VASSAR STUDENT ASSOCIATION
Senate Agenda for October 1 , 2017
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Rocky 200
- Call to Order
- Attendance ...Vice President
- Consensus Agenda
- Budget allocations:
- VJU: 55.24/155.25 (Capital)
- Quidditch: 75/75 (Capital)
- Quidditch: 0/430 (Collaboration)
- VSMU: 3600/3600 (Capital)
- SSDP: 990/4537 (Conference)
- Vassar Ultimate: 890/890 (Discretionary)
- VCLU: 1500/1500 (Speakers)
- WVKR: 493.50/493.50 (Speakers)
- Women’s Studies Major Committee: 8000/10000 (Discretionary)*
*This decision is contingent on receiving the president’s fund and other pending funds they have applied to. - BSU: 849/849 (Capital)
- Outing Club: 1800/2000 (Discretionary)
- Hunger Action: 60 (Capital)
- unFramed: 300/12525 (Discretionary)
- Main House: 0/2800 (Community)
- Comedy Normative: 40/40 (Discretionary)
- Students for Sensible Drug Policy: 990/990 (Conference)
- Forum with Chris Roelke …(30 minutes)
- CCL/joint committees
- Dining
- DACA
- Bias Incidents
- ResLife and Transitions
- ResLife/Jud Board
- Affinity Spaces
- AEO
- Student Support Network
- Dean of Studies
- Forum on the reaccreditation process with Prof. Garrett ….(15 minutes)
- Prof. Dorothy Kim Letter …(15 minutes)
- Pre-Org Freeze …(5 minutes)
- Executive Board Updates …Executive Board (15 min)
- Committee Chair Updates ...Committee Chairs (15 min)
- Constituent Concerns (5 min)
- Open Discussion
Committee Updates
Ops + Planning
●Timeline for Student Discourse updated
○oct 11 Decide what platform we’re using AND set up meeting with 2 weeks of being back with ADMIN
○15-21 Present to House Teams
○21-28 Present to Identity orgs
○29-Nov PUBLICITY
○November 12th SENATE Launch
●Kevin Acre is working on the First year programming committee and coming up with a meeting time/ideas for programming
●Survey about plenary has gone out and will evaluated to see what orgs desire October 20th, 2:30PM, after which action and event planning will be taken
Health and Wellness
●Updates from previous week:
○NO response yet for discounts for Project Period supplies
○Received feedback from Metcalf for our Mental Health Fair activity ideas
○Received generally positive feedback from House Teams regarding collabing with us for Mental Health Day Fair
○Tanyx met with Jeremy from Metcalf concerning mental health off-campus resource database
○Emails sent (by Tanyx) regarding mental health fund and potential to start a physical health fund for low-income students
●Rest of Meeting spent breaking into small groups to discuss each of following specific goals/tasks:
○Project Period (new expanded budget, need for ordering new supplies and bins, leaders of Project Period want to stay affiliated with VSA for now)
○Database (waiting on approval for access to database from higher-ups like DiBartolo, thinking of actions that can be taken in the meantime, walk-able off-campus offices posted to Health and Wellness Website)
○Master Planning (ways to push for more concrete action, summary of MPC committee’s first meeting, proposal to ask to add another rep to committee until a new CPS is named)
○Health Services Revamp (working on short-term projects while getting started on more long-term structural changes, TLC is back online, discussion of Mental/ Physical health fund)
○Mixers (fleshing out of what these look like, potential collabing with health-focused/ programming orgs on campus)
○Publicity (Publicizing temporary website until VSA site is live, developing specific events before they are publicized, request for class senators to advertise the suggestion box on H&W website so people know it exists, potential creation of a H&W list serve)
○Emergency Supply Kits in Dorms (ordering new ones, thinking of ways to prevent theft of supplies, what should be included in kits)
Orgs Committee:
●Will start compiling a list of possible orgs to audit (≈10% of the orgs on campus). Will begin by looking at orgs that have been “dead” & have no budgets or contact info, and the that have not been complying with expectations (SAVP training, treasurer training, etc.)
●Possible rewards system for orgs to promote collaboration between orgs and increased programming
CEI:
●Vandalism in the Women’s Center was discussed. There is concern that the issue was not addressed as a bias incident. We talked about how we want students to be made aware of what happened in a way that avoids making a spectacle of it. Hope to approve a draft by the CEI to send out in light of this event.
●Dorm beautification with VassArt: we’ll be sending out a google form to ask people for suggestions on what they want to see.
Programming:
●Concert committee interest meeting happened last week. Will likely be held every Wednesday. Talked about possible artists to bring. Divided the group into: Music, Logistics, and Publicity. Hope to have a lot of outreach to surrounding colleges and community.
●Possible events and parties for the semester were discussed (MeCHA workers appreciation, Apple cider at the retreat, pumpkin patch field trip).
●New party policy and the security report were talked about.
BoRA:
●Talked about programming ideas like Picnic on Noyes Circle, Noise on Noyes (suggested by Tamar), and Spring Fest.
●Discussed the safety and security meeting Arlene Sabo requested. Will bring up making protest guidelines available to students, as well as SLD and Deece protest and how that went down.
●Supporting upperclassmen who live in dorms.