CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr– Senator Cahill is working on contacting Steve Mello regarding report on Dining Services. There might be a Butterfield expansion project that might be starting up over break. Also will get updates on Ram’s Den. Senator Blanchette is working on contacting SK police. Senator Pishdadian is working on RIPTA. Graham Bell emailed both of us on status of geo-location project. He is still waiting on progress from RIPTA.
Troiano– Rosemarie keeps bringing up the lack of blue light near Christ the King church.
Juhr– We are going up there. It will be getting done.
Zaman– I suggested to you as well as Academic about the printing.
Juhr– It was not looked into yet.
Roy– Free printing on campus?
Zaman– Yes.
Coates– I would go with Academic on that.
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira– Football player is here tonight. Gingerbread houses- planning on having them in January, so we are thinking about pushing it to January and having it open up the semester. Working on Rammie’s timeline. Talked to Union board about windows decoration and info desk said they were not doing it this year because of construction. President Coates had forwarded email about campus culture focus group. Didn’t reach as many people as I expected. I am going to look at what they found and see if we can help out in anyway.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Zaman– had the style guide for a while now, so I brought it to Exec. for you guys to look at it. Feel free to provide suggestions while I pass around.
Coates– Want to make sure Finance gets it. I like it. I started contacting schools for voting.
SOARC
Roy– Executive credits- my committee hit a wall with it. Might give it to Academic, so I will talk to Caisse about that. They keep saying we have to have an advisor. This is the committee’s project for two months and the only thing we can come up with is that my committee needs to work with Academic or give it to Academic because they have the contacts to make this possible- getting it on e-campus, making a class. My committee is lacking what they need to get it done. I have gone back and forth about giving it to Academic and we have tried but it is not getting very far. I gave them a new project- each person in my committee has been assigned ten student orgs and have asked them to get in contact with the organization. I’ve taken off orgs that have been very active. Gave them orgs to look at that are not very active and asked them to visit every group, fill out a progress report, talk to the president about what they liked/disliked at the meeting to make it better and get themselves seen on campus. I am working next semester on matching faculty and staff with their hobbies and interests to be potential advisors, so that I can give student orgs a list of potential advisors. I will probably be speaking to Tanya about going to Faculty Senate and getting it sent to all the faculty and staff. Next Monday is presidents meeting, so if anybody wants to go, please come by. It will be a quick meeting- at the alumni center, there will be food. Dave will be there, SOLC will present. It’s a really good one to go to. Airsoft Club and We Are Alive are coming to get recognized this week.
SECRETARY
Jones– Please have your vice-chairs email me committee meeting minutes. I am missing some meeting minutes and have been asked by senators to look at past minutes and have not had a record of them, so please get them to me as soon as possible or have your vice-chairs email them to you. Also have been working on electronic voting technologies for the general meetings. Got contacts from Paul Whitney at the bookstore, and he has put me in contact with someone on campus who works with this technology as well as a representative for the company that I will talk to soon about pricing and general information in addition to the other programs I have looked into. Give me suggestions for Kudos if you have any or see any good things happening in Senate this week or last week.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Troiano– Talked about the Licht report last week. Found some interesting things that are academic-related, so I have talked to Chairman Caisse about it too. Licht referenced ideas to encourage and cultivate electronic classes or distance learning. I personally do not think that is the best way to solve the state’s education issues, but I think it is an interesting approach. That is the one that emerged as an interesting point of the report. Other than that, as many of you have noticed, we do not have a second petition board because the guy that is making it is on vacation right now. Hopefully we get it next week. In the event that the whole statehouse event would take place over break, we are going to try and secure buses to take a trip up there. We are looking quotes right now. I do believe that’s it.
Coates– They still haven’t planned a date for that meeting.
Troiano– We are going to try and get access to list-servs, so that we can mobilize a decent amount of students.
TREASURER
Segal– Had an issue with USA Today last week. Called them last week to fix it, but I will call again. Stipends tomorrow after 2pm in Accounts office.
FINANCE
Holzman– ASA wants to go down to Duke for their Asian Students conference, but it has never been this far before. Has usually been close enough to drive, but they have a lot of people that want to go, so they were thinking about getting a bus. Regardless of how they are getting down there, we are only paying for up to 6 people. In other news, Dave, we should find some time to iron this thing out with Steve, IFC, FMA, and Panhel about the retreat, so we should find some time to talk about that before we sit down with them.
Segal– What happened?
Holzman– We were kind of overcharged and when the bill came in, it looked very improper. We have gotten more information, some things have been clarified, so it looks like everything checks out but we just want to make sure that we don’t have any thing like this in the future. You’ll have to fill me in on your talk with Steve, Dave. Other than that, I am doing inventory of the computer so that we can get Rob on board ASAP. Rob will be packing up the office computers the week of the 4th so he will be taking the office computers on Friday the 9th and I will be working with PRS, LASA, and Students for Sustainability because their office is getting cleared out too.
Segal– While we are on that topic, what did you want me to inventory?
Coates– Major stuff that is in the office. We did not get some stuff back from the last move, so want to make sure we get back important things. Make sure we get all our desks, chairs, tables, printers, faxes, anything. Whatever you don’t want to see go. We lost things such as the easels (tripod easels).
Holzman– I can talk to you Stephanie about inventory stickers. I am working with Bruce to see how much we can safely take out of tax to buy computers. Yearbook says they need new computers because they are having trouble with the computers they have this year. Because we are looking at coming out of capital improvements, we really have to work with Bruce to see what will be coming out of tax. Bruce and I should be wrapping that up, but computer things comes first.
