Call to Order: 6:03 PM

Senate Meeting- March 31, 2010

Call to Order: 6:03 PM

Roll Call

Acknowledgments:

Janek: slates and candidates present

Huron: Professor Ric Sweeney

Approval of Minutes: No objections, Approved

Report of the Speaker of the Senate:

Meeting with SALD about 25th annual Leadership Conference, overall received a score of 4.7 on a scale of 5 according to those who attended.

SALD hosting a diversity conference on April 15th from 8AM-12PM, SG to sponsor 15 people to go—list going around.

Enactment Bill S.10-E-009 to be voted on during Old Business

Senator Gertmiller to take the Oath of Office

Joint Senate meeting next Tuesday, April 6 from 2-4PM. No meeting next Wednesday.

SAB Awards next weekend. They will be ready to turn in next Monday.

Report of the Student Body President:

Faculty Senate and Graduate SG joint meeting next Tuesday. There will be three bills, one brought by us, one brought by GSGA, and one brought by Faculty Senate. No Senate next Wednesday. For joint governance so we can show a sense of unity among UC. We bring everyone together once a year.

Proudly Pennies jar will be here for the remainder of my term. We now have 121 student volunteers. We have received a $10,000 donation to go specifically to DAAP.

You can now purchase your football season tickets for $50; it does still include the Oklahoma game. You may also purchase a guest pass. There will still be the same amount of free tickets. UCats points will have the same policy as last year. They will remain dormant until you make your first donation to the University after you graduate. There will still be 3,500-4,000 free tickets for students.

Payne: Is there any way that we can put more pressure on the University to fix the issue with the emails being delayed?

Report of the Student Body VP:

Doug is on his way to Columbus.

Bookswap website has been receiving rave reviews. Thus far, there have been over 1,000 books listed and there have been 750 transactions between students.

Report of the Internal Holdover Senator:

Some people have not submitted their office hours. Please continue to submit those for this quarter.

Bookswap website is going very well. We are working on sending an email to all students about the Bookswap website and the Off Campus Housing Website. We are also looking to get a link for each tribunal on the website.

Report of the External Holdover Senator:

Enactment Bill 009 did make it out of Ways and Means. I would like to commend Senators Ruparel and Miller for all of their hard work.

I will be giving a presentation to freshmen/sophomores about how they can get involved in leadership on campus.

Report from the Director of Finance:

Keep up the good work on getting everything to me on time. It makes things a lot easier.

Shoot me an email when you are writing an appropriations bill so I can make sure there isn’t anything wrong with it.

All from designated fund, $1,000 from Sustainability, Retreat Fund, and $1,000 from something else for Bike Share Program.

Executive Nominations:

Senator Gurtmiller took Oath of Office.

Committee Reports:

SRI: Rooney:

Two bills on the agenda: one to be referred to Ways and Means.

SRI will be meeting after this meeting.

Governmental Affairs: Huron:

Invitations for Leadership Summit going out soon.

Public Policy: Groh:

Academic Issues: Payne:

Meeting today for 10 minutes after meeting today.

EFC:Janek:

This past Monday was the deadline for the At-Large nomination packets. We had 19 At-Large applicants and 2 Executive applicants.

Meeting tomorrow before Candidate Orientation. We will have a brief meeting after that meeting.

Ridder: anyone who could not come to Ways and Means, look for a Doodle Poll from Brad.

Board Reports:

SAB:

Accepted two groups at our last meeting. Special Paths working with the Special Olympics.

UFB: Sims:

Will get the balance this week.

RHA: Reid:

Meeting going on right now.

Tribunal reports:

A&S:

We have finally finished our Constitution and By Laws and we passed them on Monday.

We had a great turnout at meeting on Monday.

Elections are coming up so we are working with a lot of members to try to get them more involved.

We are planning a spring social.

We are planning a Relay for Life team.

Business:

No meeting this week so we did not have a chance to vote.

C of B Week is May 10-14

CCM:

Met yesterday and once during finals week.

We hung Bookswap flyers all over CCM.

We are going to donate $200 to the Bike Share Program.

Social work:

Getting a group together to do the NAM Walk.

Engineering:

First meeting was on Monday.

Recyclemania is now over but we still have the Hamilton County Recycle Bins. We are trying to keep them.

End of May—C. of E. Move-Out. We hope that every graduate of the C. of E. will hold high morals.

RW:

VP resigned as of a week ago today and Treasurer resigned as of 3 hours ago. Both positions will be replaced in a week.

Clermont:

We had a short meeting Monday.

Allied Health:

First meeting Monday

Nursing:

We had our first meeting of the quarter.

We are planning on having our own Relay for Life.

DAAP:

Entire Exec. Board is on Co-Op. We are changing our meetings to Friday.

CCH:

Senator Miller and Arnold Finkebine had a meeting to try to get CCH back up and running.

Comments from the Gallery:

Riley: FYE passed our bill to have the charity event in the TUC Atrium next Wednesday from 12-4. We are going to be writing letters to the soldiers. Anyone can come to write letters.

Dr. Downey: Kudos to SG for positive comments on visibility. It was great to see you all volunteering and helping at the SALD Conference.

Old Business:

Ruparel: Motion to open discussion on Enactment Bill S.10-E-009.

Ways and Means decided that it should be taken to Dr. Livingston last week. He thought the bill was excellent. We then took the bill back to Ways and Means, and we changed the second whereas clause. We changed Dr. Livingston’s language to make it sound friendlier.

Payne: This is a perfect Resolution Bill. We do not want to hurt our senators by forcing them to do something. It seems to encompass a lot of different things and it may not accomplish what you want it to.

