AAS Senate Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date: 3/26/12
Meeting Begins: 8:30 PM
I. Attendance (Geoff Ainslie ’12. Nathan Nash ’12 is absent)
II. Call to Order (Geoff Ainslie ‘12)
III. BC Recs (Geoff Ainslie ’12. Diwa Cody ’14 is absent.)
a. Speaker Board Funding
Alex Hurst ‘12: Questions for the BC- How do you reserve rooms for the Lord Jeff Inn?
George Tepe ‘14: I asked the public affairs office. If the public affairs office pays for it, you can get the $140 a night. It has to explicitly be a school-sponsored thing. We could then reserve it and have public affairs fund it.
Jess Sidhu ‘14: It’s not public affairs, it’s the department. We are our own department.
Alex Hurst: Reggie Love we have $500 from Dean Fatemi and $500 from President’s office. Requesting $3950. My speaker is coming Thursday, April 4th and staying in the hotel.
Amani Ahmed ’15: In her e-mail, Diwa said we would make recommendations as a BC and the senate would vote on those recommendations.
Tahina Vatel ‘12: We’re trying to get funding for the Haitian-American Student Alliance Conference in Washington, D.C.. Requesting $820 total ($205 for four students so it comes out to $820).
Amani: How did the four of you hear about the conference?
Tahina Vatel: I was told about the conference and I publicized it in the Multicultural newsletter.
Wilfredo Gomez ‘15: $300 for Arts Steele (WAMH) for a performance on April 6th.
BC recs passed.
b. T-Shirts
Joey Messinger ‘14: Every spring, Pride Alliance has an Allies week. This year, we want to use the same design from last year’s shirts that read, “I support love.”
Meghna Sridhar ‘14: Initially this was funded by the Student Life fund, but this disbanded in 2011. Last year, a student senator did this as a senate project instead. We would like to do this again this year because it’s not a bad precedent to set and it has a lot of popularity among the student body. Diwa has already talked to Pamela, the head of Pride. In can come out of the senate fund as a senate project. This is time sensitive because Allies week is April 16th-April 20th.
Alex Stein ‘13: I did this as my senate project last year. It was originally funded by the Dean’s office. I am uncomfortable because last year, there was an implicit understanding that this would be a stop-gap thing until Pride Alliance could find a more sustainable way to do this. This was not going to be a recurring thing. It doesn’t set a good precedent if we make a habit of using senate projects to skirt around the rules.
Joey: We have gone through a variety of sources. It’s difficult. For example, the president’s office had its budget reduced and it has been one of our sources of funding since all this occurred. It was not able to give us much. Other sources have indicated similar things. I feel the financial situation hasn’t changed enough.
Stein: Outside of asking these offices for funding next year, could Pride Alliance become more independent of the AAS to make this more sustainable?
Joey: We’ll look into it. I don’t know enough about the funding in various sources on campus, but we will definitely consider other options.
Chris Friend ‘14: Last year, we funded you $1900 in T-shirts. The idea was that with the new design and new slogan, we’d give them out to the whole school and then in future years, we’d have to pay less money because we would only have to give these shirts out to freshmen. Everyone who already wanted one in the upperclassmen would already have one. Why not buy a smaller number to only give out specifically to freshmen?
Joey: Not everyone who wanted a shirt got one last year. We got to a total of 600 shirts. By the second day, we were out of smalls and mediums. Not everyone on campus that would like one has one. Last year, we got a total of $6000 and we got 600 shirts. This year, we already have about $1500. We’d be getting fewer shirts this year.
Romen Borsellino ‘12: How do we feel about senate projects being used to buy shirts? I feel like other groups can come to us for shirts and we can fund them through senate projects.
Meghna Sridhar ‘14: Pamela e-mailed me saying that these shirts aren’t simply giveaways. They are intended to fight homophobia and exclusion. These shirts create a huge sense of community on campus. It’s different than just any club giving away shirts.
Jess: Counter-example- There are many worth-while causes that can approach the senate. I don’t think we can just single out one and say we can fund that. But if another group approached me for a senate project, how could I say no to them once we funded this?
Noah Gordon ‘14: I don’t have a problem funding something like this with 2/3 vote of the Senate. I’m uncomfortable calling this a senate project because it’s not. What we meant by each senator having to do a senate project was that each senator had to undertake some major change outside of Senate, not that we could just put our name on buying shirts.
