Student Assembly

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Student Assembly Meeting Minutes
September 14, 2006
4:45 — 6:30 p.m.
Memorial Room, WSH

I. Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 4:48 p.m.

II. Roll Call

III. Approval of Minutes

There was a motion to table the reading of the minutes till the next meeting since enough time was not allotted to read the minutes previous to the SA meeting. The motion was seconded. There was no dissent.

IV. Open Microphone

There were no comments.

V. Announcements/Reports

• Into the Streets- R Lavin and L Wein

Lora Wein, 09, said that Into the Streets was a day of community service for various groups to participate in and encouraged SA members to contact her if there were any questions.

E. Greenberg asked if she could report back to the SA on the success of Into the Streets, once it was completed.

D, Budish said that he is going to create a list for Into the Streets and for all SA members who are interested to come and see him after.

• Ivy Council- R. Lavin

R. Lavin said that Cornell’s delegation met the past Tuesday and that various committees had been formed. He stated that any SA members should come to him with any questions.

• Fall Elections Update — N. Chadda

N. Chadda said things were going well with elections. He said that there twenty eight candidates for elections and that all candidates had been briefed the week on rules and procedures. He added that elections would be held from Thursday September 21st to Saturday September 23rd and that this Sunday there would be a candidate forum being held at Robert Purcell Community Center at 7 pm and he extended an open invite to all SA members.

C. Selth asked when the committee’s election would be.

N. Chadda replied that once he had all the information on the committees election he would email the Student Assembly.

D. Budish stated that the Strokes concert is Sunday night and wonders if it would be a conflict.

N. Chadda said that the Elections committee tried to schedule it around the Strokes concert but it was unavoidable.

• SAFC Announcement — M. Ehrlich

M. Ehrlich announced that the SAFC hearing is taking place in the Willard Straight International Lounge at the moment and would be going on till Sunday. She encouraged all SA members to stop by Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

• Appropriations Committee — S. Boxer

S. Boxer announced that she needs everyone to take the president and treasurer test and that the appropriations committee meeting would be on September 25th at 7pm. She would like to have all preliminary budgets from SA members by September 21 and. She added that she would be present at the SA retreat if anyone had further questions.

S. Deena asked if the link for the test been updated since the site was having technical difficulties.

S. Boxer replied that going to another computer would fix the issue.

• SA Retreat — E. Greenberg

E. Greenberg announced that the retreat will be on Sunday, September 17th in Goldwin Smith Hall room 181 from 10 am to 1 pm.

D. Budish said that he attended the first faculty senate meeting of the semester. First, Harvard had gotten rid of early decision and that there was mention of Cornell also getting rid of early decision. Second, there was talk of Darfur and what Skorton did in reference to Darfur. Third, a resolution had been passed to change the academic code of integrity so that students who have been found guilty of cheating would not be able to drop the class.

V. Hartman asked if the faculty senate had already passed the resolution.

D. Budish replied that it had been passed.

R. Goldfarb announced that Monday September 25th there would be a Greek sponsored blood drive and to email her with any questions.

K. Selth said that he wants to raise concerns about the column referring to the SA published. Although the column was well done, he thinks that the language is offensive the previous SA and encourages the writers to have a more professional language when writing a column.

A. Salem extended a thank you to E. Greenberg and C. Slicklen for writing a column that admitted to faults the SA had in the past and for a job well done.

M. Coombs said he met with a Cornell’s lobbyist to the state government Albany and that he was trying to recruit students to go to Albany to lobby. He asked SA to contact him if any SA member knew someone who was interested.

VI. Business of the Day

• Philanthropy Proposal — C. Slicklen

C. Slicklen said that he is requesting funds for two philanthropy events sponsored by Kappa Alpha Theta and Phi Kappa Tau. He requests seventy dollars to use for SA participation in these events.

K. Duch clarified that for a team of four you need eighty dollars

A. Selth asked if C. Slicklen knew how the entrance fees were being handled.

C. Slicklen said that he wasn’t sure.

S. Boxer clarified that this wasn’t a situation were C. Slicklen was giving money it was for participation.

There was a motion for unanimous consent. It was seconded. The funding request was approved.

• “Big Red Review” Presentation — T. Stasko

K. Thomison said that course evaluations aren’t made public except for Hotel and CALS and that T. Stasko took into his own hands to create a website which makes course evaluations public.

T. Stasko while going through the website said that Cornell net id necessary to log in, that there are four types of evaluations: evaluations of the course, professor, workload and type of workload (whether it is memorization or conceptual). He goes on to say that classes can be searched by department or course and that on the website there are statistics on how the courses rate against other courses.

