Call to Order: 8:51
Attendance: Blewitt, Evers, Gall, Howard, Kohl, McWeeney, Morabito, Nelson, Straube, Taylor, Wilding (Committee); Senators Bagley, Barnes, Blanchflower, and Houtz (Non-committee)
Absent: Sardinha (Excused)
Discourse:
Wilding: D&D is a thing that this committee has historically used for bonding. Let’s do it again; I will GM. Hit me up if you want to join, but the maximum is ten people.
Blewitt: What days and times would this be?
Wilding: Sessions will be at most two hours. Schedule depends on players, but it will probably be on weekends.
Discussion continues.
Wilding: I will send out a Doodle for scheduling. We will work on location later.
Discussion on location continues anyways.
Wilding: DAA is next week, and I’ve been getting to know the Alumni Association people.
Morabito: I will be passing around a Liaison sign-up sheet next week, let me know if you all are interested in any of the positions.
Kohl: One of my professors, Keith LaBelle, is extremely active regarding Sexual Assault awareness and is offering to train us. Can we do that? I can contact him.
Consent spreads around the table.
McWeeney: Those tie-breaker elections were sort of terrible. We very much need to work on advertising and recruitment.
Kohl: We didn’t have a ton of time to start implementing things. We need to start talking about the next elections right now, before the semester even comes close to ending.
Taylor moves that Exec develop a plan by the end of the semester that would accomplish 50% voter turnout. The motion is seconded by Kohl.
Nelson, Gall, and Taylor speak.
McWeeney: That’s a very lofty goal.
Howard: Could we instate the Elections Committee early instead?
Taylor: I don’t think that enthusiasm has been particularly rampant in the Elections Committee, whereas the Executive Committee is supposed to be enthusiastic about their jobs.
Gall (to Taylor): This is a plan to reach 50% voter turnout?
Howard moves to amend the motion such that it would read “the Executive Committee will develop a plan by the end of the semester that aims to achieve 50% voter turnout in the Senate’s elections.” The motion is seconded by Taylor.
Gall: What happens if people want to contribute who aren’t on the Executive Committee?
Taylor: Taking the time to organize a new committee would be a mess. This is for efficiency.
Kohl agrees.
Nelson (to Gall): They are all welcome to share their thoughts with us.
Barnes: If we proposed elections with more enthusiasm, we would have more enthusiastic members.
Taylor: Good point; it’ll take more than a bill to solve.
Nelson: A lot of peoples’ platforms when running for Elections Committee is “I can count.” Can we get some more passion than that? That’s a low, low bar.
Kohl: [agrees]: Members of the Executive Committee need to set a more positive tone for elections. Maybe that’ll help.
McWeeney speaks.
Howard raises a point of order regarding the topic of conversation.
Gall moves the previous question, seconded by Wilding. The motion passes (9-0-0), and debate ends.
The amendment passes (9-0-0), and the main motion passes by the same vote. The following resolution is thus adopted by the Committee:
Resolved, that the Executive Committee will develop a plan by the end of the semester that aims to accomplish 50% voter turnout in the Senate’s elections.
Bagley: As a person speaking from experience, we are basically unknown in the Student Body. This is a huge, rampant problem, so thank you for pledging to fix it.
Barnes: We would need online voting or electronic counting for that goal to be feasible.
McWeeney agrees.
Gall: This will require amendments to the Constitution; this will take like a year to develop.
Taylor moves that this topic be addressed at the beginning of the next meeting, and further that the first fifteen minutes of the meeting are to be spent brainstorming a list of points to address relating to the plan, the Committee immediately thereafter delegating the points to relevant person(s). The motion is seconded by Nelson and passes (8-0-2; Howard, Blewitt abstain)
9:15 Morabito moves to adjourn, seconded by Wilding, which passes (8-2-0; Howard, Gall oppose)