I. Call to order 5:32PM
I. Roll Call
A. Present
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3. Sunaina Khandelwal
4. Whitney Torchia
5. Neketa Kakar
6. Brian Frazee
7. Amber Spry
8. Tascha Ebhomielen
9. Rahilla Tarfa
10. Chidinma Ukonne
11. Aditi Srivastav
12. FYA Matt McNey
13. FYA Toby Le
14. FYA Simmi Singh
II. Approval of Minutes
A. Minutes approved by general consent.
III. Special Guest- Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, President of UMBC
A. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: This is by far the most rich and diverse group of its type at UMBC in 20 years. Congrats on the leaders to do just that. I will give you my first challenge. In my 21 years at UMBC, I can only remember one woman president in student government. Does that mean women don’t aspire to be president? I want my male president to encourage my women students to think about the need for young women to see women leaders because if there was a woman college president people will be already thinking about it. Since it’s a male, people may or may not think about it. This is not saying it’s for a given year but just to think the need for leadership for all types of group. I had a woman president one year. She was also from Jamaica. Second thought is that I do honestly believe that each of you has the opportunity to be a major leader on campus. You get to hear critical news. This is the place that values transparency. If we have problems, Dr. Young will tell you what they are. I can tell you some good news that I want you to hear right now. When I got to the stock market, we close up 11%. That’s a big deal. We went up 900 some points. It is good news. Most important, nation will have more confidence in itself. I tell you that to say this, the governor will be announcing cuts and the bad news is everyone gets cut. Good news is the governor is being supporting to universities as much as we can. Major serious problems. Universities represent 20% of discretionary money. He’s cutting budget by 300 million dollars. That would’ve been 60 million to the system which would’ve been 5-6 million to us. It won’t be anything that bad. We’ll know in the next day or 2 for sure. When all of that said, we’ve been planning for a cut. We knew the economy wasn’t good. No surprise to us. 70% of the money goes to the people. Either slow down hiring or you keep hiring or lay people off. We don’t believe in laying people off. Teaching and learning process is important. Making sure you have the support. Making sure that we give people security with their jobs to support students and faculty if possible. This is not the first time we’ve had this problem. We have to manage the budget as carefully as possible. That’s our challenge. Let me stop there and I can take any questions you may have.
B. Jake Steele: This is a serious question. A good friend of mine had a birthday Saturday and that evening he was robbed at gunpoint. Almost noon today, emergency alert came up. I was disappointed at the lack of speed. If there was something going on, armed robbery could’ve been a shooting. Isolated incident could’ve been a group effort. Robberies go, that’s what happens. If you do all your dirty work at a short amount of time, it’ll be more successful. Just wondering why it came out so late. There were other students walking that could’ve been victims. 2 students walking the loop. Cellphones, credit cards, wallets were stolen. Someone had a gun.
1. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: What is our policy on how soon we tell people?
2. Nancy Young: Depends. Police assess the credibility of it. If it’s an immediate risk, we let people know. Why they made that judgment over the weekend, I don’t know.
3. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: We will check for you
4. Jake Steele: I do understand the point not to panic student body
5. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: I would assume when it happened, next 24 hrs they would be more vigilant to look for those kinds of things in those areas. We can find out the rationale for it. Fortunately it’s unusual. I would say this to you… we are so safe relative to many different places. It could happen in any campus. What do we tell people walking late at night? From my point of view… here’s the challenge, if the loop had gated entrances, then the loop could be considered comfortable part of campus. Without gate entrances, walking around the loop is like walking on Wilkens Avenue. We would think it’s the campus. For the most part, it’s fine. This is that one time. I want to make sure young women shouldn’t even be walking at 2s. Anyone could just drive into campus. We get a level of comfort because it is a comfortable place. I’m surprise we don’t have more. If people realize how comfortable people are here, it’s scarier. If you think about it, why would we think the loop would be less dangerous than Wilkens Avenue? Anyone can come in there back and forth. I don’t have the answer.
