SOARC
Roy– Today, my committee went recognized “Make It Bright” at Category “A”. National chapter that raises money for orphanages. They were extremely excited about being recognized by Senate. We went with martial arts because they were up for de-recognition today. Decided it was not worth it to de-recognize them. Told them I would be checking on them and making sure they are getting their mail, will be in frequent contact with them. It was not worth it. Model UN did not show up to argue their de-recognition, so they are no de-recognized. I will be putting a letter in their mailbox, informing them that they have a two-weeks appeals period to Casey. The whole process is in the bylaws. In order to get through to these two groups, I gave them a letter everytime they missed the president’s meeting and notified them of the next penalty. Budgets have already been frozen for the next four weeks. Martial Arts is staying for now. Also, I have been emailing frequently.
Holden– I move to close the minutes.
Minutes reopened at 7pm.
EXTERNAL
Troiano– Advertised the petition in Balentine Hall today. We got 20 more signatures. We are now up to nearly 1,300 signatures. My committee has been difficult to get together this week. I will do my best to get more signatures before winter break.
Segal- Can you stand in the library with it?
Troiano– It is a good idea, but I don’t know who may be able to sign up. If we could organize it, it would be a good idea. I have been trying to get different colleges and different buildings involved.
CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ferreira– Committee is in agreement to re-administer a survey. We are thinking of having our meetings on Monday. Waiting on the rest of committee to hand in their schedules.
CAMPUS AFFAIRS
Juhr– Nothing new. Committee meetings are mostly going to be at the same time- Tuesdays at 5:30pm.
Caisse– What are you trying to do with the HigherOne?
Juhr– Sinapi handled that project all on his own. What was supposed to was happen was that HigherOne offers the students paper checks, but university only offers paperless checks, which is not the best option for most students. A lot of students were complaining about it. Sinapi wanted to offer an automatic check option. I called Lauren Perry, who is the HigherOne rep for us. She explained it to me and sent me an email about what has to get done next.
VICE PRESIDENT
Holden– I had a meeting with Emily and Rob as far as formal concerned. Rob is looking at dates right now. They also wanted to know what we think about getting a bus. It is going t be at Almafi’s. Kim loved the card and the dunkin donuts giftcard. I need to meet with Hania, Brittany, and Bruce to go over finals on scholarship recipient. Try to start working on your transition binder.
Jones– Is formal going to be in March?
Holden– Late February. Ideas on the buses? We have enough people to go to formal.
Coates– It has come down each year to how much it costs.
Holden– Last year, it was cheap. The cost of formal increases with the bus fare.
Caisse– How much are tickets?
Holden– Not sure. I will look into it and get back to you.
Roy– What is the date for formal?
Holden– Not sure yet.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
Caisse– Same old stuff. Went to the Provost Advisory Council. I knew a lot of information the y talked about. Gabe and I met with Faculty Senate president Nancy Eaton and Peter Larsen. Got them to agree to a proposal for second grade option. She was optimistic about it. It will be going to committee and voted on in the spring.
Coates– Just make sure that your committee is prepped for questions. It goes a long way in the Faculty Senate if people speak, if students speak. If you put students from your committee there, it will go a long way.
Caisse– We just asked that it would not be amended on the floor.
Segal– Do you know what that day it is in the spring?
Caisse– It depends on when they meet.
Zaman– How long is the drop period open?
Caisse– 9 weeks is currently the drop period.
Holden– Is anyone’s committee time changing?
Ferreira– Mine might be.
Holden– Please let your committees know.
Coates– Executive committee might slide.
Holden– Make sure you do it soon. We start next semester on a Monday.
Mullin– When do I find out when the elections committee meets?
Coates– Committee elects a chairperson and coordinates that meeting time. There are two non-executive members on that committee, which might be good for chairs.
Caisse– Faculty Senate is on Thursday at 3pm.
