BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
9/13/2014, 10:00 a.m.
University of Washington, Seattle
Seattle, Washington
Conference Call: 712-432-0111
Access Code: 561941#
Jansen VanderMeulen, WSA VP of Legislative Affairs and acting chair, called the meeting to
order at 10:06 a.m.
I.
Call to Order
II.
Roll call, Introductions, Welcome
Jansen VanderMeulen (WSU-P, WSA VP
Yosef Gamble (CWU)
of Legislative Affairs)
Cassie DuBore (CWU)
Joy Hoang (UW-S, WSA VP of Outreach)
Matt Pattie (CWU)
JulieAnne Behar (WSA OD)
Katherine Sims (UW-S)
James Anderson (UW-B)
Austin Wright-Pettibone (UW-S)
Mikaila Layva (EWU)
Christina Xiao (UW-S)
Jordan Martin (EWU)
Alex Bolton (GPSS)
DJ Jigre (EWU)
Rai Nauman Mumtaz (UW-S)
Bryan Elliot (CWU Alum)
Noelle Symanski (UW-S)
Sarah Kohout (WWU)
Lily Jaquith (WWU, WSA VP of
Jacob Montano (WSU-P)
Communication)
Carly Lowder (WSU-V)
Jocelyn Patterson (UW-T)
Ashlyn Salzman (WSU-V)
Morgan Burke (WWU, WSA VP of
David Choi (WSU-V)
Finance)
Garrett Havens (WSA ED)
Heather Heffelmire (WWU)
Chelsea Ghant (WWU)
Mayra Guizar (WWU)
Belina Seare (WWU)
Ben Laskey (UW-T)
Patrick Eckroth (WWU)
Melantha Jenkins (BC)
Zach Dugovich (WWU)
Approval of Agenda
EWU moves to approve the agenda, CWU seconds.
No objections.
Agenda approved.
Approval of Minutes
A. BoD August 17, 2014
WWU moves to approve the minutes, UW-B seconds.
No objections.
Minutes Approved.
Officer Reports
A. VP of Communication
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
Lily said she has set new goals for the WSA media list with JulieAnne. The cleaned
up version should be done by the October meeting. She edited and sent out the
August board meeting minutes along with the June minutes, as the board asked her
to do. Lily continued work with the executive board and staff on the strategic plan.
She also updated the website with photos of the new staff and executive board.
B. VP of Legislative Affairs.
Jansen said he has worked with Garrett and JulieAnne to make edits to the
legislative agenda. That will be presented today. The he will talk later about making
new proposals for the General Assembly in November. He worked on the strategic
plan and approved vacation for Garrett in his role as acting chair.
C. VP of Outreach
Joy said she is working on a one pager for developing chapters on campuses. She is
preparing to work on voter registration on different campuses. She attended Bellevue
College’s voter registration kick off. She will be hosting check in calls for voter
registration.
D. VP of Finance
Morgan said she has been creating a budget tracker to keep track of transactions.
They will keep track of what has been spent and what is remaining. She has
completed that and will be adding some things. She is also making more edits to the
strategic plan. There will be an additional document with attachments A and B. She
did some breakdown edits of the budgets. Morgan has been working on the reserves
structure and how long it would take to get WSA to what the board determines is a
healthy level.
Staff Reports
A. Executive Director
Garrett said he has attended WSAC meetings. There has been discussion on trying to
come up with a policy recommendation around duel credits. He’s being sitting on
their duel credit board group. He put on a training at South Seattle Community
College. WSA received a check from them for that. It is great fundraising and
raising awareness about the WSA. He met with the Washington Bus to talk about
vote work. There’s an election group that is meeting right now. They’re starting
preliminary work on voter access. Garrett had a vacation. He worked with the youth
vote collation. JulieAnne is also involved. He has been working with AFT on
planning the higher education stakeholders’ summit on October 25 in Tacoma. There
is no specific location currently and it could get moved to Olympia. He will keep the
board updated.
Garrett said on the taxes front that they have heard back about inquiry on 9-90
forms. Previously the WSA owed around $3,000. That was cut in half thanks to the
inquiry. However there is still some question, he will keep everyone updated.
On Monday he’ll be meeting with the WSA accountant. The WSA has not submitted
some yearly tax forms for some time. Back in 2002 the WSA wasn’t making enough
money to need to, but that has changed. The IRS has requested forms from 2008.
They will submit forms from 2011 to get the WSA in good standing and in hope that
the IRS won’t delve deeper into the past. They’ve done preliminary work back to
VII.
2008. It would take a lot of work to make that happen. Since the WSA is a smaller
organization they have hope that the IRS will be lenient.
B. Organizing Director
JulieAnne said she has done campus visits, primarily WSU because they’ve already
started school. She’s also been working on field plans and outreach for vote. She’s
done a lot of work with the youth vote coalition and the Washington Bus. She been
communicating with the new USSA west coast field organizer. The WSA is still
members throughout the next month or so. She attended a WSAC meeting and
attended the AFT meetings to plan the stakeholders’ summit. She had a vote data
management call. They also had the first meeting of the sexual assault awareness
taskforce. She’s been working with Lily and Joy to make sure they’re both ready for
the beginning of the school year.
