Student Assembly

Minutes
Cornell University Student Assembly
April 8, 2010
4:47- 6:15pm
Willard Straight Hall, Memorial Room

I. Call to Order

R. Salem called the meeting to order at 4:47 pm.

II. Roll Call

Voting Members Present: I. Akinpelu, V. Andrews, C. Basil, A. Brokman, A. Cowen, M. DeLucia, A. Gitlin, N. Junewicz, N. Kumar, A. Latella, J. Min, A. Niccoletti, S. Purdy, N. Raps, R. Salem, K. Welch

Voting Members Late: R. Desai

Voting Members Excused Absent: M. Danzer, Z. Glasser, J. Rau, A. Raveret, U. Smith

Voting Members Unexcused Absent: C. Moreno, H. Yang

III. Approval of Minutes

There was a call for acclamation. Seconded with no dissent. The minutes from 4/1/10 were approved.

IV. Open Microphone

N. Evensen came forward to speak about the student trustee position he is running for in an upcoming election. Both graduate and undergraduate students have the opportunity to vote. His platform focuses on issues associated with Cornell’s strategic planning initiative. Visit www.votenighthawk.com for more information. He asked if the SA had ny ideas for what student trustee should be doing. V. Andrews said there should be more students on decision-making committees so their feedback is taken into account.

R. Salem thanked Evensen for coming and wished him good luck.

V. Announcements/Reports

1. Calendar Update�Rammy Salem

R. Salem congratulated the men’s basketball team on their recent successes. He also announced a stress relief hypnosis performance on April 19th and a visit by President Skorton to the SA meeting on April 29th to discuss the non-discrimination clause.

2. Women’s Issues Committee Update�Natalie Raps

N. Raps thanked all volunteers who helped her hand out more than 1000 lollipops this week. This advertised the escort service.

3. Hotel School Update�Idris Akinpelu

I. Akinpelu said he is thankful for the Conrad Hilton Foundation’s recent donation of one million dollars to the hotel school for student scholarships.

4. Dining committee update- Alex Latella

A. Latella said that the committee’s final meeting is coming up soon. Additionally, starting this week, they have started to use 100 percent local beef that comes from within a 40 mile radius and is processed within 65 miles.

5. Address by the Mayor of Ithaca�Carolyn K. Peterson

C. Peterson introduced Kevin Sutherland, a program analyst for Tompkins County, to talk about the census.

R. Salem said that RAs have been instructed to go door to door and drop off a census to each of their students and have them returned promptly. Additionally, Cornell graduates will be hanging census door hangers in Collegetown on Sunday to remind people to fill their censuses out. Quarter cards will also be distributed.

K. Sutherland said there will be a free lunch at that event if students are interested in volunteering.

K. Peterson said a complete census count means a lot to the city because it needs funding. In Ithaca, it is difficult to raise money through taxes because 60–70 percent of its properties are tax-exempt. We are one of the cities with the highest percentage of tax-exempt properties.

K. Sutherland said it is great to see that Cornell is so engaged with census outreach. However, the bigger issue is with the students who live off campus. In order to reach those students living off campus, there will be census gifts giveaways with music on Saturday. Additionally, on Sunday, those who want to volunteer for the door-hanging should meet at the Schwarz Center at 11am. The county would like to have a better relationship with the SA and the students in general.

C. Peterson said what affects students on campus also affects city hall as well. For example, they have been really excited about our sports teams of late. On a more sober note, not many know that Matt Zika, a student who recently committed suicide, worked for city hall. His passing came as a shock for everyone who worked with him, as he was well-liked. Therefore, they are attempting to raise funds for a memorial fund for his high school.

C. Basil asked about the situation with chain link fences on our bridges. He wondered what her opinion is on having physical barriers on the bridges in the long run. Will the city be working with the University on implementing long-term solutions?

