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 (gilmore2@umbc.edu), in advance so you can be added to the agenda.
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Date: Monday November 12, 2007
Room:
Meeting in order: 5.35pm
Everyone is present except for Jen
Vice President for Student Affairs:
• Neketa: Night openings for food venues
o Survey conducted on students
o Recommendations process with other student organizations
o Staff went through job re-training
• Sameera: Food prices
o Unreasonable prices for certain food items
o Due to survey resulting in 20-30 % only have a concern about the prices of food
o Students are more concerned about the food quality
• James: Directory available in the commons providing new students with information about the building
o The need for new students to explore with the goal of making new friends
• Whitney: How did UMBC change?
o “As UMBC gets bigger how do we keep it small?”
More activity should be available for first year students
Immediate community
Talent shows
Need to come up with how to make small communities in a big community
Never changed: students are polite
• Success:
o “What others think is success for you”
Passion is students
o VP of student affairs
Helping students to graduate in peace
o Cooperation with all student organizations
Include all students in all activities
o Representing students concerns
The administration should be able to present the student’s past experiences and also present students
Residential plan
• Recommendations for improving apartments and residence halls
• Also providing recreation areas for students
• Housing outside the loop, ask students their opinions on this.
o If it is too far outside the loop
• Collaborating
o Keep important things alive
• Athletic dept
o Share same goals
Engaging students in sports
o Share same problems
Funding
o Student affairs and athletic dept
Future funding will not be available to these dept.
• Placing more atm machines
o Security concerns
Week-reviews
• House and the senate
o Dedicated funding source
o Slots
Increase funding for higher education
o Spending cut side
• UMBC representatives
• Federal legislation
o Restricting federal legislation on file sharing
• SGA blog
o Working out pretty well
• Great contributions from the first year ambassadors
• Black gold commission
o Number of attendance expected not present due to the rain
• Student organizations dinner
o Unveiling the events
o Successful for the students who did attend this dinner
• Prove it
o Advertising has started
o Students excited about it
o Encourage students to join facebook
o Quarter sheets provides all the info about this program
• Red card program
o Advertisement comes out this week
o Take advantage of the discount this card offers
o Banner up in the commons
Joint legislation:
General Ledger JL 02-0708
• Higher education policies
o Expenditure of $400
Executive representative of the students
Fund the November’s MHEC-SAC
Number of senators passing: 5
Opposed: 0
Abstained: 1
Cellular solutions:
• Charge your cell-phone
o No payments
o Of use for advertisements
o Security concerns
o Policy to use it to test for effectiveness
o Ask other companies that have it
Natasha and Jeff
• ATM machines
o Placed at one spot at most schools
o Not urgent
Rahilla and Heather:
Town hall meetings
• RSA meeting
o Inform RSA on their suggestions
SGA members being present at these town hall meeting
Send out e-mail to CABs
• Contact these groups asking for invitations
• Present SGA to the students at these meetings
• Interact with students
o Start these meetings next semester
Send out e-mails no later than this week
o Goal of these meetings
Make SGA visible
Make connections between students and SGA members
• About a specific issue
Michael:
File sharing
• Contacting legislators and policy makers
o Ambiguity in the copy-rights
o Building relationships with legislators and policy makers for future preferences
Legislators are able to take away certain privileges such as grants and scholarships
Unable to bring up the issue of file sharing in situations like this
o Signing contracts with companies and schools on this issue
o Send out a letter to student affair
Discussing this issue preventing the school from law suits
Steve and Ben:
• Approach the retriever weekly
o Ask questions on where the articles are going
o How can SGA be of any help
• Students can attend the Wednesday meeting with Steve
Executive reports:
• Int. TA’s
o Jesse and Elise
Meeting
• Sports clubs
• Prove it
• CAACURH
• Leader shape
Meeting adjourned: 7.15pm