Student Government Association

SGA Senate Feb. 2, 2009

I. Call to Order- 5:36pm

II. Roll Call:

A. Present:
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3. Brian Frazee
4. Sunaina Khandelwal
5. Amber Spry
6. Aditi Srivastav
7. Rahilla Tarfa
8. Whitney Torchia
9. FYA Toby Le
10. FYA Matt McNey
11. FYA Simmi Singh

B. Absent:
1. Chiddy Ukonne

III. Approval of Minutes:

A. Minutes haven’t been sent out yet. Will approve next week.

IV. Special Guests –Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross and Dr. Steve Robinson

A. Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: I’m assistant Provost for Enrollment Management, which means that I work directly with the areas of, undergrad admission and orientation, financial aid and scholarships, advising and the office of the registrar. I am an alumnus of UMBC and I bring that with me in all the work that I do here. We’ve had conversations over 6 to 8 months with Gabe and Whitney about our decision to charge transcript fee. I want to talk a bit about how we got to that place. One of the most important services we provide in enrollment management is the delivery of transcripts. UMBC is young, for the past 25 years, getting a transcript was the same up until 6 months ago. Now undergrad student population base has almost doubled, as has the alumni base. Technology has changed in terms of what student expect. We could no loner use the methods we had previously. The feedback I got from students, faculty and staff was that we were not doing well in transcript services. Turn around time was horrible -6 to 7 days. We had to research what other institutions were doing. Anything from completely free, to some free, some not, to a front in charge, where every student pays a fee upon matriculation, to a fee for service base program when only students who needed the transcript would pay the fee. Fee based services would be the best for our student population. We knew that this would not be a popular vote for everyone. I dint think that that charging a fee would go over well with the student population, though I did hear that from one student. We did not feel that trying the some free some not method would be sustainable. We talked to the SGA as well as the graduate student association. One thing that came out of that discussion was to drop the fee. It was originally to be 10 dollars, but we dropped it to 8. It was a little bit of back and forth negotiation with Jay. I’ll let Steve talk about what the new services are.
B. Dr. Steve Robinson: One of the things I look at is efficiency. As Yvette said, we were averaging 6 to 7 days to get transcripts out. Wanted to get 48 hours. We did not have the technology to do that by ourselves. Prior to July, we had a system where alumni could request a fee via email, fax or US mail. None of it was connected, was just sort of coming in from all over the place. We were averaging 4000 requests for a month. One address can have multiple addresses it could be sent to, so I don’t have good data on what those 4000 requests actually represent. Inundated in paper. Our system, as it stands today, does not talk to the Burser's office. Have no way of checking for a financial obligation such as an outstanding balance unless called the Burser's office. No technology available to us, and we looked to outsource. That’s where Credentials came in. Is a corp. that provides the interface. It’s an ordering system. They provide the front page where student or alumnus can request their transcript and interfacing directly with Burser. If there are no financial obligations, it will print out to a printer in my office. One of my staff will put it in an envelope and send it out. They are now going out at about 24 hours during non-peak processing times. When I started working here we would get calls all the time about blown deadlines. We had to bring in the o outside vendor to help us and regrettably that’s where the fee comes in.
C. Gabe: I now open the floor to questions and comments.
1. Amber: thanks for being here. Wondering what was used to fund the transcript before? I thought it was Built into budget of the registrars office. Why was that not sufficient to fund the outsourcing?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Remained unchanged for many years. A lot of costs have changed. Paper has increased dramatically. We need to use certain type of paper. Postage has gone up. That’s why it was insufficient to support any of the budget.
ii Dr. Steve Robinson: nothing in the registrar’s budget specifically for transcript. Not hiring
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Never has been a line item for transcripts in the budget.
iv Dr. Steve Robinson: same with diplomas. Nothing in registrar’s budget about that.
2. Amber: how was the $8 fee decided upon if you don’t have record of how things were paid for before?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Its not that we don’t have a record of what we paid, it’s just that it was not budgeted.
ii Dr. Steve Robinson: We looked at what peer institutions were doing. We looked at what we thought market would sustain here. Within the next calendar year we are looking to get into Secure PDF transcript. We could have never had that service if transcripts were to remain free. That is what is meant by Research and development. A bit slow because of implementation of Peoplesoft.
3. Amber: Why $8 dollars?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: internal calculation we made. Cover to fixed cost for paper and postage and getting things out. That may mean hiring extra student workers and staff. Haven’t done much of that because of hiring freeze.
4. Michel: How much does outsourcing vendor charge per transcript?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: $2 dollars Credentials as the lowest cost we could find.
5. Aditi: concerned about the research and development aspect. I would hope that the money would go to student services. I am concerned that it may be going to something I don’t have a direct role in. Only $2 for process?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: $2 is just for the vendor. Still paper postage and other things much be paid. The phrase research and development was meant as further enhancements for system
6. Aditi: There’s a chance that once you figure out what is more efficient, fee will drop?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: it’s a matter of shifting priorities. We have to maintain the system. New and better ways to do things. We were constantly causing to blow deadline for grad school. Transcript did not get there in time.
7. Matt M: Which peer institutions were used?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: all of them. Looking over this you have. I know that there are a couple schools here that charge matriculation fees. Some of the ones here may be incorrect.
8. Josh: That’s why school has budget. If we are paying transcript fee it should be only for: vender, postage, paper, and labor.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: That is what it’s funding.
ii Josh: No way paper postage totals $8. The research and development money should be coming from school budget.
9. Student: you all actually go to admin and ask for a line item in budget?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: yes.
ii Student: A lot of people here not from riches families. May need to reduce places they apply for because of fee.
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: That was taken into account.
10. Michel C: Before you said the delivery of transcripts was your most important goal, but later you said there were no budgeted line items for transcripts. I find it odd that your primary function is not funded by your budget. Not a problem should not be given to students. UMBC students are already charged fees at graduation.
i Dr. Steve Robinson: catalogs are not budgeted for. Catalog year coming up. Go on spending freeze for entire year.
ii Jennifer: With the catalog there is the option of not paying for the paper. This option is not available for transcripts. I would not pay $8. I am applying to 10 to 12 law schools. That’s a separate application fee right there. Should have the options of first few free. I was wondering why that option wasn’t viable.
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Very difficult to maintain.
11. Michael: How long is contract with Credentials?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: Not sure may be three years.
12. Student B: Not sensing a lot of transparency. With research and development. Don’t want people to contemplate applying to job or school because of 8 transcripts. I don’t think $6 of every transcript fee will go to research and development; want to know where it is going
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: research and development not the best term we could have used. Think enhanced services
ii Dr. Steve Robinson: We want to start a chat function in registrar office when a student has a question or problem.
13. Yasmin: for a student who works minimum wage, what option to do I have for financial aid?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: we haven’t explored that
ii Yasmin: Is the research and development going to that?
iii Dr. Steve Robinson: I don’t know
iv Yasmin: It takes me 2 hours of work to make up that $8.
14. Brian: part of the money going to staffing, how many more do you have now?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: Haven’t been able to put on more staff. Student workers so far.
15. Brian: you mention a lot of deliberation about where fee would be. Did you include students in this?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Yes, we met with students. Jay shared his opinions
16. Brian: a lot of students don’t feel like they would use the chat function, or would be willing to drop the chat for a lower transcript fee.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: We did meet with students and decided to drop the fee back
ii Dr. Steve Robinson: Maybe alumni will use chat function
17. Student: how much money is made off of transcripts total?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: Don’t know
ii Student: Could have used that to make an informed decision
iii Dr. Steve Robinson: Don’t have it yet. For July for November cant remember
18. Student: How many sent out last year?
i Dr Robinson: 4000 originally to 1500 a months. Some of them were stopped because of financial obligations. Get a lot of false positives.
ii Student: Have some experience with transcripts. Want to thank you for realizing transcripts are important. Just applied to 4 schools. Decided not to apply to some school. $6 goes to something that was free before
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: No there was a cost.
19. Amber: It’s that $6 that I'm confused about. Academics are very important. The transcript is the sum total of this.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: There was a cost. Delayed delivery. You were paying in terms of not being as competitive. With an admissions slot. Not a cost that you can put a dollar sign to.
20. Student: I’m hearing a lot of things you're saying can cost more money. Could be free. Meebo. For PDF. This $2 students. These news ways would cost less
i Dr. Steve Robinson: We can’t use a chat that is not secure. As for the PDF, we have to make sure it can’t be altered. Not typical PDF.
ii Student: Secure PDF option is built in to adobe PDF software
iii Dr. Steve Robinson: It could also be broken. To make sure that no one can go in and change it.
21. Catherine: how much exactly does it cost?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: Don’t have it broken down
ii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: A lot also goes to maintenance. Upgrade to maintain the system
22. Josh: I think that our point was that this was being paid for 40 years. Only thing being added is $2 and the new expenses. Maybe less because we don’t have as much labor. No way can you make that total of $8 – even if the materials are expensive.
i Dr. Steve Robinson: We were doing it haphazardly last year. Service was not working. Blew deadlines.
ii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: We didn’t do it very well for the past 40 years.
23. Amber: A lot of Redundancy going on here. We do understand the outsourcing needed to happen and we appreciate that. But I want to take the student hat off. I want to be looked at as a consumer. As a consumer I have a right to know what my money is being put towards. That seems to be the main concern. This question has been answered unsatisfactorily. What is the breakdown? How much does it cost to hire labor?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: That’s an interesting notion that any business could give you an exact breakdown. We can’t provide that level of detail. Encompasses a lot of thing.
ii Amber: You must have some idea or you wouldn’t know to charge $8.
24. Toby: Does that mean credentials can work out a deal with us? I would go for a bargain system rather than just pay $8. But would you be willing to be willing to compromise with us? For example first 3 might be free. Does that company have the capability to make that happen?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: That’s something we can look into. But it was not an option that we thought would be able to sustain us over time.
25. Paula: Glad the system change. You are actually saving money for labor. No extra money is being spent on staff. I think that the registrar office had budget constrained and the $8 is being used to offset this.
i Paula then reads letter on behalf of student who is a single mother that suggests that an over all fee might be better than paying on an individual basis.
26. Paula: In general students would be happier with that. Could be over and done with. Flat base 100 fee would go over better
i Dr. Steve Robinson: My concern about that is equity. What about the student who only needs 2 transcripts? I see your point. But I’m not sure if Financial Aid can cover it.
27. Gabe: I object to that equity argument. Is it fair that we pay for a small subset? For example the chat that only a small amount of students will use.
i Dr. Steve Robinson: Saving labor and time. Hard to do a one for one.
28. Brian: we could sit here and talk all night with different argument. We are desperate. I would like to know from your perspective what can we do to fix this? What are our options?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: I will look into posting to your bill so you can have more time to pay it. And to see for receiving need based aid. Probably will not.
29. Steve: Thanks for coming. We all want to come to a compromise to support the university. Hearing a lot about tuition freeze. New fees popping out of nowhere. We need to make sure we are looking out for students. Working with us this year will be a lot different then previous SGA.
30. Jennifer: So there is no way to lower the fee? I’m ok with paper and credentials, but the chat functions will be something only a few students use. It might even take more time to express self on line. Instead of charging us for transcripts, why not charge for chats? We are the consumers and we are not happy.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Do you have any concerns with the services?
31. Amber. User friendly. Hard because I don’t have a credit card. Other then the $2 fee, $8 still feels arbitrary. As a consumer I would just like to know. Would like to talk about different options. Maybe 8 dollars is the right fee, but I have no way of knowing that
32. James: My question was with regards to money. Ross said about $2 that went to speeding up services. I noticed Burser's lists $100 matriculations fee.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Partially to support graduations and retentions.
ii James: you don’t get any of that?
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: No
33. Michel C.: Over the past few years UMBC has been having budgetary issues. Tuition and student fees at Towson are less then ours. $100 is unreasonable amount. Fees like that this need to be audited by a third party department instead of being charged arbitrary amount.
34. Gabe: UMBC has highest tuition in state. Towson is 3rd highest tuition and get s $3000 less in state support
35. Michael: You guys have to do the budgeted catalogue and you’re not budgeted for that. What are you budgeted for?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Staff
ii Michel: Which you eliminate by getting third party to do work
36. Rahilla: so far you have mentioned research and development. What are you using that money for now, or is it just sitting? So far the money are using for this, what is it being used for now?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: We have not received that much as of yet. Can’t recall any of those numbers. Still going to general operations.
ii Rahilla: What are general operations?
iii Dr. Steve Robinson: Paper, postage.
iv Rahilla: You also have money in the budget for that?
v Dr. Robinson: Never been budged for that. Had to make sure had the proper type of paper
37. Naina: Are you willing to work for us to develop internal software? How about asking OIT for help?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: They are currently overwhelmed for help.
ii Naina: Maybe we can work with Peoplesoft.
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: They will not be ready to do anything like that in 2 months or even 2 years.
38. Naina: Are you willing to create a line-by-line budget into everything: postage, printing etc. Help students understand why this fee is needed. Or is that not possible?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: At this point I can’t tell you. I will look into it.
39. Josh: everyone needs money; I think that should be coming from university budget. We should be lobbying president. An upfront fee would be better. Has the benefit of quality of use, equal access and would be covered by financial aid. No surprise cost.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Surprised that you all want up front fee. Would have same discussion. I know SGA has taken stance about wanting to increase student fees.
40. Student: What are these peer groups you used?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: There is a sheet. Current peers and aspirational peers that we used
ii Brian: Only one of them has a transcript fee that is over $8
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Registration fee is often called something else. To cover transcript.
41. Matt: Do you personally know what the determining factor for a peer university is?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Every university has that defined list. University has that list.
42. Jennifer: matriculation fee that goes to graduation fees and retentions. Who came up with the fee?
43. Mike. Comment. I see that maybe there’s some middle ground because you can’t charge flat out rate. You could have a threshold for transcript fee. Where you can charge it say the first three times and then it would be free. After so ad so number can be free.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Three for free? So you pay first.
ii Amber: like putting a cap on it
iii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: I'm not sure how that would work. If you order 25 transcripts what would you accomplish? Would have students just hording.
44. Matt : I understand you have only one staff that you have to pay for. How is staff expanding?
i Dr. Steve Robinson: More streamlined. Not less staff, just more efficient.
ii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: that person can be a little more efficient. We don’t eliminate her all together.
iii Dr. Steve Robinson: We’ve retasked her as best we can
iv Matt: why is the work expanding? There are only two people working during peak times?
v Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: yes.
vi Matt: Why does this cost extra?
vii Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: I started out earlier trying to provide context. We are only 43, are experiencing growing pains. We can’t keep going now that we have more than 8000 students. We had to find a new way of doing things. You all were suffering because of it. I’m very shocked that you all want mandatory fees. Admins said to stay away form that.
45. Paula: who said that?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Lynn said in general to stay away from any increased mandatory fees. We have tried to honor that.
46. Michael: Students here who can afford that. We hope you take that to her. Mandatory fee as a possible choice. I hope that’s what you are getting form us. Those people who can afford it. Which is why that mandatory fee will work.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Most scholarships do not cover everything.
47. Toby: I did some research yesterday. For a lot of institutions there is no change for transcript request. Have you talked to these institutions? Had you received any fee back form them or discussed what you can do to reach that level?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: No. Not always apples to apples. These peer institutions may be generating money for services other ways. One example: If a peer institution contacted us and asked about a diploma fee, I would say no, but part of our matriculation fee goes to a diploma. I can’t tell you how all the schools are sustaining transcripts at less. Not as clear-cut as it seems.
48. Toby: How can we work to a compromise with you?
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Help me help students understand how we are helping them by adding these fees.
49. Brian: you’ve gotten the student perspective. This is like a final plea. We are begging you for a compromise. We have been working for months. We have done a ton of research. You come here to explain to us why fee was initiated. And we are asking you questions that you can’t answer. If all else fails and you are against any compromise, you could at least break that down for us. We will work until something is done.
i Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross: Seem to be differentiating you self from previous SGA. I don’t separate you all from Jay. I feel like I have done the right thing. You are feeling like we have not negotiated, but we have.
50. Gabe: Thank you both for coming.
i Dr. Robinson and Mrs. Mozie-Ross exit the meeting
51. Gabe: Very upset with what just happened. I cannot believe they came in here saying no compromise.
52. Amber: I think that I can echo Gabe; we probably envisioned this meeting to be more productive. We can improve upon this. Maybe we should try making fewer demands and taking a more negotiative stance. In some places was necessary to have firm stance but it may have put them on the defensive.
53. Jennifer: they couldn’t tell us where the $8 came from. It seems like an arbitrary amount. We can’t argue against the fee because we don’t know where the money was going. Don’t know a lot of information about it. I think we should get parents involved.
54. Brian: big slap in the face. Ignored our first attempt at a compromise. They came in to tell us about the fee and not compromise.
55. David: Was disappointed but not surprised.
56. Michel: Not surprised about budget questing. Somewhat obvious she knew the answers about budget.
57. Matt M. Frustration about expanding their staff, spend more than it would cost to fund one person
58. Josh: They came to this meeting completely unprepared. No interest in listening to us. May be able to get budget info via the MD freedom of information act. Would be more insightful then what they told us. Had it but didn’t feel like sharing it with us.
59. Steve: Dr. Hrabowski is probably even more adamant about it then them. Observing from meeting. Amber did good job with questions, we found out a lot of information. If everyone had known about it last year, this would not have happened.
60. Gabe: Jay said that there was going to be a $2 or $3 fee.
61. David: you all should be pretty pleased with the way you held this meeting. There was no way they were going to bargain. Could only hope they had learned something about what we wanted. There is a way people in the university talk to them. They may not have been at liberty to discuss. You can figure out the rest of the story. Yvette and Steve may even be helpful in that.
62. Paula: they are lying about the staffing increases. There have not been increases. They have lost workers they can’t hire back.
63. David: This is an external solution to an internal budget project. They are not authorized to tell us this now.
64. Josh: more logical approach. They could be our best assets in this. She said something about how budget hasn’t increased din 25 years. If they haven’t increased the budget. That’s not their fault.
65. Gabe: We’ll have a meeting on Friday to discuss this more. I’ll send out an e-mail to everyone here to invite you.