6. Nancy Young: We took that very seriously. They’re reported it Sunday at residential life. Other efforts were taken to make sure people were secure. Locks were changed.
7. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: Asking student leaders… help us decide if there’s anything else we should be saying to the campus. Should we be saying more to students living on campus at night? I don’t have the answer. What should we be saying? I just hadn’t thought about it.
8. Nancy Young: We’ve been extremely fortunate. Police circle the campus because it’s the most vulnerable part of campus. I know police will be forthcoming when they know. Remind people that nowhere is a sanctuary. I’m going to add, young men, be careful too.
9. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: I’m also worried about physical assault for women. I am saying… it’s worth for you all to think about the language we should be using. We want to make sure our students are much more careful particularly around the loop at night. We need to think through.
10. Jason Brand: Education on what to do if something like this happens to you. I don’t know what it is but talk to people.
11. Dr.Freeman Hrabowski: Give them what you got when they ask for it.
12. Nancy Young: Depends on if they want your stuff or if they want you.
13. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: Don’t get into a car with anybody. Having sessions about those kinds of things, it won’t be that bad.
14. Nancy Young: Not unusual for students to be mugged in some communities. We’re fortunate we’ve only gotten a handful. Hopefully it’s an isolated incident. We still need to take precautions because you’ll never know.
15. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: It would help to educate the students. The same people that did it before could still be out there. We need to give people education.
16. Aditi Srivastav: Something that would be effective, I don’t really know how to use the blue light emergency system. I don’t even know where all of them are. Resource we could look into. I know there are also escorts available.
17. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: People get too comfortable. It’s always good to hear what students have to say. People wanted better lighting before.
18. Amber Spry: Public service announcements. We have resources like UMBCtv to do something like that.
19. Steve Gilmore: Going back to what Jake was saying.. We don’t really know what the cause is. When the whole VTech happened, we came up with the text plan. Situation incident like this, text didn’t come up until Monday, people got worried to see if the system is actually working.
20. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: People need to know the safety issue. If it’s an emergency situation, the text message will work. What is the policy regarding timing?
21. Nancy Young: Helpful for some group of students to share to the group that could talk with the police. Where is the boundary of what you want is sent out? Helpful thing to hear is… how far you want text messaging to go?
22. Jake Steele: My greatest concern, a simple text message saying armed robbery would be sufficient. Cops deal with this on regular basis… a little bit more hardened for armed robbery. Looking into these factual messages. Students are worried just in case they were there on the loop at midnight at the same time.
23. Matthew McNey: I think it’d be better to send a message quickly when the actual event has been recorded. Right then rather than later on.
24. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: Get to experts to see what they say. It is not immediately communicated because they may be in the middle of catching the person. Communication message might prevent them. You just don’t know. You can’t second guess the experts. We do want to be safe rather than sorry. Let’s find out about the situation.
C. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: What can we do for a typical person on campus to know more activities that they may be involved in? And would you agree with me that we should have activities on the weekend than during the week?
1. Aditi Srivastav: I definitely think we need activities on weekends. I feel if there were things to do, people would say. Weekend programming would be a good idea. Reaching out to typical students to UMBC: we’ve tried. The easiest way is to continue what we’re doing and doing personal thing as supposed to emails and posters. Students are open to you walking to them and telling them about activities. Most people don’t know. Personal touch would be more effective.
2. Jason Brand: with RSA, we tried to do events on weekends… it seems that as hard as we try, it’s hard to get people to come out on weekends. If you get one of these programs that are worthwhile, you’ll get some people to stay…. You just have to keep trying to get programs in.
3. Jen Kent: I don’t think we need more but bigger events. There’s a ton of events but they’re tiny things. A lot more bigger events will draw in more people… and then you start doing smaller events.
4. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: If we can do something Saturday nights… 2-3 weekends a month, that would be great.