Lolli: As SG, it is our job to look out for under-represented groups. We are moving forward to have the Student Diversity Sub-Committee. It is not our place to have this as an enactment bill. At-Large senators are elected based on a platform that they run on. We have specific cabinet positions for diversity. We should not move forward with forcing At-Large Senators to spend 6 hours on diversity.

Koesterman: How are we going to decide on what is or is not diversity hours?

Ruparel: If it is in line with University policy, there will be a box that it can be passed in.

Penick: It is important to accomplish At-Large platforms, but it is the job for Senators to serve their constituents. 5 hours will not peeve getting done what you want to get done. We may get more diversity on SG out of this.

Ridder: Diversity Outreach includes going to groups that are not under-represented but talking to them about diversity issues. 30 minutes a week or 2 hours a month is not a large amount of time. An At-Large Senator is elected to do what is in the by laws, which by the time this goes through, those running can chose whether or not they want to go through with this.

Maul: 5 hours is not that much. We pass bills almost every 2 weeks where you can get hours. There are numerous opportunities to do this.

Huron: In compliance with Payne. I think this should be a resolution bill.

Rooney: It is too late—those running for at large positions have already come up with their platforms. This is a resolution bill. We already spend 35 hours in meetings for SG every week. As an enactment bill, that is saying that we aren’t even waiting for SG to fix it. Let’s put more clear words in this and make it a resolution bill. Every At-Large Senator’s vote should be recorded.

Hidt: As a resolution bill, it forces the senators to take action. It allows senators to spread diversity to groups that may not be diverse themselves.

Miller: How many of you will do this if it is required? The same three people have showed up to the same not required meetings. If it is not required, people will not do it. Throughout this year, I have not seen enough initiative.

Lolli: 100% in full support of diversity throughout SG. There are only 8 At-large senators. This will not affect that much. SG as a whole needs to do this. Only 8 will not make that much. You have no idea what someone’s background is, and you are mandating what they are supposed to do. We are telling them that as a part of SG, they have to do. I want SG to be doing this as a whole, but putting 8 people in this position is not right. We have close to 60 members of SG. Should we only mandate 8 members of SG to do this? If only 3 people are showing up right now, how much more is going to be accomplished by 5 more?

Ruparel: There is nothing keeping a resolution bill around. The whole point of an At-Large is to represent the whole student body. You can’t stay in your comfort zone. We can always take it out if it doesn’t work. We want to say that SG is here for all people.

Ridder: A resolution bill will be viewed as us paying lip service. We need to vote this resolution bill either up or down. The language was originally written for At Large Senators to have undergraduate outreach. The reason for why it is only for the At Large Senators. These are the only senators that SG controls. If you aren’t comfortable talking to certain groups, then you have no business representing the student body.

Huron: We can always write this as a resolution bill after we vote yes or no on it as an enactment. It is all about the message that this bill sends. It would send such a better message to encourage our senators to promote diversity outreach. It says that as a Body, we are unwilling to promote diversity unless we are forced to by a rule.

Penick: It is discouraging that all of the people who are against this bill are the ones who are not showing up to these diversity events. It is the only way to get some of these people to these events.

Koesterman: I agree that there should be a resolution bill to get people to go to these events. I am agreeing with what Huron said. Passing a bill that is making these hours mandatory will not encourage people. If it is now mandatory, then people will not be as excited about it. If you are passionate about diversity, you will achieve greater output than if it is required.

Alternate: If we are forcing 8 senators to spend time on diversity outreach, it sends the message that SG is lazily sending some people out to promote diversity to the whole student body rather than having the whole body.

Ruparel: many of the diverse student groups have not even seen a SG representative ever. We are here to represent the Student Body. You are passionate about being a senator. If this is required of senators, why would you be a senator? Why would you become a senator for just one specific platform?

Janek: I don’t see the reasoning why we shouldn’t encourage the at large senators to get feedback from the student body. If you want to get something done, you must do so through an enactment bill.

Huron: it is about the message that this bill conveys. What is it going to look like to our student body if we are requiring each senator to do specific hours on diversity.

Marzec: this bill should be supported by the people it affects. Just because it is an enactment bill does not mean that it is going to happen. Please think if it is really necessary to change our bylaws if this is going to do the same thing as a resolutions bill.

Ruparel: If you care about the image of SG, why don’t you change it? There are 19 candidates who are going to change it. If we perceive ourselves to be who The News Record perceives us to be, why can’t we change it.

Ridder: Move to call to question Enactment Bill S.10-E-009.

Fails with a vote of 10-12-0.

Out of order per Holdover Hart’s error in voting.

S.10-E-009 fails with a vote of 14-12-0.

New Business:

Ruparel: move to refer Resolutions Bill S.10-R-027 to Ways and Means, no objections.

Miller: Open discussion on S.10-A-032.

Event put on by Women’s Center to put on an event similar to Safe Zone Training. We would like SG to pay for the food and the advertising for this event. It is a great program that will be put on. I encourage all of the members of SG as well as the slates and those running to attend.

Rooney: Great event. Everyone on SG should attend. 40-75 people are expected to be in attendance. Move to close discussion, closed.

Miller: Move to call to question S.10-A-032. Passes with a majority vote.

Huron: Move to open discussion on S.10-A-031, no objections.

Rooney: Great opportunity for SG members to be seen at a diverse conference to learn more about different cultures. $250 is not too much to ask. Although it says we can only send 10, SG will send more.

Lolli: Marvin Lewis is the keynote speaker. You can go in and out of the conference if you have class. You can get a letter from Stacey Downing to excuse you from class.