I. Call to Order 5:33PM
II. Roll Call
A. Present:
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3. Brian Frazee
4. Neketa Kakar
5. Sunaina Khandelwal
6. Amber Spry
7. Aditi Srivastav
8. Rahilla Tarfa
9. Whitney Torchia
10. Chidinma Ukonne
B. Absent:
1. Tascha Ebhomielen
III. Approval of Minutes
A. Approved by general consent.
IV. Open Discussion
a. Review of past week
b. Gabe Rettaliata: Has anyone met with a project group this past week? Let’s talk about it now.
c. Neketa Kakar: IT Steering Committee. People Soft Essay Software. People can check the status of their application. There’s going to be financial aid stuff online like FAFSA forms. You can change your degrees online as well. Advising and registration can be done online too. This is going to be done next year around February. Around January, we’ll get a new version of blackboard. They’re also changing the cable TV from Comcast to something else. They said we’re still going to have the premium channels.
d. Michael H: They’re staying with Comcast but they’re taking the channels and taking control of themselves.
e. Brian Frazee: I heard a rumor that we’re only going to have half of our channels.
f. Neketa Kakar: They said that we’re going to basically have the same channels.
g. Whitney Torchia: For the transcript fees meeting, we met with Nancy Young. We had a very productive meeting. We’re meeting this Wednesday at 1 in the SGA office. We’re going to e-mail Yvette and the Registrar Steve Robinson to see what we can do.
h. Gabe Rettaliata: To add to that, they definitely presented it in a very interesting way to VPs. They manipulated the data and just used schools that had high fees. They shifted the focus from the undergrads to the alumni’s. What they didn’t realize is that when a student is applying to med school, they might need 15 transcripts. Those 15 transcripts really add up. They claimed that the registrar was swamped and they couldn’t do student services. So now that the registrar has outsourced this, they have plenty of time to do… whatever. So we got Nancy to realize that these fees aren’t that high anywhere else especially in systems in Maryland
i. Jen Kent: Can one of you guys send this to UMBC Underground?
j. Gabe Rettaliata: We should talk about that within the committee.
k. Whitney Torchia: We didn’t know when we could get student support because we haven’t talked whether or not they want to bargain.
l. Brian Frazee: Just want to give someone an update. I posted in the USM blog about the transcript fee at UMBC. Bowie state charged $3 after the first 3 transcripts. CP has no fee but you can only get 11 in one transaction.
m. Sunaina Khandelwal: The website committee. We have a good plan to change the website. There will be new tabs on top. We are going to have resources, FAQ and Events and About section. We are going to condense the information. It’s a lot more informative and user friendly. Hopefully it’ll be up in 3 weeks.
B. Research Initiative
a. Gabe Rettaliata: This was on the agenda last week but we didn’t get a chance to get into it. There is a proposal in having the SGA partner up with the provost office to fund students. There’s no fund for majors outside of STEM areas to go and present research. They might not have the same access to a grant that could work with travel expenses. In the past they’ve asked SGA to give money. We couldn’t really do that at first. Now, we give money, and provost gives the same amount of money. Possible pilot program is to start with $5,000 and provost will give $10,000. We could look at outside sponsorship of some kind as well. We would all go over the requests with joint committees from SGA and the provost office. Look over to see if it’s worth giving money. They generally get 8-10 requests a year. So that’s about 1 or 2 a month. We obviously have some concerns. It is a lot of money. We looked at our budget and it could come from reallocation from people that work in the study place. We need to make sure that SGA is recognized as a part of this. It can be used as leverage in this partnership. We might be able to use this as projects that need to be done. We need to make sure it’s worth our investment.
b. Brian Frazee: You said this is only for grad students?
c. Gabe Rettaliata: It will only be for undergrad students.
d. Jen Kent: What do URA’s (Undergraduate Research Awards) go to? For my understanding, not a lot of people apply to it. Usually not enough people apply for them.
e. Gabe Rettaliata: Big difference is that URA is a year long process.
f. Sunaina Khandelwal: They give you money to actually give the research. From what I understand, you’re giving them money to present their research.
