Student Assembly

MINUTES
Cornell University Student Assembly
November 4, 2010
4:45pm — 6:30pm
Willard Straight Hall, Memorial Room

I. Call to Order

V. Andrews called the meeting to order at 4:46pm.

II. Roll Call

Representatives Present: V. Andrews, A. Bajaj, G. Block, A. Brokman, M. Danzer, R. Desai, C. Feng, M. Finn, A. Gitlin, M. Gulrajani, C. Jenkins, D. Kuhr, T. Lenardo, R. Mensah, A. Nicoletti, A. Pruce, N. Raps, J. Rau, U. Smith, A. Yozwiak.

Representatives Excused Absent: J. Kay

Representatives Unexcused Absent: S. Agard, S. Pendleton

III. Approval of Minutes

a)October 28th, 2010

The minutes were approved as written.

IV. Open Microphone�Ray Mensah

No one came forth.

V. Announcements/Reports

Resolution 36 has not been reviewed by a committee so it will not be discussed today.

1. Student Assembly Newsletter — Natalie Raps

She has begun collecting information for the new newsletter. Please send what your committee has done or what you have done to her in 200 words or less. This will be advertized in the Sun, on Facebook, and on the blog. It is important to get it out, as it’s due next week.

The Residential Life Committee met yesterday briefly and discussed the feasibility of different initiatives. They talked about changes in the housing lottery system and how to disseminate this information so that juniors and seniors actually apply to the system. Read the blog for more information.

2. Cornell Cinema Meeting Report — Adam Nicoletti

They met with Cornell Cinema and their student representatives. Based on issues in the past, they have been trying to meet with them to make sure what happened last year will not happen again. They want to increase the tickets to $4.50. The SA must approve that and they have been discussing best way to approach the assembly. They will come in the spring so keep that in mind. They also want to increase student involvement in the cinema and would like them to create a charter for their organization and student advisory board to see the powers actually had. M. Danzer will be meeting with students of the cinema. They also want a clarification in how the budget is used. Hopefully this will make a smooth process for the spring and funding in the fall. M. Danzer said that he is going to be meeting with Cornell Cinema students on Wednesday November 17 at 4:30pm in the cinema itself as a conversation to what the students do and what the SA wants for them in terms of student leadership.

3. Cornell Caring Community Celebration — Jennifer Kay, Natalie Raps, Mohit Gulrajani

This is next week, November 11th at 5:30 pm and they would like to extend an invitation to everyone. This is to raises awareness of the caring community initiative. President Skorton, VP Murphy, Dean Hubbell all talk about students being there for one another. Please invite your friends as they want it to be as positive as possible. If you or an organization would like a table let M. Gulrajani know. There will be food, de-stressing things, and a cappella groups. M. Danzer asked what advertising has gone in so far. N. Raps said that her committee has it covered in a blitz campaign, 2 full page ads in the Sun, a facebook group, and it is going to be on the blog and twitter, posted in all residence halls and quarter cards. U. Smith asked for an email soon to be forwarded to Res Life as some RAs might want to make this a program. N. Raps assured that it would be out by the end of today.

4. Student Assembly Judicial Board Ad-hoc Committee Update — Ray Mensah

The ad-hoc board is now nearly fully staffed. Pruce, Brokman and Block are on it now. They have to reach out to find a fourth member from the judicial systems from the university. They hope to have the first meeting sometime within the next two weeks and will send out a doodle document to get the process rolling.

5. CUPB Update

The appropriations committee met with CUPB, the sister organization to the Cornell Concert Commission. As part of their by-line funding they received $2.04 per student. The committee felt that CUPB bounced back from financial hardship and have come back from their deficit. Four of the last shows have sold out and they were very pleased with level of programming. Their suggestions were to increase publicity in co-sponsorship and increase student involvement and make sure they continue to be involved. Overall they were very pleased with their progress.

6. Mental Health Update — Roneal Desai

Wheels have been turning and rooms are reserved. There will be training sessions on November 8th, 10th, 13th, 14th, and 20th. The mental health issue is to restructure the way classes work, and students will take one hour training (designed by Gannett) and then are allowed to sign up, given materials to talk to professors about the issues with test taking. If you have list-serves you’re willing to put this on, let him know.

7. Pledge to Take Back the Tap Presentation

They are a student club on campus who have evolved from campaigns on campus, have been around for 3 years. They want to reduce the supply and demand of bottled water on campus to ultimately eliminate the sale. Their goals are to educate the community, communicate support of students, faculty and staff, and create viable alternatives and put in climate action plan and reduce bottled water. They explained misconceptions regarding safety of bottled water and tap water and finished a presentation regarding what they want to do on campus and why they are in front of the Student Assembly.

VI. Business of the Day

1. Resolution 35 — Taking Back the Tap

There was a motion to move this to Business of the Day. There was no dissent and it was moved. A. Brokman thinks this is a good resolution especially regarding how they’ve been working on it and meeting with administrators. The Environmental Committee looked at it, made changes, and voted on it unanimously.

