UMBC SGA Senate January 26, 2009
I. Call to Order-5:32
II. Roll Call
A. Present:
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Whitney Torchia
3. Brian Frazee
4. Sunaina Khandelwal
5. Amber Spry
6. Aditi Srivastav
7. FYA Toby Le
8. FYA Matt McNey
9. FYA Simmi Singh
B. Not Present:
1. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
2. Rahilla Tarfa
3. Chiddy Ukonne
III. Approval of Minutes
A. Minutes approved by general consent
IV. Open Discussion
A. Review of Winter
1. Brian: Over the winter the legislative session on Jan. 18. The committee is meeting on Wednesday. I did some work on my own. I went to Annapolis today (Higher Education Funding Hearing). Met will Delegate Jones today. I am passing around a draft of the USM Board of Regents priorities in regards to textbooks. Josh Michael, the student regent has also created a document of priorities for students which is also being passed around. You will have an update by next Monday for you all. Some good news is that the Governor has put more money into his budget than expected and has included a tuition freeze for undergraduate students.
2. Gabe: University Steering Committee met twice since we have met. The budget has been the theme for the meetings. There is a total of 5.7 million dollars in cuts. The furlough plan seems as though it will work out quite well. Unfortunately there is probably more cuts to come and the words “lay off” was also mentioned. I am not too worried, that will be a last resort. They also showed us a bit about the new People Soft, software that is coming. People Soft controls all that has to do with the Registrar and effects students in many different ways. It is going to make things much easier for students. One thing the faculty is concerned about is that it will limit the ways they do SEQs. They are trying to figure out a way to get lots of feedback and have it be online. They also talked about the calendar and those changes are official now. The first day is Tuesday September 1st and the last day is December 14th. Spring semester will begin on a Wednesday, January 27th and the last day is May 13th. I got a chance to go to the Dinning Committee. They gave us the plan for the dining hall renovations and they will be working through the course of the semester. They also talked about Au Bon Pan, and it’s kind of in the air right now because it seems to be a bigger project that they intended. They also spoke about the meal plan changes: the commuter and the 200 block will allow you to go to the dining hall numerous times. They also went into survey details and people seem to have responded positively. They also talked about things to improve such as more creative meals for the dining hall and healthier foods.
a. Jen: For the calendar stuff, have they talked about Thanksgiving Break?
b. Gabe: Thanksgiving Break will be Thursday to Sunday as usual.
c. Jen: That is really unfair for out of state students and people who live far away and we have classes the day before Thanksgiving. Can we do anything about that?
d. Steve: I will talk to them about that. That seems like an issue.
e. Gabe: Also, some facilities renewal is just not going to happen this year.
3. Steve: One more thing, we also had an extremely successful leadership retreat, STRiVE. Quite a few people went so ask them about it! Please try to attend next year if you can!!!
a. David: It will be good to hear from the participants to see if we should be funding it next year in our budget.
b. Gabe: We can talk about it now.
c. Toby: It was an extremely exciting experience and very eye opening. It made me discover a lot more potentials I have and know more about myself.
d. Paula: I gained a lot out of it and it boosted my leadership skills and my understanding of group dynamics. It is extremely empowering for students who do not have access to student government and is extremely beneficial.
e. Matt: I learned a lot about self-awareness and what kind of potential we have. We learned a lot about social structures and how to build an organization.
f. Stephanie: My favorite part was the pods (groups of 7 or 8) where we would relate our life experiences and learned about others passions and interests.
V. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours
1. Naina: We have scheduled meetings with the respective people that we wanted to. We are also posting on blogs (Zwybak and UMBC Underground). We are about to go forward majorly!
B. Stress Free Zone Revamp
1. Jen: Done. We did that before break. It went really well and I think people enjoyed it not just being in the student organizations space.
2. Gabe: I agree it was great. People loved the free food all over campus and the craft table seemed to be pretty crowded.