Discussion Items
A. Sexual Assault Awareness Taskforce Update
JulieAnne said they met on September 9. The purpose was to get the group
convened and assess the direction they want to go in. The board gave direction but it
was left very broad. She wants to quickly share want the meeting consisted of. There
was a good sampling from all the campuses. Students on the call felt this is a really
important issue for students and there is momentum to build on the issue. They also
talked about where this has been in the media. They talked about the schools in
violation of title nine, as well as the white house response. Also the “Know Your
Nine” campaign. It was started by survivors and a professor to let people know the
rights and issues surrounding title nine. They talked about the work USSA and the
Pac 12 are doing around this. The Pac 12 is modeling their work after UCLA’s work
on the issue. They spent a lot of the time looking at this issue moving forward. They
are going to do a lot of research about what WSA campuses currently offer and what
everyone can learn from each other. As well as what campuses are doing well and
what campuses are lacking. They will have a call before the next meeting. They’ll
develop a mission statement and goals for the group. LaKecia Farmer from WSU-P
will be the chair for the taskforce.
B. Policy Options for Affordability – Garrett Havens
Garrett said he wants to talk about affordability and have a discussion about stating a
definition for what affordability is. He said the board needs to identify what
constitutes affordability. At the last WSAC meeting there was a presentation from
HCM strategies. They work with federal and state governments regarding this issue.
He hopes the board can have a discussion about which options they like the looks of.
Garrett gave a presentation on the affordability options.
Jansen asked if there is data on the effectiveness of these options.
Garrett said he can look into it.
UW-S asked what the timeline for picking an option is.
Garrett said the General Assembly directed the board to come up with how they
want to define affordability. So to meet that the board needs to come up with a
decision by the time the legislative session starts.
C.
UW-S said they’ve framed everything within the hours students can work. 40 for
summer, 20 for school year at minimum wage. Anything above that is unaffordable.
That is what they’ve been working on.
GPSS said it becomes a funding issue too. Where you don’t have faculty to teach
bottleneck classes, so the bottleneck becomes larger.
WWU said regional universities are funded least by the state. Why is that?
Garrett said he’s not sure.
Jansen said to keep regional and research institutions similar is his guess.
Garrett said his opinion is that regional institutions get ignored by the legislature.
CTCs serve a lot of people and receive the largest share of appropriations and then
there’s a drive to keep research institutions alive.
Garrett asked if there is an approach that appeals to people.
UW-T said option three
EWU said it’s about the students that the institutions exist for. The focus should be
on students.
2014 Vote Update – JulieAnne Behar
JulieAnne said the purpose of this is to give an overview of the site WSA is using
and give each campus to talk about their goals and strategies. Everyone can get a
sense of where campus goals are at.
WWU said their goal is about 3,000 voter registrations. A slight increase from last
year. They’ve hired nine vote staff and 20 volunteers for dorm movie-in. They’re
excited for Viking Union late night, where their AS is housed. They’ll be working
the lines.
BC said their goal is 740. They’re having each ASG and OSLA member get a
volunteer. They’re trying to pull together a rock the vote.
CWU said their goal is 457. They’ll be at a first year student camp for volunteer
recruitment. It went well last year. They will have a vote goat.
UW-S said their goal is 675. They’ve been at a lot of events to recruit. They have a
full calendar of events to focus on including Greek outreach and class raps. They’ve
created a volunteer form that is being shared on social media. A lot of outreach
while people are moving in as well.
UW-T said they have a unique partnership with the registrar’s office. They’ll have a
booth set up when students are getting ID cards to register people to vote. They’re
getting transfer and new students right away.
UW-B said at campus move in they’ll have a voter registration table. They’ll provide
a map to the vote box and offer change of address forms.
EWU said their goal is 400. They’re attending a majority of freshman activities.
They also have shirts coming in to help bring in volunteers.
WSU-P said their goal is 750. They’re coordinating through their cougar lobby team.
WSU-V said they’re 20 percent of the way to their goal. They’re doing class raps
this week. They’ll do floats for votes on National Voter Registration Day. They’ll be
partnering to be at a bowling event near the deadline.
D.
E.
JA said clearly the WSA campuses have a lot of different ideas. There are a lot of
ways to get people engaged. Constitution day is a good day to promote voter
registration, as well as National Voter Registration Day is also a good way.
The WSA Budget – Morgan Burke
Morgan showed the WSA budgets and how they’re broken down. She said this
format comes from ASWWU. She would like feedback on the sheets and things that
should be included in the next budget. USSA membership was taken out but left as a
line items to create a trend analysis. The budget tracker has a column with the
amount spent and how much is left. It also shows exactly what the money was spent
on. It should be easy for those who are not familiar with excel. The last piece has
dues per FTE. She laid it out with $1.00 as well. They also talked about adding the
LA barbecue.