Coates– Summer activities tax?
Holzman– It came in. I rolled it into tax. It was flawless.
PRESIDENT
Coates– Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Welcome back. I have a couple of things. I am going to run down my agenda for the remainder of the term. Couple of things- for campus affairs, I would like you and your committee to check on the status of the Ryan Center contract. I knew they were renewing the RFP this year. That contract directly affects the student fee that we pay. It might have been finalized but I have noticed that we had two major events at the Ryan Center that were not a part of SEC, so it might be something that requires Global Spectrum to bring in performers, which means they might be generating less revenue and taking money out of student fees. The other is the Pepsi Contract- that was redone last year. I don’t know anything about what the conclusion was, and we should probably have some sort of knowledge about what the current situation is and status going forward because they use that money for Athletics. Still working on Chief Diversity Officer search committee. The second meeting will be two weeks from now. Student Rights and Responsibilities will not be meeting again this semester, I do not think. Online voting- we have made a lot of progress with online voting. I know you said you made your contacts. Just sent Tanya a list of contacts. I have been in touch with Mike Moda who will be helping us iron out the RFP, which will deal with privacy certifications and meeting requirements for elections of up to 14,000 people. He needs to help me with how to export the data to the companies and see if it is something that they might have to develop software to directly export from Peoplesoft. All stuff I will work out with him. The last three things are new things that we have talked about in the past, but I think they are really important. The auxiliaries and enterprises rule- I want to get that amended and see if we can start with a gentlemen’s agreement with the University that they will no longer take money out of the general budget and use towards auxiliaries. These are things that are designated in this way because students have to pay for them directly because they benefit students. The school is prevented from putting any additional money to the services but they are not prevented from taking out revenue when they breakeven. They are taking money out of auxiliaries and using the revenue towards things in Academic Affairs, Faculty salaries, etc. I want to prevent that and make that stop because we are an institution that has not really put its money where its mouth is as far as student services. My favorite thing to look at is the fact that we have gone from 10-14,000 students without any single additional police officer, as one example. We are in the middle of looking at an addition the Union, but when is the last time we had any major upgrade to student-related services? We are paying for the intramural field, rock gym, etc. There should be a fund set aside that is used for student projects. I think the best examples are- if they hadn’t taken all the interest out, we wouldn’t be worried about how to pay for equipment in the new fitness center or a year and a half past protest for a new GLBT Center because the money would be there. They are trying to find money in other places.
Holzman– Are you proposing auxiliaries decrease their fees?
Coates– I want to de-incentivize to continue to collect by over-enrolling because they are balancing the checkbook by over-enrolling. A lot of this stems from the state of student activity on campus and a sense of involvement on campus. I want to do two other things-focus groups or market research with our own student orgs on what they see as the biggest challenges which should be a collaborative effort between SOARC, Finance, SOLC, and SPO. We need to sit down in small groups and ask them these questions directly to come up with long-term solutions. I think we should do this in our own setting. The last thing is something that we have joked about but I want to start a capital campaign for a new student union. It is not even on the administration’s radar, and I don’t see student activity on this campus with the current infrastructure that we have. If you think about it, we are in a building right now that has the Division of Student Affairs, Student Life offices, but not enough offices for our student orgs or room to expand. We only have four legitimate spaces for recreation- gallery, ballroom, atriums, and Multicultural forum for over 14,000 people on campus, which is not beneficial to students. We don’t have recreational space for students to do things in. I think one of the biggest challenges that the Senate has faced is that it is supposed to be a dynamic process where students are attracted to a place in the first place, but the burden is placed on the student orgs to get them involved but that is not how it should be. Students should be attracted to the Union. If you look at other schools, I know people that saw UNH’s Union. Their building is exactly the same size- they have two full-size movie theaters, a food court with legitimate places to eat- a place where all students walk through on a regular basis. We lose a lot of students because they walk through the Union and not see anything going on. We need a place that is going to bring together the two communities- the campus community and off-campus population. It is expense and we will never be able to get a general obligation bond.
Segal– Where would we put this Union?
Coates– I like Holzman’s idea of building it in 3 segments, so that this one wouldn’t close while building. It is a capital campaign that will need $60-$70 million dollars.
Holzman– When you hit $30 or $40 million, you can begin building. People see that it looks nice and that you are serious about the project and when you get the next funds, you take out the next section and move through as the money comes in.
Coates– I would have to see some amazing changes if they are going to renovate it.
Holzman– I was going to talk to Brad on a friendly basis about what part of the building is built when. One of the things I can find out from him is he might be able to tell me what in here is structural and what we can gut.
Coates– We need to take the appropriate steps. I have mentioned it to Bruce as our advisor and director of the Union. We can do things like this via the campus affairs committee and utilizing the focus groups we talked about to explore what students would most want. I have reached out to some people who were around when the university started campaign for the pharmacy building- which was privately fundraised. It is not impossible and if they tell us is an uphill battle, I will not believe it. Hillside was completely paid for through university funds. This has been a larger problem for a longer amount of time. The university really believes in those things that it needs. They would do better in fundraising. We only have a $30 million endowment. My point is that the university is not generating cash in any other ways. It is up to people like us to make sure they take these projects seriously without raising tuition and fees.
Holzman– I have no problem moving on without the university in raising money to put into the union.