3. Aditi: I think that something that could have been changed was that Jen had to pick a lot of peoples’ shifts and there needs to be a way to be held accountable. If you sign up to do it, you should do it.
a. Jen: I have an idea about that. I want to do similar things. I think later in the semester I will delegate projects separately such as the craft table being run by one person.
b. Gabe: We can look at that when it gets closer to Stress Free Zone.
C. Reaching out to International Students
1. Amber: There are not any real updates. Tasha resigned.
2. Gabe: What do you see in terms of this project?
a. Amber: I don’t see it ending. The project is a good idea. A lot needs to change either it will end or we need to change it all. Especially because of money issues, especially since Diversity Affairs could do it.
b. Gabe: I would agree. What do the rest of you think?
c. Naina: If the group members do not think it’s going anywhere, than we should honor what she thinks.
d. Paula: If people do not want to work on it, then we can end it. But not always passing it off to another projects.
e. Amber: Maybe we can work alongside them, but senate could be doing a lot.
D. Black and Gold Campus Signage
1. Aditi: It’s overwhelming. We need more people to get on board with us. There a lot of branches we need to get funding from. As a senate we cannot be the sole funders. I would really appreciate if other members can get involved. There are so many parts to it so we really need help. Whitney and I are going to be looking at actual quotes after we count how many banners we need. We think we will need $10,000. That is our ideal budget we are looking at OSL, OIA, Athletics and possibly Admissions. We cannot do it by ourselves. It is in full swing however. We have a general idea so we need help with the little things.
2. Whitney: I don’t know how we want to go about starting a new project, but I hope some people join our group.
3. Aditi: It would help if people who have worked with other branches would join our group. It is intimidating to be asking people for money.
4. James: You said you had $3000 from the senate, where are the other sources?
a. Aditi: We are hoping Athletics matches the $3000. I am working with OIA and they say that they can probably help us with instillation. We have not talked to OSL yet. We are looking at the Spirit Fund.
b. Steve: I am looking to allocate money right now to a tailgate so it could not be a full $3000. What is the justification for using the Spirit Fund?
c. Aditi: Everyone just suggested that we look at other sources of funding and the Spirit Fund was one of them.
d. Jen: It was just that we didn’t know a lot of the details and I was saying that if we put up $8000, than there is not a lot of opportunities for other departments to contribute.
e. Gabe: They originally asked for $8000 and we made it a senate additional allocation fund for $3000. I don’t know if we feel comfortable dipping into the GL.
f. Aditi: It is a student project, but a lot of departments will benefit. We need that money to put it together.
g. James: Have you talked to the Office of the President? This is for a higher cause.
h. Aditi: I have not thought about that. It’s a great idea. I am also looking at the office of the Provost. We just need more people involved.
i. Paula: I also suggest talking to Nancy Young.
5. Gabe: Anyone interested in that project contact Aditi or Whitney.
E. Transcript Fee
1. Whitney: We have five arguments and we are going to finalize our arguments. You all will get that for the meeting on Monday or may I will send it out online. We all want to be on the same page.
VI. New Business
A. Transcript Fee group planning time
1. Gabe: Yvette and Steve Robinson are coming one week from today. We want to get as many students at that meeting as possible. We broke into two groups: research and getting the word out group. Let’s meet with the groups for fifteen minutes at and 6:20 pm lets be back in our seats.
2. Senate goes into a caucus until 6:20.
B. Constitutional Amendment Discussion
1. Gabe: These two issues have floating around. Since we are getting closer and closer to election time, we need to do it fairly quickly. We also need 2/3 approval from the Finance Board and Senate. We have talked about removing the positions of Student Org. Advocates and giving First Year Ambassadors voting rights in the spring semester in the future. Let’s talk about the first one. We can get rid of that position and give the VP of Student Organizations the power to hire assistants.
2. David: These positions are rather new. It used to be the House of Organizations. One of the big differences is that the House members would be elected by the student organizations in categories. The House could not do a lot of what Finance Board was doing because student organization leaders in the House would fight over money for their own organizations. The Student Organization Advocates were part of the deal to remove the House, which would guarantee representation of the student organizations. I am not worried that people do not run for them. The challenge for those positions is that they are dislocated from the rest of the SGA. They are in tough positions. The truth is formally the VP of the Student organizations has no connection to them, but this year the VP has stepped in and has been working with them. We would get people who care about organizations, working with them to shape their work.