5. Sunaina Khandelwal: An event like Postsecret is an exception. If we want to do Postsecret on a weekend, it’ll be the same amount. We need to start big and good events on weekdays. Check it out and they really enjoy it so next year they’d remember and go to it.
6. Freeman Hrabowski: When people come and see Saturday night with nothing, even if people are in their room studying… there’s such a need a few good Saturdays.
7. Sunaina Khandelwal: I think we need to build up.
8. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: If we have good events like that, you know it’s going to be a success. You want people on campus.
9. James McCauley: A lot of that, people going home on weekends is a big deal for us. People go home on weekends because university shuts down on weekends. Food in commons is closed on weekends.
10. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: If we can figure out how many students stay on certain Saturdays, maybe a movie or something would work. Then that’d be a way to work with commons staff to have it open.
11. Yasmin Karimian: coming from the side that funds the events, people advertising is our problem. I’d argue that we have 3 weekends in a month that’s over $1500 funded. The problem is the turnouts are low because word doesn’t get out. I wouldn’t say there’s not anything to do.
12. Chidi: I would start by saying, beginning of semester… freshmen came up to me… and asked what was next since welcome week was over. Honestly speaking, academics are important and social life is also important. They want to sleep during the weekend. They don’t want to go anywhere where there isn’t anything fun going on. If we get faculty involved in campus, they do have to study for exams but they also have to socialize.
13. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: some majors require more studying. It’s not the faculty, it’s you all. We can be supportive of you all but you decide what to do.
14. Amber Spry: my main concern is that… this lack of participation… it’s such a part of UMBC culture. It’s not the question of whether or not we’re having the right events…. The fact that there aren’t places to eat on campus during the weekends… we can’t just pinpoint on one thing. We start with small stuff first.
15. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: You guys have a lot of money for a student program. There’s a need for stronger student leadership to get the spirit out there. If you can get hot events... should be on Saturday nights… students should be really involved. If you could choose certain Saturdays that have really good events, and have something else during the day, we can work to have more places to eat because we’ll guarantee to have a certain amount f people go there.
16. Nayana Davis: Reaching out to typical student… connected to at least one student organization. Amber and I… working on a Halloween fest… first thing we did to advertise the event was not to go to people… 16 student organizations who would also be advertising to us. I think another thing about building up to the weekend. We can’t expect students to stay in the weekends unless we show them what we’re capable of. Follow up more events like Postsecret.
17. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: number one strength of UMBC is that we have broken all records in the number of students that have done academic success. That’s the reason. The reason we are 5th in the country is that reason. No other MD schools in that group. Once we have that out of the way, I still want people to have fun.
18. Nayana Davis: events should be much more accessible.
19. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: Most students don’t experience the amazing events that other students organizations sponsor.
20. Nancy Young: I think Freeman has laid out a challenge for you. I think we need help in changing perception. Starting connections between student leaders… join together. We’re struggling with space. We did the first 3 weeks of welcome week, and then there were 3 more events planned. How you do space and how you do connections. Listen to some of the ideas you put out tonight. Not ideas for the future because you’re already doing them. We need real leaders.
21. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski: I’m glad people are studying but I want them to have fun too.
22. Aditi Srivastav: Something that would help, something you just said… if you said that to people… people will listen to you. If our own president will say that, they might listen.
23. Dr Freeman Habrowski: The culture is such that people do tend to hang in groups. They do their thing in groups. We should have the regular opportunities to see a lot of people having fun. If you could have something once a weekend, that will really help a lot. I will your PR person if you show me the activities. I challenge you that by the beginning of spring let us know what your plans are and how we can be supportive.
IV. Open Discussion
B. Review of past week
1. Sunaina Khandelwal: RSA met and they were all talking about Halloween. Following different activities for different residential halls. How to budget. Told about SGA Halloween fest. They wanted info about election night extravaganza to collaborate.
