Attendance: Coates, Segal, Ferreira, Cordisco, Mullin, Juhr, Pilkington, Caisse, Troiano, Jones, Roy, Lamoureux, Holzman, Zaman, Dobrzynski, Farrow, Holden
SOARC
Coates– Have an appeal for a frozen budget for NASO. Finance and SOARC cannot vote. We are not debating to overturn SOARC’s decision. We are supposed to vote on the appeal and whether it has merit to be heard by full Senate.
Roy- Today, NASO came to SOARC committee meeting because they had missed three president’s meeting and were up for notice of de-recognition. If somebody shows up for meeting for de-rec, we give benefit of doubt and we keep them. Did the same thing for this group. Three absences, even if we keep recognition, we have to freeze budget because they are frozen on second budget for four more weeks. They missed November, December, and March president’s meeting.
Rep- I am the president of NASO and this is the treasurer. I missed the last president’s meeting because I had an exam the next day. There is a group that is trying to start up American Indian Science and Engineering meeting and I had to miss the president’s meeting. The meeting slipped my mind. Last semester, I missed two meetings because I was focused on getting GPA up and graduating this semester. Last semester, I was able to make Dean’s List due to my dedication and focus on classes. I took 19 credits last semester and had a very busy workload. In December, finals were here and I was not able to make president’s meeting. Had some family issues going on at home. I do know how important President’s meeting are. They give us very important information about upcoming events. I apologize. I missed the first two meetings, but I did attend February. Someone had told me that this was going to happen. I thought the word was that we would have a president’s meeting for March after spring break, but there turned out not to be one. If our budget does get frozen, we have our 3rd annual pow wow and have asked for quite a substantial amount of money. It would not just affect our group or me as a person. It would affect hundreds of people. The event is already in the process of going through. Already a week and a half of it happening. So many people would be affected. It is a very big event that incorporates different states attending. If we did not have this event, it would be a disaster. Don’t know how we would be able to refund it, already have 100 people planning on attending from facebook. I have still been in the works of planning this event even though this has gone on. I had a lot going on this month for missing this month’s event. I was planning for that while studying for exams. Have contacted the media regarding the event. It has been a big success in the past. I understand you feel the need to punish me for not attending meetings, but it had slipped my mind. We were bigger, but a lot of our members dropped.
Roy- How many members in your group now?
Rep- Have dedicated group members of around 4. We do have more members, but they do not come to meetings. We have had members come in now and then. We have about ten members, but only four are dedicated to come into every meeting.
Rep- We were also wondering if we can have this event occur and just de-recognize us as a group?
Roy- You would not have funding if you were de-recognized.
Roy- This isn’t about choosing what is best for you to have that.
Coates- We do not want to de-recognize you.
Holzman- How many members of your organization do you have more often than not?
Rep- I would say about 3-4 members.
Mullin- How long have you been president for?
Rep- Since last semester. A lot of members graduated last semester.
Caisse- Were you notified each time you missed a meeting?
Rep- We were noticed through our student organization email and not our personal email.
Roy- We also put letters in their mailboxes.
Holden- A lot of the times you said you missed meetings you had things going on, and I think something you have to understand is that all our student groups have responsibilities. If we make an exception for you, then we have to show exception for every undergraduate student that has an exam.
Rep- I am also an engineering student.
Holzman- I would like to point out that this organization has been around for 3 years now. It is not uncommon for a student group to get together to create an organization, do great things, except recruitment. The older members then graduate and then we are left with this situation. I obviously am pro-organization. Their budget is going to get frozen anyway. While I have heard no merit for the petition to continue to exist and no solutions, I think this organization should be allowed to continue to exist and for the four weeks their budget is frozen, they need to recruit.
Roy- We are deciding whether to appeal their request to unfreeze their budget.
Lamoureux- I just want to say that I feel like this is a big event and this is something they have been planning for. This is a big decision and it feels like it should go to Senate floor and should be discussed. I feel like the whole Senate committee would be able to make an informed decision.
Holden- I think that basically that we turn our backs to this, we open a pandora’s box to every student organization.
Coates- I just want to say that since I became president two years ago, it was the first time we started allowing non-exec board members of organizations to attend the president’s meeting. I do want to point out that the discussion is centered around whether or not there is merit to the appeal whether or not they missed three president’s meeting and have a frozen budget. I have not heard a dispute that they missed three meetings and I do not know if Exec has power to overturn SOARC on that decision. The SOARC committee has been very good about not de-recognizing organizations.