3. Paula: I like the idea of House of Organizations instead of Student Organization Advocates. I was involved with a big student org. and never had any interaction with them. I think student orgs can advocate better for themselves than student org advocates can. I think we should have a student orgs council. It could be student orgs who want to advocate for themselves and it would connect student orgs to SGA.
4. David: That would be SGA helping student organizations advocate for themselves. It would take a lot of work for organizations to see the point in advocating.
5. Jen: What kind of things would the Student Organization Advocates be doing?
a. David: So we have had issues for sports clubs forever and ever. A student org advocate would be able to run and do something about it. It just doesn’t help to be disconnected from SGA.
b. Jen: There is a lack of interest and I think it should go under the VP of Student Orgs. That is a position that a limit number of people would not run for.
6. Amber: I do not think that you eliminate something based on people not being interested in it. I see why there would be an interest from student groups to have a House type structure. Why don’t we have one position that is an elected position and not move all of them to VP and have more positions for staff?
7. Jen: I think that one position is VP of Student Orgs. I was wondering why they were elected in the first place since they don’t have money and can’t vote?
8. Gabe: The student org advocates have to apply to the Finance Board for their projects.
9. Amber: If they did anything, the fact that they are elected gives them much more backing.
10. Paula: I think we can debate this, but the problem is there is a disconnect between student organizations and SGA. The Student Org Advocates positions are dysfunctional. If you are not in a student org, you don’t know what it’s like to feel lost and disconnected in a student organization. I think there needs to be a system where student orgs can freely talk and connect with other student organizations. What is a student org advocates driving passion, they might not even be in a student organization?
11. Amber: So what I am hearing is that we need to put a definition with the role. Nothing has been outlined or defined. There needs to be a different kind of structure. While I do think it would be cool to see a student organizations forum, I don’t think that we are at a point right now where we can do that. The Student Org Advocate could contact student orgs that are interested and connect them with meetings and such. That would be a primary step.
12. Mike: Would it possible to have it in the Constitution to make people be in a student organization in order to be a student organization advocate?
13. Gabe: If we are arguing about this position, then let me read the description in the Constitution: “Each Student Organization Advocate shall have the power to initiate and organize projects for the benefit of UMBC’s student organizations; consult with, and provide advice and feedback to, the Vice President for Student Organizations; and apply to the Finance Board for project funding.”
14. Matt: The purpose of the student org advocates is to teach student orgs to advocate for themselves.
15. Jen: It honestly doesn’t matter to me if they are elected or appointed, but I think they should be under the VP of Student Organizations and will connect them. Those two bodies should be connected.
16. Aditi: When I hear advocate, I think these people are supposed to fight, so maybe if that was clearly defined than it would help. Maybe my definition is different.
17. Brian: I think something else to consider is that Student Organization Advocates need to be going to the Finance Board. Obviously is the Finance Board’s job to decide who gets money, but advocates should be there to help.
18. Mike: I think they should attend Student Orgs meetings.
19. Matt: Why not instead of having a separate body, let’s have a single individual elected by student organizations sit on the Finance Board.
20. Paula: We don’t really know what’s going on; we should be asking student organizations what they need. Email the student orgs list proc or have a town hall meeting. It won’t be as effective if we just do it ourselves. Just changing it to an unelected position isn’t going to help.
21. Steve: I agree. We need to do more research. We are overcomplicating things. It is easier to have one person to do this work instead of having a big group of people do something. The structure we currently have is not working. It just seems like a guaranteed way to get in to the SGA and not be held accountable to anyone.
22. David: I think this is a great discussion and I think those of you who are making points of how to change and it doesn’t have to be grounded in the history of how it was created. The decision has to come pretty quickly and the research needs to be done in the next 3 weeks.
23. Jen: I think in that case, it should stay. It has failed this year, but it has not been doomed due to its structure. I don’t want to see us eliminate the position and then our research decide that we need it back. If we are going to eliminate it, it needs to be a hundred percent.