2. Jake Steele: Athletics committee. Review UMBC official visits. We also discussed how specifically athletic department could commit climate task force of lowering carbon footprint on campus. We have begun NCAA recertification D1. I am sitting on the academic sub committee. We are in charge of developing tactics on how to increase our ability to graduate scholar athletes at the university. We continue to have high academic results. UMBC sets a benchmark for high academic scholar.
3. Brian Frazee: elections night extravaganza met last week. Final touches. Final debate party is this Wednesday.
C. Transcript Fee Update
1. Whitney Torchia: Met with Yvette. Really good meeting. Expressed concerns of students. Told her what we’ve been hearing. Give us input on everything. Said everything Robinson said. She’s willing to look into first 3 free to see how it’s done in other schools. See if it’s possible for us to do it.
2. Gabe Rettaliata: I was scared at first because she said she wanted to see how you can help me. As we went on to discuss our fears on how we can compromise with their issues, she became receptive on how other schools are doing it. When Robinson got here, they had a fee in their old school. Didn’t really look at other options that were available. Possibly opened Yvette’s eyes. How to keep track on how many free transcripts have gone.
3. Nancy Young: her eyes are open
4. Gabe Rettaliata: hopefully progress will be quick with that.
5. Nancy Young: I think it’s important to stop and recognize success. Wherever you land, you may not always agree with the solution but you’ve been heard.
V. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours
1. Neketa Kakar: Met on Friday. A lot of questions, we tried to get answered. Set up meetings with a lot of people. If you have any other questions, please let us know since we’re just on the process of setting meetings up.
2. Gabe Rettaliata: Suggestion heard from Dr. Young- Re-designing atrium.
3. Neketa Kakar: That’s what I mentioned to them. Changing the environment and the tables and things like that.
B. Stress Free Zone Revamp
1. Jen Kent: No real updates since last time. Meeting next Monday. That’ll be at 10am. More planning. I’m still taking suggestions. Want to see happen or not, let me know.
2. David Hoffman: During the tour, potential new students… when tour guide brought to student org place, she talked about stress free zone. I wonder if it’s possible to continue the things we’ve been doing as well.
3. Jason Brand: Discussion last week of car smashing idea… people expressed showed cautiousness. Maybe do something like office space. Taking old printers, computer monitors and smashing them to pieces with baseball bats.
C. Reaching out to International Students
1. Amber Spry: What we’ve been going over, what we have planned, heritage day… a more formal event for international students. A whole community really. Something that’s a big presence on campus. The main thing for conversation is whether or not we want this to be a one time event to make it something in one day, festival scenario in the afternoon. Formal event in the afternoon. Or whether we want to spread event out in a week and maybe a continent featured on each day… which might be a strain on our resources. Depends on what student involvement will be like.
2. Jake Steele: What about the program mosaic did before? Provided resources in conjunction with SGA. I think that would be worth looking at. It’s already an event backed by the mosaic.
i. Amber Spry: Do they still do it?
ii. Jake Steele: as of last spring they did.
3. Toby Le: I’m meeting with the coordinator of the mosaic. I’ll get update on that tomorrow.
4. Tasha Ebhomielen: We kind of had a minor meeting. We’re thinking that we’d probably do the Asian continent on one day. African continent in another day. If we put everything together, there wouldn’t be enough space. Too much to take in. We want people to concentrate. That’s what we’re thinking of. We haven’t really discussed it yet but it’s an option.
5. Chidi Ukonne: We do recognize the fact that we have offices on campus that’s bringing international awareness on campus. Objective: work with these offices such as residential life, international student services, mosaic center, etc. bring our sources together and merge our ideas together. We’re also hoping it to be a continuous program.
6. Jason Brand: you might also want to get in contact with Chartwells. Food is culture. To get people into different kinds of food.
7. Amber Spry: we’re setting it up as a festival.
8. Jake Steele: I think it’d be cool… rather than separating it, to take the entire commons space, and turn it into a whole world wide festival. Things set up in every hallway. Set up in every available space. Close it up as close as you can to the earth. As you walk, it might take you hours to do it. It might take time to do it but it’ll be awesome.
