Student Assembly

Minutes — November 8, 2012
Cornell University Student Assembly
4:45pm — 6:30pm, Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room

I. Call to Order/Roll Call

A. Gitlin called the meeting to order at 4:47pm

Members present

J. Batista, G. Block, E. Bonatti, G. Braciak, I. Chen, M. Cho, A. Chopra, A. Gitlin, R. Gitlin, I. Harris, T. Hittinger, D. Iwaoka, D. Kuhr, J. Lee, G. Lovely, M. Lukasiewicz, J. Marshall, J. Mueller, D. Muir, C. Pritchett, P. Scelfo, U. Smith, M. Stefanko, N. Terrones

Members tardy

S. Breedon, R. Desai

Members excused

S. Balik

Also present

A. Santangelo, J. Toledo, J. Weinberg, Dean Hubbell, Dr. Alexander, A. Aptein, A. Edwards

II. Approval of the 11/1/12 Minutes

• U. Smith: Matt Carcella, not Carcello
• Minutes approved by unanimous consent

III. Open Microphone

• None

IV. Announcements/Reports

Student Resource Project Announcement — G. Lovely

• Resources for assignment/project extensions not organized in one place
• All colleges have different formats — looking to consolidate all info
• Looking to get in touch with College representatives to start this project

CUPD Update — P. Scelfo

• Met with Chief Zoner on Tuesday
• CUPD looking into Rave Guardian app — many campuses use it (like have a police officer in your pocket)
• Hoping to continue weekly BLUE updates

Wingman Announcement — N. Terrones

• Wingman application complete — will be sending it out soon
• Asks members to send application through their listservs

Diversity Announcement — U. Smith

• SADAC will hopefully be staffed by 11/16
• Plan to meet with College representatives to discuss the possibility of having a social justice requirement across all he colleges

Athletics Outreach Announcement — J. Weinberg

• Met with Jeff Hall and Kath Fenzell in Athletics Department (marketing)
• They are interested in working with the SA to increase their outreach
• Will be present at the next meeting to discuss how to get constituencies involved in athletic events
• Working to increase their email outreach and reconstituting how they reach out to their fan bases

Appropriations Committee Announcement — R. Desai

• Will be seeing Slope Media and the North Campus Committee Programming Council on Monday 11/12

Public Relations Strategy Report — S. Breedon

• Final draft was sent out
• Report serves as documentation and guidelines for what the SA will be doing as it moves forward

Committees and Mentorship Report — M. Lukasiewicz

• Mentorship Handbook
  • Purpose: all new SA members have someone to go to
  • Handbook outlines a more structured program
• Committee Chair Handbook
  • Information about the staffing committee — to be discussed in more detail in Resolution 24

Hotel Announcement — S. Breedon

• Met with Hotel Dean earlier in the week
• Hotel School considering holding a co-sponsored outreach event with the ILR school
• Dean showed a lot of interest in issues around campus, especially the diversity piece

Dean of Faculty Announcement — M. Lukasiewicz

• Met with Dean of Faculty earlier in the week
• There is an initiative on internationalization (language requirements across all schools) and diversity

V. Business of the Day

Appropriations Committee Report — HAVEN — R. Desai

• Overall the Committee looked very favorably upon Haven and its operations
• Felt Haven was very efficient but had a few suggestions
  • The socials support group component of Haven should make a larger push to articulate available resources earlier in the year, especially to Freshmen during Orientation
• Haven looking to move Filthy Gorgeous to Barton — there exists some faculty concern, but the Committee fully supports the move
• Committee supports expansion of Haven’s co-sponsorship budget to allow for more inclusiveness

Appropriations Committee Report — Class Councils

• Committee felt Class Councils fills a very necessary role on campus
• Several recommendations
  • Focusing internal funding on Freshmen and Senior classes
  • Funding should be more targeted toward the goal of unifying classes
  • Event should be more inclusive to the community as a whole
  • Asked that Class Councils change their requirement of attending 3 meetings of the previous semester
• Committee felt Class Councils didn’t need the level of funding that they were receiving
• G. Braciak: Last year, the requirement of having attended 3 meetings was presented to the SA and passed as a resolution. Now the Committee is recommending against it — what effects will that have?
  • Agrees that the SA should remain consistent, but this year’s SA has no jurisdiction over the opinion of the previous SA

Resolution 17: Reforming JAMIC as the Student Assembly Committee for Inclusion and Diversity Initiatives (SACIDI) — C. Pritchett, R. Gitlin, R. Desai, S. Breedon

• The restructure process has been going on since last Spring
• Biggest change is accountability — idea to make SACIDI more results- and initiative- driven, whereas JAMIC was more of a forum in the past
• Friendly amendment: Strike ‘genders’ from Section A point 3
• E. Bonatti: SACIDI looks very similar to Round Table Leadership. Why doesn’t it include representation from all groups under the diversity umbrella?
  • SACIDI will be much more active than Round Table Leadership
  • SACIDI is open to everyone and will be actively looking to have full representation — there just isn’t a formal position for everyone
• U. Smith: What are the responses to the amendments requested from different groups?
  • The amendments did not need to be written in the resolution — they will be sure to implement them once SACIDI gets going
• P. Scelfo: How will you enforce the attendance policy?
  • Purpose is not to micromanage the committee —will leave implementation of the policy to the Committee leaders
• P. Scelfo: Motion to amend: In Section A point 3 - “Committee will have a strict attendance policy as interpreted by the Chair”
  • M. Lukasiewicz: To clarify, all SA Committees are held to the same attendance standards as the SA — up to committee leaders to determine what counts as ‘tardy’, ‘excused’, etc.
  • Call to question, seconded
  • Vote: 1–21–2
  • Motion fails
• G. Block: Why are monthly meetings recommended instead of required?
• R. Gitlin: Motion to amend: Section A Point 3: “SACIDI is required to meet at least monthly throughout the academic year”
  • Motion passed by unanimous consent
• D. Iwaoka: Motion to strike: “Office” in Section 5 point 2
  • Motion passed by unanimous consent
• Call to question, seconded