V. Open Discussion

A. Review from past week
1. Brian: Discussion of Towson legislation lobby. Learned about politics and lobbying.
2. Whitney: I’m meeting with Kim Leisey. She wants to talk about anything that we have concerns about.
3. Gabe: I recommend everyone going to a finance board meeting. Interesting to see need for fee increase.
i Toby: finance board still supports free admission at events?
ii David: Yes

B. Legislative Committee Update
1. Brian: good meeting. Main issue was the governor budget. He was very generous about funding higher education. We discussed the Textbook bill. We have to be careful - Sounds good on paper. Will eliminate a lot of cost but a few provisions will cost students more money. Revue will be lost for bookstore. Money must be made up somehow. Next year hope to have legislation agenda for UMBC. Will be providing updates at legislative meetings and finance board and senate meetings.

C. Update on new Constitutional Amendments
1. Gabe: Circuitous discussion last week about them. Steve set up a meeting on Friday. We will be cutting student orgs advocates from the Constitution. VP for student orgs to appoint as many staff as possible. We are going to meet again. Friday at 3. Mostly we are just working on the wording.

D. Review of spring retreat
1. Gabe: Spring retreat was a ton of fun. Has a chance to reflect on the fall. All branches shared what they did. Made plans for the spring. Projects: 1) Improved communication with student. 2) Increased student activity fee. 3) Sustainability fee 4) defining the roles in the SGA. New set of ground rules from fall retreat was also agreed upon to fix issues from last semester.

VI. Project Updates

A. Increased Library Hours
1. Blog post will be up on Zwybak. Surveys to come as well.

B. Black and Gold Campus Signage
1. Toby: first year counsel met. We made progress. 2 projects: Rent box onto campus and black and gold day. Side project regarding campus card. Trying to change red card to black and gold card.

C. Transcript Fee

VII. New Business

A. SL16-0809- Confirmation of Kathryn (Kat) Waters as Senate Secretary
1. Brian: move to approve SL16-0809
i Jennifer seconds.
ii VOTE: For: 6, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 2

B. SR05-0809- Resolution to Support the Expansion of Residential Life’s Gender-Neutral Housing Pilot into UMBC’s Apartment-Style Housing
1. Brian: summery of this. Gender-neutral housing is the option for males and females to live in same apartment. SGA supports this and its expansion. Have talked to Paula about this. I know it’s worked well for a lot of students.
2. Amber: I know there are 2 apartments.
3. Paula: We were going to do 2, but due to high student demand, we expanded that to be 4 apartments with 16 students. Over 50 universities have it. So does collage park.
4. Paula: transgender students experience different challenges. Some of them included coming out to a roommate. Placed with a roommate that is not of a gender you identify with. Affects about 1% of student pop. This is not just for LGBT students. Hasn’t caused major problems at the school.
5. Rahilla: If a student requests for it. What about students that will be randomly placed?
i Paula: Students are never randomly assigned.
ii Rahilla: would this be applied with apartment style housing?
iii Paula: Yes
6. Brian: used to have completely male and female buildings and floors. I see this as the next step in the evolution.
7. Matt M: do you have future plans for this?
i Paula: 4 phase program, Phase1: walker easy to implement. Everything locks. No major conflicts. Phase 2: UMBC apartments. Would allow having that option more affordable. Phase 3 would be to move into the suite style dorms, 4 would be other dorms
8. Amber: will you know about the sexual orientation of your roommate?
i Paula: no, you don’t have to disclose it now. The only parameter now is that your guardian has to know that you are living in gender-neutral housing.
9. Jennifer: Some parents aren’t for coed floors. I think there should be a floor or two for people who aren’t ok with it.
i Paula: The students whose parents whose parents are complaining aren’t going to want to go here. I think this should be an issue for the RA to deal with.
ii Jennifer: preserving a floor with no gender neutral okay?
iii Amber: it’s not about discrimination
iv Jennifer: It’s about parents freaking out. Needs to be place for parents.
v Brian: reslife has talked about it. It’s not going to get to this point any time soon.
vi Josh: I don’t think that religion would be a good excuse. If parents were to actively resist. Reslife should not give in to discriminatory demands.
vii Brian we need to be careful about the way we talked about this. We are blowing this out of proportions. I want to make sure people understand what this program is. This program is not for students of gender neutral.
viii Paula: reslife will be even more conservative about this. Schools have gone before us.
10. Amber: I want to point out that is really well written legislation. Not discriminatory, accommodation for students who want to live this way. Will not be a sudden thing. People with religious affiliation. That’s not something that is easy to disagree with
11. Rahilla: most people are thinking we might all have to migrate to gender neutral. Will probably still be optional.
12. Paula: will handle this in stride.
13. Amber: we want to encourage reslife to be careful
14. Jennifer: I think they'll do that anyway.
15. Naina: Move to approve SRo5-0809.
i Second by Amber
ii VOTE: For: 6, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 2

VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports

A. David: N/A
B. Michael: RSA: Dogapalooza just before Quadmaina. Had a social last week that was quite successful. Only had time to preview Master plan. UMBC’s plan for the next ten years. Do have spring retreat for the cab. Two weekends from now.
C. James: A meeting to talk about fee tomorrow. Starts at noon. Also about admin and reaching out to students. Will have legislation in three weeks about Erickson field. Will try and be in SGA office tomorrow.
1. Jennifer: we may have difficulty trying to deal with both fees if we want to get them done. We don’t want to look hypocritical.
2. James: legit concern. I will bring it up.

