please talk to me.
 Concerns: Uniformity with curriculum (textbooks vs online) for o Senator Hanson consistent learning outcomes. (i.e. instant reviews on D2L option)
 Sign up for 2015 President Society Reception, April 14 th , 5-7 pm.
University Advancement is asking the senate for student representation.
This is an alumni and donor event.
 Graduate Studies Coalition RSO has been very helpful. It has been beneficial to be part of discussions pertinent to graduate students. One item brought up is lack of graduate orientation. Also, stipend for graduate assistants. These haven’t kept up with inflation rate and haven’t changed since 2006. Not good timing with the current budget

situation, however, is possibly something that can be worked on in the next biennium.
 Environmental Committee – Climate Action Plan Workshop. Looked at our vision for a sustainable campus. Some areas identified: bussing, trails, ZipCar Rental program. Many are things that MSSA has already advocated for.
 MnSCU Graduate Ed. Sub-Committee - Charged with taking the best practices of each graduate program within MnSCU.
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New Business
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Parking Advisory Committee – Becky Wegscheid appointment.
Wegscheid: I was on this committee as RHA President in 2013. I’ve been on it for about a year and ½ but missed the last meeting because I was too busy. As no one was appointed as my replacement, I asked
Mariah to re-appoint me.
Schieler: How many PAC meetings did you attend this academic year?
Wegscheid: None, as there has only been one.
Schieler: As I attended the PAC this year as I was in the office and Cowan asked for a student rep. to attend. Therefore, I would suggest as a student government representative, it is our job to represent students. After you quit and had not attended any meetings this year, I see no benefit in you being appointed with no context of what is going on. I would suggest I be appointed instead.
Conlon: Don’t think it is that big of a deal.
Riesterer: I second that.
Vote Passes – Becky Wegscheid appointed to PAC.
82 MM01 03.04.15 - Cultural Contribution Scholarship Farah/Sadeghi
Whereas: The new proposed changes to the Cultural Contribution Scholarship;
Whereas: The International Student Association supports the new proposal and the changes are in the best interest of students;
Be it resolved: The MSSA supports the proposal of Idea “D”.
Motion passes.
Aye:13; Nay: 5; Abstentions: 1
Farah: The ISA does support this so this is just to give Dr. Jones MSSA’s support.
Hanson: Since ISA is all made up of all international students, I feel we should support our colleagues over there.
Schieler: You are voting for a 10% decrease of waiver and a 10% increase cost to a student. It is not right with my moral compass to do this.
Riesterer: It is fine with my moral compass if international students are cool with it. They are keeping 90% of their waiver. They are a lot more informed than we are so they should have the say and not us.
Farah: I am okay with this as it is better than paying almost $7,000 in tuition.
Hanson: This was set up to retain our great international enrollment and not be off-setting. It still makes us more competitive than our MnSCU partners.
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Old Business o Diversity Event Requirement Proposal– Open Discussion:
Hanson: Given the nature of the wording of the original motion, I think that we should talk to our colleagues in the Faculty Association as they hold the realm of academic requirements to graduate and if this is a proposed activity to our graduation requirement we need to work in tandem with them and hear what they think before we make a motion.

Schieler: I rec’d a call on Monday from the Registrar’s office saying my request to graduate was denied.
I was set to graduate in 3 months today. More requirements for graduation?? This just makes it that much harder for anyone to graduate. I am two steps away from leaving without a degree as I have no more money. Let’s say I got a call that I hadn’t attended all 8 diversity events and I wouldn’t graduate.
Honestly, think there are better ways to teach diversity outside of the classroom. Call it instead it was a requirement to attend athletic events…ok, so I am now turned off about attending athletic events because it is now a requirement. I don’t think that many of us in this room have applied for graduation and don’t realize what is required of you as your advisors aren’t even aware of it. I wouldn’t touch this with a tenfoot pole as there are already so many minute details to get caught up in.
Jacobson: Feel tracking would be a huge problem, so don’t think it is a good idea. I’ve heard all about
David’s situation and worry about it. I know myself that I’d wait until the last minute to do it. I feel the
FYE idea is a good one.
James: Feel in theory it is a great idea and they are a lot of fun but making students go who don’t want to go won’t make them feel engaged or interested in learning things. The students who want to go are already going.
Johnson: Back to Senator Schieler’s point, I’d suggest we have a motion that we be grandfathered in before this is implemented.
Schieler: That is not my point at all.
Sadeghi: Could we possibly make it a requirement before going into upper level classes?
Leul: Agree with Senator Schieler but think we should think about possibly replacing them with some of the gen. eds.
Farah: I think it is doable in 4 years as someone already tried this. I feel a lot of students are too sheltered and should have this experience. In general, the population is growing more diverse and eight events are not too difficult.
De Ruiter: One of the reasons we have gold in our graduation cords is for being involved in diversity events.
Hartman: This isn’t about going to different ethnic events but more about us all coming together in the real sense and getting to know and appreciate other cultures and differences. I don’t agree with this as you just can’t make diversity happen. Diversity can be inspired, not required.
Hunter: I agree. I think it is more issue more about really coming together and not about attending events.
Brinkman: I agree. You can’t enforce this. Instead, think about it in a different way and have teacher buy-in and maybe make it part of their curriculum.
Martin: Just because you don’t want to do it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
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Announcements
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Roll Call
Senators present:
Elizabeth Jacobson, Tyler Conlon, Rebecca Wegscheid, PJ Piotrowski, Jessica Farah, Ashley James,
Alexander Johnson, Michael Hanson; Kyler Schoner, Karli Heroff; David Schieler; Nolan Brinkman;
Connor Martin, Wayland Hunter; Abdul-Hafeez Nakumbe; Fred de Ruiter; Katherine Gibson; Will
Malloy, Jessica Farah, Scott Hartman; Noel Leul; Faical Rayani; Josh Atencio; Nick Kragness; Siavash
Sadeghi; Miesso Wako, Arnold Bagamba; Marshall Tromborg;
Senators Absent:
Executive Leadership Present:
Mariah Haffield, President; Joe Wolf, Vice President;
Executive Leadership Absent:
Ben Shakespear, Speaker
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Adjournment
Meeting adjourned @ 5:45 pm.