Speaker of the House Wangcalled the Regular Meeting of the Undergraduate House Of

Call to Order

Speaker of the House Wangcalled the regular meeting of the Undergraduate House of Representatives of the Georgia Institute of Technology to order at 7:30pm.

Presentations

Counseling Center
Dean Stein & Dr. Irvin – Black Student Experience Taskforce
Anju Suresh

Approval of the Minutes

Previous week’s minutes have been approved and distributed.

Officer Reports

Secretary (Stelzel)
No Report
Treasurer (Spuhler)
No Report
Vice President of Internal Affairs (Waller)
Starting Brag Bucket next week
As you come in, write quick affirmations of others
Can be anonymous or not
Let’s love each other :)
#JustSGAThings starting next week
Will be sending out a form for submissions
Share a story about something you or someone else did or experienced through SGA
A reminder of why we do what we do as SGA leaders and the joy that comes from it
Will read one weekly during my report
Still crowdsourcing ideas for morale & cohesion and overall improvements
A couple of submissions so far, thanks!
Vice President for External Affairs (Dada)
If you’re registered to vote in Fulton County, you can vote at the Wardlaw Center on Wednesday!
Otherwise, go home and vote early in your county
Or request an absentee ballot before 11/4
Or go home on Election Day and vote on 11/8!
Vice President of Information and Technology (Mehan)
Course Critique has new data!
Phase 2 - working on automatic data updating every semester
New Website Development in Progress
Soft Launch week of 9/28
SGA Office PC’s on the Way, ETA end of next week
Sorry couldn’t be here (Out selling tractors), have a great meeting!
Vice President of Communications (Park)
SGA Week continues until the end of the week!
Thank you all for volunteering and please
continue to come out to volunteer and participate!
Tomorrow is Student Life Day!
Vice President of Academic Affairs (Eidson)
Thanks for helping with SGA Week!
CNE will be coming to our UHR meeting soon.
Congrats on surviving midterms!
Progress reports have been released.
Course Critique has be updated with Spring 2016 & Summer 2016 data (Shout out to Kunal).
Dates to remember:
Schedule of Classes released Thursday 10/20
Time Tickets open Friday 10/21
Drop Day 10/29
Vice President of Campus Organizations (Francis)
No Report
Vice President of Campus Services (Peramanu)
Thanks to everyone who came out for Campus Services Day today!! It went super well!
Greenovation Proposal Showcase - Next Tuesday 10/25 at 4:30 on the third floor of the Clough
Red Route Express survey coming out soon
PTS Town Hall - Tentative Date 11/15
Vice President of Student Life (Bradley)
No Report
Vice President of Finance (Onken)
JFC Policy Updates Tonight! Woohoo!
Shoutout to Rep. Shah for giving a budget orientation presentation for me!
List of orgs who have attended or RSVP’s to a budget session
Check for your orgs!
Quick PY Projection
Chief of Staff (Nickel)
Home for the Holidays
Please keep signing up!
Executive Vice President (Mudrinich)
QPR Suicide Prevention Training
Please continue to sign up for QPR Training
Let me know when you’ve done it HERE for the chance to win a prize!
President (Nukuna)
SGA Traveling Office Hours
Advisor (Stein)
GT vs Georgia Southern Ejections
1 student intoxication/unruly behavior
11 visitors
Total 12
Speaker of the House (Wang)
SGA Week:
Sign ups:
Group Shot for Breast Cancer Awareness
Headshots after our meeting
Halloween at UHR next session (10/25)
Will be a prize for best dressed/most creative
GSS Coordinator (Onken)
See GSS Report

Open Forum

Roll Call

Roll was called with 37 members present.

Old Business

17J042 - Joint Allocation to HyTech Racing at Georgia Tech - Author: Rachel Chau

Org Reps - Jarrett Schalch Ayush Jha
Rep Metzger - Move to amend per JFC – passed
38-0-0 passed

17J043 - Joint Allocation to Club Tennis - Author: Philip Bale

Bill postponed indefinitely

17J044 - Joint Allocation to Vietnamese Students Association - Author: Francesca Lidback

Postponed to next week

17J046 - Joint Resolution Regarding the Graduate Conference Fund - Author: Celeste Runnels