IX. Announcements

A. Jennifer: committee lists are a bit late. I will have them out tomorrow. Everyone should rank them by tomorrow. At 8 pm.
B. Michael: Friday afternoon will be doing late night Dave letterman type show. Fireside lounge. Just showing up. Wouldn’t be an issue. Was going to be a test shoot. Wants to do an interview with someone about the transcript fee.
1. Josh: Should be someone in not in SGA.

X. Roll Call:

A. Present:
1. Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3. Brian Frazee
4. Sunaina Khandelwal
5. Amber Spry
6. Rahilla Tarfa
7. Whitney Torchia
8. FYA Toby LE
9. FYA Matt McNey
10. FYA Simmi Singh

B. Absent:
1. Aditi Srivastav
2. Chiddy Ukonne

XI. Adjournment- 8:24pm

XII. Pass the Gavel

SGA Finance Board
February 3, 2008

Call Order at 5:40PM

Roll Call : Everyone was present except Christine.

Introduction of everyone present for the meeting.
Present organizations were: Orthodox Christian Fellowship, UMBC Musical Theater Club, Ballroom Dance Club, UMBC Freedom Alliance, Black Student Union, Africana Council of Majors, UMBC Gospel Choir.


1st Agenda: Orthodox Christian Fellowship’s Orthodox Awareness Week.
Date of the Event: Feb 23- Feb 27, 2009
Place: Commons 331
Type of event: On-campus
Event Description: It is a week long discussion event, which will create an opportunity for students to participation a dialogue about abortion, environment, race, science, etc.
Sum Requested: 1500$
Reason: Transportation for the two speakers from Tennessee for this event.
Number of students expecting to attend: about 30
Other notes: This is the only and major event for the Orthodox Christian Fellowship and a lot of advertisement is going to be done though face book and UMBC spotlight. Guest speakers for this event have already been provided a place to stay the sum asked is only for transportation. Other local speaker will also be present for this event.

Voting:
Number of representatives for this event : 3
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!

2ND Agenda: The Drag Show 2009 from UMBC Freedom Alliance.
Date of the event: May 6th,
Time: 8:00pm
Place: UC Ballroom
Type of event: on campus
Event Description: a show that is open to all students, accessible to everyone, combining a cultural and educational experience.
Number of students expected to attend: 150-300 in the past, hope to get more this semester.
Sum of Money requested: 1921.00$
Advertizing Packaging: Commons vision postcard and tickets
Contract: An Alumni performer asking for 500.00$ only
Other notes: This is the 5th time that this event is happening. Amount of money requested is basic package and decorations are reusable for future events.

Comments:
-Reducing the funding requested for audio visual from 400.00$ to 250.00$
-Totally reducing the amount to 1771.00$
-A great annual event that obviously involves a great number of students.
-Marketing funding requested be reduced from 225.00$ to 150.00$
-Reducing one more time the total amount of money requested to 1696.00$

Voting:
Number of representatives for this event : 3
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!

3rd Agenda: Sankofa Night by Africana Studies Council of Majors.
Date of the event: Feb 21st , 2009
Time:
Place: UC Ballroom
Type of event: on campus
Event Description: A first and formal dinner event that would inviting all students and student organizations to attend. An event to highlight the Africana studies department that is a very small and low funded department. To show the many ways that students can help Africa. There will be songs and dance and performance by many organizations here on campus.
Students expected to attend: 200-300 students
Sum of Money requested: 5875.00$
Audio Visual package: intelligent lighting, sound package for performers and other music playing.
Decorations: Flags of countries reusable and accessible for any other organizations that need them, and table decorations.
Food: Catering of 10.00 $ per person and therefore 2500.00 along with serving service. Menu Contains Chicken with mushroom sauce, fish and vegetarian food.
Contracts: are requesting that celebrity to show up for this event for 1000.00$
Other notes: A very first event that attempts to make the Africana Studies acknowledged. The event will also mark black history month. The organization is just a beginning organization and therefore has no carryover money. If this event is to not be fully funded, the organization will resort to having a smaller event or seek for outside donations.

Comments:
-Removal of the 1000.00$ funding request.
-Reduction of the 2500.00$ requested for the food to 1500.00$ due to the type of menu and the amount of students predicted to attend this event.
-Reduction of the Audio Visual funding requested from 460.00$ to the basic sound and lighting system cost 250.00$.
- Reduction of the cost of flags and decoration because of unnecessary.
-Reduction of the total amount of money requested to 2865.00$

Voting:
Number of representatives for this event : 3
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!

4th Agenda: Latin Dance Night by Ballroom Dance Club.
Date of the event: April 4s, 2009
Time: 8:00pm-Midnight
Place: UC Ballroom
Type of event: on campus
Event Description: A dance floor open to all students, those who can or can not dance. It is a social event to get more students interested in joining the club. The club has over 100 students and would like to open this event to show what they have learnt and get new students to just see what it is like.
Number of students expected to be at the event: 250 students before expecting 600 this time.
Marketing : basic funding for streamers and decorations, plates and cups,
Advertizing: Banner at the main door, flyers and spotlight.
Other notes: It is the fourth annual Saturday night event.

Comments:
-the amount requested is a good and basic amount.

Voting:
Number of representatives for this event : 3
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!


5th Agenda: Spring Musical; PIPIN by UMBC Musical and Theater Club.
Date of the event: April 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 2009
Time: 8:00pm
Place: Sports Zone.
Type of event: on campus
Event Description: Biggest Musical Show of the spring going on for three consecutive nights. It has had a big draw towards students.
Royalties: is the funding of sum 1465.00$ requested for the required fee by the Music Theater international to perform the music.
Costumes and makeup: funding 300.00$ requested for reusable costumes for performers, paint and ornamentation.
Other notes:


Comments:
-Lighting system is the cheapest available.
-The amount of money requested for the commons vision advertisement is reasonable.

Voting:
Number of representatives for this event : 3
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!


6th Agenda: Great Blacks in Wax Museum Trip by Black Students Union.
Date of the event: Feb 21
Time: 9:00am to get together and 10:00am leaving.
Place: meeting is at Student Org Space.
Type of event: off campus trip
Event Description: A breakfast and discussion about great American black history at the student orgs. Space and a trip to the Museum from 10:00am to 1:00pm.
Number of students expected to be at the event: 40-44 students
Transportation: yellow cheese bus with maximum capacity of 44 students
Sum of money requested: 846.00$
Other notes: The event is thought to be really useful for students that not only want to go but want to participate in the discussion. The priority is given to students that register early. The amount requested is for basic transportation and museum ticket fee. The advertisement is through face book , flyers and at other black history events.

Comments:
- Great event, educational and important event. I think the dialogue is very important for students to discuss.
-the amount 150.00$ funding requested for the food thought to be a bit too much.

Motion:
-Motion to cut down the food fund to 35.00$ for the basic cost of doughnuts proposed by Yasmine
Motion seconded by Stephan.
-Motion to decrease the cost of the food and vote on lowering the total cost from 846.00$ to 731.00$ proposed by Yasmine
Motion seconded by Stephan.

Voting:
Number of representatives for this event : 4
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!

7th Agenda: Brown Bag Lunch by Political Science Council of Majors.

Date of the event: Feb 18st , 2009
Time:
Place:
Type of event: on campus
Event description: A lunch and free and open discussion with students and their professors.
Sum of money requested: 60.00$ for Pizza cost for food.

Catherine: Lets not fund this.
(All in agreement)

Voting:
Number of representatives for this event : 3
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!

8th Agenda: UMBC TV’s Video Equipment

Sum of money requested: 600.00$
Reason for sum requested: To buy a video mixer that is going to help record and edit many cameras on one screen. It will enable recording to be faster and switch between cameras.
Other notes: It would help UMBC TV fundraise by selling DVDs and CDs. It will help record the election live and it would also benefit other organizations on their events.

Comments:
-the software to be available for future use at the UMBC TV locker.


Voting:
Number of present representatives for this event :3
Number of opposed members: 0
Number of abstaining members: 1
Number Absent members:1

APPROVED!

Meeting Ajourned at 7:32PM

SGA Senate Feb. 9, 2009

An informal senate meeting had taken place from 5:30p.m to 6:20p.m, and a recess was taken until 7p.m

I) Call to Order (7:06 pm)

II) Roll Call

A) Present:
1) Speaker Gabe Rettaliata
2) Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
3) Brian Frazee
4) Sunaina Khandelwal
5) Amber Spry
6) Aditi Srivastav
7) Rahilla Tarfa
8) Whitney Torchia
9) Toby Le
10) Matthew McNey
11) Simmi Singh
12) Chidinma Ukonne

III) Approval of Minutes

A) Minutes approved by general consent

IV) New Business
A) Swearing in of Gabe Rettaliata as the new SGA President by Finance Board Chair, Harsh Bambawale
Gabe Retalliata sworn in as president at 7:07pm

B) In-House election of Senate Speaker
Being such there will be an in house election for speaker, Jen Kent and Rahilla are the candidates for speaker of the senate.
Rahilla: This is the second time being in the senate and according to my past experiences I will do my best to fulfill this office.
Jen Kent declines her nomination to be speaker of the Senate, due to taking 18 credits and other commitments, she has already readied herself for the commitment for asst. speaker and wouldn’t be able to take on more time commitments.
Nominations are re-opened, Brian Frazee is nominated.
Brian: I have had a great experience working with Gabe’s leadership, I have the time this semester to do this and SGA is something that I would like to spend more of my extracurricular time in.
Questions for Rahilla:
Naina: How many credits are you taking?
Rahilla: 17 Credits, am currently 9 hrs a week but if elected speaker I would still make time commitments.
Amber: What do you think as a leader you can do for an org in transition?
Rahilla : I will try to make everything as fluid as possible and keep us encouraged and keep the same energy we had during the retreat.
Toby: Comparing your leadership skills to Gabe, how do you think you can benefit from his style in you leadership.
Rahilla: As I said earlier, I have learned a lot from Gabe’s leadership style and from there I can hope to implement a lot of the things he was doing and maintaining the spirit from things like the retreat.
Questions for Brian
Jen: What are your time commitments?
Brian: I am involved in USMSC, University steering committee, RA, and other SGA projects.
Amber: You said u have cut own on your time commitments, how so?
Brian: I have no more formal duties in my fraternity, and taking only 13 credits.
Toby: What do u think the hardest aspect of being speaker is?
Brian: Not being able to put in your opinion for sure and maintaining your job as moderator and not try to steer the senate in a certain opinion.
Chidi: Being an RA is not an easy task, let alone with becoming speaker. How will you be able to handle all of these while maintaining urself to the best of ur abilities?
Brian: Time management, keeping a schedule and making sure your time commitments are reasonable.
Amber: What is the most important thing u will be able to provide while transitioning?
Brian: Maintaining all the projects and initiatives and also adding new things to improve and providing the support for other SGA leaders as well.
Paula: How will you hold members of the senate accountable while maintaining the same environment?
Brian: By maintaining the current rules, positive environment and confront the issues directly.
Matt: Will this be a Brian senate or a Gabe senate?
Brian: I will hope to continue the great additions that Gabe has brought to the position as speaker and also hope to add some of my own ideas as well.
Whitney: How will you maintain the procedural rules?
Brian: I am familiar with Roberts rules and have learned a lot this year about the functions of the senate.
Both candidates leave the room
Jen Kent: I think that being speaker is more than just running a meeting, the speaker needs to be able to put their foot down and make decisions that is for the better of the students. I am more confident in Rahilla’s ability to maintain her position without being influenced by outside forces. I am looking for a speaker who can fulfill the duties as necessary.
Toby: Although I can’t vote, I believed we gave Brian the more time and less to Rahilla in asking her questions.
Naina: I believe that Rahilla can be more unbiased and maintain her neutrality, even though she may not seem so.
Jen: Brian did seem more prepared for his answers, he knew that he may be nominated. But Rahilla found out on the spot so please take that into consideration.
Amber: One thing to consider is that who we pick as speaker is going to be representative of the senate; while both candidates can do that, but both have different levels of assertion. There are two different leadership styles that are necessary for this position and they each have different levels of the two.
Aditi: Rahilla has a different style that would be good and Brian’s style is more geared towards what he does in the USM meetings where he can represent students there.
Chidi: Brian has a lot of work as an RA and would be a great speaker, but Rahilla has a better time commitment and we don’t want to have our speaker burned out.
Matt: We must take into consideration their interest into the position, and while Brian may be very outspoken leader, Rahilla is just as much but rather behind the scenes more so.
Naina: As a question to Gabe what are the official duties of speaker?
Gabe: I write the legislation and am on the university steering committee and SGA steering committee, running the meetings and knowing the bylaws and attending cabinet meetings and maintaining the archive of each meeting.
Whitney: So you will be sitting down with them and work with them in the transition?
Gabe: Of course.
Jen: Even though Rahilla is taking core science classes, Brian has a load of other commitments that she doesn’t, also there is a 10 hr min office hour commitment.
Rahilla and Brian re-enter.
Gabe reiterates the duties of the speaker to the candidates, and by secret ballot is done.
6 to 2 vote Rahilla is the new speaker of the senate.
Gabe administers the oath to Rahilla.

