I. Call to order
5:33pm
II. Roll Call
Chidi and Aditi absent, Simmi late @ 5: 37pm
III. Approval of Minutes
Minutes will be approved next week.
IV. Special Guest – Dr. Larry Wilt, Director of the Library
Larry Wilt: There are four things I would like to go other with you.
First, the issues of quite in the library. There was a lot of about this on the UMBC underground. There is a need for quite study and group study in the library. We try to accommodate both by designating different floors. We have developed a signage program to help students become more aware of quite areas.
Secondly, the extended hours have gotten good publicity. I am impressed with the way you brought that forward to the campus. Today is the first day we are going to have extended hours. We will have data gathered from that to evaluate the success of this is.
We have been working on a project to repurpose space in the front of the library to a student-learning center with computer equipment and flexible furniture. We engaged an architectural firm to create a concept study. We are finalizing our plans. We will have to get funding support for this. It would take at least a half a million dollars to do this well.
We are having budget pressures on the library. We have had to cancel some subscriptions but I can say we do have some services in place that will make up for the loss of some subscriptions. We can assure you that we will continue to meet undergraduate needs.
I wanted to see if there were other issues I hadn’t covered that you all thought were important.
Amber: I was sitting on the information technology steering comities and I have seen the plans for the changes to the library. I was wondering what source of funding are you looking at for that. Students do want study space available so you will get student support. I was wondering if it would be possible for us to develop a pilot program for this project.
Larry Wilt: We talked about putting in a demonstration space. I had identified money to put to that, we were hoping to do it this spring, but with the uncertainty of the budget it was held off.
Josh Michael: have you thought of putting descriptions for the floor on the elevators.
One of the concerns for that is getting clearance. We have been looking into that.
Josh: just remind them that the commons had some in their elevator.
Michael: There is an issue differentiating between the language on the different floors. For example the difference between “Quite” and “Absolutely Quiet”.
There’s a program to change that. The new sign will be a stop sign: red for total quiet, caution for relatively quiet.
Larry Wilt: we discovered through the UMBC underground that we had some signs taped to tables that were not current, so we took them down.
Amber: I really appreciate you guys checking sources like UMBC underground
V. Open Discussion
A. Review of past week
Sunaina: we went to the library policy committee.
Rahilla: I was at RSA’s last meeting. We voted on resident ids for Walker residence.
Josh: I've been working on some textbook issues that will be important in the next coming year. The administration is looking for some new options. They are exploring a textbook rental program and doing some exploring into open source textbooks.
Gabe: the lowered the number of transcripts to get the discount from 8 to 10
Toby: We had the fee forum
Yasmin: I think we need to start exploring new ways to go about that. There might have been there or four students were there who weren’t in the SGA. Most of our questions were dodged. I know we’ve done it or a couple years, but I think we need to try something new. IT was an awkward setting.
Amber: I think this speaks to a larger issue about SGA visibility. We need students with us supporting us.
Josh: We are locked out of shared governance in this process. Collage Park has a student fee review board which we’ve talked about.
There a couple other things that came out of this. We talked about athletics projects. We should be able to look at priorities on this list. FY 2010 there is a pot of money that will not be used for what it was supposed to be used because the state is not allowing for merit pay that we can tap into.
Amber: Maybe instead of projects we could form comities. The executive board can do projects, but the Senate had a different weight between being elected.
Rahall: Dr. Diane Lee got back to me and said the undergraduate program meeting will be June the 5 this is open to anyone. I have a more detailed version of the minutes that will be sent out.
VI. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours (Matt, Simmi, Sunaina, Toby)
B. Reaching out to International Students (Chidi, Rahilla)
Rahilla: Having a meeting may 12 with an official form admission to start forum with international students. The mosaic center will have a forum to inform students.
C. Black and Gold Campus Signage (Aditi, Whitney, Jen, Toby)
Whitney: I think she’s still trying to work out the financial situation.
D. Follow-up on Transit Tracker (Simmi, Matt, Amber, Rahilla)
Amber: We are keeping conversations open and building partnerships with the surrounding community. People want to see more of a collage town. More of a UMBC presence outside the loop and more support form outside business
VII. New Business
VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports
Gabe: The lacrosse game was last Wednesday. There was little SGA support there. Joe is doing the dogs on wheels thing at stress free zone. This group is bringing dogs to campus.
Yasmin: we are having treasurer training this week at wed at noon ad Thursday at 7pm. Check out the website for the new arts and humanities building. It’s worth looking into.
Gabe: there was a big debate on the cabinet meeting about the CPS system in labs (the clickers). They are either doing away with the program or moving to a new company that’s better.
IX. Announcements
Transition materials due. Next week I sour last meeting. The new senate will come in and finish the meeting. Our terms end on the 15th.
X. Roll Call
All members are present except for Chidi and Aditi.
XI. Adjournment
6:18 pm
XII. Pass the Gavel