Tania Dias ‘13: This is an issue that pertains to the whole student body and we set up a committee to deal with diversity on campus.
Stein: I’m uncomfortable with the idea that senate projects should be used to avoid the rules of the senate. Budget cuts and recession have lasted longer than we anticipated.
Meghna: If there’s any way to use the Senate fund without this being a Senate project, then I’m okay with that. I’m also okay with this being a Senate project that doesn’t count in the traditional rules.
Alex Hurst: If we are uncomfortable using senate projects, could we create a special initiatives fund to allocate an x amount of money?
George: The Senate fund is reserved for Senate projects and for cabinet members. We realize we’re making value judgments. These shirts: people really want them. There’s a great demand for them. We’re just arguing how to get around the precedence issue. If we have the votes to do it, we should do it. It’s not going to be out of discretionary funds.
Chris Friend: Last year, we were willing to fund the Senior Sweatshirts out of discretionary funds with a 2/3 vote, so why don’t we just do that here?
George: We cannot do 2/3 vote because according to our bylaw, for program board and social council, you need 2/3 to get funding increases out of discretionary.
Motion to fund $3000 for the Pride Alliance from the Senate Fund.
Motion passed.
IV. Reports
a. Committee Reports
Peter Crane ‘15: Transportation committee was fun over break. We have big shuttles that fit 47 people. Spring concert: Ludacris! I’m trying to find out ways to reform the whole process. For example, I’m still dedicated to sending out the poll for choosing artists earlier. We have a cereal night this Wednesday. We’ll have cereal in Keefe.
Noah Gordon: Elections committee met to go over upcoming spring elections. Congratulations to Ian Hatch, the new elections committee chair.
b. General Announcements
Josh Mayer: I would like to bring back the distinguished teacher award for a professor at commencement. There’s minuted precedent for how to do this.
Alex Stein: New functional Scrutiny site ready for testing in about two and a half weeks.
Romen: 8 PM. Thursday. Reggie Love.
Geoff: Speaker Board is bringing in the Mayor of Ciudad Juarez and Professor at UT to talk about the Mexican Drug War on April 10th.
Kyra Ellis-Moore ‘15: PA’s: The Line Campaign. Speaker on sexual violence. Merrill 4. Women of Amherst show is Thursday through Saturday next week. Reserve your tickets and please come support.
Amani: Stirn Auditorium. CCE. Speaker Paul Loeb. 4:30 PM and dinner afterwards.
George: Three clubs recognized. Most clubs without approval need more information or experience. We need another van for the weekends. We have demand for four or five vans. The mechanic at Amherst is overwhelmed and may not be able to get us new vans.
Romen: Meeting with Charlie Thompson later this week to discuss allocating money for late-night dining. Diversity Committee is meeting for the first time formally this Thursday.
c. Officer Reports
George: We need another van for the AAS. There’s one week coming up where we have 15 requests for three vans. We usually have demand for four or five vans. I’m going to meet with Chief Carter to see if we need to share vans or get new ones.
Stein: How much would a routine maintenance check outside of Amherst mechanic cost us?
George: We’re trying to get a warranty with Toyota where they would pick the van up and fix it for us, but that’s another idea.
V. Webmaster Election
Paid $400 per annum, preferred knowledge of HTML.
Nominations: Meghna Sridhar ’14 and Tania Dias ‘13
Meghna is nominated.
VI. Committee Reform Amendments (George Tepe ‘14)
Amendments approved dealing with updates to language, alterations to names (for instance, the ad hoc becomes special committees) and committee organization, and reflections upon Robert’s rules.
Transportation, dining services, five-college student coordinating board and Science Center advisory committees amendments are approved.
VII. Transportation Council
Peter: I think three-team is easier to organize and it would be more functional.
Ian Hatch ‘14: Given the fact that the committee is taking on more responsibility, a three-people team would be ideal.
VIII. Senate Column
Meghna looks for new system where everyone can write at least once for the Senate. It’s a great way to get transparency into the Senate.
IX. Approve Minutes, 3-12-12 (Geoff)
Minutes approved.
X. New Business
Rohan Mazumdar ‘12: Most of you probably received Romen’s email about a possible response to the Trayvon Martin case. We’re trying to create a day on which we encourage Amherst students to come out and wear hoodies. As part of that, we want to set up space in Keefe where people can come in and get their pictures taken. This is to say that we don’t believe that people should be judged by what they wear or who they are.
XI. Adjournment: 10:03 PM