M. Danzer thinks it is a great resolution because it’s admirable that you’ve already gone to administrators, been implementing goals and making significant progress. Tremendous job, fully support this. He would love if water fountain infrastructure was improved.

G. Block asked if there was an increased sale in other bottled drinks. Washington University was the first campus to ban and haven’t seen increase in soda/other sales.

J. Rau asked if there was an economic plan and where the money was coming from. They have been working with Cornell Dining, and are not sure it has to go into the meal plan. Think it needs to come from the administration because it’s part of a plan for a sustainable future.

R. Mensah is not convinced that it will lead to a real reduction in the amount of bottled drinks sold. Mentioned one university where they implemented plan and didn’t switch over to bottled soda, but curious to know about other universities and what the impact has been there. Filtering has really been a help. In terms of safety, Ithaca’s water is some of the best water in the country.

T. Lenardo thinks it’s awesome. He led a similar initiative in high school. Another concern is there are 2 wastewater treatment plants. They are major polluters of the lake and main sources of phosphorous in the lake and a lot of issues. In terms of presentation of data to display might be interesting to look into. Cornell Dining is selling bottles so there is no direct profit from that. Not sure what highlighting in terms of waste water treatment plants. That’s how we purify drinking water not waste water.

A. Nicoletti thinks it’s a valiant effort to improve sustainability. Think there are a bunch of road bumps and hurdles to be overcome. 1st — were talking about reusable bottles, only 21 have been sold. Overall it’s unfair to ask Cornell students to pay substantially more. 100% of costs are passed onto students. 700,000 bottles of water are sold. Let’s say 500,000 dollars are Cornell dining, 900 thousand in revenue, is around 65 dollars per student. He thinks it’s a great plan but there should be more thought. Needs to be some reduction in the cost that is going to go onto the students. There is a substantial amount of money saved if people are drinking tap water.

U. Smith loves the cause of resolution. He is a fan of bottled water, it is more of a convenience for him. Discarding bottles is sometimes inconvenient. He suggested to work with City and Regional Planning in architecture school. Think that’s a huge part of their mission and URS students and they can give you policies which can help you. As chair of res life, he’s interested in how to go about implementing in residence halls. He thinks it should be sent to a couple more committees to figure out logistics. About percentage of bottles recycled, is that because we’re still getting on the recycling boat, also who is responsible for maintenance of things, cost associated and didn’t know Cornell dining was selling water bottles. They have spoken to individual members of facilities, as well as VP for facilities so in terms of continuing efforts, plan to work with them more substantially.

N. Raps reminded members that this is a recommendation. She called to question. It was seconded. There is dissent. They had a vote to vote. By a vote of 10 — 9, they did not achieve 2/3 majority and are going back to debate.

Member of the community, Emma Landau ‘12 from CALS is a member of Dillman Hill student run farm. A lot of issues brought up seem to be questioning legitimacy and preparation. This group is part of a national campaign and have more than enough backing and experience to show their dedication. What they’re challenged with is the bureaucracy.

A. Bajaj commended the group’s professionalism. The point he wanted to make is echoing Charlie. It is arrogant to bring issue to go to other committees when you are so experienced. You are contacting administrators directly. They’re elected to make a decision which is why they’re sitting here. He expressed his support. R. Desai motioned to amend this to Sense of the Body. The group finds that friendly. There was a call to question on the resolution. It passed and is now a sense of body resolution.

A. Yozwiak would like to make amendments to remove the language to eliminate bottled water. They did not find that friendly. The issue is choice. If people are still not convinced that it’ll help save them money and make them healthier and such, they can still do so off campus. We’re saying as a university we support this in terms of becoming sustainable.

The group did not find the amendment friendly. New speakers list M. Danzer spoke against the amendment as did U. Smith. He called it to question. By a vote of 2–12–5, the amendment fails.

The main resolution was called to question. It was seconded. There was dissent. The vote to vote was 13–5−1. That passed so they were voting. The community unanimously voted yes which gave 2 votes to the affirmative. With community votes, the vote was 15–6−0.

VII. New Business

1. Resolution 34 — Charter Revisions II

There was a two minute recess as the projector was set up. They reconvened and explained the charter changes. V. Andrews noted that the point of the revision isn’t to make substantive changes, it’s for a more readable document. Last year they had an issue where assembly members started going through and adding large substantive changes to how the assembly functions. This year we’re going to attempt to cut any type of substantive changes out. This is purely an effort to make this more readable. The debate should occur as to whether it goes into the charter or bylaws. They will use a 2/3 of entire assembly for charter changes, bylaws are 2/3 of members present. They need 2/3 majority to pass the document.

M. Gould went through changes.

There was a motion to extend the meeting by five minutes. The motion failed.

VIII. Adjournment

V. Andrews adjourned the meeting at 6:30.

Respectfully submitted, Brittany Rosen