STUDENT SENATE

SESSION XXXVIII – MEETING 9

November 13th, 2016 – 6pm– Paul College Room 225

MINUTES

1. CALL TO ORDER

2. ROLL CALL

3. COMMUNICATIONS

  1. Senator Communications:
  2. Zach: motion to skip communications and move right into SAFC Budgets, for the sake of the guests here tonight.
  3. Jake: I oppose this motion. I believe we should have the approval and removal of senators before moving into SAFC Budgets.
  4. Zach: I amend my motion to move right into SAFC Budgets after the approval and removal of senators.
  5. Amended motion passed with one nay
  6. [Moved into SAFC Budgets]
  7. Graduate Student Senate
  8. Not present.
  9. Liaison to Administration
  10. Not present.
  11. Senate Executive Board
  12. Parliamentarian Shannon: if you have any resolutions or amendments, please send them to me by Monday at 7pm! Even though it is not required, I highly recommend that you send them to Judiciary. It is our job to make your resolutions the best they can be. That is why we have so many enthusiastic members on the committee who work for hours and are willing to help! For gender inclusive stuff, I went on a retreat and they provided gender inclusive restrooms, and I thought it was a fantabulous thing that they did. Great to see that other people are getting on board with this outside of UNH.
  13. Executive Officer Alex:I just want to express my appreciation for those who clocked in the most office hours this week! This week’s winners are Tyler (27.5 hours), Isaiah (21.5 hours), Gordon (15.5 hours), Josh (15 hours), and Laruen (13.5 hours). Thank you so much for doing your office hours and your duties as senators. You all deserve props for that! Keep it up!
  14. Business Manager Christian: no communications.
  15. Director Public Relations PJ: Public Relations Committee will be meeting after tonight’s senate meeting. We are going to be making a visual identity and branding guide for Student Senate, with a logo. We are looking forward to as many ideas as possible, so please share them so that we can make it the best it can be. We will also be posting about every single meeting, including the council meetings, so that people can add their opinions and know what we are working on before they go to the floor. I think it will also help PR for the better. Parking Ban advertisementsbefore and after break will be coming up too. Lastly, if someone is being difficult on social media about us, please do not respond to them. We want to promote a positive environment where we actually want to encourage people to join.
  16. Historian Jesse: no communications tonight.
  17. SAFC Chairperson Aaron: Thank you for being here tonight. Please get some sleep.
  18. CFO 1 Danny: No communications.
  19. CFO 2 Jake: I am excited to announce that SAF Exec is working on a shadow program for those who want to learn more about SAFC and are interested in being involved in SAFC next year. We hope that this will help bridge the information gap that we sometimes see every year. If anyone is interested in taking part or wants to learn more, please e-mail me.
  20. Academic Affairs Chair Bryce: no communications.
  21. Campus Structure Chair Zach: My meetings have been moved back to 6pm now that my extracurricular activities are sorted out.. I have not been happy with how my meeting have been run, so I am working to make the meetings more senate-like. This new structure should make it easier for outside members to come meet with us. I will also be posting agendas in the office. If you want to come to my meetings, please talk to me.
  22. Lincoln: It might be helpful to send those agendas to Shannon, whom can then send them out to everyone.
  23. PJ: Public Relations Committee already has you covered. We will be putting the agenda out to the public.
  24. Community Development Chair Sarai:my resolution got tabled to next meeting, so stay tuned for next time!
  25. Health and Wellness Chair Katie: not present.
  26. External Affairs Chair Sadie: I do not have my phone, so please e-mail me if you have questions or want to get involved in my council.
  27. Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Chair Alicia:My council had a great meeting this week, and I want to thank those who came. Keep an eye out for our resolution!
  28. Financial Affairs Chair Ian: no communications?
  29. Judicial Affairs Chair Brennan:I just sent out an e-mail to four people in this room. Please respond.
  30. Student Trustee Lincoln
  31. I sent something out to you all via e-mail. It is a request for a comprehensive review andoverhaul of the first amendment related polices on campus. There are some really regressive policies across our campuses statewide. It references a watchdog group that is rather conservative, but is a good benchmark for free speech policies. If you have any questions, please let me know because I have a very comprehensive presentation on this that has been looked through by many lawyers. Just to give you an example of some of these policies, you cannot wear a t-shirt with a pot leaf in your dorm lounge. There are also a lot of other non-friendly and regressive policies related to tabling. I have sent a request to change those policies, and still waiting on responses.
  32. Danny: how is the search going for senior policy advisor?
  33. Lincoln: Still working on that. There are just too many memos and not enough of me to go around. Please inquire if you are interested in the position. I am not yielding results yet because I have not put my full effort into it.
  34. PJ: The last time that something of art was censored was during the McCarthy era. Just to put things in perspective.
  35. Jake: you spelt “individual” wrong.
  36. Jon: All joking aside, please read this. This is something that Lincoln has been working on for nearly three years. Ask him plenty of questions.
  37. Jake: Every “induvial” should take the time to look at this, seeing as Lincoln does not make many proposals.
  38. Student Body Vice President Carley
  39. No communications.
  40. Student Body President Jon
  41. No communications.
  42. Student Senate Speaker Alex Fries
  43. I want to echo what PJ said earlier. We had a great PR strategy meeting. These guys are ready to work, but they need more people to help divide the labor, so please join if you are interested. I also want to applaud Lincoln for the work he is doing with the first amendment. I can’t say why, but you can understand if you know my track record. your resolution gets passed by the senate, please do me a favor and let me know who you want it to go. Sometimes it is hard to guess the addressee unless it is explicitly stated somewhere in the resolution. Next week we have the Associate Vice President May coming in for the fee review, and this following week we will not have a meeting. After that we will talk to Dean Kirkpatrick about the student life units. Lastly, I want to let you know that I personally love seeing you all in the office, and I would love to hear your thoughts about Senate. If you have anyideas for how to make Senate better, please let me know.