FINANCE COMMITTEE
Holzman– Hey, everybody. I know it seems like things have been quiet on the westward front, but they have not. Bills for Sailing Club, UHRU SASA’s fashion show, SAWA’s hair show, and DOM salary will be on the floor when you get back as well as outing club. We will be dealing with capital improvements when my committee gets back. We have already handed out $4,200 between Cigar and Sailing Club. Cigar newspaper racks and Sailing Club needed to get one of the boats fixed. We will be looking at how much we can pull from tax to improve capital improvements for radio station, ghost hunting, and crew. We will be needed for ourselves to buy some new computers. If we want to go to electronic voting for general elections, we need a couple of computers to put out on booths for students to vote on. We talked about another computer for organizational use. There have been two, but we have only had one for the last year. Am I correct in the understanding that Model UN is de-recognized?
Roy– Did you freeze those budgets I asked you to freeze?
Holzman– Yes. I made it so that it is 30 Senate business days, so budgets will not be opened until 14th of February. I unfroze those you gave me from November, except SSDP. I am looking forward to them getting new officers soon. I did not really talk to them abou that. I will make sure to look into the PINK thing tomorrow. As far as IFC Panhel conference, I think we can safely release the checks. The whole $31 a person was because they booked Spain when they were trying to tecover from a hurricane and the food had to be brought in on special order. They did not have anything in stock because they did not have power.
Roy– Why they did not tell us they changed venue?
Holzman-They came in on the first day of school to have me sign off on the recs because they could not do it at Alton Jones and they wanted to make alternative arrangements. Wanted to get it done before the semester ends. I did not look into as carefully, but it is a good learning experience, where if something changes last minute, we need to not care that they are trying to follow their annual practices. They need to take the time and do it right. In any other organization, a large business would be fine with doing it the way it would happen. We need to focus a little more on taking the time do things right. Another thing on the floor when we get back will be making a category transfer from Tax to Interest. Does anyone should I feel why we should transferring? I am working out the deal with the guy who runs the Airsoft business that Airsoft wants to install their stuff with. They want to attach their strings. Just an understanding about what they get from us and what we get from them. If they have a problem, they feel airsoft is violating their agreement, we renegotiate or cancel entirely. Lastly, the IT situation with our tech support. The short of it is that we have a quickly-aging fleet of computers. We have two computing units. A lot of them are very old. This whole concept of buying one computer a year and not throwing them out is about to bite us back. My plan of action is to hire Rob who is Bruce’s tech support guy full time to work for us on a part-time basis, which may go up over time. For the rest of the year, it may go up an hour a week. His job is going to be to oversee that all computers maintain a consistent manner and to facilitate that they are up to par, maximum usability. He is also going to be available for us to confer technology projects to talk with Dave and I about. The second thing in regards to that is that we are looking at addressing 3 issues, which is a technology audit. We are getting a bid from RAM computers. Evaluating our computers, a maintenance schedule, replacement schedule are all things that should ensure we get computers.
Coates– We have a computer running Windows ’98.
Mullin – How many computers do we have?
Holzman– The other 25-28 are owned by us and the majority of our organizations. We have a couple servers that are the WRIU broadcasting equipment. What rolls into this WRIU’s capital improvement request. From the technology audit, we will have an understanding of where we are and where we need to be. We will be looking at how much it’s going to cost. That job might get done by a student employee hired by the Student Senate.
Coates– Basically, what is before the executive committee is that we have always had a student employee which is problematic because it is a hard job to fill. We have had things happen like the student decide to study abroad or go to China or Japan and take the passwords with them and not respond with our administrator passwords are. We can’t let stuff like that happen. The other issue is that there would not be enough separation between the office and student involvement. Chairman Holzman has included a compartmentalization cause for Rob to not talk about anything on the Senate computers. What we are trying to figure out is does the executive committee thing we should be investing money into Rob, a student employee, RAM care, or both? All of the above?
Holzman– In regards to the compartmentalization and separation, Bruce also needs that because of course he signs off on all of our contracts. If anybody looked into it, it would be awkward that we could be paying Rob and he be paying Rob. Rob will be completely separate. He will punch out on Bruce’s clock and punch in on ours. There are currently $650 in Senate’s administrative budget. RAM care has already provided a bid from $350-$700. The explanation for the range is that the more time they put into it, the service they get out of it. If they are cheaper than Rob to do this, which I think it will be, I will tell them that $400 is your cap. They will manage their time to fit within that $400. They are going to provide us two quotes- one for getting computers to maximum usability and one for doing day to day support service on those. The benefit is that we can call them up any time there is a problem and RAM computers can come right over and look at it. That is where we are going with that. We will be doing the audit over winter break and upgrades over the first half of the semester. The second half of the semester we will be looking at the future and I will work within the budget for the moment. When we have more information about what it is going to cost, that will be another time.
