Exec 10-24-17

November 17, 2017

MEETING START TIME: 6:32 PM

 

ATTENDANCE: 

Committee: Buck, Donnelly, Wilding, Percy, Taylor, King, Cordova, Temple, Tate, St. Amand, Bertel, Howard, Morabito
Absent: None
Non-Committee:

 

COMMITTEE DISCUSSION:

 

  • President o Quick updates
    • Woman Center is going to be at the end of the Retreat to help educate members of the Senate. o South Kingston passed an ordinance on protecting immigrants in the town against immigration. Dooley sent something to me that I will forward to you. o Tobacco-free campus: it is not in the work, they got the grant to make it so and they are, no questions asked. Actual policy changes are unclear. They got their ideas from other campuses, from TCU, one Michigan school, and UMASS, which all vary greatly from URI.
  • Vice-President o The retreat is this Sunday from 10 AM to 2 PM in the Atrium.
    • This cannot be mandatory, but we need a certain amount of people to make this happen. o Scholarship deadline is this Friday

•DOC

  • When you have Cigar interviews, please do it soon.
  • Cigar interview report and Senate Reports have been strong. o T-shirts and apparel are going to be released soon. o Tell your new members that pictures need to be done next week. o Bulletin Board is annoying. I am going to start changing up stuff with the bulletin board.
  • Social media blast about the scholarships and events for various events. o Kareem, Rich, and I from IT Governance are going to participate at Public Forum soon.
  • Newsletter is something that still exists.
  • We are going to start doing SOARC Saturdays (not a blog about Austin doing things) which is about featuring groups and Senator Sunday
  • Treasurer
    o I have been spending money recently.

o Expect your check reimbursement to come in soon. o Stipends will be ready for next Tuesday. o I am meeting with someone to help potentially cosponsor with an unfunded group.

•CIO

o Study o Events o Kudos o Bylaws Quiz o Bimonthly Report

•Finance

  • This week, groups are still using Venmo even when they are not supposed to. Jordan from the SEA office to send a memorandum to groups against the use of Venmo. Penalties include frozen budget for a month and derecognition. o Dealing with Dance Parties in the Union. We have a Dance Party on the website which is not updated, and I am working with people to update it.  o Bunch of groups are frozen since they did not follow policy. o I am sending out a memorandum to groups who need to send monthly bank statements. Maintaining external accounts is a liability for us because if they act like a non-profit, it becomes a problem.
  • External accounts make it seem like groups are hiding information.

•SOARC

  • I am aiming to have ReRec done before Thanksgiving. o I have two more group recognition bills for this week. o It has become a pain to contact groups since so many do not use their Rhody Senate domain email account, so I am exploring new options relating to email use.
  • To cover Elections committee as well, because someone dropped, we are going to have another internal election coming up.

•Academic

  • NEASC update: “It seems to be going well.”
  • Indigenous People’s Day update: the Committee was given some resources (some less helpful than others). o The Committee is working on a survey to the students to get a sense of what they think about expenses, accessibility to electronics, loans, scholarships, etc. o The VC and I are going to the Provost about creation of multidisciplinary majors.
  • The Bookstore is back and better than ever.
  • I have been thinking about attendance policies and they seem increasingly unreasonable. Also, making students spend money on things that force them to go to class is unfair.

•Campus

  • The Safety and Lighting Walk was a success. Your feedback is important to me. The report should be complete soon.
  • I would like to hold a public forum on Public Safety.
  • I nominate Kelly Watka as my new VC (10-0-0)

•Cultural

  • Fall Fest was a lot of fun.
  • One thing the Committee wants to organize next year is a pumpkin painting contest.
  • Slow Foods wants to do an extension of Fall Fest by bringing to campus a lot of food vendors. And the timing of their request for co-sponsorship was late.
  • Next Monday there should be vendors and pumpkins.
  • Because it is difficult to get in touch with directors, I am going to try sending liaisons, members of the Committee, to various directors.
  • The Committee discussed the Disability Challenge. I invited faculty and students to the next Committee meeting to provide feedback.
  • The next diversity event is going to involve Indigenous Peoples.
  • External
    o Tomorrow from 11 AM to 2 PM is the Commuter Housing Fair when local realtors and housing companies will advertise themselves. We traditionally have a booth there and we will use the booth to help communicate and advertise the External Committee toward commuter students.

    • The Committee will be handing out magnet there. o We talked about the magnets in Committee and I have a final design I am ready to submit.
    • Senator Ashamu talked with the URI Providence Campus Library. They discussed that before 12 PM and after 2 PM it is rarely used. Generally, it is an underutilized resource. They are open to extending their hours, but only by a few hours and even that takes training and hiring of workers.
    • Sam, our lawyer, met with a student about a realtor complaint. The student experienced a miscommunication about how the layer can be utilized.
  • New Business o Bylaws, nothing new besides what is going on the floor.
    • We did re-arrangement to Article 3 among other things.

 

  • D&D is coming up, first meeting is just about character sheets, what is going on, how to play, the world.

 

MEETING ADJOURNMENT TIME: 8:27 PM