Garrett said at the next meeting they want to have a proposal. They would like to
take a few minutes to see what changes or expenditures the board would like to see
on the proposal. The LA barbecue being one of those ideas.
Jansen said a barbecue could be an extremely effective.
Garrett asked if there were any suggestions. They will come up with some examples
as well as a few other things.
WWU said they think that keeping the idea of USSA membership or other federal
membership in mind is a good idea.
Morgan said she can send stuff out and take feedback at a later meeting.
JulieAnne said she’s heard from people who haven’t received board wide emails,
please check in with staff about correct information.
EWU moves for lunch until 12:30, WWU seconds.
No objections.
Motion passes.
WSA legislative Agenda and Proposal Review – Jansen VanderMeulen
Jansen said the board will briefly go over the legislative agenda. They’ll talk about
proposals that may be presented at November’s General Assembly. They recognize
that a different BoD decided this legislative agenda, so they are leaving the option
for proposals open.
Jansen presented the legislative agenda as currently drafted by JulieAnne and
himself.
Garrett said putting the agenda together in May is new. They recognize that things
can change between then and the legislative session. He thinks allowing for
adjustments is reasonable. It’s also important to respect the time and effort put in to
establishing that agenda. With that being said, Jansen and he have discussed
allowing new items and editing others. However, if this happens it should be
something the board approves of beforehand. An example is the National Guard
Association requested WSA support a financial aid program for National Guard
students. The board decided to endorse and requested a proposal to add that item to
the agenda. Because the board requested that, there will be a proposal for the item. If
the GA will consider a new or adjusted item, it should be from a request directly
from the board.
Jansen said that’s to avoid re-setting the agenda that was set in May. No one wants
to set an agenda twice a year.
Garrett said as of this moment there are two items.
Jansen said the board can make changes. The agenda now is a draft, the executive
board and staff’s interpretation. That needs approval from the board, therefore they
are able to change wording before it is approved. They’re also looking to add
removing free speech zones from campuses under whistleblower protection, because
they are unconstitutional. If they have any additional proposals, the board needs to
consider it by the October board meeting.
Garrett said the one item that the board probably doesn’t need to do that for is the
graduate one. GPSS has freedom to define that as written by the legislative agenda
item.
F. How to Talk to Conservative Legislative – Bryan Elliot
Bryan Elliot gave the board a presentation on talking to conservative legislators.
G. Strategic Plan Feedback
WWU said Western Votes needs to be changed to an independent organization.
Another WWU student said they don’t like the low hanging fruit metaphor.
WSU-P said they don’t like “unless something weird happens with the McClearly
decision.”
JulieAnne said for context, USSA is included because WSA was members. There
are other organizations that the WSA is not a member of but they work with them as
well.
Jansen said it is assumed that WSA will at least work with USSA on an informal
level because one of the WSA campuses is a member.
UW-B asked if the National Campus Leadership Council should be included as
someone WSA works with. They were on that white house call.
Jansen said they could include that. That wasn’t technically a WSA call though
Garrett said WSA doesn’t have a history of working with them at all.
JulieAnne asked if it would that make sense to include the national graduate
organization in the list.
GPSS said maybe it makes sense to have a section of places where WSA is members
and places where WSA members are members.
EWU said thank you to the staff and executive board for their work on this.
WSU-V moves for a five minute recess, WSU-P seconds.
VIII. Action Items
A. Resolution on 15% Budget Cut Request
Jansen said he’s thinking the resolution is a little late.
UW-S asked if WSA can submit a change to support the Council of Presidents’
action.
Garrett said they could thank the boards for not complying. They could draft a letter
in support of the Council of Presidents’ letter.
UW-S said they would like to express students standing behind the council.
Jansen said he would be fine with scrapping the resolution. If the board wishes, he
will draft a letter of support.
IX.
X.
UWS moves that Jansen write a letter to the office of the governor stating students
disapproval and support of the council of presidents actions in opposing 15% budget
cuts request, CWU seconds.
No objections.
Motion approved.
B. WSA Presidential Election
Jansen said that Nauman and Jordan are already nominated. They get seven minutes
to speak. Candidates will leave the room while each is speaking. Then voting will be
done by secret ballot and both candidates will leave the room.
Rai Nauman Mumtaz is elected WSA President
New Business
A. WSU Leadership Conference
JulieAnne said campuses are invited to a leadership conference that takes place the same
time as the WSA board meeting. That way if campuses want to take more people on their
way, they can attend the conference. The cost is relatively low. Please pass this on. It is
roughly the same hours as the board meeting.
B. Bellevue College Panel
BC said they will be on panel on Thursday for the Seattle Urban League Professionals
Civic Engagement and Advocacy Committee. Members are welcome to come.
Adjournment
GPSS moves to adjourn, WSU-V seconds.
No objections.
Motion approved.
Meeting adjourned at 2:42 p.m.