Centennial Room, Student Union

MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Centennial Room, Student Union

March 29, 6:33 pm

Approval of 03/08/16 Minutes

Approved

New Business
2017-147: A BILL TO FUND ENVIRONS

They are a student organization that focuses on sustainability. They are asking for $100 in general funding for Earth Day celebrations and supplies.
Passes without opposition
2017-151: A BILL TO FUND K.K. AMINI SCHOLARSHIP HALL- failed

They are asking for $100 of general funding to use it for a drag show. This event is to promote diversity in the scholarship halls and out of scholarship halls.
It is a tribute to show diversity and that the scholarship halls have recognition and tolerance. This is moving away from a white male homogenous image that has been of concern within the scholarship hall community.
Bill passes without opposition
Bill later fails in Finance Committee because K.K. Amini has gender restrictions in their scholarship hall and student senate is not allowed to fund that.

2017-157: A BILL TO SPECTRUM KU DRAG SHOW AT K.K. AMINI

$100 of general funding for equipment and advertising for the Drag show at the scholarship hall. It’s sponsored by spectrum now

2017-152: A BILL TO FUND BELIEVE AUTISM MATTERS (KU BAM)

Event is on April 24th and it’s an honorarium with for the first person with autism who played basketball.
Amended down to $250
Bill passes as amended

2017-153: A BILL TO FUND KU PHARM & TOX GSO- bill got cut
2017-155: A BILL TO AMEND SSRR TO INCLUDE REPRESENTATION OF MSG

They know bill is not perfect and needed to get something in to keep the process moving.
After meeting with the Chancellor, decided that it’s best to work together without having two student governments. The chancellor hopes that the two bodies can work together and supports multicultural students.This bill tries to address the background of MSG and as an autonomous body like the CCO.
Line 22 of the bill adds in a represented seat, so one representative can be elected or appointed by body and sit on student senate and have aseat for MSG senator to be on the university senate.Representation will happen within student senate and MSG will have one seat on EOF and finance fee review subcommittee
This bill includes who their constituents are. They worked within the framework in student senate to oversee MEF and the student opportunity fund. It monetizes a lot of the money asks to be put them in a line item to not go through fee review and can track the money and see if it needs to be raised or lessened.
Line 155-169 givesautonomy to MSG to have their own bylaws. Student senate cannot edit their bylaws and MSG can’t edit student senate bylaws.
Line 176 is about the multicultural affairs fee, which is something that they didn’t know where they stood. It’s just one alternative and open to discussion as far as it could look like for the future.
MEF could become a sub committees of MA and MSG, that way it can be an open committee where anyone can join because and multicultural students would know where their student dollars go to. It’d be like an MSG finance committee.
There would be a liaison from multicultural student government and student senate. It’d work to enhance the relationship between MSG and student senate
The bolded section talks about the student senate staff assistant, which will continue to keep the MEF staff positon and the $2MSG fee where it’s struck. Those are dependent on what happens in finance tonight
To wrap up, we know a separate student government is not the way to go. We need to find a way to work together, that way marginalized students can go through student senate or MSG. MSG and senate will sign this for four years because we want to make sure that students have the resources to succeed, but also that every year they won’t have to come here.
Questions: How much was MSG incorporated into the process? We tried very hard to get as much input into this bill and not everything we talked to made it in. That’s why students in MSG did not sponsor this.
This is a work in progress and has leaped bounds of what was first put on the agenda. If money is power, then only thing that MSG has achieved is MEF and it’s the first thing that you came for (MSG talking).
The purpose of having that in there is not to take MEG away from you guys. We just want to incorporate as many students as we could.
Question: Do you guys understand that anyone can come into that room and dictate who’s getting funding? So essentially it’d be multicultural student finance committee and you don’t think white people would go to it and vote?You must understand the concern of who could potentially be in the room for MEF.
Question for MSG: What is your fear? It is a dangerous precedent that they can come in and intervene.If you want to reinforce to still see that in legislation, it reinforces mistrust between MSG and student senate.
Motion to amend lines 176-197
Amendment on the bill to strike lines 176-197
(MSG) Most of the people in this room don’t know that this has been a long journey for the students involved in multicultural student government, multigenerational and no one wants to give us funding without trying to control us. Expressed that MEF was not where they should start and needed to leave it alone. They put things in here without asking MA or our advisors.Many things in here are valuable and valid, but the fact that senate would take it amongst themselves to overreach after that’s the only thing that we’vebeen allowed to accomplish.
Question: What do you fear with having multicultural students being able to allocate their student fees dollars in a group bigger than student senate and MSG? It’s a dangerous precedent that student senate would come in and change how MEF runs.
Amendment: to keep Sabina and the cash flow
Vote on amendment that’s been proposed strike line 176-197 and keep lines 190-195 and it passes
Now we should vote on amendment piece of legislation with 3 negative speeches
Negative speech to say that any student that can join must identify as multicultural or marginalized will be able to join MEF.
Line 191 makes it clear that
Line 180 Amendment to say that any student of marginalized background as identified by appendix 9
Questions: Understanding that to add this is it change the nature of MEF board and how it’s selected, so why change it? The Purpose of this language is to get as many students as involved in that process as possible, if someone comes up with the language to incorporate it as a board and MA in one place that students can go to get representation.
Motion to vote for this amendment, and amendment fails with no opposition
Motion to pass legislation as amended by MSG earlier, voting now as amended strikes line 176-198 and lines 196-197
Bill passes with amendment and some opposition

Committee as a Whole
Timely Matters

Did anyone go to the climate survey study report?
There were like 10 students there, so it was disappointing, but with faculty and staff the whole room was filled with people standing.
When they were looking at student experience, 70% of students had negative interactions with other students and the faculty and staff was in the low teens.
Telling us that faculty and staff is getting training, but not going down to the student body. Only 22% of the student body presented in that survey, which is traditionally high from what they’ve seen in the past.
Three main things across the board that are important are lack of social and financial capital, and sense of belonging at KU. A sense of belonging is at the top of the list.
25% of grad students think of leaving, which is crazy because they invest so much time and energy into it. We need to support graduate students
Question: MA used to have funding? Last year and for years before that, the Multicultural Education Fund was technically part of senate but MA had priority of it.When we lost MEF, people took MA less seriously because we lost our money.
MSG was concerned about their structure, how is it different? MSG has a board and those board of six or eight students determine their allocations.
This was a very long year for MA and multicultural students on this campus. It’s never going to be easy. Even with the transiting leadership, hopefully these conversations will keep carrying on and please keep trying to be involved in the multicultural affairs committee.
Keep in mind, MA changed what it means to be in a committee, like the discussion portion and maybe we’ll see a shift in the culture in regards to how we conduct ourselves in these spaces.
Discussion

Officer Reports
Chair - Zoya Khan

Thank you for hanging in with us even though we’ve gotten smaller we’ve had a good time.
April 19thare the elections for committees to elect a new chair, vice chair, and secretary. Please feel free to reach out to us for any questions.
Religious Minority Adhoc survey will be released not within this academic year.
Vice Chair/Associate Senator - Daniel Lee

Not here
Secretary - Jessica Guardiola
Send me any upcoming events.
Director of Diversity and Inclusion - AbdoulieNjai
The chancellor and the provost are interested in looking for plots of lands and creatinga space forthe Multicultural Greek organizations. A lot of schools have this.
Reached out to HALO, but haven’t hear anything back. Working with the Jayhawk peer mentorship program and first generation program.
Advisor - SaidaBonifield

Not here

Announcements

None

Adjournment