Mullin- How much did you collect from vendors so far?
Rep- Collected $150.
Weinreich- If you were to get the money, could you throw a successful pow wow like that we have seen in the past?
Rep- I feel like it would be more successful. Have a rain location.
Weinreich- The question we need to look at is I think you really want to look into the question as to whether an organization that has done good things in the past and should the campus as a whole be punished for one person’s failure to attend the president’s meeting. I think there are two sides to this.
Troiano- I could not agree more with Kyle. You can’t argue that they violated the policy. The intention of not de-recognizing them is to ensure they still exist successfully. If we loose this event, we would only be kicking this problem down the road. We would only be running into similar problems next year.
Zaman- How much money are you requesting from Senate?
Rep- $3,675. Already have flyers made, posters, etc.
Roy- We need to stick to the topic at hand.
Coates- It is not about the pow wow. It’s about whether or not they missed the president’s meeting. We have established a standard, we have reiterated that every single president’s meeting that any member of the group can go on behalf of that organization. We should not be discussing as to whether the committee made the decision. If we do this as Vice President Holden said, we open the door for every single organization not to show up. That is what you have to realize. That is going to allow every organization to say they do not have to show up. I always want to help groups and make sure they get what they need. This is about the procedure of the policy.
Cordisco- Because the vote is in the executive committee’s hands, I do not think there is a question here. As the executive committee, we need to support and reiterate our policies and regulations. We would have groups here every single week if we did this. I am sure everybody in this room has been in your shoes, but it is about precedent and it is our job.
Jones- I think we should think about what the implications are for the student organization as a whole if this is their biggest event. I think taking away the event or the funding for the event might hurt the work that they have put in for this event’s recognition over the years.
Coates- The further implications on every other student organization. Did they miss three meetings? The answer is yes. Is there merit to their appeal? That is what we are here deciding. If you let this get to the Senate floor, we vote on that for this reason. There are further implications. This also sends the wrong message. What we have been trying to accomplish for some times is that groups are not defined by their events. It is up to SOARC, Finance, Student Involvement, to assist this organization down the line to make up for not having this event. That is what we are supposed to do. Instead of just saying it is okay. This will make a policy we have ineffective. We do things for a reason.
Rep- Does anybody have a student handbook? Can we pull up where it says if you you miss 3 meetings, what the punishment would be?
Juhr- I know it was said earlier that after you missed two meetings, was their budget frozen after they missed their second one? Did they come to appeal it before?
Roy- No. It states in the handbook that first absence- written warning. Second absence- budget frozen until org attends SOARC meeting. Third absence- permanent revocation of their recognition. Because I did not revoke their recognition, I did realize they need to be penalized for their budget.
Caisse- Consider whether or not your points have been made.
Weinreich- Fortunately, the third absence does not actually entail four week frozen budget. It is at the discretion for the SOARC chair. You are not competing with policy as written. You are competing with Alexa’s discretion. In addition to that, it is common an organization for an appeal, we grant the fact that they can appeal because of their interest. We removed the punishment and you do not have organizations coming every week and SOARC does not have organizations coming every week. We want students to have the opportunity to do what they do to care about. A decision that affects a wide number of people should not be held in executive committee. The broader understanding of the campus that the Senate as a whole can bring to this issue and their understanding. This appeal does have merit. I think it would be the wrong decision of the executive committee to kill this here without giving it a “full day in court.”
Caisse- Just to be frank, they violated the policy which was to attend three meetings. We have flexible policies in place. Those flexible policies were also not used. We as a Senate body are lenient and can set precedent. I have a similar conversation this academic year whether it has been policy versus sympathy and each time we have chosen policy to set precedent.
Coates- I might add that we would be violating the policy we have established in terms of the SOARC Committee, we would only be violating our own policy. We are not voting on the issue but rather does the appeal have merit.
Holden- We are not voting on whether or not we should be lenient. We are voting whether or not should this appeal should be brought to the Senate.
Zaman- I do believe this has merit because the punishment is not a frozen budget. I understand the punishment is de-recognition. It is also the practice that if the group shows up to the meeting and in effect, they are not de-recognized. I do believe this has merit.
Coates- Every time a group has come facing “de-recognition”, they have gotten a frozen budget. This group already had their budget frozen this year. The only time that they didn’t come to appeal it was because they didn’t have an event.
