CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira: comparing prices for apples and caramel for homecoming. Taking trip to Wal Mart. Smith will be speaking to Holzman about purchase reqs.
Signup sheet to go around at meeting tomorrow. Cicero attended “spirit of giving” meeting. Diversity fund committee has proposal for Sig Ep Rocks Against Rape.
TREASURER
Segal: No Report.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Cordisco: Nothing
FINANCE COMMITTEE
Holzman: tax grant memos this week. IFC will probably be appealed for further discussion and revote tomorrow. By vetoing banners you realize you set precedence for not being able to fund Greek week and philanthropy week?
Coates: No, and this is why. Really upset, still am. Didn’t say anything on floor because I couldn’t make point that I passed unanimous unless there was a vote. Bottom line: 40 people in that room and not a single person caught this. It passed 5-0-0 in committee…. Compact which some of you may know about is our recognition of Greek Life, they are selective membership makes them ineligible for student tax dollars, for single houses/chapters, by law. We have a compact to recognize the two councils because there is a mutual benefit of recognizing government board, makes up 10% of campus, makes us more legitimate, etc. Compact specifically states in finance section that “senate may not in any way fund individual Greek chapters this includes recruitment,…..” (see compact)
Banner competition gives banners to individual Greek pairings meaning we would be providing money to individual Greek houses. We can’t do that. It’s the SAA association program that goes on every year we would have given the money to the groups who wanted the money. In fact we would pay for IFC to have a banner for IFC. Not for the individual houses. We cannot give/spend money on Greek chapters. You say there will be an appeal, it has to get out of your committee, but I will be surprised. My point it passed unanimously. In the future anything about Panhel, IFC, compact NEEDS to come up. This is systemic. People in chamber don’t know rules of order, bylaws, this is a problem in the org, and this is just one example.
Segal: I don’t understand, there’s only three people here who have seen the compact. Why didn’t you bring this up? You say we’re incompetent, but only three have seen the compact. If this had failed last week, that’s fine, but you shouldn’t blame the senate when we didn’t know.
Coates: Bottom line, that part of compact has always been in it. Certain things were added but nothing new this year. Who’s the bottom line? Who was here for annual budget meeting? You have all heard about the compact. For nobody to ask about funding restrictions. That’s a problem. Nobody took initiative to ask. I didn’t say exec was incompetent, Senate by and large is. There should have at least been a question. Anyone here last year should know better. Majority of compact has been in existence for either years.
Segal: In bylaws it says your leadership of senate, people aren’t learning from a veto, you should have said something last week. Senate isn’t going to change for that.
Coates: I wanted to make point that it would pass unanimously. I’m sick of being person to spark the debate. Nobody asked questions. We still have unanimous votes, we still have people absentmindedly voting. You don’t have to agree with my methods.
Holden: There are more questions over here.
Troiano: My question has been answered.
Coates: I’m mad that people did not take initiative to catch that.
Caisse: I don’t like how you watched us crash and burn.
Segal: Don’t blame younger senate.
Coates: I don’t want to hear excuses.
Roy: Please vote according to what is right if this gets appealed. Not because you have other emotions about last week’s process of voting for this bill.
Juhr: The bill can be reappealed?
Coates: when something gets vetoed it goes back to committee and then it needs a 2/3 vote.
Ferreira: Can we make the compact available?
Roy: I will e-mail on listserv.
Holzman: Please refer to caselaw to review this with my committee. Nobody on my committee including myself was not aware that this was something SAA hosted in past. Whether this misleading was intentional? I don’t know. It got out of committee without attention to detail was that it benefits all houses equally, perhaps that is a misinterpretation or lack of proper interpretation on my part. I will be reviewing that. Finally, this is exactly why I’ve started introducing bills, so that people can think about it for the week that it’s on the table. This issue is one that should have been brought up in that week so that my committee could have reviewed it. This way committee could have made a decision, decided to amend, etc.
Coates: Whether or not IFC was hosting is irrelevant. Greek Week is specifically enumerated in compact, Greek Week is entertainment for rest of student body. This is specifically giving materials to be used by houses. This is different from lip sync, greek sing
Holzman: I disagree
Coates: whenever supplies are being provided to houses it’s a no-no. We just reauthorized compact, it’s in there. Bottom line. Anymore questions?