g. Jen Kent: Doesn’t that mean that the all of URA money doesn’t get used?
h. Sunaina Khandelwal: Actually, I believe they do use all the money. I don’t think they’re sitting on any URA money.
i. Jen Kent: If we can get information on how much money they have, that’d be great.
j. Rahilla Tarfa: I would like to know if other school’s SGA participate in provost partnerships.
k. Aditi Srivastav: If it reaches up to a lot of people, it’s something that we should consider. If it’s double the money, I don’t think it’s extremely competitive. I think it’s being taken care of by the URA. It should be publicized a lot.
l. Steve Gilmore: This will be targeting non research areas like English and INDS. The URA’s are mostly science based. A lot of times, people will have the chance to present across the nation for presenting and researching it. People don’t get to do it because they don’t have the money.
m. Amber Spry: My question is, what are their alternatives? If it wasn’t through this and they wanted to present it somewhere, who will be next in line to pay for it?
n. Gabe Rettaliata: I can’t say.
o. Steve Gilmore: That’s why they want to create this. They requested for it and we don’ have the money. They either have to come up with it or not.
p. Rahilla Tarfa: So it would be separate from the URA.
q. Steve Gilmore: We would get requests each month and a representative from each side will review and we will decide who will pay. And it’s not just travel that will be included but registration fees as well.
r. Dave Hoffman: It is not the money they are after. They want the partnership that they can talk to others with benefits. They want students to help other students fund for the research. It’s a good story. It’s the kind of community we’re trying to make. SGA is trying to support research as well as campus life. The university wants to create this with SGA as a partner. SGA has always questioned, should the student activity fee support academic pursuits? Sometimes SGA has said, kind of. Sometimes SGA has said no, we’re not going to support the mock trial team in doing things that they are required to do in a class. This is sort of approaching that line. Question is, are the benefits worth the cost?
s. Jen Kent: This is essentially giving someone scholarship. Do we do anything else like that?
t. Dave Hoffman: No. If you had a counsel of majors that wanted to take a trip to a conference, you’d have to be deciding what it’s about. Then we’ll decide if it can be funded.
u. Jen Kent: But should we give them money if it will only benefit 5 people?
v. Amber Spry: At the same time, it’s not like the money is going to someone that will present at Bowie State with only five people. It will give UMBC a leg up in the academic community. I think it will be money well spent.
w. Sunaina Khandelwal: I think once we have like 24 people that want it, we can fund half of them. Maybe it will go up once we start funding it…
x. Brian Frazee: I feel like if we fund it then it will create demand. I think that’s a good thing. We are one of the two research schools. Research is one our attractive features.
y. Gabe Rettaliata: We’re going to have another meeting about this. I just don’t know when yet.
C. Student Activity Fee/Green Fee
a. Gabe Rettaliata: Do you want to talk about that James?
b. James McCauley: We’re talking about increasing the student activity fee this year. One of the things that came up is a green fee. It shows our initiative that we want to be a greener campus. Part of the fee increase, with which you could advertise for is that a dollar will be allocated to wind credits. Basically, we’re planning on increasing student activity fee. We haven’t decided on the amount yet. We’ve been budgeting $83,000 in the red this year. We’re trying to break it down from inflationary costs than something like the green fee and the negative budgeting and anything in addition for growth. So there are 4 parts. Those are still under discussion
c. Gabe Rettaliata: We have to keep a cushion to spend on the GL for the products that we want to do. For stuff like Prove it, it can’t happen for awhile. We were talking about one time big fee increase and just have that save us. And then a couple years later, do another one. Or do we want to do a moderate increase to just cover ourselves and do a slight increase yearly. We had quite a discussion about that and it’s still ongoing. Whoever wants to get into that, talk to James.
d. James McCauley: The green fee was something we came into consensus on. We kind of want people’s thoughts on it.
e. Amber Spry: Can you explain how it works again?