C) Confirmation of David Indek as the new Vice President
Gabe: This is his second year in SGA and is a senior, and is involved with several projects and that is the kind of leadership we need in the cabinet.
David: I think that it is important to have continuity, and there are many small changes that I had in mind when running for this position last year and I plan on resigning from Business services to make more time for this position.
Amber: I know that last year you were planning to run as Elani’s vice president. What are you doing to help alleviate the transition?
David: Meet with the cabinet and keep everything moving and add our leadership elements as well.
Amber: What do you think needs improvement?
David: I think that it’s important to be transparent with students and let them know what were doing.
Matt: How will u enforce accountability?
David: Being there working with the directors and the exec staff you are in constant contact with and knowing the projects they are working on, and making sure the different SGA departments are aware of what’s going on in each one.
Aditi motion to vote and Brian second, no objections.
David steps out.
Rahilla objects to the motion and opens discussion.
Jen: I am confident he is able to take this position on, and his experience as treasurer and as cabinet director will be able to offer the perspectives necessary to take on this position.
Rahilla withdraws objection and vote is taken
7 in favor and speaker abstains
David Indek is the new exec VP.
Gabe administers the oath of office to David.

D) Confirmation of James McCauley as the new Vice President for Student Organizations
Gabe: James has been to every finance board meeting and has been working with organizations all this semester.
James: I want to bring the different orgs together with SGA like RSA, greek life etc.
Friendly Amendment to Legislation: change “VP of” to “VP for”
James: I want to establish this position for whoever is going to take this next year. There are the day to day duties such as reviewing constitutions, and the other duties such as communicating with stu orgs and reviewing the policies such as posting, org formation etc. and I want to be a resource for stu orgs.
Rahilla: Do you want to bring the current student org advocate in?
James: I have spoken with him and planned to work with him.
SGA adviser: Will you be able to tackle the stuent activity fee with your new responsibility?
James: Yes I wish to continue to work with it and hope to stay as the point person for the project as time permits.
Fouad: What about Erickson field?
James: I have spoken with Michael Castello seeing if he would be able to become the point person for it. In regards to all my work I hope to bring the stu org aspect into everything I tackle.
James leaves the room:
Matt: I think that James is a very well prepared person and enthusiastic.
Adity: I’m glad to see someone who doesn’t care about his title who is working for students.
Motion to vote, 7/0/1 James Mccauley is the new VP for stu orgs.
Gabe administers the oath.

E) In-House election of three new senators
We now have three open spots in the senate.
Jen: I think we should have discussion now about in house elections.
Adviser: There is no set method of legislation for it, so there is no need to have legislation.
Jen: in that case I propose we put the FYAs in the positions. They have been very enthusiastic and would do great.
Gabe: They can’t vote on legislation on the meeting they got elected in but we can vote them in now.
Rahilla: If we are we all comfortable with the FYA, we should do the vote today.
Toby Le is appointed as a senator, Brian makes motion to confirm, Aditi seconds. 8/0/0
Simmi Singh is appointed as a senator, Brian makes motion to confirm, Aditi seconds. 8/0/0
Matt Mcney is appointed as a senator, Brian makes motion to confirm, Aditi seconds. 8/0/0
Rahilla administers the oath for the senators.

V) Executive Reports and Project Updates
CAB- The social justice lounge has been replaced with the tables, and they will be putting a carpet in and use the wall space to put up pamphlets and they are changing the furniture in the game room and might be changing the theme of flat Tuesdays.
USM student council met yesterday and the liaison said that Yvette was at a meeting with other Universities and the transcript fee was brought up and was viewed as an eye opener to them to make sure that they don’t end up in the same situation that occurred at UMBC. As said before, Josh Michael found a rule that prohibits the transcript fee from existing, so hopefully that will prove to be successful.
Whit: Met with Kim Liesey and talked about student orgs pricing and she said there were some contractual issues still being worked out but realized it’s a big concern for students. Will be meeting with Tom Mayer to work with athletics for the black and gold day.
Toby: We met with George Vitak and in order to change the campus card and hopefully will be taking the next step in working with OIA to make it happen.
Simmi : FYC met and we will try to put the Banners for black and gold at the NCAA game if they are ready at that point.
Naina: We will be working to find out if students are would want to see extended library hours.
Paula: There are faculty members that will not attend UMBC because they do not receive benefits of same-sex couples and the MD generally assembly is working to pass legislation so I wanted SGA to support this.
RSA: There are new issues with using cable splitters safety-wise. We are going to discuss in RSA whether where this is rooting from and where the price for the individual jack is coming from. Dogapalooza is going well and we are working with Patapsco as the theme is I love the ninties so they are hoping to get an authentic power ranger to come.
James: How is the restructuring of RSA going?
RSA: We are renaming the positions and having all the cabs update us so that it matches the new scheme.
Whitney: I think it is important that each senator be working on a project.
Rahilla: I agree and I believe that for now we can leave discussions for new projects for next week.

VI) Announcements
Jen: Anyone who wants to work on the amendment of the constitution and revision let me know.

VII) Final Roll Call:
A. Present:
i. Speaker Rahilla A. Tarfa
ii. Assistant Speaker Jen Kent
iii. Brian Frazee
iv. Sunaina Khandelwal
v. Amber Spry
vi. Aditi Srivastav
vii. Whitney Torchia
viii. Toby Le
ix. Matthew McNey
x. Simmi Singh
xi. Chidinma Ukonne

VIII) Adjournment
Meeting Adjourned at 8:41p.m

Harsh calls meeting to order at 5:32 PM.
Everyone is present.
Harsh: Will send out minutes today; go over next meeting.
Gabe Rettaliata: Was sworn in last night as SGA President.
Introductions

Persian Student Association
PSA: March 27th, Spring celebration, biggest event of semester. Office of Student Life trying to make it official spring celebration of UMBC.
Harsh: Where and when is the event?
PSA: UC ballroom, March 27, 8PM.
James: Where is food from and what does it include?
PSA: Off campus caterer. rice and meat options. includes delivery costs and everything
Silva: how many people is this for?
PSA: 400, including performers
Stefanie: how many from on campus?
PSA: about 95%
Stefanie: will you charge off campus students?
PSA: yes. we won’t be advertising off campus so we expect mainly UMBC students
Harsh: didn’t you buy table cloths last semester you can reuse?
PSA: no. we used the school tablecloths.
Harsh: what is the projector for?
PSA: UC ballroom projector
Silva: total cost says 6120. what is included in the 3000 you’re paying for?
PSA: performers, appetizers, sound and lighting.
Harsh: last semester you charged non students for an event. according to our calculations, you should have made about $1000. are you guys putting that toward this event?
PSA: yes
James: has this event happened before?
PSA: smaller events in previous years. this is third year. previously for members only. open to whole school this year.
Silva: what are the decorations?
PSA: reusing some of the decorations so its a lot cheaper than last time. getting fresh flowers, fruit, etc., to promote spring.
Harsh: how are you advertising?
PSA: flyers through reslife, spotlight, marketing package
Harsh: thank you. we will vote in a little while

Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity
Harsh: can you tell us about the event?
Ozell: every year we have a conference. open to the general public. encouraging/advertising for people outside the fraternity to come. not exclusive to just men. benefits include working on some of the projects done in new orleans like habitat for humanity. leadership training and development seminars. number of program implementations given by national headquarters that can be used in collegiate setting. seminar about HIV awareness. seminar on living well about how to better your lifestyle. pride themselves in being a service fraternity. registration open to anyone interested in coming to learn about what we do. we have fundraised for 6 people and are only asking for funding for 2 people. we are trying not to make anybody have to pay.
Harsh: so you already have funding for the 6 people?
Ozell: yes
Harsh: thank you. we will vote on this in a little while.

UMBC Coptic Club
Coptic: Weekly bible study. we are a new student org. very traditional religion, fellowship. one hour of fellowship, asking questions. traditional to have food at every meeting. one hour of bible study. open to all umbc students.
Harsh: where and when exactly do you meet?
Coptic: monday nights in either 328 or 329 from 8-10 PM
Yasmin: what are the travel costs for guest speakers?
Coptic: gas money for speakers from DC. also we promote with a facebook group. we send a weekly email to 50-60 people right now. we want to do a spotlight, banner, flyers. 15-20 people coming to meetings consistently.
Yasmin: do you consider this your weekly meeting? do you discuss administrative things? is it like a meeting or an event?
Coptic: it’s a weekly event.
Silva: where did prices come from?
Coptic: pizza hut. we compared with prices downstairs
Harsh: just so you know, we are not funding food for regular organization meetings anymore because of the budget crunch
Coptic: our main service is our bible study. so we don’t have regular meetings and huge events. just weekly events.
Silva: what is the advertising package?
Coptic: to raise awareness via a marketing package
Silva: banners can only be up for a short time
Coptic: we would advertise a special meet and greet when we had the banner up
Harsh: thank you. we will discuss in about 20 minutes.