9. Amber Spry: it seems more feasible, actually.
10. Aditi Srivastav: I really like the idea doing something in the evening. I’m never in the commons. Since it’s an international heritage day and follow something at night, people will stay. There are a lot of people that can perform that can do something in their own country and it will bring different populations. If we can get the commons or UC ballroom, that would be awesome.
11. Nancy Young: I love it because I just had a conversation with Gabe and Steve about something else that as we think about students thinking about big scale events, I think it sounds brilliant. We could be moving us in the first 6 weeks of school.
12. Amber Spry: I hope it becomes a bigger event every year.
D. Black and Gold Campus Signage
1. Whitney Torchia: We are in contact with the people. We need to do our research. Adam offered to do illustration. Lisa wants us to come with a product. Willing to work with us after that.
2. Aditi Srivastav: It’s going to be a little bit more difficult since Jill is leaving. Slower process but it’s going to happen. I was forwarded to the right people. Adam is going to design it for us.
VI. New Business
1. SL07-0809- Confirmation of Damola Sijuwade as Director of Diversity Affairs
a. Damola Sijuwade: I was here before but now I’m director. I have a lot of stuff that Betty sent to Steve. I’m still in need of a team. I don’t know exactly everyone I’m going to be working with. Steve is still accepting applications. We’re starting up with heritage fest. Another goal I’m going to work is to improve quality of events like the Around the World. I’m going to start meeting with leaders of student organizations to get to know everyone.
b. Sunaina Khandelwal: Suggestion, reach out individual cultural groups we have here. Have representatives. Instead of just meeting them, have it as a post.
c. Gabe Rettaliata: Details about your plans aside from around the world?
a. Damola Sijuwade: What Betty has… host a open form discussion. Assist the department language and linguistics. Coordinate activities for international students.
d. Gabe Rettaliata: Do you have any ideas of your own?
a. Damola Sijuwade: No, not really
e. Steve Gilmore: This is a last minute thing. I’m not going a semester without a director of diversity.
f. Gabe Rettaliata: I heard some suggestions on how to do our confirmation policy. Some want candidates to leave the room.
g. Jen Kent: I disagree. I want people to express their opinions without being scared of the person being there.
h. Jason Brand: for RSA, we always have them step out of the room
i. Aditi Srivastav: I just see a lot of uncertainty in people’s faces. I think we should just vote on whether or not we want him to leave.
j. Rahilla Tarfa: Why can’t we just do this the way we’ve been doing this and have him stay?
k. Jason Brand: What are your responsibilities be as diversity chair
a. Damola Sijuwade: Getting acquainted to different cultures/organizations.
l. Gabe Rettaliata: I had this concern last time… he didn’t have any ideas. He’s basing plans based on Betty’s ideas. I wanted to see if he had ideas of his own… concern that I have.
m. Amber Spry: If he shows himself capable to execute things, he’s going to have a team of people to contribute ideas. Execution is just as important.
n. Brian Frazee: As a compromise, would you be in favor to table it and see if he can come up with any plans for next week?
o. Steve Gilmore: I think it’s irrelevant. The role is to execute, not to come up with them.
p. Jen Kent: in response to Amber’s statement… I also had the concern he didn’t have specific ideas. I’d be more comfortable in that if there was a team in place.
q. Rahilla Tarfa: in the past, I didn’t see a lot from it. I didn’t see a lot from the office last year.
r. Jen Kent: I know Betty can’t do the position… is she still going to be around?
a. Steve Gilmore: She’s still helping. The only involvement is working on the action plan.
s. Aditi Srivastav: I was just really turned off and not have a director. It made me feel like he’s just another candidate that you need because you don’t have a director. I feel like he’s just filling the position. He might be very well qualified.
a. Steve Gilmore: In the beginning, he was considered as director. Damola is a different kind of director.
t. Motion to approve SL08-0809 by Aditi Srivastav.
a. Seconded by Neketa Kakar
b. VOTE: 10 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining (Gabe), 0 absent.