f. Gabe Rettaliata: Basically, Dr. Hrabowski signed on to this pact that we would reduce our carbon footprint. Right now, we’re big time energy consumer. We want to be energy neutral. This would be going towards wind credit. We’re buying credit on those things so that we’re saying our electricity came from the winter buy. We weren’t just putting $10,000 to put our carbon gas, we’re being energy neutral.
g. Danielle Lipinski: The green fee will only go through energy credits
h. Steve Gilmore: It can be tagged on to another fee that exists like transportation fee since that uses a lot of energy. That will be in conversation with the green fee.
i. Danielle Lipinski: They really need more staff in facilities management. They have a lot to do and they don’t have a lot of resources to do it. I personally like the sustainability committee and that committee can decide…I know in CP they have something like that.
j. Gabe Rettaliata: John said that a lot of colleges around the nation, they’ve been instituting the green fee like 10-15 dollars. We were just talking and introduced a whole new fee or start some kind of money towards sustainability efforts.
k. Yasmin Karimian: Part of the reason we’re adding it on is because referendum students will vote whether or not they want to add it. It might hurt us if we do a 2 time increase instead of combining it. So hopefully that is something that people want to pass our fee as well. We absolutely need that fee this year or we’d have to find ways to cut down on our budget next year.
V. New Business
A. SL07-0809- Confirmation of USMSC Representatives
1. Gabe Rettaliata: So we saw something like this last week. We confirmed Michael and Brian. We will officially confirm Tabassum.
2. Steve Gilmore: Tabassum will be our other voting member in our counsel. She served as shadow last year so she’s already had experience.
3. Tabassum Majid: If you have any questions for me, like Steve said, I was on the counsel last year. It was a good experience so I hope you give me that experience again.
a. Chidinma Ukonne: What kind of experiences have you had?
b. Tabassum Majid: One of its duties is to recommend for the student region. I got to participate in the interviews. One of the things UMBC did last year was active role in the legislator. I was in a lot of those as well.
4. Motion by Sunaina Khandelwal to approve SL07-0809
a. Seconded by Brian Frazee
b. VOTE: 9 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstained (Gabe), 1 absent
B. SL06-0809- Confirmation of Executive Cabinet Directors and Assistant Directors
1. Steve Gilmore: Anna Yap is coming after class at 6:45. It might be a little after. We could just do Tabassum and do her next week.
2. Gabe Rettaliata: I think we should just have Tabassum speak and I think we could just table this until next week.
3. Steve Gilmore: Student Initiatives. Tabassum will be assistant director. She was Vice President of SGA her freshman year. Last year she worked with first year counsel.
4. Tabassum Majid: Michael and I are really excited about this. We met last week with our stuff. We wanted to make sure student initiative is like a consultant group. Bringing freshman and see how to incorporate them. Not just freshman but any students that have any ideas. SGA would reach out to a wider population. We followed up with the other proposals. Top 5 will go into more detail later. I was a helper in Prove it last year since I wasn’t in SGA. For people that don’t know, we had a number of collaborators across campus. We had representative in most major organizations to make sure the proposals were feasible. We ended up selecting 5 out of 22. Interviews were conducted as well as campaigns. The student population also voted and the committee with student input. We had a big announcement towards the end. This year what the goal is for Green Space to be implemented in the spring. We met with the facilities, but they’re really stretched. We met up with the chair of the Green Space. If they have any questions, they can contact me or the others involved. That was a big success with SGA last year.
5. Gabe Rettaliata: Like I said, we’re going to table this. We’re not going to take a vote on this today. We’ll vote on this piece of legislation next week.
C. SR01-0809- Resolution to Support the Powervote Campaign
1. Gabe Rettaliata: I will turn it over to the SEA.
2. Danielle Lipinski: Powervote is a nationwide campaign to get a million young people to vote. Need to be aware of energy issues. It is sponsored by the energy coalition. Basically it is a nonpartisan campaign. We don’t support one candidate over the other.
3. Thambie: the goal is to get a million pledges. Conversation about clean energy. Creating clean infrastructures. Investing in a clean economy. Global warming. New coal and natural gas construction. Focusing more on international cooperation. Taking dirty money out of the economy.