24. Steve: We can do this at Involvement Fest. We could set up a meeting for later next week.
25. Amber: I don’t think it needs to be five people, just one. I think there are different levels of involvement a student organization wants from SGA. People function differently.
26. Paula: It could just be up to the Vice President of Student Organizations.
27. Gabe: This is how I feel about this. The advocates could be under the VP of Student Organizations. It is just the same thing.
28. Amber: I respectfully disagree. It sounds like the same thing but I think it can be two different things. If you are student organization advocate, you should be elected by student organizations. I think it is poorly defined in the Constitution.
29. Aditi: I wanted to say the same thing. They should report directly to the VP of Student Organizations but still elected.
30. Matt: The people in the student organizations are electing the VP and they are picking the staff.
31. Jen: We elect the President and the Vice President with faith that they will pick good people for the executive.
32. Gabe: We could make it so the Finance Board and the Senate could confirm them.
33. Naina: How could we amend the Constitution and make it effective immediately?
34. David: It is tricky. If it is gets the support of the senate and finance board, it is most likely to get passed by students. You would say the position exists but if it is removed, you have to know it will be removed and you are running for a position that may not exist.
35. Paula: The senate should not have that much power in making these decisions. The VP of Student Orgs may not want to hire staff or appoint people. Maybe they have a different model in mind.
36. Jen: I think they should just have staff.
37. Gabe: Any cabinet director can hire staff and fire them.
38. Mike: Also look at that way that people would leave that position. If someone is appointed they can just be fired.
39. Naina: I move for a straw poll on the issue.
40. Gabe: We have two choices for your vote, wanting as an elected position, and wanting it as an appointed position. FYA’s can vote.
a. Those in favor of electing them- 7
b. Those in favor of appointing them- 4
c. Gabe: Right now we are in favor of it being an elected position.
41. Naina: Definitely changes in the constitution are still needed.
42. Steve: I will set up a meeting for a huge brainstorming thing.
43. Brian: I want to add that this brings up a bigger issue of accountability. If student org advocates were doing what they were supposed to be doing, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
44. Naina: I just don’t think they know what they are supposed to be doing. If we defined it, than they would know.
45. Matt: The VP of Student Orgs and advocates have the exact same task.
46. David: What’s the next step?
47. Steve: Follow up meeting.
48. Gabe- First year ambassador discussion
49. Jen- I think they should be able to vote. I know they aren’t elected, but by the time we have appointed them they have been on campus and putting them on committees and they are prepared to vote.
50. Aditi- The freshmen class has no opportunity to be represented and this is a good opportunity. When picking FYAs we should hear their interviews.
51. Brian- I think we should give them voting rights. The FYAs are their representatives.
52. Mike- I don’t agree with them not being elected argument. You all are elected and have appointed them.
53. Gabe- FYAs is not limited to the First year class only, transfer students are also welcome to apply.
54. David- Four years ago, SGA was at a different place. Every fall there was an election based on classes (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior). The fall election sucked a lot of energy out of SGA and it was very common for people to fill seats based on in house election. They judged on whether the person would vote with them or against them. There were two problems to solve: we are going to make it harder for people to get elected in house (shrink bodies) and we are going to eliminate the fall election, but appoint First Years to serve since they wouldn’t be here in the spring. SGA is now in a different place. The question is, if you were to give FYAs the right to vote, change the process of how you select them, and hurt the bodies?
55. Jen- I don’t think we are going to have the problem. It’s not like they have only been here for like 3 weeks and they don’t really have opinions on things since they don’t know much yet.
56. Paula- I really like our FYAs and they are ready to vote, but I think on principle they shouldn’t be able to vote since they have not been elected by the student body.
57. Jen- I think though they never had the chance to get elected by the student body and that is the difference.
58. Paula- A lot of students don’t have a voice.
59. Jen- First year issues need representation and if they don’t have the representation, we need to get a way to give them representation.
60. Amber- We were chosen by the students and we are choosing other representatives. They didn’t have an opportunity to run for any positions. If you feel like you don’t have a voice, you are not being proactive.