Lamoureux- How come you did not appeal the frozen budget the first time?
Roy- It was not in the letter.
(6-4-0)
Rep- Are you able to help us write a letter about what happened here because I cannot hold myself responsible for all of this?
Roy- We de-recognized Sports Medicine Association. Also, Seekers Meditation has a frozen budget for the same reason as NASO. We decided not to de-recognize them. The survey is going out tonight. Have the cover letter all done. Have already received feedback. There is a dance company advisor hopeful, which is awesome because they could use an advisor. There is an advisor for another group.
FINANCE
Holzman– Did not decide on anything in committee this week. For capital improvements, we are going to put out a capital improvement request at once. They will be due the following Monday. My committee will consider them on the 9th. The bill will go on the floor on Wednesday, sit for a week, and vote on next Wednesday. All that stuff will be ready in the fall.
Coates- Did you take care of the things that your committee was charged with doing?
Holzman- Have not done the letter.
Coates- The analysis for the money used for multicultural programming?
Holzman- I can do that tomorrow morning. I have to do a statistics project, and I am going to do it on programming contingency for Senate. I will be making a formal recommendation based on that. I will be presenting to the new board a recommendation based on past spending.
Coates- exposure will be in attendance this Wednesday for their contingency grant.
Zaman- I have been getting liaison reports. I did not get any end of the year reports. Only got one. Other than that, I sent to Secretary Jones the minute’s template for the committee minutes. I have just been working on my transition binder.
Holden- Could you email out what you want included in each end of the year report? How is transition binder for Finance going?
Holzman- Working on it. Mostly written.
VICE PRESIDENT
Holden– Getting things ready for tomorrow night. Steph and Hania will be there tomorrow night. You are more than welcome to attend. Welcome Days will be coming up on April. The dates are 4/14 and April 21st.
Coates- We have actually gotten a lot of senators at Welcome Day. Needs to be managed well. Always had four at all times. It worked really well.
Mullin- I can volunteer for the 14th.
Pilkington- I received so many emails after signing up during Welcome Day.
TREASURER
Segal– Paying the last few bills. Starting my work as president-elect. I got the strangest emails. Got one about the Circus coming to URI. I also got another one from the assistant director for annual giving. Wants to start a student foundation. I will have her come speak at public forum. Also meeting with the Ski Team on Wednesday at 3pm. Give me ideas of things we can do- excited!
Holden- Stipends tomorrow?
Segal- Yes.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Cordisco– Sent out a media advisory for statehouse, Dave got in the newspaper. I just want to say thank you for helping me this year. Everybody is very nice and helpful, so thank you.
Holden- I do not know who is going to yield time to Maureen.
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Mullin- I walked out of Swan and it was on fire. They proceeded to spray it with fire. Looking for the newest DOM. Things are moving slow over there. Secretary is going to send it out, so will the career advisor and internship coordinator. I asked Derek to talk to the Dean and he said he would. Have them message me. Thanks to everybody having me on Senate.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr- I will get the end of year report done for you by Friday. Doing my transition binder this weekend.
Coates- The bond for the Fine Arts Center includes redoing the parking lot. It will be voted on by voters of the state as a referendum.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Caisse- Bad news. Long story short- the policy that we have been fighting for a year was already approved. Already approved by the Faculty Senate. It was delayed. Implementation of the policy was delayed. Now it is implemented and will go into effect in Fall 2012. There is nothing we can do to stop implementation in the fall. The only thing we can do is petition Faculty Senate to amend the policy in the fall for Spring 2013 for implementation in the fall.
Lamoureux- Don’t they still have one meeting left? Can we change their mind then?
Coates- I think they use different rules of order.
Caisse- They won’t revisit the policy. The Faculty Senate was willing to concede a little bit. My reasoning is that if they were not before, why can’t they now? We have gone back with countless emails and to no avail.
Coates- I was talking to Peter Larsen, and I said we would meet with him. It is one of those things where the only way you will get it changed now is if you show numbers. What you need to do as a committee going forward is calling businesses and recruiters and ask how they would review withdrawal stamp on students’ record, so you can show them statistic whether or not that would affect someone pursuing a job? Write a report on how this is not going to do anything to prevent course shopping. I have been opposed to this because we need to think about wholesale systemic academic change. This does nothing to further the academic goals of the school. All it does is change the drop period. They think it is going to have a cultural shock, and I do not think that it is. The president agrees with me that they have bad data. We need to have them prioritize the way that they should be. If you want to be more serious academically, we identified four areas we thought they may be able to improve upon. They seem to think those things are less important than changing the drop period. We are now going to see students dropping courses and won’t know that they needed that class. There are implications that they do not realize what students are up against.
