Student Assembly

MINUTES
Cornell University Student Assembly
December 2, 2010 4:45pm
Willard Straight Hall, Memorial Room

I. Call to Order

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

II. Roll Call

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

Voting Members Absent, Unexcused: A. Brokman, S. Pendleton

III. Approval of Minutes

November 18th, 2010

The minutes were approved unanimously.

IV. Open Microphone — Ray Mensah

A community member came forward and spoke about the negative stickers on the Collegetown bridge fences. They are insensitive and uneducated. Last semester the SA passed a resolution about only positive decorations on the bridges. The resolution needs more reinforcement.

R. Desai said he has written emails to VP Susan Murphy and the school architect. The SA will see a resolution that addresses this issue.

Zachary Murray, class of 2011, came forth and said the Provost did not consult anyone in Africana about moving the unit into Arts and Science, and he was outraged.

M. Danzer said everyone should be outraged and needs to be aware and have a voice about the decisions the administration is making.

U. Smith said he has only been here for 1.5 years but has seen many instances of decisions not involving students. He wanted the audience to be involved in the SA throughout the year, not just when pertinent issues arise.

R. Desai said JAMIC will address this as well, but this is not just a minority issue. This is a student issue.

V. Announcements/Reports

1. Means Restriction Committee Report (4:50pm — 5:10pm)

Tim Marchell, the director of health initiatives at Gannett, gave a presentation about mental health at Cornell. There are many efforts that look at the overall climate on campus. The important message is to learn to seek help and to identify students who need help through the Notice and Respond initiative.

Gilbert Delgado, the university architect, gave a timeline of the fences. The chain-link fences went up a week after the suicide cluster and was a temporary measure — we needed more time to design and implement something more sensitive and artful. The black fences were only a holding idea for something better. There are no examples around the world that address all the challenges we face. In our solicitation for idea, we used open language and placed emphasis on creativity. OfficeDa’s design was selected.

President David Skorton and Vice President Susan Murphy arrived at this point in the meeting.

2. President Skorton and Vice President Murphy (5:10pm — 5:35pm)

D. Skorton addressed the question by Zackary Murray about the move of Africana. He said he is entirely in support of the Provost’s decision. The move made sense because the students are admitted through Arts and Science and receive their diploma from A&S. There is also no other unit on campus that hires faculty but does not report to a dean. This was also open to public discussion in 2006. He pointed out there is a great amount of transparency during his term. Since resources are added to the unit, not taken away, and the unit is being conformed to the structure of all other academic units, he did not see the decision as improper.

Z. Murray said that faculty diversity at Cornell is greatly challenged. It is harder for faculty of color to gain tenure. To put Africana under A&S would put the center under a whole other layer of bureaucracy. Also, it was inconsiderate to announce the decision in the last week of classes, the busiest time for students and the worst time to have a meeting about this key issue.

D. Skorton said we are working hard to correct the faculty diversity issue, which is why we are giving Africana more resources to be able to get more faculty and start a Ph.D. program. No academic changes or cuts were made to the unit. He said he is very interested to talk with students, who should feel free to get in touch with him.

R. Desai said the issue is not about changes to Africana, but how the changes were decided. It is a transparency issue. He asked the president to elaborate on how Africana can recruit faculty more effectively.

D. Skorton said let us look back to the decisions made during this presidency that concern students and see how much student consultation was done. He would like to go back to the issues that the SA feels did not have enough student involvement. The Africana unit is being given the resources and given a hard push to start a doctoral program.

N. Raps said she feels a lot of small programs are being cut due to the economy and the fact that they don’t bring as many students to the school as the big name departments. The students don’t have any way to change the decisions once they are made.

D. Skorton said this is the worst economic recession since the 1930’s but Africana is still being given more resources in the midst of this. This shows our support for Africana. There seems to be 3 issues here: distrust for the administration, no student consultation, and doubt about our support for Africana. We support Africana very much.

