ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Holden– Academic steadily moving along with Sakai tab proposal. Attended UC-gen. ed meeting and working on forum for the committee. Valerie is presenting this Wednesday at Senate. Provost Advisory Council meeting is Tuesday at 5pm. Should be receiving final draft of survey of technology classroom. Spoke to Peter Larsen about syllabus skeleton. Discuss more in person. Appointed Emily Dionne to UC Gen Ed Committee. Caisse will also remain on the committee for time being.
VICE PRESIDENT
Holden– Nothing other than Hania, Brittany, and I submitting our times for meeting for the scholarship applications. Just waiting to hear from Bruce. That is it for me really. I am going to have revised attendance sheets in your mailboxes by Monday after senator orientation on Wednesday.
Ferreira– I can’t make the meeting, but do you want me to make bullet points about Cultural?
Holden– Chairs are not required to go anymore.
Ferreira– When are we going to start meeting for formal?
Holden– Rob from SAA decided to have formal with us. Now that he is in, it is going to be SAA, SEC, and Student Senate. That just happened the other day. Going to meet with the three of them and pick venues.
SOARC COMMITTEE
Roy– I had four groups come to the meeting to get recognized at meeting today. CLASS came to get recognized today. They were category “A” this year and they requested to be changed to Category “R.” They want to focus on raising awareness events. That way, Holzman just way needs to watch out about giving them money towards that. It was unanimously decided. Sign Language Club came. They are a new group at Category “A” because I think they should go to CMD department and ask if they can get funding.
Holden– It is only open to CMD majors. If you are not CMD, you can’t take the class. I tried taking the class.
Roy– Ok, then we are going to have to switch them if that is the case. Art Club came and we categorized them at “A” so they can go to the art department and ask for funding. If the department is terrible, we will consider changing their category. Youth for Ron Paul was also recognized at Category “A.”
Holden– What is the proof that the department is not able to fund them?
Roy– I have never actually done that, but I am guessing that that is what I would have to do. They would have to bring me something good enough to change them. President’s meeting tonight at 7pm here. December in Alumni Center.
Zaman– Where?
Roy– Atrium 2.
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Troiano– Commuter Appreciation Week was a success. We will raffle waivers and hopefully next semester we can submit an off-campus newsletter.
Roy– Where did you get this information from?
Troiano– Their liability waivers.
Roy– Do they mind you sending them stuff?
Coates– Maybe we should have included a box that said they do not want emails.
Holden– the first email could say at the bottom that if you don’t wish to receive emails, they can unsubscribe.
Roy– Before you do anything, you might want to find out.
Holden– the URI directory could have given him that information
Coates– Well it can only be restrictive in the directory. There was a big article in the Cigar about the information in the directory but it is extremely easy to restrict your directory.
Juhr– Can you go to off-campus housing and talk to them about it?
Troiano– Just get back to me on that.
Juhr– I think if you worked with commuter housing, you might be able to figure something out.
Troiano– I wouldn’t mail it to them, I would email to them.
Coates– We are technically a third party. I was hoping we would be able to do booths in Hope or Union and start collecting email addresses asking if students want more information. We could put up a sign at our next thing that says we are going to email updates. Anyway, keep going.
Troiano– My committee is now working on the Licht Report. It was conveniently broken up into sections. I allocated whole sections to people in the group. I am going to go through it myself as well as my vice-chair. My other five committee members will go through other sections. We are working on getting a new addition- I gave the new specs to Kim for our new sign. It is going to be three statistics- our rank nationally for state funding, our percentage of state budget that is higher education, and timeline in the past decade of the decreases in funding from the state.
Coates– I think we have milked the Union pretty well. I think we should try and get it out on the quad.
Troiano– We can try and get it into each college and building.
Coates– If you could get permission to go in the library, that would be good. Coordinate that so we can say we have thousands of signatures. If anybody says that is not that much, point out how much it has gone up in the last few years.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr– Not too much. I have Adive working on contacting Patricia Casey- she is the woman I have to contact in regards to receiving checks from Higher One. I haven’t received reply from SK Town Manager in relation to Stop Sign so I will be calling him. Hertz wants me to fix one of the Ford Fusions because that it is broken.
Zaman– Didn’t we have a discussion about how that is not our issue? We helped them bring it to campus and they need to be self-sufficient.
Juhr– The woman said she already contacted the main base, but they wanted to see if I could do it first. We were supposed to have a telephone conference this morning, so if I received an email from Sue about what Hertz wants to be done. Jodi Hawkins was able to get back to me about results of the Rec Services survey. The majority was that most students do not want to pay more, but they would consider paying if there were more activities to do. I scanned over it really quick. I can print out results and put them in the Senate office. I will be doing a scan of the changes that have not been made since the Campus Lighting Walk that was done 2 weeks ago. You can now get a breakfast to-go at RAM’s Den between 8-10am, which is pretty cool. I talked to Steve Mello about it last year.
Coates– Two things. The rep for HigherOne, I don’t know if it is the same one. Is it the person that came to campus this semester?
Juhr– No it’s not.
Coates– I would talk to her. She is our new accountant manager. For the survey, can you make your vice-chair file a report with CIO so that we have those on file about why the survey was done. That would be great.
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira– Spirit of Giving meeting went well. Senator Kilduff attended. Their main concern is advertising right now right before Thanksgiving. We are going to help them out with that. We are going to do one our Senate display boards. Also, Veteran’s Day this Friday- Katrina is still looking for students to read off names in Edwards. Please attend- it is going from 9am-8pm. A moment of silence will be held at 2pm. My committee will be working on getting connected with campus groups such as Women’s Center, LGBTQ, and MCC. We are going to try and have one member attend, so that we can have reports going back and forth so that we can make those connections. Senator Smith goes to Ghana every year and she works with an organization that helps empower women that gives them supplies and education to help them further their studies, so we may work on some fundraising events for that.