Caisse- We cannot stress that enough. It is like building a house- you buy the wood, the shingles, the siding, furniture. You have all the materials and put up the wood frame and now you can move the family in. What will happen? A more serious academic culture.
Mullin- There’s 25-30 alums coming to business school to look for what they want in candidates. That was a really easy way to ask them what they want on their transcript.
Roy- I have been hearing a lot of universities have “W” on their transcript. Are they not finding positive/negative outcomes on it?
Caisse- Who are the students that are going to have one “W” on their transcript and who will have a lot more? That needs to be addressed. That is just the way I feel. It would be a larger problem if a transcript was filled with “W.” The “W’” is a scarlet letter that de-incentivizes students.
Coates- We can’t say for sure if those other schools have excellent advising systems. We hear a lot of horror stories. If you just look at the simple fact about the classes taught with part-time faculty, specifically I found, have trouble with this. I went to a class I never received a syllabus for. Other people have been in positions before. In a writing class, we had to buy a course packet. I hated the structure of the course, but the course packet was written by someone in the writing department had spelling and grammatical errors in a writing course packet. I dropped the course. I felt I was not getting value out of what I was paying for. We have to have a more comprehensive way to analyze data. We cannot always rely on our peers to give this input, unfortunately.
Caisse- I think it is a generational thing. The faculty here are apart of the generation where they look at us that we are whining when in fact we are trying to be progressive. It is a larger thing than us or Faculty Senate. We are trying to contribute to solution. They are not working with us on that.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Troiano- There is no road to the statehouse this year. She said if we wanted to make our own, we could. I won’t be doing that. That is about it.
SECRETARY
Jones-
PRESIDENT
Holden- SAA is asking for $300 for us to donate to them. They are asking for our help again for Oozeball.
Coates- My personal opinion is that we should not be asked to fund SAA.
Holden- It is an event that is going to go to thousands of students.
Roy- They also have entry prices for that.
Coates- It would be co-sponsorship. If this was approved by me, it would have to be approved by Finance, Exec, and then go to the floor.
Holden- Okay.
Coates- Just to go back to what we did earlier in this meeting, I know it was tough, and I know at least some of you did not like what we did. It is a tough situation. That is what you are all trusted with dealing with for the future. Strike a balance between the right thing and not breaking precedents you have set. Thank you for everything you have done this year. It has been a long, very trying year. It has been fun. Vice President Holden, thank you. I know you guys will be fine without me. I think what we dealt with tonight in general highlights our importance. If you look at things going on, we are relevant more than ever. We are going to see a dip in state appropriations, which means less student affairs projects. More importantly, that affects every student that goes to this university. Road to the Statehouse being cancelled seems to highlight attitude government has towards its public institution right now. It is really a crazy time for everyone. I wish I could tell everyone how I spent time learning things that I found out in past 2 years. Stephanie and I have had a fun history lessons for the past two weeks. The information is out there. For everybody else that is leaving, good luck. There will be a barbeque. Last year was pretty nuts. Keep up frosty donations to fund barbeque. Any relevant business?
Caisse- Pass the gavel is this week. Can we limit that?
Holden- Please behave professionally.
Coates- I would like to debrief with everybody. The results we get are direct correlation with the effort we put in. For those of your returning, if you really want something and really want things changed, it is within your grasp and it is something you can tangibly do and I encourage you to do it.
ELECTIONS
Farrow- Bill on the floor.
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira– Just came back from CDO search committee for students. Went very well. Next one is 4/5 at 4:15 in Atrium 1 in the Union, Thursday before Good Friday. Rammies are April 23rd. In the process of booking the nomination and the voting booths. Going to Roger Williams to check out their Ace of Cakes competition.
Caisse- Can you send out the resume of the next candidate?
Coates- Yes. The third one will be here on Thursday on 4/5. I will send out the resumes and cover letters. Chairwoman Ferreira, could you please call student governments at institutions where the three candidates work and inquire about them?
Adjourned 8:05pm