B. JL03-0809- General Ledger Allocation for Halloween Fest
1. Nayana Davis: purpose… one of those events that would enliven our campus. right on Erickson field. Campus unifying event. Expect 400-500 people to come. Means for student organizations to get themselves out there. Almost involvement fest. Student orgs will run specific activities. Expanding campus activities. We just got our fliers printed out.
2. Jen: you should paint Erickson field.
3. Rahilla: do you know what the weather is going to be like?
a. Nayana: if it rains, a tent. We’ll be keeping an eye on that. we also booked main street just in case it rains. There are back up plans
4. Neketa: we also do fliers.
5. Nayana: we have a few shirts advertising it.
6. Jen: are the tshirts being paid for this?
a. Nayana: no. the food that we’re getting it is through Silva’ catering company. We’re also looking for giant to donate some of the food listed.
7. Motion to approve JL03-0809 by Aditi Srivastav
a. Seconded by Whitney Torchia
b. VOTE: 10 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining, 0 absent.
VII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports
D. Jason Brand: Didn’t do much last week. Discussion on housing selection house force. Thinking about doing focus groups. 500-600 people on waiting list still.
E. Steve Gilmore: Had a meeting and said there was 240 people on the waiting list
1. Jason Brand: saying 5th year seniors, move off campus. If you’re interested on being on the task force… contact Jackie. Elected midnight breakfast chair.
F. Steve Gilmore: There’s this company installing cell phone charging unit… if you’re phone is dying, it’s fully charged. Won’t cost anything for student. Guy called today. Meeting with him. If you want to come, there’s a demonstration. Towson is getting this installed in 2 weeks. Election night extravaganza… meeting this Friday. 3 weeks until election. Tomorrow, I’ll be sending out sheet for homecoming volunteers. Mainly need volunteers for tailgating party. Adding on to housing difficulties, they’re looking for suggestions.
G. Nayana Davis: I put up a white board on SGA projects. If you need help with projects, you can put that on there.
H. David Indek: Swipe red card for points. Reward for each level. Encouraging students to attend events for points. 2 other projects… plans for student peer advising. Plan students on requirement side. Other project is advisors for judicial services.
VIII. Announcements
A. Brian Frazee: USM… endorsed slots. Disappointed on the way they handled it. A lot of people took it the wrong way. If students are really upset about this… we put aside our personal decisions about this for the betterment of the students.
B. Whitney Torchia: Ken Baron… said he got an email from you (Gabe)… interested in meeting with us. Based on little things, surveys for the advising from freshmen are good.
1. Nayana Davis: He’s very receptive. He’s very interested in hearing what you have to say.
C. Chidi Ukonne: Sent an email as regards to movie lists that we’re purchasing.
D. Whitney Torchia: I have my food service committee on Wednesday. E-mail me your opinions.
E. David Indek: MSAC… meeting on the 25th.
F. Gabe: Yasmin wanted me to tell you, treasurer meeting on Wednesday 3-4, ITE 233. If you’re unsure how to answer a club’s question about money, I recommend you go to this. Office hours, make sure you’re all doing them. Guest again next week is Lee Calizo. I did want to comment on what we did today. The food thing, we should keep it the way it is. This isn’t the place to be eating.
1. Nayana Davis: I like the idea but if you have classes up until now, you need to eat.
2. Amber Spry: I was just going to say… I’m on the same page as Gabe. Use your discretion. Don’t bring a 4 course meal.
IX. Roll Call
A. Present
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3. Sunaina Khandelwal
4. Whitney Torchia
5. Neketa Kakar
6. Brian Frazee
7. Amber Spry
8. Tascha Ebhomielen
9. Chidinma Ukonne
10. FYA Matt McNey
11. FYA Toby Le
12. FYA Simmi Singh
B. Absent:
1. Aditi Srivastav
2. Rahilla Tarfa
X. Adjournment 7:34PM
XI. Pass the Gavel