Discussion of PSA’s Request
James: I think it sounds like a great event. The club’s investing a lot of their own money.
Yasmin: I agree with James
Stefan: A lot of people went last year. Hrabowski was there. Worthwhile event.
Harsh: Will you reuse the table cloths?
PSA: We are renting through the school. They are too expensive to wash, store and maintain if we buy them.
Number for: 4
Number opposed: 0
Abstaining: 1
Absent: 0

Discussion of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity’s Request
James: We’ve talked about funding off campus events and conferences. It sounds like a great event but I’m having a little trouble with this.
David: remember, this is a restricted funded organization. we need to think about whether this fits the definition of being open to and intended for the entire campus in considering this request.
Stefanie: but this is also about service
Harsh: does anyone have any thoughts about whether this is open to and intended for the entire campus?
Yasmin: Tricky because 3 students who arent in the fraternity are going
Catherine: Think it is open to the whole campus but they should use the money they’ve already raised and people should pay the difference.
Harsh: it is technically open to everyone but i don’t feel like it is really open to everyone
Silva: lot of money for two people
Harsh: lot of money even if it is spread out over 8 people
Ozell: we will bring the things we learn at this conference back to UMBC. also, we only asked for flight and registration. we are putting out the cost of hotels, etc.
Harsh: we understand that there are always costs associated that aren’t budgeted, but we are having to scrutinize costs more carefully for off campus events.
Number for: 0
Number opposed: 4
Abstaining: 1
Absent: 0
Ozell: Can we modify the amount to something the board would be more comfortable with?
Harsh: reason for rejection is mostly that the organization is under restricted funding because you are not open to everyone. is everyone comfortable moving on?

UMBC Coptic Club Discussion
Emily: I feel like this is a weekly meeting
Yasmin: I don’t, but I feel more comfortable funding the speakers and advertising than the food. this is a little different than funding Shabbat because food is part of Shabbat’s purpose.
Harsh: Maybe we can fund part of it.
Silva: I don’t feel like the food is necessary.
Catherine: I don’t think we need to fund that much for food.
Stefanie: I feel like weekly bible studies should be about the bible, not food. Also 8PM is not really dinnertime so why would we fund dinner?
Coptic: I understand what you’re saying but the food is a part of the tradition. most of the people who come are Egyptian of some sort and that actually is our dinnertime. the dinner is the most integral part of how people become comfortable with each other. eating with each other really builds those relationships. this is how we meet new people. building relationships is integral to having a productive bible study. it has been proven to work over the last several years.
Silva: we are on a tight budget so we can’t fund food for everyone’s meetings though.
Coptic: we don’t make decisions during these meetings though. this is nothing like other organizations’ meetings. this is people coming to socialize and study the bible. this is our event. this is the whole intention of the group. our focus is just on these events. although it might have similar features to meetings, it is an event.
James: not okay with full amount for food, however, if it is an integral part of the structure of the organization I would be comfortable funding some of the meetings
Stefan: maybe we can fund the first meeting of every month, not every one
Catherine: at the very least we could cut desserts
Yasmin: I made a calculation for funding three of the bible studies, total advertising and travel, $25 for utensils, and i would be comfortable voting on that
Harsh: can we do 4 meetings, one at the beginning of each month?
Emily: what if all organizations start calling their meetings “weekly events”?
Catherine: Funding first three of four might work out better so they can transition into a potluck.
Coptic: transitioning into a potluck isn’t realistic.
Yasmin: that was just a suggestion. you don’t have to do that.
Coptic: other thing to take into consideration is that we’ve been on campus for a while and built up to this. our church helps us, but it’s mainly UMBC students
Harsh: i think the consensus that the finance board is coming to is that we’d be comfortable funding three or four of them
Coptic: can we do half?
Stefanie: what would happen if we can’t fund the food?
Coptic: it will have been a waste of 6 months trying to become a student organization just so we could apply for SGA funding. i think that question is unfair to ask because we’ve provided this service for years
Stefanie: i understand, but maybe you could start with food and then move into snacks or something.
Coptic: some people may not even come if we don’t have food because they get out of class late. because the group is getting larger it’s too much to pay for out of pocket. we need the food funded to attract people. more people will come and it will be tons of money out of our own pockets.
Silva: move to vote on $587.50.
Harsh: we’re going to vote on funding three meetings, cutting out dessert entirely. you’ll be free to spend that at whichever meetings you wanted.
Silva: could also get pizza and maybe the money would go further if pizza is cheaper.
Number for: 4
Number opposed: 0
Abstaining: 1
Absent: 0
Coptic: Can we pay one of the moms to make the food?
Yasmin: if we change the line-item to say food we can do that. I would sign it and so would Shawny.

5 minute recess at 6:20.
Back to order at 6:25 PM.

Intervarsity Christian Fellowship
IV: asking for money for winter conference. asking for $1000 for lodging. february 21 and 22nd. cost went up so we’re just trying to cover the increase
Emily: how many people is this for?
IV: 25 but if the number of people goes up then we will spread the money out
Harsh: just asking for more money because the cost went up?
IV: it’s $90 this year but we’re trying to get it back down to $65 per person so more people can afford to come
James: what would be the effect if we fund this?
IV: more people will be able to put forth $65 than $90
Yasmin: can you tell me a little more about the conference itself?
IV: in western MD, speakers, bible studies, learn about how to impact campus
Silva: 2 days, one night? overall cost is $90 per person?
IV: yes
Silva: how do people get there?
IV: carpool. close enough that we’re not asking for gas money
Harsh: thank you

Taiwanese Student Association
TSA: Asking for money for ITASA conference. had 4 members fully funded by SGA last year. trying to get workshop ideas.
Harsh: quote is for 6 people?
TSA: yes
Silva: how did you decide that?
TSA: already registered, already paid
Harsh: how would people know about this if they aren’t in the club?
TSA: very well known conference
Harsh: would you split the money if more people wanted to go?
TSA: yes. we are already asking for less money because we know you guys are in a budget crunch. we will pay for the rest ourselves
Harsh: can you tell us more about the conference?
TSA: all east coast. keynote speakers. talk about culture and how it relates to us. celebrities coming by. lot of workshops. workshops most important part.
Silva: where is this held?
TSA: Duke
Silva: where are you staying?
TSA: actually staying over with friends from Duke to reduce costs
Harsh: thank you

African Student Association
Harsh: What is the date?
ASA: April 25th
Catherine: How many people is it for?
ASA: room holds 2000 people
Harsh: where is it?
ASA: Morgan State
James: Can you tell us a little more about the event?
ASA: fusion of our african night and morgan state’s african night. couldn’t get the UC so we’re doing it at morgan state
Harsh: how many UMBC students are going to be able to go?
ASA: since the room holds 2000, we can 1000 tickets and they get 1000
Christine Paul: how much of this is morgan state paying?
ASA: we split the costs directly in half. they’re paying the same we are.
Yasmin: what are the fashion show costs?
ASA: designer, makeup
Silva: how long is this event?
ASA: 4 hours
Harsh: what time?
ASA: 6-11
Harsh: where will the busses pick up?
ASA: commons
David: will anyone be charged admission?
ASA: morgan state students
David: only 9000 students. you really think 1000 will attend?
ASA: we think students will go on bus especially if it’s free. we had a lot of students when we did it in the UC
David: will students have to show ID?
ASA: yes. there will be two lines.
James: how will bussing for 1000 people work?
ASA: get three or four busses. make multiple trips
Harsh: so if 1000 umbc students go you will be able to bus all of them?
ASA: we will try
Emily: what does the food include?
ASA: food from a caterer. african food.
Silva: for how many?
ASA: for 1000. our students.
Yasmin: what’s the ‘misc’ for?
ASA: any other expenses. photographer, etc.
Silva: what kind of decorations?
ASA: making it like a night of royalty. making the ballroom like a palace.
Christine Paul: can you possibly reuse old costumes
ASA: this is our tenth year. morgan state is getting a designer. their costumes are going to be better than ours.
Yasmin: if we dont fully fund you will you use carryover and still let students in free?
ASA: if we do that we will have nothing left in carryover
Christine Paul: so if we cut out any of these items will you charge students still? or is there anything you can afford to pay for without charging students?
ASA: depends on how much we have to pay for
Yasmin: I dont think we can afford $8400 right now.
Silva: what exactly is morgan state paying for?
ASA: we split all the estimates in half
Paula: is this costing you a lot extra because you’re doing it off campus? i know prices here are a lot lower.
ASA: we have to use outside contractors because UMBC services wont go off campus.
Paula: does morgan state not offer these services?
ASA: not they dont
James: next year if you’re having trouble scheduling this event on campus you can come to us to help you with that problem, just for future reference
ASA: we tried talking to lee calizo about how we would have to do it off campus. she couldn’t help us.
Harsh: thank you. we will vote in a little while

Introductions again.

James: can we move to vote on the two conferences? i have class at 7 and would like to vote on them.

Discussion of Intervarsity’s Request
Harsh: so it’s 1000 to supplement the costs. anyone have any issues or concerns?
David: we previously provided funding for a conference in the fall, just as something you might want to take into consideration.
Yasmin: I agree with that. although i’d want to be able to see 40 people go, it is a lot of money for us right now. i’m not completely against it but i am a little concerned.
David: was it 1000 last time?
IV: it was 2000. 1000 originally and added another 1000 later
Harsh: vote on full amount
Number for: 1
Number opposed: 3
Abstaining: 1
Absent: 0
Harsh: unfortunately we can’t afford it right now. we’re trying to help organizations fundraise to please come by the SGA office if you’d like help with that

Discussion of Taiwanese Student Association’s Request
Harsh: so it’s 150 for conference fee for 6 people which has already been paid
James: it’s a lower amount, but the same situation. i don’t like being in this situation but between this and an on-campus event...
Yasmin: I disagree. we haven’t funded an off campus event for TSA before and they are covering a lot of the costs
Emily: i agree with Yasmin. also they are bringing back what they learn for an on campus event
Harsh: just want to point out that this is $25 per person as was the last event we considered. everyone ready to vote on the full amount?
Number for: 4
Number opposed: 0
Abstaining: 1
Absent: 0

Filipino-American Student Association
FASA: attached is our press release, organization profile. event is Pistahan- raise awareness about our culture, dancing. this is actually our tenth Pistahan. we’re going back to all of our shows and show a little bit of each show this year. title means “where we came from.” purpose it to culminate three goals of our mission statement. educate campus about us, integrate new people, promote community service. plan to host a youth dialogue on campus for 7th grade to high school and we’ll be promoting that at this event.
Yasmin: can you talk about costume and props?
FASA: we have more dancers this year. it’s cheaper to hand make them to save on shipping and handling. this is an estimated price for fabrics. we switched up dances also to show more culture.
Yasmin: are they reusable?
FASA: yes. we will reuse these and are actually reusing some old things. this is an actual production this year to us so we need actual props.
Silva: what are the decorations for?
FASA: decorations on tables this year. 28 tables and extra seating in the back. includes table cloths, streamers, banners, etc. estimate about 10 people per table. trying to get the ambassador of the Phillipines to come.
Harsh: how many people are you expecting?
FASA: about 450
Silva: how are you going to make sure UMBC students get in free?
FASA: tickets in the commons. free to umbc students. guaranteeing weekend event for students
Harsh: In the UC?
FASA: yes
Harsh: what time?
FASA: estimated show from 7-11.
Silva: what kind of food?
FASA: cultural food but not too strange. anyone from UMBC should be comfortable eating it. very diverse food to accommodate anyone’s needs. estimates from Northstar, so the food rates are discounted. looked into some other dishes from somewhere else to get a cheaper price. we are buying our own utensils because it will be cheaper than using the catering service.
Yasmin: is marketing for on campus?
FASA: yes. package is 250 but we asked for $25 for off campus for flyers, etc.
Harsh: let’s remove the $25
Silva: we can’t fund off campus advertising
FASA: that’s fine
Harsh: $3635.50 is new total
Michael Hin: I went to this show and it was a lot of fun and amazing.
Silva: if we weren’t able to fully fund it, could you cover any of these costs?
FASA: possibly decor could be decreased.
Harsh: anyone have any serious concerns about this? this seems to be a pretty straightforward event. we will vote on it now.
Number for: 3
Number opposed: 0
Abstaining: 1
Absent: 1

Discussion on African Student Association’s Request - Jamba Night
Harsh: any thoughts? any issues or concerns?
Paula: I feel like this could have been done for much cheaper on campus
Yasmin: usually it costs about 10k actually
Emily: I dont think that they will get 1000 people to go to an off campus event
Harsh: in principle, i have trouble justifying this much money to fund an off campus event. is this really contributing to campus life?
ASA: we have to use off campus vendors because morgan state doesn’t have these services
Yasmin: i think it’s ok that it’s off campus. i don’t think 1000 students will go, but i think 500 might go. is it really quadmania weekend?
David: sort of. quadmania will be over two weekends this year.
ASA: lots of our students went to morgan state last year. this is the same night as SEB’s event
Yasmin: does SEB know these two events are the same night? i think we should have a conversation with SEB about their event before we vote on this. i think SEB will lose a lot of students to this.
David: whether or not SGA funds it
Yasmin: people look forward to this all year Harsh: i dont want to create a conflict
Yasmin: maybe we can come to some compromise
Harsh: maybe we can table this til next week so we can talk to SEB
Yasmin: will that affect you being able to do this event?
ASA: we have a meeting with morgan state sunday about whether we received funding or not
Yasmin: i really hate to make you guys wait another week but i think this is a really worthwhile conversation to have with SEB
ASA: would one of us have to move our show? we can’t move ours?
Yasmin: we don’t know if they can move their show
Harsh: anyone have a problem with tabling this til next week?
Yasmin: i want to see if they can compromise because this is a problem.
Harsh: everyone okay with tabling this until next week?

