ATTENDANCE: Caisse, Musali, Pishdadian, Dobrzynski, Juhr, Segal, Ferreira, Jones, Holden, Roy
SOARC
Roy- Didn’t have any groups to come to get recognized. Last week to get recognized is next Monday. President’s meeting tonight at 7pm.
VICE PRESIDENT
Holden- Sending out new attendance sheets online. Will be online now. Given to you via email. Welcome Day – we didn’t contact them on time. There is a discrepancy with that. Sent out an email to admissions. I think it would be detrimental to student body if we weren’t there. I will be calling tomorrow.
SECRETARY
Jones- I’ll be sending out the new templates for committee minutes for new chairs/vice-chairs can follow when taking minutes. Please enforce this new template. Save it to computer and use it.
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira- Cultural has been up to a lot. Really focused on Rammies. Some senators have already started doing their office hours. Might be doing a slide show presentation at this year’s Rammies. Other than that, booths and if you would like to be a presenter sign-ups are in the office. Have been working on CDO recommendations from student governments because the candidates have references and the search committee is calling those references. Coates had mentioned getting recommendations from the student governments. The final candidate is Naoimi Thompson. She will be in Atrium this Thursday from 4:15-5:15. Encourage your committee members to go and please attend. Went to the Roger Williams cake off on Wednesday- 47 groups signed up. I have high hopes for next year and the future. Got some really good ideas. Have a few t-shirts and took pictures if you want to take a look. We already have a MCC liaison. I started talking to him about meeting with Melvin. He has already started meeting with Melvin. At the MCC very often. We talked about bringing the MCC president’s meetings back because they had music which was a compilation of all the MCC presidents. I would definitely like to bring that back. April 10th are the Diversity Awards banquet if anybody is interested in going.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr- Was working on my end of the year report today during office hours. Will probably get it to Hania. Working on my transition binder.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Dobrzynski- Our two new members attended committee today. We talked about some things we might work on. Getting leases together to make a website. Rosie Thomas made a spreadsheet of fees for renters. That is a really good resource we have started. Talked about recruiting for an off-campus list-serv, so if we have a big event at statehouse, we can send out news updates.
Pishdadian- The event that the senator is doing- the more people that go to it, the better. Because they want to double the interest rate on Stafford loans,
Segal- Me and Brittany will be speaking at that tomorrow. Senator Reed is working with a senator in Connecticut and will be holding a press conference tomorrow. I know a lot of people have these loans.
Dobrzynski- We have also been discussing ways to utilize the petitions that we have. We are thinking about maybe going to the statehouse the day they vote, and we would need a lot of people for that. Or we could try and set something up with the media.
Segal- I know they told us that they cancelled Road to the Statehouse and that we could set up our own thing. We would have to make sure that it was on a day when there would be people there. I was upset that Road to the Statehouse was cancelled.
Smith- If we can’t get a booth set up, we can contact the media and get a news story on what the Senate is doing.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Caisse- Wrote an early adoption letter making a plea to get out early adoption things before December. Trying to find out who I can talk to get questions about effectiveness of course materials and if professors should have to say materials are required if they are not required. Trying to figure out a research blitz campaign to see how employers would view “W” on transcript.
Roy- For the teacher reviews on the last day, can you try and get them to put in their teacher and how often they follow the syllabus.
PRESIDENT
Segal- Send out a message on list-serv about liaison positions. If you know anybody who would be good for a certain position, talk to them about it and get them interested. Will be making those appointments after meeting on Wednesday.
Holden- Those liaisons can be any student at this university, so if any friends would be interested.
Smith- Talked to Brehio and said he would be interested in the IFC liaison position.
Segal- In the compact, it says you can’t put me and Kristen as finance chair. We do not have IFC/Panhel liaison. I would rather have somebody who wants to go. I already have somebody for club sports, MCC, grad student one. I just need a couple more. The URI Foundation contacted me and wants to have a workshop with exec in the next few weeks. She was going to do it with the full senate during public forum. It will be a longer meeting. We will figure out one when new exec board in place. Instead of having a visit to Dooley’s house this year, he is having and open house. Also, the Big Bang for Exposure is this Friday. The only person who is signed up is Weinreich. If any of you guys would be willing to go, please sign up or mention to your committees. Not to seem singling anybody out, if you are going to cancel a committee meeting, make sure everybody knows. New members assigned to committees. The other day, me, Casey, and Tanya were here when the president from 2001 came into the Senate office. He was the president from 2001. He was here for the College of Business Career Day this weekend- talked about differences between Senate now and then. One idea he mentioned was an alumni event. It gave me an idea about an alumni event that we could possibly do in the fall season. He had some other things that were interesting- things they were working on, issues.
Caisse- Can we not communicate via mass text?
Segal- I texted because not everybody checks their email all the time.
FINANCE
Holzman- First off, for the presidents meeting, I will briefly be mentioning transitions. I will have binders and finance handbooks available. I will be announcing capital improvement requests due Friday by noon. I will not be allowing open budgets for the summer on the basis for First Night. If you need stuff for First Night, order it now.
Holden- Did we already allocate certain amount for Sailing Club?
Holzman- Yes. Nobody came tonight.
Segal- Does that mean we have to order our dunk now?
Holzman-The Senate needs to have its budget open over the summer anyway. I have taken a look at OrgSync. Dave discovered orgsync while looking for a tool to do online elections. Provides some interesting opportunities. Has a lot of organizational management tools-designed for colleges under which student organizations operate under their department. That is not a big deal from implementation for our end. It looks like it might provide some opportunities to streamline things we do- purchasing, budgeting, and re-recognition. If you are interested, I encourage you to take a look at that. I also have asked about other organizational management programs. I took a look at Google docs offers similar set of tools, but this would allow us to give every organization its organization name. Means we assign that email to new organization president. I think it provides some opportunities for improved inter-communication within organizations. I would like to think it might foster more professional environment within Senate and its student organizations. We had two donations made for the Ellery Pond improvements project. Brenden Cologna has asked for his money back. Donated half a month’s stipend. I do not think it is unfair. Any issues with refunding donations? He might be coming into office on Thursday. Finally, the gas reimbursement fund is Senate admin, not a student body account. The issue I have is that members of the Outing Club are requesting gas reimbursements to drive up to rock gym. Did not really seem appropriate because it seems like double dipping- getting discount on passes and writing off gas. We did not feel like it was appropriate for them to be saving that gas money.
Segal- Anybody could buy those passes and a student cannot just come to you and ask for a gas reimbursement?
Holzman- Not really finance committee’s money to decide over- it is Senate admin’s, but the recommendation of my committee is nay that they should not be allowed to get gas reimbursement for going to rock gym. Motion to close meeting.
2nd Segal
Holden- Talk to other people and tell them that elections for Rules and Ethics is Wednesday and that there are other positions available on Senate.
Adjourned 6:57pm