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Troiano: URI-Narra. Coalition, it was unanimous we should dissolve even though they didn’t have quorum.
Holden: why was it decided that it was pointless?
Roy: They are doing the same thing Narra. Town council does.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Zaman: I have code ready to put on website to put surge box on archive, I just need Kim. Also, working on RFI for Coates I will have it tomorrow.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Caisse: looking into readership boxes. Holzman brought up idea of tech audit for classroom efficiency. Looking into UC gen ed presentation.
Holden: Calendars?
Caisse: Meeting in late October.
Zaman: Suggestion to look into making printing here at URI or at least giving some amount of free printing. I know most universities offer something.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr: Sent out e-mail for safety and lighting walk, gotten responses from administration. Need to plan route. Hopefully I can be helped with that by Coates and Holzman. Need to look into what Sinapi did. Hopefully walk will be on Oct. 25, Tuesday evening, meet at 6:30 or 7 then start on walk. Chaffee handicap button fixed. Broken call box from FAC has been called, will be calling again. Need to look into maps. Last Friday Holzman and I spoke about Ellery Pond, started to write up e-mail regarding blue prints for layout of pond, facebooked Matt Berger who is coming back in a month and would like to help.
SOARC
Roy: Re-rec bill on the floor this week. There are four category changes from last year. SAAC going from R to A because they should be funded by athletics and because all of their events are philanthropic in nature. URI TV Network going from R to M because they are media that benefits all of URI. eXposure going from R to S so that we can help them pay for instructors. Sankofa R to A, they have no need for a budget. They are a bible study group. All they need are bibles, if they need bibles they can get them for free at library. Allocating them money is a waste. PRS from S to M, pretty sure they were mis-categorized last year.
VICE PRESIDENT
Holden: Thank you everyone for coming tonight. I know it may not have been most interesting but everyone did a great job. Thank you Holzman and Coates for all the help. You all helped me greatly. Thank you.We have new senators tomorrow (fist pump). I’m excited, please be mindful that they’re new remember your first meetings and your confusion. I’d really like it if we all sat next to them, spoke to them, etc. I’ll let a little whispering slide. In addition I will be making committee assignments on Thursday. I will be putting new attendance sheets in mailboxes on Friday. They will be required started next week to attend committee meetings. These are people we have until April we need retention. Special thanks for Zaman for ad going in cigar, Dobrzynski for making posters, Wynne for putting them up. If Roy and Holzman would like to come up to me for numbers feel free.
Coates: Going off of that reach out to new people, ask them to come out to us.
Holden: They had great questions, lots of smart people in this group.
PRESIDENT
Coates: Turned down 4 media requests this week. Must forward to Cordisco. Senate didn’t legislate on tuition for illegal immigrants so I didn’t respond. Sent one to Troiano, but we have no formal opinion. I can’t express my personal opinion until senate gives me one. Cigar is having more major issues than usual. Andrew Winters again…. I don’t comment on university personnel decisions. I think they should leave that alone. Beyond that I’d like to ask Segal, Casey and I are working on online voting. So far we’ve found seven or eight companies that could meet our needs. A lot more than one company contract that almost got signed. Would you like to help us work on that. Glad we have 8 companies to make price wars. Board will be voting on tuition in early November. Strategic budget and planning meeting coming up two weeks from now.
Holden: Percentage in state/out of state increases?
Coates: 9.5 % instate, 2 % out of state increase. Room and board will also increase (utilities). Faculty have not received raise in 3 or 4 years as well as administrators and staff. Senate needs to think about whether or not we want to encourage university to abandon state.
Holden: UVM has done it.
Coates: That’s who URI would model itself after if we did that. People try to compare us to UMass in terms of borrowing /spending. People don’t realize when UMass builds dorm they take bonds and state covers a larger percent of cost. Whereas university takes bonds and then makes us pay out of pocket rather than state covering. We receive very little state support. Let’s have finance come to exec next week for
Director of Marketing bill recommendation : (9-1-0)