4. John Doyle: There are Powervote campaigns going on in other campuses. There’s a pledge goal of getting 40,000 in USM schools. We thought it would be a good opportunity for SGA to get involved with it. We think that by endorsing our campaign, you’re not just endorsing the platform but students to advocate this.
5. Danielle Lipinski: To promote the education and awareness of this kind of issue. It is an election year and we are coming into something that’s an energy crisis. We want students to know the power they have as citizens of America. I guess that’s all we really have to say.
a. Jen Kent: What specifically do we have to do? Is this something that your office is going to be doing?
b. John Doyle: We would be doing tabling and class reps. We basically just want your support. It’s actually a pretty dual relationship. It’ll be a good relationship with us.
c. Gabe Rettaliata: By pledges you mean people signing up, not money.
d. Danielle Lipinski: Yea, there’s no money involved. Basically they just sign their information.
e. John Doyle: We just want to make a block of people to say that these people care about this issue.
f. Steve Gilmore: Are you just trying to educate them and sign the petition or does it extend past that?
g. Danielle Lipinski: Our goal is to educate as many people as we can. If people are really interested, we’d want to have a longer conversation with them. The pledge card itself has an opportunity for people to be a little bit more engaged. It’s not just a one time interaction.
h. Thambie: We also have educational events for people to be more aware.
6. Danielle Lipinski: Please feel free to check out the website because it is something really important for our generation.
7. John Doyle: it’s more of supporting the efforts.
8. Dave Hoffman: Formally endorsing the Powervote campaign, its endorsement could be approved
9. Aditi Srivastav: you named the 7 things…
a. Danielle Lipinski: Yea, that would be what you’re endorsing.
b. Thambie: I’ll just read it again… -read 7 planks mentioned previously-
c. Danielle Lipinski: 7th planked is geared towards our school. It’s basically to educate people about environmental issues.
10. Chidinma Ukonne: Very interesting presentation. At this point in time, advocate students to get involved the election coming up, it can create awareness and have students have their voices heard and also to get them to participate in politics in their own way.
11. Aditi Srivastav: My only concern… is there a lot of opposition to this? Have you had to deal with people giving you a hard time? The only thing we’d get in trouble for is the misinterpretation, it will reflect upon us because we’re supporting it. I’ll be interested in any kind of opposition you may have.
a. Thambie: The only opposition we have is people not wanting to put their information on the card. We know that we’re not going to be selling the information.
b. John Doyle: it’s not a fringe campaign. They are in different kinds of convention.
c. Danielle Lipinski: Our main point, we wouldn’t be asking for money like the Greenpeace people. We want people to come to us and talk about energy issues. How we’re going to expand this is to go to other organizations and presenting it, like we are with you right now. We’re not trying to force people. It’s about endorsing our efforts. We don’t want people riled up.
d. Michael H: If you support it, it would give you more faith in the student body when you institute the green fee.
12. Gabe Rettaliata: Anyone have anything to say about this issue?
a. Whitney Torchia: Date of introduction says 2007.
b. Gabe Rettaliata: Yes, we should change that. Friendly amendment to change it to read SR01-0809, and Date of Introduction to read September 15th, 2008
13. Motion by Brian Frazee to approve SR01-0809
a. Seconded by Whitney Torchia
b. VOTE: 9 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstained (Gabe), 1 absent
VI. Projects for Upcoming Year
1. Gabe Rettaliata: Last week, we went through a list of projects that SGA came up in retreat. We came up with our favorites. The top had around 3. The bottom had about 1 vote. Cross out student activity fee since that’s being handled outside. –listed the senate project possibilities.
2. Steve Gilmore: Cross off number 9 because David is already working on that [advisors for judicial].
3. Michael H: What is SGA in the halls?
a. Rahilla Tarfa: Members from SGA trying to meet and talk to students mainly in residential halls.
