Minutes
University Assembly
November 19, 2003
702 Clark Hall
5:00 — 7:00 PM

I. Greeting and Call to Order

Leti McNeill, Chair, called the meeting to order.

Attendance:

Present: Dennis Achacoso, Alissa Fagadau, Michelle Fernandes, Jermaine Gause, Vladamir Gogish, Henry Granison, Pat Haugen, Robert Kay, Elliot Klass , Ellis Loew, Leti McNeill, David Schmale III, Timothy Setter, Randy Wayne

Excused: Kenneth Hover, Douglas Kysar

Absent: Stephanie Adams, Melissa Hines, Kurt Massey

Also Present: Trina Nobles, Mary Beth Grant (JA), Rich Helms (CJC), Tom Romantic (Cornell Store)

II. Introductions

Everyone in attendance introduced themselves and new members were introduced to the UA.

L. McNeill announced that Vladamir Gogish will be taking Tobey Lewis’ place as SA representative.

III. Assembly Reports

Student Assembly: M. Fernandes reported for the SA. In the packets given out are most of the resolutions that were passed by the SA. It has been a tough semester for the SA, have been Bi-lined funding 14 groups. The 124 groups have increased to about 160. We finance all of the clubs under the student finance commission. We fund athletics, Cornell Concert Commission, Slope Day, and other event/organizations. Recently the SA has passed a resolution on the alcohol resolution proposed by the CJC and the SA unanimously voted to urge the UA not to pass the alcohol resolution. The SA feels that it will be detrimental to the undergraduate student body for applying to graduate schools. The SA feels that it will give Cornell undergraduates a disadvantage when applying to graduate school. Graduate schools will see this in a students record and even thought the JA came before us and said that graduate schools would not take into that much consideration, the SA believes that it would. Admission to graduate schools are already competitive enough and we believe that this proposal will hurt Cornell students and hurt Cornell in the end.

L. McNeil asked if the written resolution is available.

M. Fernandes replied that the resolution was not brought today but could e-mail it to her. L. McNeil announced that the Cornell Store board is meeting during this meeting and will join the UA later on in the meeting with the program director Thomas Romantic.

Employee Assembly: Trina Nobles reported that the EA for the last couple of weeks have been working on the call to engagement with Mary Joe Opperman, who is the VP of human resources; also the main contact person as far as administration for the employees. The EU has been working on strategies to get out there and get information from the employees at large.

GPSA: D. Schmale III reported the GPSA has liquidated an endowment account that was set up from last year form the roll over of funds of the activity fee. It totaled over $100,000 that has been liquidated and made available to student groups. GPSA is currently setting up activity fees. The UA has passed resolutions for seat on the board of trusties. Last year the UA passed two resolutions: 1 for a seat for an employee and for an additional seat for a graduate student. This year is the first time graduate students have an optional for a buy in plan for dental and eye exams. Lastly the GSPA is working on how graduate professors are working on the call to engagement.

Faculty Senate: Robert reported the Faculty Senate has been working on call to engagement and the idea of having 2 or 3 faculty forms having to deal with the call to engagement.

Trustee Resolution: L. McNeil reported that the Trustee had passed 2 resolutions requesting additional seat for graduate student and employee. Currently there are two general elected student trustees. GPSA is passing resolution soon.

Leadership meeting: D. Schmale III reported that last night was the first gathering of the leadership meeting with the administration. At the meeting, the leaders of the assemblies convene with the president, provost, and a number of other deans and representatives of the higher administration and talked about right of issues at hand of all of the assemblies. The meeting consisted of letting the administration talk for an hour about the various projects they are working on and what their priorities are. The assemblies are composed of volunteers and has had a high turn around, often when getting to the meeting, members do not really know what is going on at all. Therefore, this meeting is very beneficial for all in getting an idea where everyone’s priorities are. The president was unable to make this meeting but generally the president is in attendance. Generally the past President Rawlings had been to a number of our meetings. Last night was the first meeting where we tried something new which was asking the administration to talk about their plans and latest developments for an hour. Hopefully, we will have the minutes for that meeting to distribute to the SA. In the next meeting, we will take all the work that the assemblies are doing are put it on the administrations lap.

IV. Old Business

L. McNeil noted that she spoke with the eternal operations chair of the EA and they will be discussing having another employee assembly representative in the UA.