Org Rep- Daegene Koh - VP of GOF, changing policies
VP Onken - Requests for funding to go to conferences to present research does not go through us, important to grads because they use all $10,000 of their funding
35-0-3 passed

17J047 - Joint Allocation to Taal Tadka - Author: Anju Suresh

Org Rep - Yash S Mehta - Treasurer, asking for funding for an Acapella Competition
Rep Metzger – move to amend per JFC – passed
39-0-1 passed

17J048 - Joint Allocation to Soccer Club (Mens) - Author: Erin Gant

Org Rep - Leslie A McConnell – Asking for funding for two tournaments
Postponed indefinitely

17J049 - Joint Allocation to Yellow Jacket Fencing - Author: Kevin Low

Org Rep - John R Butchko – funding for new equipment
38-0-1 passed

17J051 - Joint Allocation to Roller Hockey Club - Author: Brendan Jones

Rep Scott – will the water bottles sty with the team?
Org Rep – yes
40-0-0 passed

17J052 - Joint Allocation to Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (GT-SHPE) - Author: Apollo Liu

Rep Liu – The Org Rep is not here and I really don’t know what this bill is for.All of you should have read the agenda and should know what this bill is.
Rep Shah - move to amend per JFC - passed
Rep Low - I’m worried about setting a precedent that we will give people money if they do not show up.
Rep Daigle (Q) - do you know when this conference is or of any deadlines?
VP Onken (A) - there are definitely deadlines coming up. I think the registrations do have a deadline next week, specifically this Friday.
Rep Daigle - for the sake of discussion, I move to postpone the bill to next week. It would affect the registration, but not the flight. I agree with the previously stated that we should not fund bills if people are not here. - failed
Rep Scott (Q) - did they have a representative at GSS?
VP Francis (A) - yes
Rep Suresh - we have done this in the past. We don’t require them to show up. My concern with postponing it is making this bill retroactive. They did show up at GSS and had the opportunity to express concerns.
Rep Owenby - typically we have the representatives here to answer questions about the bill. If we had a huge question I would be for postponing it. Because we have no questions, I have no problems with passing this bill as is.
38-2-1 passed

17J053 - Joint Allocation to Qurbani - Author: Anju Suresh

Org Reps - Rishab Mokkapati & Aksal Vashi - We fund most of our budget by ourselves. We are asking for some help with an upcoming and very prestigious competition.
40-0-1 passed

17J054 - Joint Allocation to Ballroom Dance Club - Author: Catherine Stephens

Org Rep - Alexander Sun - We are asking for a bill to send 20 people to an invitational. We would like to send our beginning members and social dancers to this competition.
42-0-0 passed

17J055 - Joint Allocation to Soccer Club (Womens) - Author: Erin Gant

Org Rep - Paula Simonetti - we were recently selected to participate in nationals, however we had only a two-day turnaround. We tried to do a rush bill, but there wasn’t enough time so we are asking for a reimbursement.
Rep Owenby - move to amend per GSS and waive article 8 of JFC policy - passed
Rep Sieling (Q) - so we capped it at 1000 and unstruck it?
VP Onken (A) - yes
42-0-0 passed

17J057 - Joint Allocation to Cycling - Author: Alexander Casado (Moved Up)

Org Rep - Jacob Payne - Our team is doing wonderfully this season and I would like to thank you for your support. This bill is for two of our members to go to nationals.
Rep Evans - move to amend per JFC per unanimous consent - no dissents
42-0-0 passed