S. Murphy said for the recognition policy concerning the Greek community, the leadership in the Greek community were very much aware of the changes, so the problem might be we need to think about measures to makes things known to as wide a membership as possible.

D. Skorton said he would very much like to discuss this whenever the timing is more convenient for the students. He does not want to leave this as a disagreement between the students and the administration.

Due to their next meeting, President Skorton and VP Murphy left at this point.

1. Means Restriction Committee Report resumed

Gilbert Delgado said we are currently at the Cornell/City of Ithaca review stage. We have nothing specific to show yet.

C. Jenkins asked about the Notice and Respond initiative. If friends don’t even notice, how could Gannett notice if anyone is disturbed? T. Marchell said Gannet has training services and also needs more suggestions from students.

U. Smith asked what programs are there other than the engineering school’s Notice and Respond? T. Marchell said we need more student input to see how to reach more students.

A community member said he is bothered by negativity. We need more positive aspects. He was also offended by the fences.

T. Marchell said there are those with mental health issues on campus. They may have suicidal impulses that will pass if their means are restricted. After the suicide cluster, the advice from national experts was to put up fences.

VI. Business of the Day

1. Resolution 44 — Adding 4 At-Large Seats to the Student Assembly (5:40pm — 6:10pm)

V. Andrews said there is a clear desire from many people to get involved with the SA. There are too many issues for our current number to address everything fully. Currently it is more likely for president and vice president candidates to get at-large seats. The resolution adds a freshman seat b/c freshmen have the most issues to deal with. This year, 27 ran for 3 seats.

M. Danzer said adding more at-large seats means more members “without a cause.” The seats need specific designation. He made a motion to amend: reinsert eight into the resolution and add 3 members elected from and by sophomore, junior, and senior classes. V. Andrews called the amendment to question. There was dissent. There was a hand vote to go into voting, which requires a 2/3 majority. By a vote of 9–8−1, the motion failed.

D. Kuhr disagreed. After freshman year, the upperclassmen share interests that don’t pertain to one class only. It would be more useful to designate the seats by college.

R. Desai agreed and said we already have the class councils to deal with class issues.

J. Kay asked if the seats are undesignated, we could have 3 seniors and skew the interests for the senior class. V. Andrews said he was on SA as an at-large member and historically there has been no skewing of interests due to class.

There was a call to question, it was seconded, no dissent.

By a hand vote 3–12–2, the amendment failed.

U. Smith said there are more issues to discuss than representatives to discuss them, but we don’t need at-large seats. We need more college reps because it’s very hard for one person to deal with all the issues from one college.

A. Bajaj said it is not good to have undesignated seats. He moved to postpone the resolution because there’s not enough discussion about the designation. M. Danzer seconded.

By a hand vote of 4–11–3, the motion failed.

M. Danzer said we don’t need members without causes. We want people who are serving specific constituencies on campus.

A, Gitlin said his experience from internal operations is that it is hard to find people to serve on committees.

There was a call to question. It was seconded, but there was dissent.

By a hand vote of 11–8−0, the call to question failed.

E. Cusick said the at-large seats are not causeless. People list their causes in their platforms. Smaller college seats are very contentious so people run as at-larges.

There was another call to question. It was seconded, no dissent.

The vote regarding the resolution itself was 13–4−3. Since the resolution is a charter change, it needed 2/3 majority vote of ALL members, which is 16.

There was a vote to vote a second time because members were not aware of the rule about 2/3 majority of all members. The hand vote passed by 2/3 majority.

On the second vote, the resolution passed by a vote of 16–4−0.

There was a motion to adjourn at 7pm. It was passed by majority.

2. Resolution 41 — Approval of the Spring 2010 Election Rules (6:10pm)

C. Feng went over the changes made to the election rules.

A. Pruce clarified the rules about the president and vice president. C. Feng said it’s a formatting change so people know which two candidates are running together as a ticket, but people can choose to break up the ticket if they want.

N. Raps said there is no reason to have slate.

This resolution will be voted on at the SA meeting the next day.

VII. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 7:01 pm.