Jones– Are those senators going to those different programs and buildings going to be the new liaisons for liaison reports?
Coates-What you might want to do is try getting student representatives go to one of the equity council meetings and have a meeting based around what are the biggest challenges they are facing as a group. Can try and bring everyone to one place. Make it about students only. It could be one of your committee meetings. I might have a rep from cultural go to their meetings to initiate, but that is a good idea.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Zaman– I have stuff that I am working on. Did you get any liaison reports?
Jones– Very few. I received some from Labate for Honors Program, Senator Smith for MCC, and Senator Merolla for CBA. That’s pretty much it.
Coates– I can give Hania the most up to date list about who is on what committees.
Zaman– Are we going to get more – from UC and Engineering, for example?
Coates– Joint Committee on Academic Planning does not meet until this month, which is the one the President serves on because it was meeting every week. This semester, they decided not to meet until November. Academic Standards and Calendars have some representatives on it. I appointed a Senator to the Teaching Effectiveness committee.
Jones– I also got a report from someone from Club Sports.
Coates– I can’t make students go to an extra meeting every week and expect them go to three meetings a week if other senators don’t have to do that.
Segal- If you think it should be changed in the compact, then you should go about that.
Coates- IFC and Panel each meet every Monday night.
Juhr– Two meetings for once a week?
Coates– They would have to go that meeting, a committee meeting, etc. I think there are other positions I want filled.
Segal– Looking at the compact, I think we should make a suggestion to be changed in the compact. I just can’t enforce that.
Coates– No, I just have to fill positions from the executive office. Not liaisons. I can appoint liaisons to any University committee. My point is that, if I can’t get people to go to UC Gen Ed, I am not really worried about IFC and Panhel. I am not going to sacrifice senators to devote their time to that if there are other things more pressing.
Zaman– Tanya, if you can send me any reports you have gotten so far, then I can compile a list of them.
Coates– Then we can keep files on each committee, so when we appoint a liaison, there is some history of information to give out.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Cordisco– Starting the newsletter for November. Featuring an article on Alcohol Awareness after meeting with our lawyer about RI State Laws that people are not aware of.
Troiano– Why can she do a newsletter and not me?
Coates– Her email goes to student org list-serv, Senate list-serv. The difference is that we did not obtain ours through waivers.
Zaman– I think it is a great idea to have an off-campus newsletter, but it’s just the way we obtain emails.
Coates– Don’t focus on the newsletter too much for now.
TREASURER
Segal– Just want to read something before my report. I have read the bylaws and it says that the President is supposed to appoint liaisons. Aside from that, no report.
Holden– Can you vote during Faculty Senate meetings?
Coates– No, but I can make motions. We do have an off-campus liaison as well.
Troiano– No one in my committee wants to be off-campus.
Coates– They have to congregate and choose their off-campus representative. It is in the bylaws.
Troiano– I don’t even have all off-campus representatives in my committee.
Coates– Just email them. You can’t just pick one. They have to caucus and choose a representative.
SECRETARY
Jones- No report.
PRESIDENT
Coates– I am sure some of you have noticed the graphic material outside the Union today. If anybody calls about that, I am forwarding any contact information to DOC Cordisco. Our official statement is on our facebook feed. Our official comment is that it is a College Republicans event, we did not provide funding, they are student senate recognized, we do not endorse or support their views, but we do support our students’ first amendment rights.
Ferreira-I heard that our student activities tax went towards the police activity for that event. Is that true?
Coates– No. It is not specific to the event.
Zaman– Just doing their job to protect with any event happening on campus.
Coates– Student Senate has nothing to do with this event. I have gotten emails from students, and I have to kindly respond that I appreciate their concern, but it is their right not to look at it. Don’t have to look at it. I was expecting worse. There is a counter protest going on. We have not had any major issues. I have fielded some phone calls today, including making sure that the URI Campus PD was not telling students that it was a Student Senate event. I only have three applications for Director of Marketing and Recruitment. There were five people who were interested, but never sent in their applications.
Zaman– Are you planning on receiving more applications? Not that these candidates aren’t qualified, but I think you should have a large group of applicants. Did you have the CBA send it out to their students?
Coates– They were supposed to send it out. I need someone who has skills beyond graphic design. I have talked to Dean Higgins in person, Dean Boyd knows about it. They were supposed to send it out.
Segal– Could this person be a senior?
Coates– Yes, but I was hoping to get someone younger so they could stick around longer. I emailed the person who was the advisor to the American Marketing Association. We got one application over the weekend. I am going to cap it off at the end of the week.
Zaman– Try and get it out as much as you can during this week.
Coates– I have to see if business majors actually got the email.
Zaman– We should also try to get the DOC newsletter out to more people.
Cordisco– What about the flyer that I made?
Coates– I emailed that to Merolla and he was supposed to forward it to the business school. Make a half page ad- $250. South County Independent called me today about the tuition increases. Brown Daily Herald called our office today and wants to chat about tuition increases. The SBPC has put their meeting during my classes. I got emailed by another company that does online elections, and it was not the one that we have been in contact with, which is interesting.
Ferreira– Is there any other information you can disclose about Chief Diversity Officer?
Coates– It has been posted on the Human Resources website, so it is now open to applicants.
Adjourned 7:01pm