Yasmin: i actually think advocacy-wise, i don’t think it’s terrible for them to go off campus, because it shows that our venues are not adequate. i also think it’s not ridiculous to think that Jambo night will draw in 1000 students.
David: maybe we can pay $10 per student that goes.
Harsh: feel like most of the benefit it to morgan state
David: maybe the split should be 25/75 not 50/50 and we get 500 tickets instead of 1000.
Harsh: last year they went way over capacity and had to turn away a lot of students
Emily: i really dont want this on the same night as quadmania because i would like to go to both things.
Yasmin: i will set up a meeting with Jen
David: regardless of the outcome of that you may want to negotiate a lower amound paid by us for less tickets
Michael Hin: may want to email them because they are meeting with morgan state monday
David: we may want to consider what portion of the cost we are willing to pay.

Harsh: anyone want a 3-4 minute break or shall we continue?

Tea Empire
Harsh: it’s a meeting
Yasmin: but this is the purpose of the meetings.
Emily: wish I knew how much the tea costs
Silva: why dont we fund like $10 per meeting
Yasmin: this is real tea. the food is like a biscuit or something. not draw in food. want me to find out the price of the actual tea?
Silva: maybe we can fund just first meeting of the month like with the other group?
Yasmin: I’ll talk to them
Silva: they asked for food for feb 4th meeting and submitted feb 6th
Yasmin: we can’t fund that.

Habitat for Humanity
did not submit event description - tabled until next week

Chinese Student Association
Harsh: we’re not funding food for meetings.
Number for: 0
Opposed: 3
Abstaining: 0
Absent: 0

Kappa Phi Lambda
Yasmin: everyone goes to college park one. it’ll be exciting to have this on campus.
Silva: is the food free?
Harsh: yes. they’re making it free of charge
Number for: 3
Opposed: 0
Abstaining: 1
Absent: 1

Discussion of who will contact who to let clubs know tonight’s results.

Harsh: James wanted to talk about a GL expenditure for $10,000 but he’s not here.
Yasmin: I asked him if we could hold off until March when Shawny tells us exactly how much money we have left.

Meeting adjourned at 7:39 PM.
Pass the gavel.

UMBC SGA Senate Minutes
Monday, February 16, 2009
Commons 318 5:30PM

I. Call to Order: 5:35

II. Roll Call: All members present except for Chidi (Late @ 5:40)

III. Approval of Minutes from last week and previous Monday: Minutes approved

IV. Open Discussion

A. Review of past week

Whitney: I went to the dining hall meeting. Over the summer they will get remainder of the construction done. Showed us the layout of what everything will look like. More info will be online.
They are renaming campus dining hall. Having a Competition to get it narrowed down to three. Students will submit potential names.
Starbucks will be open in the fall, not sure of exact location in UC.
They are doing an Initiative for grad students (half price). Want to get more people into the dining hall.

Brian: Legislative committee met on Friday. Josh Michaels came to explain the situation with the budget, specifically the tuition freeze. Discussed the tuition freeze and textbook policy. Textbook policy was passed on Friday.
A few members of the committee will write an op ed in the retriever to start educating students about tuition freeze and what we can do support it.
Toby: this tuition freeze will be covered by Baltimore sun reporters?
Brian: yes

B. New project ideas/continuation of old projects

Naina: can we go over projects we will defiantly continue?
Rahilla: the three ongoing projects right now are increased library hours, reaching out to international students and black and gold campus signage.

Increased library hours:
Matt, Simi, Toby, Naina, Brian
Reaching to international students:
Chidi
Black and gold:
Whitney, Toby Aditi

Project Ideas:
Amber: I think those three projects are manageable in one semester, we could just have three, a lot of these commitments will be long term.
Brian: I agree but need to work on relationships with students. Not sure how to go about doing that. We need to find ways to engage students more.
Simi: From the retreat we talked about building communication. I think we should make sure some one does take care of it. I know Director of communication is going to be looking into that. We were talking about rewriting the constitution.
Rahilla: There were other ideas, strengthening relationships with students or Increasing SGA visibility.

Amber: I think one of the other ones was reinforcing the definition of the roles for different offices. We were planning on having an info session for people applying for the SGA. We make positions our own, but people need to know what the realistic retirements are.
Michel: What about the stress free zone
Jen: I assumed I would be doing that again. We do it every semester. I will do it.
James: In response to Brian’s comment I think that reaching out to student body is can be done through the projects that we already have. Reach out through student orgs.

Josh: another project that would be a good idea to take on would be fees. Not just transcripts fees, but fees in general. UMBC has the highest mandatory fees as a state. Take on the idea of fees as a whole. Like how we pay 10 cents a page for printing. Maybe we should be taking more active stance on fees.

Toby: What happened to transcript fee?

Gabe: We are going to meet with Freeman first so he knows who we are. We have written a letter to him informing him that he has mostly likely broken policy for school: bringing up a fee that is hard on students that didn’t get approved by USM legislative council. Brought it up with USMSC and they were concerned. I think they are planning on bringing it to chancellor’s office as well.
Reese: not every project has to be huge. Last semester Gum issue is interesting. If we can find hidden issues and they help.
Whitney: Ill take that one.
Paula: there are concerns about transit on campus. SGA has been active with this in the past.
Downtown line just got cut due to lack funding at UMBC. Something I'm am interested in.

James: Transit as a whole could use some work. We did pay for trackers. Where did this money go?

Chidi: SGA website: I dint remember it being updated.
Gabe: new director of communication is working on that.
Jen: We go through projects we have and see who wants to do what>
Rahilla: We have 4 new project ideas: Looking into fees, relationships with students, and looking into transit tracker, gum.
David: The thing about the gum: Doesn’t have to be something that will take the whole semester to do. May still be worth our while to do something small.
Jen: I think strengthening relationships with students is already something. It shouldn’t be a senate project, because it’s already project.
Naina we personally don’t have the time
Jen: I think that there should be priority with these projects. Difference between what we want to do, and we need to do. I think there a fun projects and pressing projects.
Someone was looking into something last semester.
Jen: what new departments do you have to work on these projects? If we have 6 projects, we may not be able to get any of them done.
Gabe: cabinet will probably be the same except CGA is gone community governmental affairs is gone.
Gabe: I can bring it up at the cabinet meeting and see if anyone wants to do them.
Amber: why do we feel like we have to do all these projects right now? If the interest isn’t there, it’s not going to get done anyhow. We shouldn’t feel pressure to add committees just because we think we should
Chidi: feel like were not very informed as to other comities are doing. Would like to know what they have done in past semester.
Paula: Brought this up a few meetings ago: ask all directors to come to senate meeting. Still think that’s a good idea.
Rahilla: so for Increased Library hours I have matt, Simi, Naina, Toby and Brian
Jen: do we need that many people?
Naina: all people who are currently working on it.
Amber: people are on more that one comities.
Rahilla: People, who are on more than one project, don’t feel pressured to be in just one committee.
Transit Tracker: Rahilla, Matt, Jen, Simi, Amber
Fees: Aditi, Chidi, Jen, Rahilla, Josh
Gum: Whitney
Rahilla goes out for reaching out to students; Simi takes self off still Toby Jen Whitney
6 committees

V. Project Updates

A. Increased Library Hours

Library hours
Naina: two weeks ago posted a poll on UMBC underground, got about 30 responses people were interested in it, but a lot said they didn’t think it was a priority. Made surveys of 100 and went around school and got peoples data. Proposed 2 hours for every day.
Scheduled meeting with Nancy Young.
Simi: She said it was a project for many years. We should look into five-year plan. Have an “in the meantime” approach.
Brian: talking about the master plan. Also making sure we include 1st year students.
Naina: we did not want to ask for money, we wanted her to help us figure out how to approach problem.
Amber: Director of it at library? Did you spoke to her?
We met with her
Amber: did she talk about plan to revamp the library?
Yes
Stay in communication with her.
Naina: she showed us a little bit, they don’t have money.
Josh: library funding might be easer if we look outside of school funding. Might be some Agency department on federal level that gives away grants for a lot of things. Jen: just cost is the issue?
Naina: yes
Jen: got the same thing my freshman year. Make sure you tell them we would be willing to sacrifice the renovations for longer hours.
James: majority of costs?
Naina: staffing and security
Amber: everything Jen said is true should convince them that our goals are the same. Negotiation.
Simi: They tried longer hours a few years ago 2003, not that many people used it.
Jen: Do they use full time staff?
Naina: Two security and one person behind the desk
Jen: is the person behind the desk student?
Naina: Not sure.
Paula: something that would be a short-term goal: open longer during finals week. Might be more attainable this semester.
Naina: problem is that budget is already set for upcoming exam semester
Paula: I wonder how much it would cost, would SGA fund it?
Josh: assuming issue is staffing, don’t need someone at the circulation desk
Rahilla: what are your next steps
Simi good suggesting so far, we will have plan by next week

B. Reaching out to International Students

I got information on Event planning and how to reserve spaces. I went online and I reserved Skylight room for March 28th. Meeting with them. Having a meeting Thurs at 11am. Budget is out right now. Were supposed to have money coming from David’s class, which is $5000
David: $5000 is to split among class and 6 groups are eligible
Aditi: Look at the Mosaic Center. They are always looking for programs.
Michel: OIA for funding?
Jen: SGA has the money, Senate does not. Don’t think we need to worry about it right now.

C. Black and Gold Campus Signage

Aditi: We are ready to go, we are just waiting on Nancy Young. James and Simi went to meet with her. We went to athletics. We are currently waiting for Nancy to tell us how much she can give us. As soon as we do that will have $10,000 and we can start the contest.
James: meeting went well. She is currently looking for pulling money from foundation account for Chevy Chase Bank
Jen: how much money do you have so far?
Aditi: we have half of it.
James: how is the first year council’s money is tired to SGA? Might be better for that money go to first year council, could spend money from foundation account.
Simi: the money foundation account can’t go for something solid like a banner, but can go to student initiative. Were trying to get school spirit every Friday.
Joey: with this black and gold campus, what are you getting 10 thus for?
Aditi: $8000 is for instillation and getting images uploaded. $2000 is for publicity and unveiling on black and gold Friday.
Joey: are the banners focused solely around sports?
No, that’s why we allow students to submit. Sports are not the only way people are proud of their school. I want students to see different aspects of UMBC.

