SOARC
Roy: I made the new re-recognition paperwork this week. Made some changes. To go with paperwork, groups will receive waivers for potentially risky groups so they have to fill out a waiver and we will keep it on file so if there is any liability problem. Re-Recognition problem- instructor certification for category S, if we are paying for these instructors to be instructing, we have to find out that they are legitimate in some way. I have a new section on the paperwork that they have to initial and there is a fancy little category blank that says what category you are. I have been updating contact information if you know anybody who needs to update, let them know. Committee meetings will be on Monday at 4:30. First president’s meeting this Monday. If you are interested in coming, welcome to come. Don’t have to come. You can see what is going on with SPO and SOLC, only time they are probably presenting at a president’s meeting.
VICE PRESIDENT
Holden: We are a little less in numbers than we had last year, nothing to be concerned about. People study abroad, class conflict. Might have to double in liaison positions. Office hours need to be submitted ASAP to Kim. Holzman and Dave- required to do 5 hours. Everybody else needs to be 3 hours. Committee meetings need to discuss with people on committee when the best time to meet. Deadline is Friday afternoon at 4:30pm. I will assume what it was for last year if not submitted. Let me know names of those who can’t make it so I can reassign. Retreat is tentative for September 25th. Other than that, I was a URI101 mentor last year and did a URI101 Senate presentation and would be happy to talk to anybody interested in that.
SECRETARY
Jones: Welcome back, everyone. Nothing too much to talk about today. Committees- when you start meeting again, please start emailing me your reports/minutes to the secretary email address. Just in case you forgot, uri.studentsenatesecretary@gmail.com. Other than that, when we have liaison positions assigned and meeting, I will send out an email to liaisons once again asking what should be included in report and expecting those reports to come to me as well. I have Kudos this week as well that will be announced at meeting tonight.
CULTURAL
Ferreira: Currently talking to Branford Davis, former Cultural Affairs Chair about transitional programs. I have been trying to contact Musician’s Guild about Rock the Pond, but haven’t been responding to my emails so I might contact them at the President’s meeting to see if I can connect with them there. I don’t know if anybody has been by Ellery, but they have been updating it. New bridge built on it. Also going to be planning a “Taste Around the World” program. Each group that wants to participate can make their culture known through food. Could also be a recruitment technique and maybe start it beginning of October. Also, our committee meetings will be Tuesday at 2pm.
Coates: Did you get an email about Diversity Week?
Ferreira: Yes. Have we heard anything about the committee for the new Chief Diversity Officer?
Coates: No. They are in the process of replacing Katherine Friedman. She was temporary, ended up staying longer than anticipated. They put together a big committee of people looking for the new Chief Diversity Officer. Brittany and I are both on that committee. We haven’t had any updates as of yet.
EXTERNAL
Troiano: I worked with the chairman on the state commission of higher education affordability and accessibility. I became familiar with the state budget. I went to a couple of presentations with the president and board of governors and one was for the RIHEAA. I familiarized myself with the organizations and public higher education budget. Statehouse doesn’t have hearings until January. Going to work on that. We are going to get those off-campus meetings and try to organize in Eastward and Bonnet before the winter.
Coates: The URI-Narragansett Coalition is having a meeting in a couple of weeks. Proposed to disband the coalition. Make sure to touch base with Grady Miller, Town Manager. I need a student for the RI Board of Governors Student Advisory Committee. Once a month, have to drive to Warwick. I’ll mark you down for that. Anything for external?
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Caisse: Hi, everyone. Hope everyone had a great summer. Dave and I met over the summer with Peter Larsen and Nancy about the Faculty Senate. Found a note from Kim about the ProJo about continuing the readership program contract that has expired.
Coates: We will not pay more than the last contract.
Caisse: I had two classes today, both professors were talking about the drop period. Might talk to my committee about the drop period about conflicting ideas of the drop period. Received a number of reports from the new advisory committee, haven’t read those yet. Christ Knight might be reading them. I’ll give a report on them for the next senate meeting. Preparing a report for the Provost to give to him soon. I wanted to look into something a little more fun. Pilkington was doing research on the SGO, he came up with information about a class in Delaware or Vermont on a class that focused on economic development and encouraged students to stay in state.
Coates: Last year, Troiano and I went to the statehouse to testify a bill concerning students staying in RI after graduation.
Caisse: Might have to get involved with that.
Coates: Did get a lot of positive feedback. Went before the finance committee almost right away.
Caisse: My committee will be meeting on Wednesdays at 4:30pm. I will let Casey know ASAP.
Coates: The meeting Chris was talking about during the summer was regarding the changes to the drop period and SGO and the syllabi restrictions. We are kind of in limbo with that but are moving forward.
Holden: Did anything ever happen with the model syllabus?
Caisse: That hasn’t been looked at. The most basic thing we could do is give a basic syllabus with class time, subject. I can understand why teachers would be a little apprehensive about a more detailed syllabus.