A. Salem asked if the website is accessible to e-reading programs.

T. Stasko replied that he tried to make the website accessible to e-reading programs but he had been unsuccessful and that he would try to have it done in the future.

M. Coombs asked when it will become available to the Cornell community.

T. Stasko replied that if SA approval was given it could go fully public within a couple weeks.

D. Budish asked how it would be marketed and how the website would be made more appealing over www.ratemyproffessor.com

T. Stasko said that www.ratemyproffessor.com was limited and that part of what makes the Big Red Review website appealing is that there are different categories that the courses are evaluated by. He stated that one of the reasons he came to the SA meeting was to get help with publicity efforts.

S. Denna asked if the net id of the student commenting on the course was kept confidential.

T. Stasko replied that at the moment the public can not tell who comments on the course, but he, as the administrator of the websites, stores who makes comments. However, he did think of making the names public in case to track if someone made random and inaccurate comments when evaluation courses.

A. Gay said he is concerned about the security.

T. Stasko said that he is trying to spend as much time as he can to look for security options and that the only encryption he has thus far is someone’s net id and their password. He adds that he can not give any guarantees about the level of security.

V. Hartman said that one of issue with www.withratemyprofessor.com is that someone can create multiple user ids and wondered how that possibility was reduced with the Big Red Review website.

T. Stasko replied that he is attempting to reduce it by making people sign on with their netid.

D. Budish asked if he ever thought about using the site to create a club who calculates the professors that has the greatest number of positive ratings and having a faculty appreciation day.

T. Stasko replied that at the moment since the website is small he doesn’t think it is possibility but having faculty appreciation day in the future is a definte responsibility.

K. Thomison made a point of info that

There was a motion to suspend the standing rules. It was seconded. There was no dissent.

M. Coombs made a motion to move Resolution 8 and Resolution 9 from New Business to Business of the Day because if Resolution 8 passed it would give the people the resolution affected adequate time to seek out resources. It was seconded.

S. Boxer motioned that Resolution 8 not be voted on till next week since people needed to think it through more.

There was vote via hands to move Resolution 8 and 9 from New Business to Business of the Day. The motion failed by a vote by 8–9.

K. Selth made a motion to move Resolution 7, 9, 10 and 11 be moved to unfinished business. The motion was seconded. There was dissent.

There was vote via hands to move Resolution 7,9, 10 and 11 to be moved to Unfinished Business. The motion passed 11–2.

VII. Unfinished Business

• R. 1 Resolution Regarding SA Voting Eligibility — S. Boxer and M. Ehrlich

S. Boxer said as they had discussed at the previous SA meeting, the resolution stated that everyone had to pass the SAFC president and treasurer test.

K. Selth motioned for unanimous consent. It was seconded. There was no dissent.

K. Selth said that test is easy to do and that it will help the SA learn about the rules and regulations of SAFC.

M. Coombs moved to strike the first whereas clause.

There was a motion to call to question. It was seconded. There was no dissent. The motion passed.

Omar Gonzales, 07 said he agrees with the intent of the resolution but he thinks that the resolution is setting a bad precedent and that by denying a SA member to vote on appeals they would be denying the representation of their constituents.

S. Boxer said that it was bad precedent for SA members to vote on appeals if they didn’t know the rule of the SAFC and that it was irresponsible for the SA to vote on whether or not the SAFC was following their own rules and regulations if they didn’t the SA didn’t know the rules and regulations of the SAFC.

A vote was taken via roll call.

There was re-call since the votes were miscounted by the clerk.

S. Boxer reads the resolution for clarification.

Resolution 1 passed 13–5.

Res 1 C. Bodner Y S. Boxer Y D. Budish Y M. Coombs Y S. Deena Y K. Duch Y M. Ehrlich Y A. Gay N R. Gousse Y E. Greenberg Y V. Hartman N R. Lavin Y G. Leonard Y N. Nisargand N A. Salem N S. Santana Y C. Selth Y CJ Slicklen N K. Thomison -

• R. 3 Resolution Regarding the SHS Program — E. Greenberg, R. Lavin, G. Leonard and C. Slicklen

R. Lariar said that just as a review Students Helping Students program which is a fund allocated by the student activity fee.

There was a call for unanimous consent. It was seconded. There was no dissent.

Resolution 1 passed unanimously.

• R. 5 Resolution Regarding Dining — M. Asgary and M. Coombs

M. Coombs moved to withdraw Resolution 5 because it is already part of the dining committee iniatitive.

• R. 7 Resolution Regarding the Standing Rules — M. Coombs

M. Coombs said that at the beginning of the year the standing rules were updated but a lot of the changes hadn’t been enforced.

