VICE PRESIDENT
Holden– We have five admissions for scholarship. My committee is going to be meeting on Thursday to start going over those. Should have recipient by next week. I am giving Anthony and Rob until Wednesday to get back to me about formal. If they are not with us, we are going to go along without them. I might have a group of students help me plan for formal for those who are interested. Thank you to those who helped me with the scholarship.
Coates– Need to nail down a time for elections.
Holden– Can I get back to you on that?
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Holden– Chris Caisse’s report. They are working on drafting introductory letter for college liaisons. Taking suggestions for Sakai tabs regarding college majors of each student. Valerie might be presenting Wednesday night during public forum but not confirmed. Next UC Gen Ed Committee is on Wednesday. First academic standards and calendars committee is on Wednesday. Joint-Classroom standing committee has sent out an email to faculty and administrators, polling technology effectiveness. We’ll begin next week expanding second grade option tools.
SOARC COMMITTEE
Roy– No report. My committee failed to bring everything to me tonight about bringing executive committee credits to the table. New groups should be coming in next week. Did not recognize a group tonight because their treasurer was not an undergraduate member.
FINANCE COMMITTEE
Knight– Crew Team came to the meeting. Bill on the floor this week.
Coates– Bill on the floor this week for what?
Knight– $26,000. They wanted to try it. We don’t have a problem with it (with the exception of one). You have a problem with it. It is up to you to veto it. Muslim Student Association came and they are getting $1,570 for food for the banquet, decorations, flyers, henna, and calligraphy.
Coates– I just want to point out that that is $50,000 for two years for a team of forty people. Senate would have laughed them out of Finance committee last year and every year before that. Every bill gets to the floor because nobody has a problem.
Knight– There are levels of bureaucracy. It was Finance Committee’s decision to make.
(Move back to Finance after President’s report)
Holzman– Muslim Students and Crew will have bills on the floor this week. I will have a finance handbook ready for review tomorrow. I will email it to everybody and have Kim print out desk copies. Already I have been able to cut out several thousand words. It should be easier for everybody to get through.
Roy– How much did you grant today?
Holzman– We did not grant anything technically. We approved $1,570 for Muslim Students Association to have a banquet for the Eid Festival. We approved a grant for $26,100 for Crew.
Segal– That is a lot of money.
Roy– What is your reasoning for giving that much?
Holzman– We asked what their budget priorities were. The first priority is a set of “ergs,” which are exercise devices that run several hundred dollars and they are purchasing five of them. Their second priority was “pairs” which are two-man rowing machines, which go a long way to create a better team. A coaching boat was their final priority. Their coaches need to be traveling along with them. If they had to respond to an emergency, it is hard for the boat to get back to the dock quickly. The other thing is that the launch they want to purchase creates a minimal wake.
Roy– How many “ergs” do they have now?
Holzman– Between the men and women, there are plenty of ergs but the women do not want to share.
Segal– I feel like we are funding them.
Zaman– As we discussed before, we can’t give that much money to one student organization. This money that we are giving them to this forty members is not going to benefit any other student of the university in any way at all.
Holden– Don’t they have a user fee, correct?
Holzman– They currently have nine ergs. The women’s team has several others. Men’s and women’s don’t practice at the same time. It is the men’s crew that owns the building. They have dues of $300 a year. There is an additional charge of $600 if they want to row over Spring Break. They also need to buy $200 of gear just to get going.
Coates– For the record, what are the dues for the men’s hockey team?
Holzman– I recall that they are also about $600.
Coates– I thought they were in the thousand dollar range.
Holzman– I’ll have to check on that. Be that as it may, the Crew Team also would be getting $10,000 from one of their alumni who is a generous sponsor because of the alumni’s involvement with one of the companies. They are also going to generate $3,000 for the sale of existing equipment. Also, they do a work-a-thon every year. They do a clean up of the football system, do a 10k challenge with their alumni.
Roy– How much have they fundraised towards this in the first place?
Holzman– We grant them $40,000 a year.
Coates– How much did we give them last year in a Contigency Grant last year? Something in the tone of $24,000.
Segal– Did you talk about loan options?
Holzman– They don’t feel they can take on the loan obligation. They feel their dues are high enough as is.
Coates– If they own the building, does the women’s crew team use the building? Why would they let the women’s crew team use the building and not let them share the equipment with the men’s team. How much is the programming contingency fund this year?
Holzman– Programming was $40,000 this year.
Segal– Don’t they have selective membership?
Holzman– They do not have selective membership.
Roy– $26,000 for forty students of the University.
Zaman– With the $40,000 that they receive in addition to the $24,000 and they fundraise, what do they do with all this money?
Holzman– They pay for their coaches, travel to competition, and boat repairs.
Segal– I think it is ridiculous to give one group that large amount of money. To give one group a real significant amount of money is not fair.
Holden– Groups that are the three times the size of crew would not be receiving this money.
Jones– What was the original amount they came to request?
Holzman– They first came in to request the following, based on a multi-year acquisition plan, where they need a certain amount of equipment to be competitive with the number of students they have on the team, which include many boats and other equipment. That request came to $75,000. If they tried to ask for something lower, they could. They were willing to take the chance of this being denied on the floor or vetoed and coming back with a lower amount.
Jones– There is an amount less than this that can keep them at that level of competitiveness?