• Resolution 17 passed by a roll call vote of 23–0−1.

VI. New Business

Resolution 21: Adoption of a Diversity Plan — U. Smith

• 3 sets of goals: internal, college-related, and university
• J. Marshall: What kind of gap analysis? Will the social justice requirement be similar to the diversity requirement in CALS? How will diversity and inclusion function in this community on a micro and macro level?
  • ILR gap analysis
  • Yes, the social justice requirement to be something along the lines of the CALS diversity requirement
  • Diversity isn’t something that can be completely defined, but they are looking into the best ways to integrate it into the university
• J. Batista: How will the structure of the Diversity Councils per college be decided?
  • Some colleges already have Councils, some don’t — reason for upcoming meeting with College representatives
• G. Lovely: Is a social justice requirement for each college a feasible goal?
  • Yes, but will take some time and research
  • Looking at practical application — each college will have its own interpretation
  • Potentially going to work with a format similar to Toward New Destinations — having a university mandate and letting each college implement it

Resolution 22: Urging Mandatory Sexual Assault & Rape Education During Orientation — G. Block, N. Terrones

• Add A. Chopra as a co-sponsor
• See Orientation as a great way to educate people about sexual assault
• Purpose to get all involved parties working together on this priority (CUPD, Gannett, etc.)
• J. Batista: What groups do you plan to reach out to? Which will be the most effective in reaching freshmen?
  • The challenge is to compose one clear, condensed, and effective message
• M. Lukasiewicz: Have you reached out to the Orientation Steering Committee? Have you thought about this on a larger scale?
  • They have talked to the OSH and the events deadline is April — they are in full support of the idea, so the current problem is figuring out the message
  • Ideal goal is to have orientation courses (say, a weekly class to discuss important issues)
• I. Chen: Will this event be required for transfer students in January?
  • In general, Orientation is for ‘first year’ students — not sure what happens with transfers, but will look into it
• D. Muir: Orientation doesn’t have any mandatory events — how will you go about implementing this? Is it necessary to have representation from all involved groups or would it be better to have it be presented from a student view?
  • There do exist mandatory events and most students go
  • Believe the matter must be represented by all groups to emphasize importance
• C. Pritchett: Have you considered adding this to the Tapestry of Possibilites?
  • Haven’t fully planned out the program yet, but want to keep this issue specifically separate
• J. Marshall: Have you worked with Campus Life to find out what kind of programs they run?
  • There haven’t been too many discussions outside of involved groups — focus now is to push this event for Orientation

Resolution 25: In Recognition of the Second Annual “A.I.D.S. Awareness Week” — Emily Bick, Angela Lu, Lauren Ritter, Benjamin Gordon, D. Iwaoka, D. Kuhr

• Will be the last week of classes
• Last year the event was extremely successful and won an award
• Working to get a lot of great events
• Great outreach opportunity for SA to get involved
• Motion to amend: “1nd” to “1st” in the first Be it Therefore Resolved Clause
  • Motion approved by unanimous consent

Resolution 26: Approval of the Spring 2013 Elections Rules — J. Weinberg, D. Kuhr, Matthew Sloan, Noah Karr-Kaitin, A. Chopra, R. Desai

• New eligibility requirement: committee application
• Changes to FB campaigning rules
• Stricter rules on joint-campaigning
• Clarification of challenge procedures
• G. Lovely: How do students run if they are studying abroad?
  • Definitely possible and has been done — candidates would just need friends on campus to get signatures for them and submit materials
• U. Smith: When is the elections calendar going to be released?
  • A finalized calendar should be available by the next meeting
• G. Braciak: Why aren’t you allowing candidates to create a FB page when they can easily create their own site and post it on FB?
  • The page issue was that membership could be forced — there were many complaints because of this
  • Limiting FB campaigning to events would be easier to track
• D. Iwaoka: Why does the candidate photo have to be taken at Day Hall? Will there be exceptions for candidates that are abroad?
  • Photos must be of the same size and format — reason for requirement
• If there are special cases, the Office will contact the candidate — otherwise exceptions should not be expected
• G. Block: Regarding the challenges, why ‘compromised’ instead of ‘altered’?
  • Don’t think it’s possible to say with certainty that something altered the results
  • Decided on ‘compromise’ as it is possible to gauge that
• G. Lovely: Recommends a stipulation in the rules that formalizes the ability to have a preferred name/nickname

Resolutions 23, 24 and 27 tabled until the next meeting.

A. Gitlin adjourned the meeting at 6:40pm

Respectfully submitted,
Chelsea Cheng