Coates– Have you gone over cost projections yet?
Holzman– Audit now because we do not have accurate or precision projections until we have an audit.
SECRETARY
Jones– No report.
TREASURER
Segal– Stipends can be picked up tomorrow. January stipends can be picked up over the month. Basketball tickets, if you signed up for them, I don’t know how I will get them to you but I will try. The one for the Yale game. The one for the 23rd, can Dave pick those up?
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Zaman– I will be making up the strategic plan over winter break.
Coates– I was working on it today.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Cordisco- No report.
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Mullin– Met with Dave briefly. We will have a comprehensive marketing strategy at least for the first month. I can share with everybody. If anybody else wants to contribute to this process or thinks they have valuable information and make my life easier, meet with me after and I will CC you on all of this too. We have some basic metrics. That is pretty much it.
Caisse– Did you do an editorial?
Cordisco– I did but I sent it to them and I don’t know if they got it.
PRESIDENT
Coates– Like I said, I started working on a couple things today. I am trying to get an organizational chart from the university. Hopefully, this exists. I have seen some for it in individual departments. My guess is HR would have something like that on final, but I am not positive. If I don’t get that, I am going to try to do it myself. I can try and at least be able to identify key players of the University. The idea is that there will be two versions- one that identifies the position and reporting structure and the other one will identify who those people are and their significance and job responsibilities. I made one of those for Senate today. We can put it in the binders for the new senators but we can incorporate that into getting that information out there to the public, so people can understand senate a little easier. Had an SBPC meeting this morning. The good news is that there is a fund balance. It happened a $4.6 million fund balance that they did not anticipate, partly because some expenditures came in under budget. They did not spend as much on fringe benefits that they thought they would. What they are looking at doing is creating a contingency fund. If something happens mid-year, we will have money to cover it. So, I am generally in favor of that. I do not think we should be spending that money on anything. There was a cut last year and two years ago with a mid-year tuition hike and had a bigger tuition bill, so it could be protection on stuff like that happening. It is not limited to infrastructure. It is a solid plan that needs to happen.
Lamoureux– Are they going to review this year to try and keep the trend of saving money?
Coates– A lot of it has to do with the state, debt forgiveness, and things like that. They have invested money this year in advanced planning on the Roger Williams Complex in the dormitories. They are hiring an architect and developing a plan about what to do to those buildings for the futre. That is promising. The money for the GLBT Center is in this year’s budget and the dining hall expansion. One of their highest strategic projects is the renovation of the exteriors of the buildings around the Quad. The final number came in at $67 million.
Coates– Ranger is getting interior renovation.
Mullin– Didn’t the pharmacy cost that much?
Coates– The CBLS building cost about that amount.
Juhr– Is Taft still be working on?
Coates– That started as a mold abatement and lead to a mold and asbestos abatement. They are putting central air in that building, too. The other things I can share with you are that is that one of the major burdens on our budget is that all the utilities are self-maintained by the university. A lot of other schools don’t have that problem. There is a $425 million backlog in maintenance. It is not getting any better. Other than that, they have incorporated the capital improvements plan to strategic planning and budget for the future. The next Senate president will have a good opportunity to give input on capital projects. I will be meeting with Mike Trainor who is on the support staff for RIBGHE at Wed at 4pm. Meeting with him to discuss legislative strategy to discuss our petition. I also have the Chief Diversity Officer search committee. We cut down to our short list of candidates and we have determined which ones to bring in for interviews, but a lot of it is confidential so I can’t share. There were about 35 people that applied, a number of which we cut down automatically due to years of experience. Some of the candidates are extremely well-qualified. When it comes down to finalists, I will be able to disclose their names and relevant information. The search has not closed yet. The qualifications for the job are very specific and there are not a lot jobs for that position. I have been working on strategic plan today. I worked on the organizational charts of understanding the university. I will distribute those when they are done.
Adjourned 7:50pm