Holzman– Each amount of money helps them become more competitive, but yes they could still remain competitive with an amount less than this, but it is the degree of their competitiveness that differs.
Holzman– We can go into detail about this with the senate as far as their priorities.
Coates– That would be inappropriate to bring on the floor outside of the committee.
Zaman– Aside from the senate being confused, it is the job of the Finance Committee to deal with these situations and outline what should or should not be on the floor. Of course they are going to choose to have this on the floor, but what are your justifications to have this be appropriate to go to the floor?
Holzman– We thought that relative to what they need, that was a reasonable amount of equipment to purchase to bring their competitiveness up.
Segal– We did this last year and if we did this again this year, this will become routine and they will ask us for $26,000 around that.
Holden– If they know if they are getting money from us, they will decrease their fundraising.
Segal– Senate is basically fundraising them right now.
Holzman– I’ll talk to Crew Team and we will hold the grant for a little bit and we will dig a little deeper and get some numbers. I will talk to CSIC about men’s and women’s group about equipment, how it is working out on a per student basis, how much Crew is paying in dues compared to other club sports, and I will come back for more information.
Coates– That money that we have in tax. I begged the previous finance chair to increase the programming line as much as possible. Historically, we have been stingy and that is the general perception that we have and that is why groups are not. I think it is wholly unfair to then turn around to do this for a club sports team which as far as I am concerned, is that the whole point of club sports team is that they’ re able to compete against college sports team but that is not always the team because it is a club sport. That doesn’t mean we have untold amounts to give to every team. Women’s Rugby Team does not have a field- we are not out buying them a field. We are not out providing men’s hockey and women’s hockey with equipment when they were brought into debt by their previous advisor. I do not see an end to it and I do not think we can do it.
Segal– Especially because it does not benefit the rest of the community.
Coates– What we gave them last year was supposed to last between 5-7 years. Whether it is going to last that long or be competitive that long, it was not our problem.
SECRETARY
Jones– I have the options for clickers we can use, but I left the printouts in my mailbox. I will try and get them to exec individually or something like that because I want to show them to you guys before we vote. Ideas for Kudos this week and somebody remind me to bring to Kudos to the actual meeting, I keep forgetting.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Zaman– Working on the document we talked about last week on the veto.
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira– Since Senator Curry has not been showing up to Senate meetings, I have decided to appointed a new vice-chair, which is Senator Longa. Spirit of Giving Meeting- Matt Kilduff volunteered to go, which is good. New ideas for the holiday week- including gingerbread houses and window decorating. Senator Longa is attending Veteran’s Committee from 9am-8pm on Friday. Katrina Dorsey is looking for volunteers. If any one would like to read off names for Veterans, please contact Katrina Dorsey or let me know. My committee is going to be working on display boards that are outside of the Senate office to try and fix them up a little bit.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr– I talked to Bruce last week about the addition to the Union. It is an old project resurfacing because it needs to be done. I am going to have Senator Goddard to work with it since he will be here for a while. I am looking into seeing if the stop sign is there or not. Working on why the Internet is not working. Safety and Lighting results were in the office last Thursday, and I am going to be doing a re-check to see what they fixed. I already noticed they fixed one blue light. We are also going to be emailing Dr. Drapeaux about single semester parking passes and contacting Jodi Hawkins about Rec. Services survey. Also figuring out what’s going on with Higher One.
Zaman– The Hope handicap button is not working.
Juhr– Front one or back one?
Zaman– I think it’s the back one. The one at the top, not the bottom.
Segal– Do you have any more information on that stop sign?
Juhr– I am going to go check tomorrow morning.
Holzman– On Lower College?
Juhr– Yes.
Coates– You should find out which of South Kingstown’s committee is in charge of road signs. I would just do it yourself. It will mention something about traffic.
Roy– I met with them last year once. They have a meeting once a month that you usually have to go to have anything done.
Coates– I would email the town manager. Find out the timeline and try and accelerate it because it is very dangerous.
PRESIDENT
Coates– I appointed Matt Kilduff to Student Rights and Responsibilities Committee. I am still reviewing Director of Marketing and Recruitment applications. I am going to accept them for executive meeting next week. I am going to interview finalists. I should have someone for next week. The vote is tomorrow night for Board of Governors and the tuition increase. The letter went out to Lorne Adrian. I spoke to the Providence Journal today. I spoke to the Cigar. We have over 700 signatures on our petition. We are going to continue collecting those signatures tomorrow. I want to crack in the thousands. If you know anyone, please try and get them to stick around tomorrow. The meeting is tomorrow at 5:30pm in Warwick. It is in the CCRI Campus. I am going to sign up to speak at Open Forum. They had 184 people on open forum during their September meeting. That was a much hotter topic, but I still anticipate a large gathering at the meeting. Their bylaws state that Open Forum can’t last more than thirty minutes. People are talking, so poster board is achieving its intended goal.
Segal– We should talk about the transportation.
Coates– I don’t know if I am going to bring the petition tomorrow night.
Holzman– I hope people are willing to donate out of the goodness of your wallet. There are certain gas reimbursement requirements. In addition, we lost a student last week. He was an athlete for the URI Baseball Team. Twenty-years old. Very sad. SBPC meeting will be coming up. One thing I do want to say is that if the Board of Governors does not approve tuition increase, I think it is something that they may have time to make adjustments. This issue can be postponed all the way to February. We will see what happens tomorrow. We will move back to Finance.