V. Review and approval of October minutes

Two changes were made to last month’s minutes.

D. Schmale III asked is those quoted in the minutes on the CJC alcohol resolution are all right with the comments and how they were presented because once we approve these minutes there can be no later changes.

T. Nobles added if there is anything that anyone felt they did not mean, it can be addressed now.

D. Schmale III motions to approve minutes. Motion seconded.

Minutes were approved unanimously.

VI. CJC

L. McNeil introduced Richard Holmes as the Chair of the CJC.

T. Nobles gave a basic summation on the CJC for the new members. She stated that they usually bring to the UA are code changes.

R. Holmes added that parties also come to the CJC on things they will like to change; the CJC work on the language and presents it to the UA.

Item 1:

Another part of what the CJC does is in item 1, which is recommending candidates for hearing board. There was a vacant seat for undergrad position. The CJC interviewed Brandon Smith for the position. He was interviewed by two members of the committee and was enthusiastically recommended.

D. Schmale III motioned to approve the appointment of Brandon Smith with 12Y and 1A.

Motion passes.

Item 2:

Item 2 is a recommendation from the CJC administrator Mary Beth Grant. If a student violates a code while on probation, the only sanction that may be imposed is suspension or dismissal. People who read this agree that these sanctions are pretty harsh, so the CJC recommends changing the language to allow idiom sanctions to include warnings and keep the possibilities of suspension/dismissal.

The reasoning for this change, Mary Beth Grant explains, is because there was a case a couple of year ago where a student violated the code under probation. The current rulings did not give the JA any options and it felt as if the code was steering the JA to the most serious of all of the sanctions. If someone on probation violates a policy, such as downloading and mp3 while on probation which is not a serious violation, the JA would want the ability hand down an appropriate punishment.

D. Schmale III motions to approve changes. Motions seconded

Motion passes with 12Y and 1A.

Item 3:

R. Holmes spoke about item 3 deals which dealt with a language change to the CJC charter, the exact changes are located on the handouts given to those present. Many questions have been are raised in the past on such issues as whether the CJC re-interviews people who served on the board or if a student was suspended or not from the board etc�The problem is that there is no one for the CJC to go to ask how to handle these types of questions. If anything the CJC would go to the COC but the COC has not been functioning well since last year. The item ask for the CJC charter to be changed and 8.1.2 be stricken from the charter.

D. Schmale III motions to approve changes. Motion seconded.

Setter asked if there are any specific criteria considered as qualification.

R. Holmes responded that the CJC has a protocol that the CJC ask a hypothetical situation would be given to an applicant and based upon the applicant’s response, the CJC sees if this matches their views and guidelines.

H. Granison asked how will this effect 8.1.4 and 8.1.5.

D. Schmale announced that the motion to vote is on the floor and the discussion is closed. However, one can call for motion to question by Robert’s Rules.

Voting on motions to strike 8.1.2.

8.1.2 has been stricken and the language CJC proposed as been approved with 12Y 1A.

H. Granison asked that right now the power to remove people from the hearing and review board lay with the COC but will the CJC want that power to remove and interview people?

L. McNeil commented that the CJC could make the recommendation to remove a member to the UA.

D. Schmale asked if the CJC would want to take this role in doing it themselves and have there been instances in the past where the CJC had to remove anyone?

R. Holmes responded that to his best recollection there was an issue last year where some people felt a student had been removed and others felt that a student had not been removed. It was not clear who had can make a decision or can only a recommendation be made. R. Holmes believes that the CJC could take this role and another way is the CJC can make a recommendation. Just as we recommend appointments, we can do suspensions.

D. Schmale commented the ultimately the way 8.1.5 is now is functional, so if you need to remove someone from another committee one can make a recommendation to the COC.

H. Holmes replies that it can be done but the problem is the COC does not ever meet.

D. Schmale makes a motion to change COC to CJC.

H. Granison proposes to change the wording instead. In the CJC charter, add a sentence that says: “committee shall recommend removing members for the hearing/review board to the UA” and in 8.1.5 remove the words: “the hearing and review board.” Basically, the CJC charter would be added on the sentence that says: “the committee shall recommend removing members from the hearing and review board to the UA.” In 8.1.5 remove the words.