17J056 -Joint Resolution Regarding JFC Policy Updates - Author: Nagela Nukuna

17J056 -Joint Resolution Regarding JFC Policy Updates - Author: Matthew Daigle
VP Onken - Hopefully everyone has looked over the policy changes by now. There are multiple wording changes to make things more clear. I’m not going to touch on those. We are redefining capital expenditure and setting a minimum. We are getting rid of collaborative events. We are getting rid of multidisciplinary status in this policy because it should be under JCOC. Adding an easy to understand enactment ratio. We are defining the word student to be Georgia Tech students. In article 5, we are changing the policy to reflect the actual process. There is a lot of wording changes in this part of the policy. We are updating the budget and bill policy so you can’t get money without being chartered. We are raising the enactment ratio for bills that do not conform to JFC policy from .6 to .75. We are changing the definition of giveaways to be more clear and give us more leeway in determining what is a giveaway. We added the miscellaneous line back in. We are removing the open to the entire campus requirement for budgets because it is too hard to determine. We are removing the off-season restriction. We are increasing the decoration funding cap. We are adding a minimum attendance for the Ferst Theater. We got rid of collaborative events line. A section has been added for cultural food, pulled directly from the resolution. Added an appeals process for rollovers. This reduces the embezzlement punishment from 4 years to 2 years. We want to change JFC policy at the end of the year instead of the beginning of the year.
Rep Low (Q) - some places you replaced his/her or he/she with they, but notall. Why?
VP Onken (A) - I must have missed some
Rep Low (Q) - will you explain the funding of political things?
VP Onken (A) - If GSS and UHR passed a resolution in support of a proposed political amendment, JFC currently allows funding for that. That would take money away from organizations, which we think is unfair so we are changing it.
Rep Shah - move to amend per GSS - passed
Rep Suresh - my only qualm is with collaborative events. This section is to make organizations collaborate and it streamlines bills. It allows for orgs to have bigger outreach.
Rep Stephens - I have an issue with article 8 section 2, which limits the access to the Ferst Theater because there isn’t another space on campus which has a large space like that.
Rep Scott - I wanted to add that the Bill Heard theater, a Drama Tech space, can be used for those events
Rep Daigle - I want to remind everybody of what I had said earlier. This policy is something to set as a general rule. The cases you mentioned would be cases where we would waive policy. For the dance company, that is a case where we would waive policy.
VP Onken - JFC policy is linked into your bylaws. You should never pass something in your bylaws with the intention of waiving it. You should abide by it wholeheartedly. Never plan on waiving policy.
Rep Daigle - I want to clarify. I’m not saying we should waive it every time. I want to recognize that we are not a perfect organization and sometimes we cannot make our policies perfect. That would be one case where we as a body would reconsider. Our rules in specific circumstances should be changed.
Rep Evans - With regard to the previously stated, this document is helpful and useful for making things fair. We make amendments to it and it is always there, but it cannot handle every case. I think that in some cases we do have to go beyond what the policy says.
Rep Stephens – Drama Tech’s space isn’t large enough for organizations in between 100 and 500 people. I think this would be the exception more than the rule. The bills for Ferst are hard to pass as is, and this complication could make or break these events.
Rep Liu (Q) - why was this added in?
VP Onken (A) - it was added so we wouldn’t be paying lots of money for very small events
Rep Liu - we should get the maximum usage out of the student activity fee. Such a small amount of people should not have that much funding allocated.
Rep Sieling - I agree with some things that have been previously stated. An issue on our campus is that we should be supporting creative outlets, such as the arts. Is there any other way that we can amend it so that if it is within a range we can subsidize it?
Rep Owenby - last year when we had bills for orgs that wouldn’t pull the people but needed the space, we waived the bylaws. I like this being left up to the legislature instead of having a line for it in JFC policy. I am against having this in the policy changes
Rep Low - it is not ideal to have a black and white policy for a grey issue, but JFC policy isn’t always fair. However, we have to be pragmatic about it. It can be $2000-$6000 for rental, which is not a pragmatic use of the student activity fee.
Rep Evans –It sounds like the issue is money and value. I was on JFC for 3 years, and deciding if an event is valuable enough is, and should be, up to the legislature. This is not the place to handle the issue.
Rep Low - If we don’t have this line added, bills will be passed without thinking. I think in JFC policy is where we should decide it for the future year.
Rep Shah - One of the biggest issues is where else can they go? LeCraw Auditorium in Sheller is a large stage with plenty of seating area. It doesn’t make sense financially to give this much money for small groups.
Rep Sieling - if you have ever danced, the stage at the business school is not large enough. I really think that we are lacking in funding of the arts.
Rep Owenby - I feel like we are almost dictating to organizations that this is what they need. In actuality we are not listening to the organizations about what they need. The legislature should determine it, not JFC policy.