61. Gabe- So is there unanimous consent that we give FYAs the right to vote?
a. All present agreed
62. Gabe: Okay, but we are still sticky on the appoint process. It gives the Speaker a lot of power.
63. Jen- Well, if we are going to try to get this passed, we are going to have to work to get this passed.
64. Paula- I think you should say Senate has the power to expand the senate to accommodate all the FYAs.
65. Jen- I just want to make sure that people that don’t pick and choose the FYAs they like and dislike and appoint them.
66. Gabe- We can remove FYAs.
67. Aditi- We need to have more people sit-in on their interview.
68. Naina- Agree with the fact that more people should be in the interview. What if the FYA doesn’t perform up to par yet is going to give them voting rights?
69. Toby- I agree with Aditi. There should be a body of people interviewing the FYA candidates.
70. Amber- you really don’t know who you are hiring. You should give them voting rights in the spring. We as senators should be at the interviews.
71. Jen- More people on interviews, I don’t think we can write that in the Constitution. It should be open. Agree with Amber. If they are that bad that they can’t vote, they should be removed. They do everything else but vote. If they can represent us at a committee, they can vote.
72. Brian- I don’t think it should change, the Speaker should elect the three FYAs. The Senate has to confirm those three people.
73. David- I don’t want to stand between Brian and Aditi. I think my sympathy is with Aditi, but you don’t need a rule to say that. Make a motion to remove the Speaker if they aren’t letting you in.
74. Aditi- Maybe not a rule, but a precedent set. It is hard to speak out when you are a new senator.
75. Matt- These are not friends of the speaker, they are first year students. The Speaker does not just get three additional votes and more power.
76. Amber- Can we have open interviews?
77. Gabe- there are two issues- do we vote for FYAs to get voting rights automatically and should interview should be open. We’ll start with the first one. Do we want there to be language in the amendment that interviews be open? Raise your hand if yes.
a. 9 raise their hands, 2 do not
78. Paula- we need to think about process. Language should be the senate needs to confirm.
79. Toby- I would like that with a review and to see how effective I have been through the first semester and confirming FYAs to give them voting rights.
80. Amber- it should be a right to vote and not a privilege.
81. Jen- There are new senators who have the right to vote and FYAs have that too. I don’t think we should confirm we just appoint them with knowing that they will vote.
82. Mike- What about even number of votes?
83. David- If it is a tie, it fails.
84. Brian- I agree with Jen and Amber. We have to be extremely careful, if we do this whole “confirming thing” it opens up the senate to an extremely political environment.
85. Gabe- Okay, now we’ll do our second straw poll. Those in favor of having the FYA’s getting automatic voting rights, raise your hand.
a. 8 people raise their hand, 3 do not.
86. Gabe- Okay then. I think there should be a caveat that they should be appointed before November 1st.
87. Jen- Should we have a committee to talk about this?
88. Gabe- Let’s wait and see what the Finance Board says.
VII. Team Building-postponed
VIII. Executive/ Ex- Officio Reports
A. Yasmin- Prices are coming down for events. Finance Board has strict policies coming about money since we are tight
B. Steve- We have five new members! Jake is also working on the Retriever Awards program. There will be something coming up on myUMBC after Jake has spoken to Collier Jones. Jake will be at retreat so he will explain more. Toks is working on a project at the movie theatre in Arbutus. They are trying to draw more business. We want to help sell tickets for $5 and give students transportation there. We are going to be working with Transit, Retriever Weekly and the theatre. SGA elections are coming up and if you know anyone who is interested on being on the election board please let Kati Henry know. Our first executive cabinet meeting is Wednesday at 7 pm in the SGA office. Yasmin and I are going to be drawing up the budget in this next month. We are going to come up with two drafts, one for if it passes and one for if it doesn’t.
C. Paula- Next week is going to be a really long meeting. I am writing legislation about gender neutral housing, I don’t want that to take up a whole lot of time. Email me if you have questions so that I won’t take up much time at the meeting next week.