Robert mentioned that the only problem is that mean we are going to have to change the UA charter because the UA does not have the power to remove all these people from committees. So you can recommend the UA to remove hearing board members when that was give specifically to the COC, we would have to change that as well. He also added that he does not know what kind of ripple effect these ad-hoc kinds of things would have. Ultimately what one wants to do is to decide: do we need Committee on Committees (COC). And if we don’t, is there a way to partition the responsibilities of the COC among other committees or should we give them to the UA? This is not the kind of thing the UA can do around the table ad-hoc because we would not know what the ripple effect of this would be. He suggest that it be the executive or some sub-committee if it is the will of the UA to do that, look at this, and come back with a coherent resolution that looks at the ripple effect this might have on other committees. This would give us the basis of discussion in terms of what power does the UA have, such as the power top remove members from a committee.

Robert also added that 8.1.5 is incredibly powerful paragraph. Four members can remove Leti, they can remove anybody if they feel like it. Also, Robert commented that does not even see a check and balance system and would rather see a sub-committee formed or a working group to work on this issue and present it as a formal resolution in the next meeting.

D. Schmale commented that in the history of the COC, it has not really performed any of these functions that have been solicited. We have talked about it before, about getting rid of that.

K. Massey asked: how does the COC go about appointing members?

L. McNeil responded that the de-facto process has been that the Office of Assemblies has taken care of membership of all the committees, so they have been taking on the role of the COC.

L. McNeil would like someone to motion this to be moved to committee. A structure that would be more effective would be to have a vice-president of internal operations and have that person have that committee under which this responsibility would be moved into. So, they would have a regular agenda because we always would have internal things that have to iron out, but this would be one part of it instead of their ultimate responsibility and changing as suggested so that they would not have the ultimate power that no one can check.

A. Fagadau asked: how do you propose to delegate the responsibilities?

Robert replied hat hopefully it would go to a sub-committee. What is appropriate is, to elaborate on an email sent Leti, was to have some of the power go to CJC, and some of the power should come to the UA. The idea of having a resolution to do away with the COC is a problem. 8.1.5 is the one that needs to be looked at. By acclamation or volunteering, a small committee would form to get together and come up with a resolution that would do away with the COC and distribute these sub-paragraphs of the bylaws among other committees where they seem appropriate.

L. McNeil commented that this would be a good topic for the new discussion board. D. Schmale III commented that he would like to go back to Henry’s comment that we go ahead and include his comment in at least putting the recommendation back in the hands of the CJC for the removal of the hearing and board members as Henry stated. Therefore, as Henry had said, the only changes the UA would be making in 8.1.5 would be removing “and the hearing and review boards” and then right underneath where the changes proposed for the CJC charter and go ahead and put, as Henry stated, “committee shall recommend removing members from the hearing and review board to the UA.”

D. Schmale asked T. Nobles if she is familiar with anything in regard to Robert’s Rules and if it is a majority process to remove somebody from a committee in terms of who decides is on the committee, how does this work out?

T. Nobles responded by stating typically the charter for all of the assemblies quite often disagree with Robert’s Rules. Usually by a statement within the charter it says that anything that is not referenced in the charter shall fall under Robert’s Rules. However, they UA really has purview over whatever they want to make their rules to be; they do not have to follow Robert’s Rules.

L. McNeil motions to move to executive committee. Motion Seconded.

L. McNeil stated that this discussion will be continued in the executive committee and the discussion had been tabled for now.

Item 4:

R. Holmes stated that in the last UA meeting the CJC submitted a proposal that had two parts. The first part was to remove the restriction of disciplinary records, remove the restriction of 15 hours a week sanction for alcohol violations. The second proposal did not seem to be so controversial and the CJC would like to re-submit this part but not the first part.

M. B. Grant commented that the present language says the sanction should not exceed 15 hours of community service and it has been interpreted to her that there are other sanctions are available. It seems that the language should be clear. There is a difference between someone having a beer and someone having 24 cases of beer. It seems fair for the student with the 1 beer to be treated differently than the student with the 24 cases.

L. McNeil asked: is there any difference in language between possession and consumption?

M. B. Grant replied that it is not a violation is a student consumed alcohol but was not in possession of it.

D. Schmale III motion to vote. Motion seconded.

Motion passes with 10Y and 1A.