Rep Daigle - We’ve established a disconnect in regards to dance. Because the motion being discussed is to amend per GSS, this whole discussion is not germane. The discussion has also moved back and forth - move to call to question - passed
Rep Evans - I want to talk about article 7 section 5, the .75 number. I think the process would be much better if the enactment ratio was .6
Rep Liu - I think it should be .75, or even higher. It is very easy for just enough people to want to waive JFC policy. With it as .75, we have to feel stronger about it to change it.
Rep Sieling –JFC is the law that we should be holding ourselves accountable to, so like I said before, I was thinking of other possibilities. The arts are going to grow on campus. My suggestion is for if the attendance is between 200 and 500 people, we will fund the percentage of the number out of 500 students.
VP Onken - I would stay away from a scale because that makes it difficult for JFC to determine funding before the event occurs.
Rep Stephens–I move to strike the line requiring 500 attendees to fund the Ferst Theater rental - passed
Rep Tropper - I disagree with this motion because it is too extreme.
Rep Daigle - I agree with the idea of it, however as a policy we have the final decision of what is an appropriate use. We can always say no. Striking this gives us the best option to go through and look at cases individually.
Rep Spuhler –Without this line in policy, for a small club coming into JFC trying to rent the Ferst Theater, we can’t make any recommendation to help them. This way JFC won’t be able to talk about it, and we will be blindsiding smaller orgs which is not fair to them.
Rep Sieling - I think that is important not to blindside organizations. I move to change the amendment in question to make it so that if attendance is between 200 and 500, funding will be capped at 50% of the Ferst Theater rental costs - failed
Rep Daigle - I disagree with the current motion because it is the responsibility of the bill author to go through and tell clubs that is unreasonable and possibly not sign the bill.
Rep Stelzel - I am in support of this current motion because the current discussion about striking the line altogether it too idealistic. It is a common occurrence for representatives to sign bills without looking through them and for us as a body to go on autopilot, which would allow these kinds of large bills to slip through the cracks. I am in favor of the 50% because I think it is a good compromise.
VP Francis - The scaling will be a negative and not allow organizations to fund their event at all.
Rep Liu - JFC policy represent what years and years of experience has taught us. We are now obligated to always debate this. I think the original opinion of adding in the line is the right one. If GT students want to promote the arts, they need to actually show up.
Rep Tropper - I realize that there aren’t a lot of venues, and I do not agree with rep. Liu because I think that we should support the arts. I support keeping this line item.
Rep Daigle - If we have to go through and debate every single one of those bills, that is our job. If you don’t want to do it, you can leave. There is the door. I am in favor of accepting this motion.
Rep Stephens - The argument that this is an incentive to raise attendance is valid, however attendance is hard to get because we get the nights at Ferst that nobody else wants.
Rep Notz - at this point, a better use of our time is to look into creating a new venue.
Rep Salesky - you never want to make a law with the intention of waiving it every time. We should clear this whole thing now.
Rep Stelzel (Q) – What is the typical attendance for these art groups?
VP Onken(A) - These types of art groups have expected attendance of 100-150.
Rep Low - I am in favor of keeping the original item, but I will be voting yes for this so we have a compromise.
Rep Juvekar - As a freshman I have noticed that we are a community of empowerment. Despite the financial irresponsibility, I am in support of funding the FerstTheater for these clubs.
Rep Daigle - at this point we have beaten a dead horse, so I move to call to question - passed
Rep Runnels - I move to add the word full to the beginning of number 2 by unanimous consent - passed
Rep Daigle - this is all not ok. There was a motion to call to question and then another discussion started. This is not in line with policy and we need to do the call to question vote now.
Rep Owenby - does Daigle have speaking rights for parliamentary procedure, and are we violating our rules of order?
Rep Low - I move to propose the previous amendment that was made - failed
Rep Low - call to question - passed
Rep Daigle - I am against calling to question because discussion was interrupted. We should fail this motion and vote on the original motion.
Rep Daigle - right now, the vote is to strike line two. If this passes, the only restriction is for line 1.
Rep Daigle - I move to take a 5-minute recess - failed
Rep Daigle - I do not see any difference between entering into a contract and paying.
Rep Jain - the point that JFC made is that a lot of competitions require a very quick binding contract so it is good to keep the change to the policy as it is.
VP Onken - It is very tough to deem what is a contract. Verbal versus written and even then they can get around it. It doesn’t seem like something that can actually happen, but it will. Money is more concrete.
Rep Runnels (Q) - what was the original intention?
VP Onken (A) - I can only speculate, but one is they already have the money for it. Another reason is to prevent sob stories.
37-3-2 - passed

17J070 - Joint Resolution Expressing Condolences - Author: Nagela Nukuna (Moved Up)