C. Peterson said that these are complicated questions. There had been a lot of correspondence between Cornell and the town before installing the barriers, but it was a difficult decision to make. They’ve also begun to work on improving another bridge in Ithaca and have discussed suicide awareness with a number of health departments throughout town. This issue impacts the entire community and deserves a public discussion. As for long term ideas for the bridges, she is interested in investigating such methodologies as installing nets, but they have to consider the price tag. She is meeting with Cornell administration soon and these topics are on the agenda.

C. Basil asked if June 4th is a firm deadline for removing the fences from the bridges.

C. Peterson said that they will be down by then although it is kind of scary considering there will not be any other barrier plan implemented for a while after that.

C. Basil asked if long-term plans have to go to a committee before being enacted.

C. Peterson said they do.

M. Delucia asked about the city noise ordinance. There have been three separate rulings since 2004 that have ruled such ordinances unconstitutional. Why hasn’t it been changed yet? There was a petition in Collegetown recently concerning this issue.

C. Peterson said she has not seen the petition yet and doesn’t know all the details concerning the ordinance. However, she thinks the rulings regarded voice restrictions in the Commons, rather than amplified sound in Collegetown.

M. Delucia said he was almost arrested one night because of the noise ordinance and he feels as if it explicitly targets college students.

C. Peterson said it would be worthwhile to have DeLucia work and meet with some town officials to talk about the ordinance. They don’t want people not to have fun.

A. Gitlin asked when the deadline is to return the census.

K. Sutherland said that the goal is by the end of next week. They have approval for workers to go door to door starting April 24th before students start to leave. There are part time jobs as census workers available.

A. Gitlin said that he would ask the Daily Sun if they could advertise turning in the census.

R. Rodewald asked how fraternities could avoid problems with the noise ordinance.

C. Peterson said that, in general, fraternities have been filling out their forms properly and complying with the rule to lower music after 12:00 pm. There have not been any major problems with noise lately.

A. Brokman asked if the mayor has looked at the disparity in rental prices between apartments near Cornell versus those by the Commons. He thinks that Cornell area landlords have unfairly increased rent prices.

C. Peterson said there is a rental housing advisory committee with students serving as members. They have begun to create a database with the conditions and prices of every rentable property in Ithaca. This website will be more condition-driven than price-driven because some apartments in Ithaca are of poor quality. One of her priorities is to improve the condition of these buildings.

A. Nicoletti asked if there would be any new development in Collegetown because it is overcrowded and pricing is high.

C. Peterson said that they are trying to plan for development in Collegetown but it is moving at a glacial pace. They have appropriated 50,000 dollars to work on Collegetown because it is one of the busiest areas of town and needs replacements such as new traffic lights and improved parking. They are hoping these projects will be completed by the end of the year.

R. Salem asked if there is any interest in simplifying the parking policy.

C. Peterson said she formed five committees this year to focus on parking issues. This is a huge issue city-wide.

R. Salem asked if there is space available for student involvement on these committees.

C. Peterson said there is always space. Finally, she would like to thank all Cornell students who volunteer in the community. If anyone would like to volunteer for Big Brothers and Big Sisters, there is a shortage of big brothers.

R. Salem thanked mayor Peterson for attending the meeting.

C. Peterson said she can be contacted at mayor@cityofithaca.org

VI. Unfinished Business

1. R. 64- UA Undergraduate Representative Application Process�Rammy Salem

R. Salem said he would like to change the subject of the resolution to “UA Undergraduate Representative Replacement Process.” He took all SA member opinions into account and it would be best to fill vacancies in the UA by voting in the SA.

A. Brokman thanked Salem for considering their input. Motion to vote.

Seconded. No dissent. By a vote of 12–0−3, the resolution passed.

2. R. 67- Endorsing the Public Higher Education Empowerment and Innovation Act�Rammy Salem and Matt Danzer

R. Salem said Cornell should try to become closer to the SUNY schools, considering we are a big recipient of the SUNY budget.

