MEETING START TIME: 5:35

ATTENDANCE:

Committee: Chairman Temple, Vice-Chair Morabito, Senator Benedict, Senator Darche, Senator Murray, Senator Needle, Senator Nelson, Senator Sardinha, Senator Vu

Absent:

Non-Committee: Senator Alquirtas, CIO Taylor

DISCUSSION:

Liaisons

• Did everyone get the email Chairman Temple sent out in regards to College Liaisons? – Yes
• Other Liaisons that are not College Liaisons
  • You will be asked if you want to continue being the Liaison
    • If not please let Chairman Temple know what position you were and your meeting time and location

Indigenous People’s Day

• Chairman St. Amand and Chairman Temple have been working on a bill
  • Changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s day and celebrating those who were here first

• • • Committee is on board with this idea
      • Feelings were felt that some students at the University would try to fight this
      • Referenced the survey conducted last year showing how this is going to be expected
      • We have talked to those involved with diversity and different groups on campus
        • We have not president Dooley due to accessibility
      • We were attempting to contact the club NATO, however they are no longer a club on this campus
        • That does not mean that we still should not make this change
      • Possibly one more email should to go out to get one more round of opinions?
      • Next steps (assuming that the bill passes on the floor):
        • We then take it to the Faculty Academic Calendar Committee
          • Will not take into affect until 2019 on the calendar
        • We can still have an event this year to start things off
          • Plan to build on that event every year

OER (Open Educational Resources)

• Chairman Temple met with Affordable Course Material Taskforce and made note on how there is a big thing for OER on October the fourth, it is targeting non-professors
  • Is anyone interested in attending this event? It is from 9am-11am
  • Talk to your professors and any and all faculty you know about going to this event
  • OER stands for Open Educational Resources, it is not trying to control what textbook professors use, instead it pushes for noncommercial forms of information (i.e. packets, papers)
  • Certificate for OER Professors, should we continue doing it
    • Professors seemed to appreciate it and they would display it, thus spreading the word further
    • We should continue to do this

Faculty Senate

• Faculty senate will be on September 21st from 3pm-5pm in Beaupre
  • • • Who wants to be on faculty committees?
        • Student Handbook
        • Equity
        • Classroom Steering committee
        • Others…

Student Handbook

• Someone approached Chairman Temple about changing the student handbook
  • They were not a senator, but that is ok as it affects everyone and they do not have to be a senator to make change
• Chairman Temple will be in the office at 10 in the morning about this

Engineering Students

• No engineering buildings, they have to take shuttles, very inconvenienced
  • Why is there an engineering fee if students are going through this much trouble
  • Fee is for the equipment they are using
  • That kind of change would take months, maybe even years
  • It has to be us if we want change, faculty will not do it

Nursing Students

• Parking is a 20 min walk all the way to the building where classes are held
• There are supposed to be three shuttles running at once, however there is allegedly only one running
  • The one shuttle is made to fit around 20 people but there is 115 URI students that would need to utilize it
  • The shuttle runs every 30 min
• Brown has a LOT of shuttles and they don’t even have students going, it is only faculty
• They don’t match up shuttles to when classes come out
• RIPTA has forgotten to pick students up
• Shuttles do not have a set schedule
• Find out when the last class is and when the last shuttle is, if there is only one that is not good enough
• Students were told that if they missed the last shuttle or RIPTA and were stuck, that they would have to have people pick them up or to take a train and walk to another RIPTA
  • Students were not happy
• Maybe work with Brown and Rick about a group shuttle
• Parking garage next to building is ONLY for faculty
  • Do not know if there are extra spots that are not being used
• Little to no one is even taking the shuttle due to it’s poor system
  • There is a question of if it is even running anymore
• Students were told that they HAVE to have a car when they go into clinical
  • This is not taking into account those that do not have a car and/or cannot afford a car
• Students were given the wrong parking pass originally
  • Students were forced to pay  to park
  • They have to pay for an extra parking pass
• Do any students get prioritized, brown vs rick vs URI?
  • Not to our knowledge

• URI commuter passes should cover parking on the street but there are no available spots due to construction
• How many students are at the providence campus?
  • Just academics, no residents

OMBUD

• OMBUD wants us to know if at any moment in meeting with dean if you are coming across anything that is not good treatment at student bring it to Senator Benedict – say on floor
• Should we bring ALL complaints to OMBUD or just some
  • Bring all to Senator Bennedict and she will filter it

• Email the assistant of the College Dean if they are not responding
• If they do not respond beyond that notify Senator Benedict so she can notify the OMBUD
• The student body as a whole should know about OMBUD and Senator Benedict
• Flyers were put in the senate office directing people to Senator Benedict
• Senator Benedict is going to hold office hours to help advertise herself and offer her services
• Academic Committee could possibly hold an advertising campaign for OMBUD

 

MEETING ADJOURNMENT TIME: 6:09