4. Jen Kent: Take off 14 because we’re already doing that outside of this.
a. Gabe Rettaliata: Originally we were supposed to be involved in entrepreneurship. Long story short, they don’t want our help anymore.
b. Jen Kent: It’s not like they didn’t want to do it anymore but we had issues. Since we couldn’t do that anymore, we decided to do our own like unsung heroes. We want to do something for students that do stuff on campus that deserve to be recognized but currently are not. We are still working on it.
c. Yasmin Karimian: It’ll be meeting Fridays at 12. Not this week. I’ll e-mail for more details.
d. Rahilla Tarfa: Does it focus on entrepreneurship?
e. Jen Kent: No, not at all. It is open to anything that someone finds worthwhile.
5. Sunaina Khandelwal: Number 18. Online suggestion box. Website committee can do something about that. Talk to us about it if it’s your idea.
6. Aditi Srivastav: Number 19. Last year we had our first out of state thing. People hosted people even if hey weren’t in SGA. It’s already doing it.
a. Jen Kent: People that want to do that can contact admissions.
7. Gabe Rettaliata: End of last week I asked if anyone had new project ideas. Anyone want to add to this list?
8. James McCauley: I’m not a senator but following up on previous projects like the transit. I’m not really sure who’s on the ball on that but following through the previous projects like a follow up committee.
9. Gabe Rettaliata: I’ve been thinking of different ways of doing this. Each of us can pick what we want and do it. That’s not a good idea. Pick 4 of these and get in groups of 3 and work on it as a team. It’s easier to do some things in a group with different opinions. What do you guys think? 4 is a good number to pick on this list?
a. Aditi Srivastav: Couldn’t you put some of them together?
b. Jen Kent: They’re different processes.
10. Gabe Rettaliata: What I’m going to do is open it up and do nominations. I’m going to write down what we’re nominating. Then we’ll take a vote.
a. Jen Kent: Question before you start. What if some of these things have already started like the senior gift?
b. Gabe Rettaliata: If someone is already starting on that, they should be in that committee.
11. Michael H: For open door policy, there’s already a lot of talk within RSA.
12. Whitney Torchia: 1 and 4 should be added together.
13. Gabe Rettaliata: That’s fine. Any other questions? Floor is open
a. Sunaina Khandelwal: one and four. Longer library hours/more 24/7 student place.
b. Jen Kent: Stress free zone
c. Brian Frazee: number 11- extra day to move in before classes start during breaks.
d. Whitney Torchia: Testing and validating security system.
e. Aditi Srivastav: Better transit services
f. Chidinma Ukonne: Contact international and out of state students and provide a student contact to be a mentor.
g. Rahilla Tarfa: SGA in the halls
h. Whitney Torchia: We have a question. Black and gold committee that we started… we’re still going to have a black and gold commission. Number 20 was started by Black and Gold
i. Neketa Kakar: then 20.
j. Chidinma Ukonne: Question about SGA in the halls. How do you want to implement that?
a. Rahilla Tarfa: For example, last year for Patapsco, we collaborated with CABs, we handed out fliers and pizza and they talked about their concerns.
b. Chidinma Ukonne: Is it a one time thing?
c. Rahilla Tarfa: last year was the first time
d. Chidinma Ukonne: You can collaborate with RAs to talk about SGA and our objectives. Since it’s a one time thing, it’s something that we can do with them.
e. Gabe Rettaliata: Let’s talk about it after voting.
f. Jen Kent: playground
k. Gabe Rettaliata: So it’s locked in. This is it. Which of these 9? We have to remove 5.
a. Jen Kent: Extra move in. I think a different group can handle it like RSA. We can influence them to do it.
b. Brian Frazee: Playground. I don’t think it should be higher priority like security.
c. Gabe Rettaliata: my freshman year, we had a bunch of committees going on at the same time. People got confused on which committees they were on.
d. Jen Kent: how about we go through each one and see which one has the most?
*Library Hours
Neketa
Brian
Sunaina 6 votes
*Stress Free Zone
Jen
Gabe
Rahilla 6 votes
Campus Security 3 Votes
Better Transit 3 Votes
*International Students
Chidi
Amber 3 Votes
SGA in the Halls 2 Votes
Campus Welcome Sign
Whitney
Aditi 4 Votes
14. Brian Frazee: As long as we make sure all these projects get done, it should be fine.
15. Jen Kent: I think we should get a 4th.
16. Gabe Rettaliata: We’re going to have 3 people on each of these committees. Do we want to take some time to meet right now or later?
