Cultural Committee COMMITTEE MINUTES                                                     March 26, 2019

MEETING START TIME: 2:00pm
ATTENDANCE:

Committee: Chairwoman Kohl, Vice-Chair Cummiskey, Senator Morgan, Senator Alryati

Absent:
Non-Committee: Senator D’aguanno, President-Elect Marotta, Chairwoman Ramsey, Chairdude Morabito

Representatives from: EXPORSURE, TDSB, LASA, URI HALAL, DIVE,

COMMITTEE DISCUSSION:

1. Introductions
2. Funding issues regarding multicultural student organizations
   1. Re-recognition process
   2. Funding process seems not to be working for multicultural organizations
3. President-Elect Marotta: “Common denominators – reevaluate the cultural affairs committee as the multicultural organizations do not feel adequately represented.
   1. Hard to get the connection out there between Student Senate and the broader Student body
      1. Historic lack of communication = problem
         1. Increase communication between faculty, Student Senate, and organizations
      2. President-Elect Marotta: Liaison position to multicultural groups in order to foster better communication
      3. SOARC Chairwoman Ramsey, — President’s Meeting once a month = assigned liaisons to speak directly with boards of Student Organizations in order to communicate issues/fix problems
         1. Complaint Box for SOARC = helpful
      4. Senator D. = Create a useful reference for student organizations to
      5. Reps = always a bunch of hoops to jump through that should be told to us beforehand that aren’t
         1. More so talking about general members not Exec. Board = when these orgs. give work to general members – they don’t feel they know the proper steps to take
      6. Senator D. = Any other issues besides funding that is not addressed/provided by Senate.
      7. Representative from TDSB (Talent Development Student Board.) = issue over funding status of organization which has been changed under new administration and changes to SOARC. (Previous issue due to connection with the TD education program which no longer applies).
      8. SOARC Chair: creation of a Student Union in order to give more communication chances between the Multicultural organizations
         1. = more cooperation between Senate and MUSIC in order to accomplish the above said idea.
            1. MUSIC = talks about the multicultural student community
         2. Greater opportunities for multicultural organizations to bridge the gap between these organizations and the community.
         3. Senator D = working with the CED in order to try to create a festival-style event in order to showcase multiculturalism/the multicultural organizations
            1. Chance to come together – it’s a start
            2. Couple of dates set
            3. Open stages/booths
            4. Include Greek Life/other communities to bring everyone together = UNITY
         4. SOARC Chair = give us changes that you want to see so we can add them to the bylaws in order to give us more power to help
         5. Reps = mandatory things might be beneficial such as multicultural awareness/diversity awareness events mandatory in the future
            1. URI 101 possibly great opportunity to start there
         6. Try to get diversity recruiters in Pan-Hell and IFC in order to increase multicultural inclusion in the Greek Community
         7. Diversity Week is scheduled for next semester!!
            1. Revamp how it is incorporated into URI 101 due to issues that led to the 86ing of Diversity Week 2-3 years ago.
         8. Greek Life gets a lot of recognition for things they do such as philanthropy events when multicultural organizations do the same work but get very little recognition
            1. Problem that must be addressed/worked on
         9. When collaborating for an event – problem with the finances when splitting the expenses.
            1. Issue to tackle
         10. Reps = no shade, but I don’t really see senators unless its elections times.
         11. JOIN SENATE!! HELP US MAKE THE CHANGE

 

MEETING ADJOURNMENT TIME: 3:10pm