4. NEW BUSINESS

  1. XXXVIII - 2.01 - Removal of Senators
  2. No Action.
  3. XXXVIII - 3.01 - Approval of Senators
  4. No Action.
  5. XXXVIII- 4 – Approval of First Year Senator
  6. Isaiah Laurencelle was added to the bill.
  7. Speaker Alex: I cannot speak to my personal opinion on this, but I am willing to take any questions.
  8. Danny: Has anyone asked you questions about the legitimacy of the results?
  9. Speaker Alex: I have received no petitions or any formal comments.
  10. Zach: Do you believe that adequate action was taken to preserve the integrity of the election?
  11. Speaker Alex: There were well documented steps that the Election Committee took, which was shared with you all through e-mail. Those steps included extending the deadline for the same length of time that voters were locked out, and providing a method for those to vote if they could still not gain access. The committee felt that they did the utmost it could do, given the circumstances and the SOPs.
  12. Jake: Of the votes that were cast, would you say around half of the votes were effected by the problems with the write in options?
  13. Speaker Alex: unfortunately I cannot give you a proper estimate.
  14. Lincoln: I can provide some background information. This election was poorly run. Based on creditstatus, some first-year students (i.e. transfers) were precluded from voting. Having students contact the electioncommittee with problems was not something we should be certifying. This has nothing to do with the qualities of the candidates, for that is up to the first-year population to decide. The problem is that first-years did not get the chance to decide. We cannot certify these results. This is textbook example of bad electoral procedure. I don’t blame the committee either, for there was clearly an error with the transfer of information between the two databases. I am fine with doing this election again with the same candidates, but it is not democratic to exclude voters, even if it was unintentional.
  15. Danny: If we do not approve this, what happens next?
  16. Speaker Alex: the procedures do not clearly outline what to do. I would say that it would go back to the election committee, who would fix the issues and host another election
  17. Abby: Is there a certain timeline we have to elect the first-year senator?
  18. Speaker Alex: the SOPs have been amended several times. That being said, there is no official date that the first-year senator needs to be elected.
  19. Abby: could you explain in more detail the database error?
  20. Shannon: We were clear about our definition of first year students, andI was told that there would be no problem. We learned afterward that the register’s office does not have a list of first semester at UNH, only students based on credit. We would probably have to sit down and look at all of the data to sort this out.
  21. Lincoln: we could request the Register’s Office to do this. This should be easy information for them to find.
  22. Doug: I fear we are starting to move ahead of the discussion. We have to decide whether we are going to certify the election first.
  23. PJ: If we approve this, we are not following our own rules that we amended before this. I urge you to not certify these results.
  24. Jake: The point of this discussion is not to put blame on anyone. Instead we should be determining if the election was done appropriately. This election was a disaster, due to so many students not being able to vote.
  25. Lincoln: election committee did not know that these problems were going to arise. They made a tough judgement call that no one would want to have to make. I commend their efforts.
  26. Jon: Cabinet has been without a first year senator for a long time now. I would like to see this get done soon.
  27. Jake: could we elect an interim First year senator until the election takes place?
  28. Shannon: you cannot have an interim unless someone current elected leaves the position.
  29. Bill failed with six abstentions.
  30. Lincoln: motion to go into communications and postpone other new business to next meeting?
  31. Danny: are the resolutions time sensitive?
  32. Jon: no.
  33. Motion passed.
  34. [Moved into Communications]
  35. XXXVIII-R11-Implementation of a Fall Break
  36. Postponed to next meeting.
  37. XXXVIII-R12- Increasing the Amount of Recycling Bins in Academic Buildings
  38. Postponed to next meeting.
  39. XXXVIII-R13-Addition of Bicycle Storage and Coverage of Racks
  40. Postponed to next meeting.
  41. FY 18 Budgets
  42. Speaker Alex: [explained voting procedure and recording].
  43. Aaron: Hello everyone. I am the SAFC Chairman. What you are seeing right now is the cover sheet. Tonight we will be going through each SAFO budget, and we have brought in the BMs so that you can ask them any questions regarding their budgets. We need a 2/3 majority to pass a budget, and amendments can be offered. We will be setting the student activity fee once all budgets have been approved. We will be doing the TNH budget first because they have a production night tonight.
  44. TNH Budget