VI. New Business

A. SR06-0809 Senate Resolution to support domestic partnership benefits for Maryland State Employees

Matt: LGBTQA community Health benefits for same sex couples will put same sex couples be on par with heterosexual couples. If we support this we will be able to put it on our nondiscrimination policy and we will be attracting faculty and staff to our school.
Toby: does any other school support this or just UMBC?
Brian: other student govs have been supported
Paula: Collage park pres will support
Brian: Funding still might be cut. Trying to lobby from it.
Toby: Paula, is there a community within staff who are in LGBTQA have you talked to them
Paula: yes. Other Profs who are on and off campus. This is estimated to effect 300 state employees.
Brian: I had a concern abut certain requirements for a domestic partnerships requirement. Paula said people cant say there gay to get benefits.
Paula: There is a whole set of requirements.
Naina move to approve, second Jen
9,0,1,1 Amber left 6:43

B. SR07-0809 Senate Resolution to support the Early move-in initiative

Simi: basically to get support to have student be able to move on Saturday instead of Sunday after winter break.
Brian: move to approve, Jen second
David: the resolution doesn’t talk about trade offs, any downsides?
Jen: are you saying it should be in resolution? We had a lengthy conversation about it before. We put cons out on table, but decided they weren’t enough.
David: what are you committing the senate to? If reslife increase the charge? Do you support that? So how will resolution be used?
Josh: instead of making this broader, we could say we understand that it will cost this but we think it should be done.
Jen: we have written broad legislation before that were like this. They haven’t hammered out details. We can’t amend it because we don’t know costs. We can table it, but I don’t think that’s necessary.
Paula: I do think this is a great idea, but like the library fees, we need to be considering cost. Mozie-Ross felt what she had done was justified because she talked to Jay. We can’t endorse this without considering consequences. We are going to have to deal with responsibility. Can’t pass without information.
Michel: Details will come in this week. Should wait till then.
Jen: I don’t really think it’s a big deal. She’s probably not even going to read it. Easer to negotiate with broader stuff
Naina: maybe it’s not a big deal, but if someone later picks it up and takes legislation seriously, then will have problem
Gabe: from what I understand, we are hoping SGA will cover the cost, don’t think it will be a lot of money, and reslife would pick it up after that. This needs to be tabled.
Michel: needs something saying SGA supports it, split it into two peaces of legislation. One saying we support this idea, and once that happens we can go through and say specifically what the SGA supports.
Brian: if we pass this tonight, then we can have more legislation in two weeks
Brian move to vote.
Objection
Jen: change word “initiative” to “idea”.
Rahilla: Either amend or table. We can have a straw pull.

Josh: I still think that the amendment still needs to be more than just that one word.
Brian motion to straw pull Jen second
6 vote in favor of amending
Gabe: I think this is a waste of time. Should have well thought out peace of legislation, may veto this.
Jen it’s not a big deal. I don’t think this can hurt anyone.
Paula: I don’t think that its necessary to pass this legislation, we may not think its a big deal, but we need to be careful about what we pass. Come back next week and pass a well-written piece of legislation.
Josh: this is poorly written.
Brian second what Jen said. We are supporting idea of what students want.
Brian: move to approve.
Chidi: Second
Gave object. Need to change that.
Vote for legislation:
6 in favor, 3, 1, 1
Passes
VII. Team Building Activity (Sunaina Khandewal) 7:05pm
Rahilla: Who wants to do next week’s?
Brian

VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports

First project is the fee increase James is working on. Peer advisors program, (students helping with advising), transcript fee, and judicial peer advisor.
Paula: new idea for myUMBC web space for student orgs. Next week I’m starting a project looking into gender-neutral restrooms. Is an issue for disabled and transgender students.
David: SGA election app deadline is March 13.
Gabe: will be meeting with freeman next Monday. Will be a meeting about activity fee increase. Cabinet meetings held Friday 5pm in student orgs space. Had a discussion about Structure of cab as well as accountability this past week. I am going to be holding them to office hours. Directors to 3, assistant directors to 1. Will be getting rid of Governmental affairs, legislative committee is now handing a lot of those jobs.
Catherine Will be looking into temperature management in the dorms. Yasmin looking into UC ballroom and how it’s already booked up. Trying to talk with scheduling so that student orgs get priority for that.

IX. Announcements

Toby after meeting with Nancy Young, she mentioned walk in hour to meet her after 4:30pm on Monday.
Simi offices close at five, but she’s there till six. Nancy will have office hours
Michel: parking services fees are no longer attacked to student account. Will be attached to MVA record. Registration can’t be renewed online anymore.
Harsh came over and talked about shuttle service for trips to DC. Updated our procedures. Cab retreat: James and Aditi came out. Numbers lower than expected. Katy boon coming out this week to talk about housing costs. And meeting after that to discuss the master plan. Need SGA rep (Rahilla).
Whitney: basketball game in the RAC, second to last home game.
Don’t forget office hours.

X. Roll Call: All members present except for Amber and Aditi

XI. Adjournment 7:29pm

XII. Pass the Gavel

FINANCE BOARD MEETING 2/17/09

ROLL CALL: EVERYONE HERE EXCEPT KATHERINE

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:

campus communication committee: to facilitate inter-SGA communication
- retreat (meeting at the end of every month), preferably last sat of every month, for about an hour

NEWMAN CLUB

7 weeks, seminars - contemporary issues, discussion of bible says
where and when: sundays at 7:00, interfaith center
it was funded by donations, currently do not have money this semester
the club does not want to charge the people attending
club had 30 attendees for the first meeting
1250 to pay to run the seminar....pays for the program itself because of the full time staff that is working
they never charged students in the past
each seminar would cost about $180
$540 we can fund after the deadline

BIOETHICS

inviting a speaker from NASA
help to strengthen the series in collaboration with other departments
cost $ 469.26
advertising it all over campus
where and when: 29th, 7th floor of the library, 7:00 p.m.
reusable advertisement
expecting: 100 people, including faculty members

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY 5k ($80)

removing prizes ( total now is 40)
raising funds for the spring break trip to build houses in Florida
argument: the money is not going to the actual event
creative idea because we are actually not funding the event to go to Florida, they are really creative in doing a fundraiser to fund their trip

AFRICAN STUDENTS ASSOCIATION JUMBO NIGHT

the club will pay half, making morgan state pay the other half
in return, UMBC will get 100 tickets
buses going from UMBC to take them to Morgan State
scheduling event issues because the UC was booked for some other event
the event was sold out last time they had jumbo night in UC
is it possible to make 1000 UMBC students to go the event at morgan state?
how much was the ticket to go to Morgan State event: $10
let morgan state declare the ticket price
can we subsidize the tickets? we do not know the ticket prices yet,
the bus issue? 55 students per bus, it would be for the UMBC transit
it would be hard to make 1000 students go, work with the morgan state to have them get 1500 tickets and give UMBC only 500 rather than 1000
if we can’t make 1000 students go, it is not fair for us to pay the half
they have been an active club in the past
working with the transit system to see if they will donate their services
its a traditional event, so we should fund it....making this there 10th event
regardless of where it is...it is a UMBC events, so UMBC students are going to go to this event, showcasing their culture with Morgan State
appreciate different schools coming together for one event
its a great experience for the students
making sure that next year it is at UMBC and not at morgan state
it is off campus
high amount
no need to fund the fashion show, or for sounds, if its at morgan state
charging students to go to the Jumbo night
its a good event, not a lot of people are going to attend because it is off campus
Stephan: we should partially fund it
Emily: there are some on campus events that aren’t being funded well
Yasmin: its not a bad idea, but at the same time it would be ok to charge students, its one of the biggest events,
stephanie: we should partially fund it,
James: try to plan this event earlier, if we fund this for 500 students, for those the event should be for free
CLUB: final ticket price is $15
Emily: Quadmania is an on campus event, the ticket is 15 dollars
club: our students are used to going to events free, but they are not used to pay for going to events, its been the tradition
3700 approved
4 representative, no oppose, none absent

SCULPTURE CLUB ( 1000)

buy material to build a sculpture, metal and wood, and bicycle for the racing baltimore
getting community involved, its a art project with engineering stuff
sale in the front of the common
it will last several years
building structure where? off campus
may 2nd is the race
students can participate in making the sculpture
approved

EXPENDITURE:

past through senate in 2/3rd votes
we are running out of money
last year we did 15,000
260,000
using roll back in march
left now is 25,000
we would have 10,000 more by end of march
we should wait to spend the expenditure

OTHER

having a meeting at the dining hall or some other place where it is visible to students, the noise is the only problem

ROLL CALL

everyone is here that was here before

SGA Senate 2/23/09

I. Call to Order: 6:50pm

II. Roll Call: All members present except for Whitney

III. Approval of Minutes: approved

IV. Open Discussion

A. Review of past week
Gabe: steering committee met Friday, chartwells came. Did a nice presentation. I asked him how business was with student orgs, he lied about it. They talked about layoffs. Also talked about some state bills regarding the collective bargaining agreements. There concerned about the new textbook policies. Professors will have to research different additions and options for students. They were mad because that would force them do work.
Amber: I have a question about layoffs. How do they determine who gets put off?
Gabe: they left it up to the VP.
Toby: something about a meeting
Michael: SGA website. Get exact projects we are working on up there. Name of project, point person, email, description. People will see that the SGA is doing stuff.

V: New Business:

A. Conformation of election board members: Amond Perkins, Meron Tesfaye, Sean Maykrantz, and Stephanie Mavronis.

Katie: three of them are here except for Sean. They each have brought great ideas to the table. Stephanie has a lot of experience with multimedia and she wants to help inform students about what SGA does. Amond is very passionate about getting out there and talking to students. He is very knowledgeable and has a great presence that will make students feel comfortable around him. Meron has already been talking to a lot of you about bringing SGA to students and finding out what it is you do. Working a lot on getting publications out. We have a lot of plans for the future. The Student vote website is up and we have a new facebook group.
Amber: what are some of the unique skills that you bring to the election board.
Amond: I bring enthusiasm. I like talking to people.
Stephanie: I want to think of new and creative ways to get students involved.
Meron: I think a lot of people don’t know about SGA. Knowing about it has made a lot of difference for me. Many students think that you have to fit a certain mold to join SGA and I don’t want them to think that.
Amber: One of my major concerns is targeting people who haven’t voted before, how will you do this?
Stephanie: some people might think SGA has a really specific job but you guys control a lot of aspects on campus. Even if it’s something as simple as dining or transportation, through SGA these issues can be resolved.
Amond: just talking about what SGA does can help a lot
Meron: We are constantly discussing how to make the SGA more personal. If your friend is a senator, you might be more likely to vote.
Aditi: motion to confirm legislation
Second Brian
Gabe: objection. The bottom needs to be changed. We need to add a section for the Finance board. And are you guys comfortable with approving Sean at the same times (name on legislation)
Katie: Sean is our graphics person. He works in common vision and he has a lot of experience in graphic arts. He has lots of good ideas.
David: these people need to be not only competent, but also able to work without favoring a candidate.
Brian: I agree with what David said. Can we amend this to have Sean on a separate piece of legislation because I don’t think its good precedent to confirm people who we don’t meet in person?
Gabe withdraws objection.
Election board members leave
Naina: Do they have specific rolls assigned to them?
Katie: Sean is the graphics; Amond and Stephanie are making the videos and interviewing students. Stephanie is in charge of facebook. Meron is bringing SGA to students and talking to student orgs. Trying to get out two new publications every week. We are getting a slower start then we wanted. In the next two weeks hoping to get this off the ground
James: role violations?
Katie: for me this is a group decision-making process. That will become a little clearer later. When disputes come up I feel like we will all talk about them. I would like to have everyone’s consensus because I feel like everyone has a view to bring.
Jen: Were there other people who applied?
Katie: yes, we really only had one serous other person, who applied and then there was another person who didn’t respond.
Naina: move to approve, Jen second.
Members For: 9, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 1

B. Objections to SR07-0809

Gabe: Two main reasons I vetoed the legislation we passed last week: 1) Poorly worded and vague. Any legislation that is vague like that should never be passed. Fo has let me know that it has become an unnecessary piece of legislation. Last week everyone was operation under the assumption that he was meeting with Katie Boon last week – he is actually meeting with her this week. 2) His plans have changed as well. Looks like it could cost up to $6000 for this. He is not seeking the senate’s approval as of now. Wants to hold a meeting with her and have a letter from me in support of it and later if it works out, he will come back to senate with better-worded legislation.
Toby: $6000 for each student?
Gabe: for the total of the project. Seems a little high.
Naina: I don’t think that’s high at all.
Gabe: she's willing to work with us.
Brian: Issue here is whether to over ride veto or not. I also talked to Phil and he said the same thing. I think we should let the veto stand.
Aditi: can we just move on then if we let it stand?
Veto stands.