D. Budish asked to point out what the specific changes were?

M. Coombs said that one of the changes was that roll call be taken at the conclusion of the meeting and that had not yet changed.

E. Greenberg motioned to table the discussion of Resolution 7 until executive session. The motion is seconded, there is no dissent and the motion to move Resolution 7 to executive session passes.

• R. 9 Resolution Regarding Voter Registration — M. Coombs and H. Ziskend

M. Coombs read the resolution.

H. Ziskend added that he wanted to get the SA involved to get as many students possible registered possible. He added that tabling on Ho Plaza would starting the following next week.

There was a motion for unanimous consent. It was seconded. There was no dissent.

Resolution 9 passed unanimously.

• R. 10 Resolution Regarding COPS — J. Rudnick and A. Salem

A. Salem said that last year there was a police committee whose job was to do investigate and do research on police. However, the committee was unable to meet last semester and that the resolution stated that the committee needed to be renewed for the academic year to begin the investigation.

C. Slicklen said that he has issue with the first therefore be it resolved since it goes against charter to designate someone other than the VP of Internal Relations as the chair.

A. Salem asked if he would prefer that the resolution read “J. Rudnick in conjuction with VP of Internal Relations”.

K. Thomison made a point of info that if the SA voted yes on the resolution; it would be allowable for J. Rudnick to be kept as chair.

V. Hartman made a point of order that if J. Rudnick’s name was no longer in the resolution as chair, if a new resolution would have to be drafted.

A. Salem responded that if something happened to J. Rudnick a new resolution would not be needed. There was a call to question. It was seconded. There was a roll vote and the resolution passed unanimously.

Res 10 C. Bodner Y S. Boxer Y D. Budish Y M. Coombs Y S. Deena Y K. Duch Y M. Ehrlich - A. Gay Y R. Gousse Y E. Greenberg Y V. Hartman Y R. Lavin Y G. Leonard Y N. Nisargand Y A. Salem Y S. Santana Y C. Selth Y CJ Slicklen Y K. Thomison -

VIII. New Business

• R. 6 Resolution Regarding SA Agenda Formulation — M. Asgary

K. Thomison stepped down as chair.

M. Asgary said that it was the responsibility of setting an agenda is not delegated to anyone and this resolution would make it official that the executive Vice-President set the agendas.

K. Selth asked for explanation on any student being able to add an item to agenda.

M. Asgary said that students did have that right.

K. Thomison said that the only exception to that rule was if it was a charter change and in that case a petition with one hundred student signatures would be needed.

• R. 8 Resolution Regarding Homecoming — D. Bean, M. Coombs, J. Dai, E. Gumbs, V. Hartman, J. Lucas, A. Macaluso, and C. Newton

V. Hartman began by saying that the SA should start looking for alternative funding to make homecoming free since the price of homecoming was now three dollars. By raising the price, attendance would be decreased which would be unfair to the football team.

E. Gumbs, class president of 2007, said that class council had been involved in homecoming in the past and that overlooking this issue would be detriment to the Cornell community.

Johanna 08’ stated that homecoming is one of biggest traditions and that decrease of attendance would be a detriment to Cornell.

Eddy 07’ said that he had a letter which the coach and football team signed in support additional funding.

V. Hartman said that they were asking the SA to help fund the event.

S. Boxer said that she is full support of homecoming but the SA is not responsible for the three dollar price that athletics is charging for homecoming. She asked why the SA should be fully responsible for funding the event.

V. Hartman said that he feels the SA should take the responsibility since the SA addresses the issues of students.

M. Coombs added that the fact that football members signed the resolution shows concern.

S. Santana asked why alumni were being asked for money, when the students aren’t paying.

V. Hartman said that one of their ideas was to be able to get a coupon and make it redeemable. He added that there is no difference between alumni and students.

S. Boxer said the athletics department is not willing to reduce charge and asked if it was feasible for the SA to fund all students.

M. Coombs said that since students for in full support of homecoming the SA should take the iniative.

S. Deena asked if they knew the amount it would cost to cover all of the student body or half of the student body.

M. Coombs said that all the resolution is saying is that the SA should be given the responsibility to reduce the price of homecoming tickets.

C. Selth asked if they would be willing to have a raffle.

Eddy stated that his concern is people won’t come to the homecoming to be part of the raffle if the tickets are three dollars.

C. Selth asked would they be willing to promote another featured event along with homecoming to raise attendance since it was unlikely that the fee would be raised in this short of a time period.

Eddy said that they were definitely willing to promote the event.

There was a motion to adjourn. It was seconded. There was dissent.

VIII. Executive Session

There was a motion to go to executive session. The motion passed and there was no dissent.

IX. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 6:45 p.m.