  45. Allison: Hello! I am the executive editor of TNH. We have undergone a huge change with our system by adding Main Street Magazine to our organization. The only big addition in the budget is the officer stipends for Main Street Magazine. TNH will also be expanding its online presence, which means we will be printing fewer paper publications. No one at TNH will be putting in less time or effort than usual. All this means is that responsibilities and products are going to be spread out differently.
  46. Approved unanimously.
  47. CAB Budget
  48. BM Alex: our biggest budget change is that we will be acquiring MUB Movies. The only other big change is that we will be taking out the big comedian and dispersing the funds into other programs.
  49. Lincoln: Nice job with this together! The increases are minimal.
  50. Danny: motion to amend homecoming to down to $16,000.
  51. Danny: In the past. Homecoming budgets have ranged from Routinely $10,000 to $13,000. This year, for the 150th anniversary of UNH, was unique. However, I don’t think it is a valuable expense for future years to be spending $20,000 when we are not highlighting a unique event.
  52. Lincoln: Are you okay with this amendment?
  53. BM Alex: CAB was happy with the increase. We were going to have to make a lot of changes due to not having the outside funds like we received this year. One of the biggest changes we would have had to make was move Homecoming back to Boulder Field. Having a budget of $20,000 would have helped keep Homecoming on T-Lawn, which was more accessible to students.
  54. Jake: Do you know how much the permits cost?
  55. BM Alex: I believe that C-Lot cost about$2,000, and that T-Lawn was much more expense due to there being more area for police to cover.
  56. Danny: Point of information: permits this year cost $3,452.
  57. BM Alex: That was just for electricity, and it does not include police. UNH Alumni paid for police this year, which is why it does not show up.
  58. Lauren: The reason why the Homecoming budget was increased during SAFC was because people wanted to see Homecoming at this tier every year. Having the Homecoming budget at $20,000 would help make put Homecoming at a more consistent top tier level, which is good because donations like this year will not happen all the time.
  59. Jon: I was the one who proposed the original amendment. I made the amendment because after being at nearly every Homecoming planning meeting, I learned that CAB really needed the money. We saw an increase in turnout this year, and there was a lot of praise. It was the best Homecoming we have seen in years. We put a lot of money toward programing, so it is time to start making the investments that will make our programing better. I firmly disagree with the motion to move it back down to $16,000.
  60. Jake: How much was the alumni grant for police?
  61. BM Alex: around $5,000.
  62. Jon: probably closer to$7,000.
  63. Ian: How did attendance this year compare to previous years?
  64. BM: We had over 5,000 attendants this year, and we have had about 3,000-1,500 in past years.
  65. Danny: Homecoming is a big event, and it must be hard to gage attendance. How did you gage attendance?
  66. BM Alex: We try to count somewhat, but it is hard. One way we gage attendance is during the parade. Otherwise we are eye balling it. Even so, we have been doing this several times, so we are good at it. We do
  67. Zach: there is a lot of talk about attendance at this year’s Homecoming event, which many seem to agree was because this was the 150th anniversary of UNH. Do you think you can justify higher projections for this coming year, even though there is not going to be a big event, like the 150th?
  68. Alex: we can gage that attendance will be the same if we can get it on T-Hall and the great lawn. Boulder field is not convenient for students, which is why we think attendance is low.
  69. Lincoln: $20,000 is where it needs to be. This is one of those things where the more money we put in the higher the return. More money will allow for better quality and better attendance. I wish we could give CAB more money.
  70. Alex: we could work with $16,000, but we would have to make some cuts, probably from the carnival rides.
  71. Zach: I seconded this motion because I wanted to hear the justification for keeping it at $16,000. Now that I have heard from both sides, I think we should allow it to stay at $20,000.
  72. Lincoln: What would be the percent increase to your budget if you got rid of MUB Movies?
  73. Aaron: It would actually be a decrease of 2% in comparison to last year.
  74. Lincoln: how much more money would you like?
  75. BM Alex: $5,000 more would be great, but that is not going to happen.
  76. Danny: I would like to withdraw my motion.
  77. Speaker Alex: there has been too much significant discussion already, so I cannot allow you to do that.
  78. Motion failed with two abstentions.
  79. Lincoln: motion for a 5 minute recess.
  80. Lincoln: These budgets have not been formally addressed in the agenda in written form, nor have they been formally introduced.