17. Everyone: Now
18. Gabe Rettaliata: Let’s meet with our people for 5 minutes just so we can figure out when our first meeting is.
19. -5 minutes of meeting-
20. Gabe Rettaliata: We will be discussing these committees and these projects weekly. They will be on the agenda every week. We’ll get feedback from the rest of the senate. We’ll do well with all these projects.
VII. Executive/Ex-officio Reports
1. James McCauley: The campus involvement card… we haven’t met this week because it’s Monday. Last week, we did. There doesn’t seem to be any problems. The student fee is also going along fairly nicely. It’s nice that we’re talking about it now instead of 4 months from now. Also, I have not forgotten about Erickson field. Be looking at that soon.
2. Nayana Davis: I’m looking to implement office hours next week. Committee meeting is also on Monday.
3. Steve Gilmore: Homecoming. Student tailgating for soccer game. Community grills. More info soon. Election night extravaganza… debate is coming from the executive board. We should be promoting voting registrations. You’ll be seeing a bunch of that next week. Lastly, accountability, I’ve asked you guys to set up meetings with me, and none of you have.
4. Harsh Bambawale: Two meetings so far. Sports clubs. We had an interesting request from skydiving club. Changed status to hobby… but then they wanted to compete.
5. Yasmin Karimian: Nothing too much. I didn’t see a lot of you in treasurer training. When you’re putting your events and want to get funding, it’s the same process for that. I encourage you to come to treasurer training. I’m starting a new set next week so expect an e-mail next week.
6. Dave Hoffman: Treasurer training. Fairly dry stuff but important stuff. Senate will soon have first 3 year students. Finance board will also take in 3. 20 have applied. Interviews are going on in the next few weeks.
VIII. Announcements
1. Whitney Torchia: For voting, I know a lot of people are registered. Are they supposed to fill in an absentee ballot? They don’t want to drive home to vote.
a. Dave Hoffman: It depends on if they want to stay registered in their home county. If they do, they have to fill an absentee ballot.
b. Whitney Torchia: I don’t think a lot of people are aware of that.
c. Michael H: Is there a negative in changing address to UMBC and then 4 years from now, changing it back?
d. Amber Spry: It’s really easy to fill out the card.
e. Steve Gilmore: If you’re outside of Baltimore County, you’re also voting for different people.
2. James McCauley: Question for the person talking about changes with Comcast and blackboard. Do you know specifically what kind of changes are going to be in blackboard? Is that going to affect the SGA version of the election?
a. Neketa Kakar: All I know is that they’re changing it to version 8. I don’t really know what that means.
3. Chidinma Ukonne: Even we don’t have SGA in the halls, would people be willing to talk with the residents about SGA with the RAs… like our objectives?
a. Rahilla Tarfa: I was going to take it on as an individual project but I would like to talk to you about it if you’d like
4. Jen Kent: Everyone is on committees. If you have issues, let me know.
5. Gabe Rettaliata: 3 people in the senate are not on corporate time. They know who they are.
6. Sunaina Khandelwal: I’m on there, I think.
7. Gabe Rettaliata: I think you are.
8. Rahilla Tarfa: Can you see me?
9. Gabe Rettaliata: Yes. Other thing is the office hour’s deal. I’m going to leave a slip in your mailboxes. As long as it adds up to an hr a week, then it’s fine. Just be in there for an hour, please.
10. Jen Kent: Make sure you update your corporate calendars.
IX. Roll Call:
A. Present:
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3. Brian Frazee
4. Neketa Kakar
5. Sunaina Khandelwal
6. Amber Spry
7. Rahilla Tarfa
8. Whitney Torchia
9. Chidinma Ukonne
B. Absent:
1. Tascha Ebhomielen
2. Aditi Srivastav (excused to leave early)
X. Adjournment 7:17PM.
XI. Pass the Gavel