The following are meeting minutes from the Senate meeting. The Senate meets every Monday at 5:30 PM in Room 318 on the third floor of The Commons. These meetings are open to all students to listen to discussion. If you would like to present an issue, please contact the Speaker of the Senate, Steve Gilmore, in advance so you can be added to the agenda.
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5:34
Everyone here except Brittany and Danielle.
No objections to minutes.
Weekly minutes:
Elani –
• Commons advisory comm..
• Art week – tell friends (in March)
• Emphasis on referendum questions for elections –
• UMBC of decades room redecorations
Enter Danielle, dramatically.
Gabe
• Campus connect, Philly’s program. Trying to target rising sophomores, mentor mentee program. Older students would be mentors, as well as faculty. Gala for mentor prospect in beginning of April, then do more events to try to recruit.
• Alumni raised questions, such as whether or not Seniors will be involved.
• Backbacks to briefcases – what alumni association boards are looking for in mentor programs.
• Hoping to start up next year.
Elani –
• Update corp time schedule
Danielle
• Met with woman from readership program representative
• Doesn’t serve 11,000 students; that’s just how many people we have on campus (as Dr. Fey previously said)
• Actually cost 25 grand a year, as opposed to what Dr. Fey said of 18 grand a year
• Most schools use GSA
• Depends on how much $ we get from Dr. Fey, as well as departments.
• OSL paying for it this semester. One year contract.
Thaddeus – would have to be built into SGA budget at the end of the year to continue. If no support, SGA can’t contribute to this on a yearly basis.
Adrienne – if people find out there are no more newspapers, and SGA tied to it, could be bad. If it’s a one time expense, might not be so bad.
Avi – SGA wasn’t the ones to come up with the program – great program, but not right that it’s been dropped in our laps. Would like to see more numbers.
Danielle – surveys from stress free zone? Steve – basically, if people read Retriever, they are reading papers. 1/3 of students aren’t reading Readership papers.
Thaddeus – SGA could put forth the last little bit to do this, but SGA doesn’t have a lot a lot of money to do this program
Steve is not environmentally conscious because, get this, he’s a music major.
Adrienne – sign petition to get Dr. Fey to one of these meetings.
Steve
• Retention committee
• If you come to umbc, leave, come back 5+ years later, you can have up to 15 credits removed.
• If you come to umbc, with certain major, and do poorly first semester, then change majors and don’t so well, you can have that first semester erased
• Someone wants to reduce the 5 years to 2-3 years.
• Graduation fee ($100) – turn that into a fee that you pay when you enter. Have to make sure that money gets used for what it should be used for.
• Changing advising to more than just getting permission to register
Thaddeus –
• Super bowl party, 20 cent wings, travesty in terms of wings.
• Reagan Sidney proposed that RA’s could get students to commons – takes so long for information to pass through everyone.
• Nothing mentioned from Reagan’s end to RA’s – that never happened
• Thaddeus ruined the Super Bowl. That’s why the Bears lost.
New Business
Steve – house did not pass legislation about Shane, had to be rewritten with Carrie as President.
In favor: 9
Opposed: 0
Abstain: 0
Absent: 1
The Retreat
Gabe – excellent change to refocus on goals. Reoriented self on projects that have been going for months or years. People bonded.
Jordan Hadfield resigned as President, PS.
Steve – good experience, thought it might be bad with Jordan resigning, but went well.
Weekly reports
Will resume this week. To Kristina, by Friday.
Legislation, by Friday, midnight, to Steve.
Make sure you log your office hours.
Formal dance
May 5th.
More legislation will most likely come soon.
If you plan to go to, need to purchase tickets. No tickets will be reserved.
Executive Reports
Gabe –
New pamphlets for study groups program, giving out at involvement this week
Narmin
Faculty forum
Jay
Nothing new to report this week
Announcements
• UMBC Paint ball team – Thaddeus
• Advising working group – Steve
• ecoFest – Danielle
Roll Call: everyone here except for Brittany (feel better!)
6:16 pm meeting adjourned.