IV. Project updates

A. Increased library hours
Naina: 10 year master plan, but every 5 years they update this. Usually don’t pay that much attention to it but this time they are because they want to focus on sustainability as well as space management. Committee created to figure out what library’s needs are for the next five years.
Simi: we were also thinking of getting some grants. Problem is that Hrabowski says grants are for private institutions and that money will be hard to get. We will look into that. Might be hard.
Amber: what is your status with looking into Res halls
Dropped it because we saw something going with the library

B. Reaching out to International Students
Had meeting with event planning Thurs. Right now we have Marked 27th and 28th for programs. Thinking should move the event to the fall semester because we will have collaboration with orgs. April will be a time for elections; March might not be able to draw as large a crowd. Wondering about your opinions. Thinking about Streamlining events to smaller scale.
Jen: I think that leaving it for the fall is not a good idea. It’s pretty risky. Good chance that nothing will be done. I would try to do something this semester. May not be to the scale you were hoping. Could you do something that wasn’t an event? That might be cheaper and easer given the time you have.
Chidi: Thinking about doing an intercultural event that would create more awareness about poverty. Doesn’t have a lot of logistics.
Naina: is this just to raise awareness? Is this done by Unisef?
Chidi: No, just got the idea from it. Just to raise awareness.
Naina: is this a performance event? Or just a presentation or just informational event.
You have some people set on the floor, some on table, some have beans some don’t. You ask each group how they feel watching people in other groups.
Reflection about poverty.
Toby: Instead of just doing it yourself, you could ask another org to do it
Jen: what is your goal with that would be? That’s an awesome event, but another org could do that. SGA needs to be taking on things only the SGA can do. Something online with resources. Or talking to admissions.
Naina: last semester I remember talking about emailing and getting in contact with students before they event get on campus.
Chidi: We talk about it in fall semester when students are coming. It might not work for the fall semester.
Naina: Could you set it up or the fall semester?
Chidi: yes

C. Black and gold campus Signage
Aditi: Opening up contest this week. Jen has agreed to work with us to get flyers out via common vision and SGA. David is going to start putting stuff up on the blog and Michael on the SGA website. Toby’s campus card idea is in the works. Have half our budgets confirmed hopefully will have the rest by the end of this week. I’m going to open up a facebook group tonight. March 15 is deadline for submissions.
Jens: have you printed anything with the deadline on it? Common vision might not be able to have stuff out by this week.
Michael: getting a website up by this week might take a while.
Aditi: I can push it back to end of spring break
Jen: quadmaina is 17 April
Jen: could have it during quadmaina. SEB would publicize well.
Black and gold Friday the same day that they will have banners up.
Rahilla: you can get back to us with a date.

D. Fees
Fees didn’t meet

E. Sales of Gum at stores (Yum Shoppe and the Spot) on Campus
Rahilla: Whitney had an update on that. I guess she will just give it to you next week

F. Follow-up on Transit Tracker
Transit tracker: we haven’t meet as a group. Setting up meeting with last admin.

VII. Team building.
Brian: In the interest of time will defer till next week. It’s going to be a really good activity.

VIII. Executive reports.
Gabe: met with PSAC and Freeman today. Just talking about transitioning and where plans are. He really liked the black and gold idea. Good meeting and now he knows who we are. So when I send the letter about the transcript fee he will know who I am. As far as the cabinet meeting. Noting too exciting.
Simi: communications committee has been meeting and talking about having a press release. Update on what senate is doing every week. Want to have retreat like meeting every month for an hour. Just to stay in communication. Planning on getting that starting next month.
Gabe: every one is behind it.
Simi: we expect it to be mandatory.
Gabe: on a Saturday probably around 11
Jen: did you talk about the transcript fee with Freeman?
Gabe: I'm glad it didn’t come up. Would have probably asked a lot of questions I didn’t have all the answers to. Steve doing fee forum. Will be in the student org space week after the elections.
James: busy week. Finance board partially funded Jambo night. Will probably be hearing from us once we find out exactly where we are. Facilities management completely on board with my idea for Erickson Field. Did cost analyses and environmental impact. Student activity fee increase: meet and talked about meeting with Lynn Shafer. Will be on Friday. Amber: what does this clay do?
Helps with drainage. Issues with bonfire. Are going to try and make sure we can keep the bonfire.
$3700 to Jambo night.
April 22. Jambo night is at Morgan state. Couldn’t get a space in the UC ballroom.
Michael: did all SGA positions in webpage. Now accurate. Put new pictures up. Most everyone’s emails is up and election page up.
David: Election board has created facebook group.
David: if James does anything to impair the bonfire he will run 15 times naked around Erickson.
Took a while to figure out when retreat will be done. Someone offered a traditional retreat that will be cheaper.
Michael (RSA): Last week we has guess speakers came to talk about Chorus (music downloading service). Allow you to download music based off of a select number of artists without liability. Get music anyway. Free for students during the beta test. Company wants to see what type of music students downloads. Not monitoring, just survey.
Jen: how many recording artist are on it?
Michael I think it’s a limited selection. Might start with 70 and continue forward.
Katie Boon came to talk about housing price changes. Total cost for traditional was $5500 next year $5670
For Walker: $5700 up to $5870 tried to keep the changes low as possible. Increase in resident fee. Will go up 10 per student. To cover some upgrades. Were some improvements last year, which are now obsolete.
A few price changes for food and a few more options for the flex.
Jen: did you find out about the cable splitter?
Michael (RSA): I can give you a minor update on it later. We are going out to Arizona sending 10 delegates out. Any student can go. Will cost student $30-60.

IX. Announcements:

Toby: big game this Sunday. First year council is doing an event that day. Face painting.
Rahilla: this semester will be continuing with the guests. Katie Boone will be here next Monday. She is the director of RESlife.
Jen: ask her about how they are planning on fitting all freshmen in residence halls this year
Brian: ask her about the master plan. A lot of interesting stuff going on.
Michael: Who do I talk to about the Bendy straws? Commons or Chartwells?
Simi: is everyone ok with the mandatory meeting?
Jen: just make sure enough people can go
Amber: don’t let that discourage you.

X. Roll Call: all members present except for Whitney
Chidi and Aditi left early

XI. Adjournment: 8:00pm

XII. Pass the Gavel

FINANCE BOARD MEETING

call to order - all here, except emily

masterplan for the buildings -
more places in UMBC where students can have events. This would really help the clubs and organizations.
Paksa - other groups that have had annual events in the past need to reserve the place, but since the UC ballroom is booked all the weekends therefore it isn't possible.
UC is really small to hold events

Fee Form
cost increased for the fees and an attempt to increase in student activities fee
fee - 10 dollar increase
It would be on blackboard, under SGA elections
If student activities fee did not pass, then the $10 would go to some other activities such as athletics.

Event Planning
brainstorming ideas on how to advise the clubs
integrating everything when holding an event

NEW BUSINESS

PAKSA
constitution event
musical play, but they couldnt hold it at the ballroom because it it booked
if they do it in Theatre, they would have to perform the play on two nights
(friday and saturday).
150-400 tickets sale expected for the play event
The event would be in April, most likely 17th and 18th.
we would have to talk to the music department, since theatre is not the easiest place to reserve.
The venue of the Paksa musical is becoming an issue because UC is reserved for all the weekends.
idea about erickson field
food: finance board will not fund food at the weekly meetings.
end of march: basant mela (at the erickson field)
co sponsorship with the SASA, and other clubs
what is Basant Mela? it is morning breakfast, kite flying, cricket, badminton tournament and ludo
Basant Mela is an all day event
300 people expected to come and go because it is an all day event
Yasmin: want this event to happen, make this event happen
issue of jumbo night: events planning will have to work with
we will postpone it because of the scheduling place issue
withdraw: food will not be provided at the meetings
4, opposed 1, abstaining 1, none absent

ELECTION BOARD MEMBERS
more people to understand sga, he wants alot of turn out, more people voting and running for office
she knows alot about sga, she wants everyone to vote in the election, rather than just only 30 people voting, high turnouts, more people to know about the event, use of advertisement to involve people in the election, struggle to get people interested and get people to run for the event
money for advertisement

Sikh Student Association ( WRITTEN)
inviting a speaker
expecting around 100 people
James: cut out trees
Harsh: concerned about the message the event is trying to opposed
275 approved
4 representatives, 0 opposed, 1 abstain

Meeting with Freeman
- transfer student
black and gold campus project
changing of card
faculty issues: they need to put textbook online ahead of time when students begin registering for classes

GOSPEL CHOIR
spring concert
every semester they have a concert
350 people attending, its open to all students
may 2nd, 8 pm, fine arts recital hall
decorations: lights
advertising: banner, postcards
food: how necessary is it? it is very necessary because students know that the food is there
have to pay their performer $1000, although they are not asking finance board for it
we have given gospel choir about $5500 so far this year
Silva: food is not necessary
is food essential for the concert: it draws students to the event
chick-fil-a is not a good option for food
decorations: can be removed or cutt down to $50
yasmin: decorations are needed for the concert
final: move decorations for $100
food: cutting the price of food in half, and make it all refreshment
we would rather fund a performer, than funding food
$950 dollars: 3 votes, spring concert
3 , oppose one, abstaining one, none absent

OPEN MIC NIGHT
sports zone, 75 people, people come and go
time: 7:00
room is already reserved
food: cost effective
should we take the food out or reduce the price
cut food down to $100 dollars
total 200
4 vote, oppose none, abstaining 1

TEA EMPIRE
can't really fund it for feb
$15 for food, $ 15 for tea
30 for march, April $45
may $30
vote 4, oppose no, abstain 1

QUIZBOWL
were not present

paksa- yasmin
catherine - tea empire

how to run the meeting:
following each step rather than going back and forth, being more organized, and suggesting a number and people voting for it
James: we cannot change their event, for example: the changing of food
Yasmin: we shouldn’t tell them what to get or what not at the meeting
Emily: cultural food varies at events therefore the club knows better

ROLL CALL
- everyone here

ADJOURNMENT

ANNOUNCEMENT/ PASS THE GAVEL