Coates: The attendance policy has been on Senate’s agenda for 10 years. Could be the next issue to look at. It would be nice to have University-wide attendance policy.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr: I talked with Kate with Hertz. They changed their name from Connect by Hertz to Hertz on Demand, our rental car service on campus. For that, we need to do advertising for that and go to sporting events, hold tables, and set up booths. New parking signs for the cars need to be put up by Parking Services.
Jones: I thought those signs were put up but maybe those were not them.
Juhr: Two of the cars are parked across from the Potter building. Two others are somewhere else. I’ll have to double check. The geo-location project for RIPTA, the GPS devices installed into the busses, will be for students to text a number and see where the busses are on route. Will work for smart phones and the texting part will be for students with no smart phones. Supposed to test July, then pushed to August, then pushed to end of September. Going to schedule a safety and lighting walk very soon. Going to check on the single semester parking passes.
Jones: Were parking permits supposed to be in effect for this semester?
Juhr: Yes.
Coates: I will get an update on the list of capital projects. Supposedly they were not going to ahead with East Hall’s roof that was supposed to have scaffolding being done, but it is now being done. That was supposed to pay for the Alumni Center damage. I don’t know if this is for Campus Affairs, but Midnight Madness is coming back this year. Good job, Chrissy. I need you to take all the on-campus reps and have them gather and elect one of them to be the HRL Liaison.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Cordisco: I am Ashley Cordisco and I am the Director of Communications this year.
TREASURER
Segal: The only thing for Ashley and Hania is to get your W-4 in so you can get paid before I write out the paychecks that are at the end of the month.
Roy: Do I have to fill one out?
Segal: I think so. Senate is separate. If you need help, I can help you. That is all I have. For elections, bill is on the floor for tonight. Brittany is going to amend for extra seats that are now open. Hania is going to vacate her current seat to take the CIO position, so at the beginning someone needs to make a motion. I cannot motion on the floor. Aside from that, the bill is hoping to be passed tonight in order for elections to move along.
PRESIDENT
Coates: Speaking of elections, I decided it was too much for Campus Affairs to take on, so Casey and I will be working on securing an online voting system for the spring. That is something to look forward to. Important to do at this point to improve turnout, so we can increase turnout for next election.
Ferreira: There is a texting voting system.
Coates: We are going to look at all of them and then have a contract for next semester.
Caisse: Was there something preventing an online voting system before?
Coates: We need to investigate multiple voting companies and get competing bids. A few of us attended diversity training. Thank you for that. Upset with the rest of you for the turnout. Stressed that it was important, and that was unacceptable. I will be setting up a meeting with Gary to get the University to give my.uri.edu to all the student organizations because we have a serious branding issue to random student org president emails. I think it is really important going forward. The SEC has been locked out of their email account for three years. At least that way it will also be able to recover the account if somebody leaves and doesn’t leave their password. There has been resistance of the idea. I am going to work on the capital projects update and a budget update. I was only able to go to one or two of the strategic budget and planning council this summer. I did keep up on the minutes and participated through email as much as I could. One of the major things I am going to work on this year is making state lawmakers and the boards of governors stick to and maybe redefine the mission statements of the three state institutions. RIC and URI really are repetitive in some of their functions. We need to have a clearer understanding of why each exists. We need to maximize URI’s potential as a mid-tier school and be funded appropriately through shifting of resources. We have been asked to pay for fireworks for homecoming. $7500 is the cost. Remember a bill we passed last year for basketball courts to be built for $50,000 and set a deadline for mid-October to be completed. They are not under construction and the bids never went out or have been written for the project and will not be written until mid-November. I sent out memos notifying Tom Dougan, Chip Yensan, Capital Planning, Bruce, our accounts office that I have denied the authorization for funding. The project is no longer in progress. It is absolutely unacceptable that University of this size can’t build two basketball courts, especially with the money given to them to do it. We have two other projects that are now two or three years in the making, including the lighting of the fields. We are not close to completion on that project. Some of you might feel that those courts might serve the University well. We worked very hard to propose the idea to Senate. Any questions for me?
Roy: If anybody is coming to the office about recognizing or re-recognizing, please give them my email address instead of explaining because there are changes. There is no paperwork. If anybody wants to get recognized, tell him or her to wait for re-rec because they will have to go through it again. Please have them talk to me.
Coates: I strongly encourage to you vote in favor for Hania Zaman for CIO. I was also going to work on a capital campaign for a new student union.
Caisse: We had a long conversation with DeHayes and the conversation shifted to renovating the Union and it did not seem like there was going to be any progress on that.
Coates: I talked to Katherine Friedman about it and she agreed that that was a fundamental issue with the campus. If you look around the structure of the union, it is pretty segregated with little opportunity for students to see what is going on. Saw one school that was set-up mall style with glass walls so students were allowed to see what was going on with other student groups, it was pretty cool.
Adjourned 5:55pm.