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