D. David- Just wanted to point out a cloud in the budget picture. There is a tuition freeze in the governor’s budget, but he didn’t fund any salary increases for staff. The impact on that on the staff salaries will be much larger than that of the furloughs.
E. Mike- RSA social tomorrow night at 8 pm in the Harbor Multi-Purpose room.
IX. Announcements
A. Whitney- Food services committee is looking for some input, so email if you have any questions or concerns. Whit1@umbc.edu
B. Brian- Towson is holding a lobbying workshop on Sunday so I would encourage you to come and we could only bring three more people.
C. Naina- Are we expected to serve on the same committees?
1. Jen- no, everyone’s schedules have changed. So I will email you by Wednesday so email me back by Friday.
D. Brian- Amber and I are the Spirit Committee Chairs so let us know if you have anything.
1. Toby and Naina – Ice Skating!
E. Whitney - I know another person interested in the secretary job – can you talk to them about It Gabe?
F. Gabe: office hours - do them. They start this week – half of unexcused absences if you don’t do it this week. Excused absences start over for this semester. Unexcused absences roll over from last semester. Put your calendars on oracle. Secretary search: if you know anyone interested, give them my email gabriel2@umbc.edu – I’ll get in touch and take care of everything else. We’ll have to go through a confirmation again but we need it ASAP. Inauguration – a very big event at the end of the semester – we need someone to plan it. If anyone is interested in planning it, let Steve know. Retreat – Saturday 10 AM. Really our chance to get back together and get on the same page and make plans and go off for the rest of the semester. We have been planning for the entire winter now so we’re excited. If you’re not going to be there – let me or Steve know. Whitney and Jen have an excuse and won’t be there, the rest are expected to attend. Obviously we have Yvette and Steve Robinson coming next week– a nice double header. We had Lee Calizo, Dr. Hrabowski, Dr. Young, Bob Somers, Dr. Baron, and Anne Scholl-Fiedler come last semester. Anyone you guys want to come this semester? I was thinking Elliot Hirschman and Diane Lee. Tom Delucca. Eric Engler. Sander Dzija. Katie Boone - Director of res life. Lynne Schafer - VP of admin and finance.
1. Steve: if you wanted a better understanding of the legislative procedure, Lisa Akchin would be a good person. .
2. Amber – I think Lynne Schafer would be a good idea
3. Brian – Elliot Hirschman and Katie Boone because we have a good population of residents at UMBC
G. Gabe: what do we want to do about projects?
1. Amber and Simmi - Brian: we should not lose focus on old stuff. With new projects – we’ll lose interests on old things.
2. Jen – we should seriously go through and see ones that we really don’t see any progress in then we should really drop it.
3. Gabe – right now we have the Black and Gold, increased Library and transcripts. Stress Free Zone revamp is done.
4. Steve: we might find something on Saturday that we all find very inspiring and we might want to undertake.
5. Gabe: so we’ll talk about it maybe next week and see how it goes
6. Jen: I think we really need to take care of that next week. Even if we’re there until 10 – we need to take care of it. Once elections come around we’ll be too absorbed.
7. Gabe: right now senate has one project completed to its name.
8. Mike: I would consider taking people that don’t have one right now should be put into the old project committees to get the work done ASAP.
9. Gabe: we can reevaluate it next time
10. Jen: when is the retriever article coming out (to aditi and Whitney)
a. Steve: tomorrow
11. Paula: you should figure out on blogs and posts and ask students what they want. I would encourage people to really ask other students instead of thinking it yourself.
12. Jen: think of projects that other people cannot do. So events should be out since SEB has money and so do other organizations.
X. Roll Call – Chiddy and Aditi not here.
A. Present:
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3. Whitney Torchia
4. Brian Frazee
5. Sunaina Khandelwal
6. Amber Spry
7. Rahilla Tarfa
8. FYA Toby Le
9. FYA Matt McNey
10. FYA Simmi Singh
B. Not Present:
1. Aditi Srivastav
2. Chiddy Ukonne
XI. Adjournment- 8:07
XII. Pass the Gavel