VII. Call to Engagement

L. McNeil reported that the executive committee met lat week to work on a huge project President Lehman has given us. Idea to focus specifically on call #8: focusing on the organization of the university, specifically on the assembly system on default. Since we touch upon organizations in general and more frequently, it would be the best place for us to get involved.

E. Lowie commented that the university over the years, the assemblies, and faculty organizations has come up with a system for self governance among the different constituencies. When the President ask how should the university be organized, as far as our group is concerned, it is an opportunity to re-examine as we did for the COC. There is still a lack of understanding about the exact relationship about the UA and thins like parking, campus store, religious works, and health. They do not know what they are supposed to do with us and we have no power to do anything with them. It represents a problem and should we still be doing that? We can examine what the assembly system is for.

L. McNeil also commented that this would be a great opportunity to take a look at ourselves, the UA, and the assembly as a whole. Often times the finger points to the UA.

L. McNeil motions to accept point. Motion seconded.

Motion passes unanimously.

T. Nobles brought up the question of the meeting room, Clark Hall 701, and is it was acceptable for everyone for the remainder of the UA meetings.

D. Schmale motions to have this room for all future meeting. Motion seconded.

Motion passes unanimously.

D. Schmale mentioned that the call to engagement came up in the leadership meeting. A lot of the assemblies are creating a series of forms where staff would be able to come to share their ideas collectively about each of the questions. There would be mock sessions in a couple of weeks to see how it all works out. The idea being that they can get as many employees out there to bring comments to this regard and then those make their way to the president. One major question is: how is the President supposed to review all of these responses, the collective and the personal responses? He is really looking at all of these comments as a loose-leaf notebook that he can go back to over time, add to, and just look at. The individual notebook is a collaboration of individual responses and collective responses.

Report from Alissa Fagadau: A. Fagadau reported that a lot was discussed was the call to engagement and how the students, faculty, and graduate students were handling it. What came out of that was to compile the information and hand it to the president in one summary. Some key speakers and their ideas were:

Susan Murphy She was working on the West Campus initiative, North Campus and the whole Greek system. She also discussed expanding Helen Numen, work force planning, and the changes that are coming to the new president. Dean Willcot: Discussed the educational policy committee and a survey about the students preferences regarding scheduling.

D. Schmale III also commented that there was a big discrepancy that came up about how time and space were being utilized in regard to classes and there being a clumping of classes at certain times everyday.

Dean Hubble: Discussed changing Willard Straight, what sort of changes might me made to it. He also discussed about “keeping the Greek system in one piece.” Lastly, he discussed monitoring student mental health; not only monitor students who come to Cornell with mental health issues but also student who have developed mental health issues while here at Cornell.

Sunny Powers: The dean of the graduate school spoke about a training program for all TAs but mostly international TAs.

Dean Martin: Discussed four new deans for Arts and Sciences, Law School, Architecture and Planning, and Human Ecology

VIII. The Cornell Store

Tim Romantic came to speak about the Cornell Store. A handout was given about the ideas and comments that he spoke about. He commented that the he sees the store as a service provider for students, faculty, staff, and visitors. The Cornell Store strives to provide a rewarding work experience for their staff. The goal is to fully integrate with the university, to support students, work with faculty and used books, and work and collaborate with the different departments on campus.

Last year our goal was to provide more used text books to students on campus and work with the department coordinators to get this done. The Cornell Store buys 50% back on both new and used book.

In the past year, the store has finished renovations to include restrooms in the store, and a second bank, CSCU.

Losses were at 3.4% but should be around 1% or less. The Cornell store brought in experts that experience .5% or less. Some suggestions were to have professionally trained staff in loss prevention, moving the security cameras form analog to digital, and have proper checks and balances. The Cornell store will have a formal report next weekend.

Plans to implement a loyalty program, a program that tracks your purchases and after 10 purchases, the customer gets 20% gift card to use at any time. The Cornell Store is trying to create loyalty among their customers.

T. Romantic commented that the Cornell Store is trying to have focus groups to address how can the Cornell Store better serve the community, assist student activity program on campus, and better collaboration with authors who come to campus.

IX. Adjournment

Meeting adjourned by L. McNeil

Respectfully submitted,

Kervin Pillot
Student Clerk
Office of the Assembles