C. Basil said SA members should vote no because this resolution would raise tuition rates by the exact same amount every year.

R. Salem said he was not aware of this uniform increase. The resolution says the uniform rate of tuition will remain constant throughout next year and the school would be prohibited from increasing tuition until next academic year.

A. Gitlin said tuition is raised by about four percent each year and this would be more, around six percent.

N. Kumar asked if the SUNY student assembly voted on something like this.

R. Salem said they had not yet.

C. Basil said the university is trying to raise more money through tuition and they will probably be asking for the maximum cap each year. This would mean a six percent increase every single year in the future.

V. Andrews said he agrees that the university should limit its tuition increases but we are under different constraints than state schools because state universities can rely upon different sources of revenue.

R. Salem said we should hold ourselves to the standards of the other SUNY schools.

By a vote of 3–5−7, the resolution fails.

3. Amendment to Resolution 11- R. Salem ‘10

R. Salem introduced the resolution.

Basil recommended that the parliamentarian determine the action for each type of resolution.

R. Desai asked if the parliamentarian already did that.

Salem said no.

Kumar tabled till next week.

VII. New Business

1. R. 69- Student Innovation Council�Nikhil Kumar

N. Kumar said this year, the SA is more accessible to its constituents than it has been in the past few years with the creation of a facebook group, twitter account, and blogs. This renders a student innovation council useless, as its duties are already fulfilled by other SA committees.

C.Basil said the SA is overcommitted and there is nothing that another SA committee doesn’t cover in its purview.

N. Raps asked if Kumar had been in contact with members of the innovation council.

N. Kumar said he had.

N. Raps asked if they could petition to put this committee back in the charter if it were removed.

N. Kumar said they could by simply following the re-chartering process.

A. Nicoletti asked if the co-chairs could attend the meeting next week to provide more information before voting on the resolution.

A. Brokman said he could see this committee succeeding if anyone wanted to put forth the effort to make it successful.

N. Kumar said the committee is supposed to better student life and the residential life committee is supposed to do this, etc. Everything on the innovation committee’s purview already covered by other committees.

A. Brokman said he thinks that its purpose is to overlap with other SA committees.

C. Basil asked A. Epstein when the innovation committee was put in their charter.

A. Epstein said about ten years ago.

J. Min said he had found the innovation committee to be helpful on several occasions. The work they have done work may have overlapped but it was great work nonetheless.

N. Kumar said there are many hard-working individuals on the committee who will be allocated to participate in other groups. This will serve to structure the SA as efficiently as possible.

C. Basil said this committee lacks focus and the ability to delve into issues and therefore doesn’t accomplish much.

By a vote of 3–5−7, the resolution fails.

2. R. 62- The Freedom Clause- Mike Wacker ‘10, Ray Mensah ‘12, Alex Latella ‘10, John Rau ‘12

M. Wacker said Cornell needs to pass this resolution in order to protect the first amendment.

I. Akinpelu asked for an overview of the resolution.

M. Wacker said the purpose is to enforce the first amendment at Cornell.

N. Raps asked if this resolution would be more of an amendment to R44 or invalidate R44 altogether.

M. Wacker said this resolution only conflicts with R44 if it violates the first amendment. The university shouldn’t be able to infringe upon our right to freedom of speech

V. Andrews asked how R62 would this apply to the Chi Alpha controversy from last year.

R. Salem clarified: Would groups be able to restrict membership or leadership?

M. Wacker said leadership shouldn’t be restricted because of the first amendment.

J. Min said that this is more of a preventative measure, because there have not been explicit examples in our past.

M. Wacker said all universities are affected by these types of issues where 1st amendment rights are infringed upon.

J. Min asked if this resolution would be applicable to chi alpha?

M. Wacker said it would be applicable to chi alpha, and other situations. It protects offensive speech.

R. Salem announced that the mayor had arrived and tabled discussion to next week.

VIII. Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 6:15.

Respectfully submitted, Allison Bazinet