Thelomathesian Society Meeting
September 13, 2006
7 PM
Location: Hannon Room
Thelomathesian Society Senatorial RepresentationFall 2006
District / First Name / Last Name / Present? / Issue 1 Vote Yea / Issue 1 Vote Nay
Sykes / Letlabika / Senaoana / y / 1
Hristo / Petrov / y / 1
Alicia / Johnson / y / 1
Kristen / Bednar / y / 1
Julian / Blakney-Carlson / y / 1
Brendan / Eckner / y / 1
Michael / Nichol / y / 1
Geoff / Walano / y / 1
KDS / Rachel / Hall / n
Caitlyn / Carlson / n
Katherine / Alexander / n
Dean Eaton / Zoe / Bludevich / y / 1
Jessica / McLeod / y / 1
Justin / Green / y / 1
Julia / Jones / y / 1
Erica / Reiner / y / 1
Ryan / Brandt / y / 1
Mackenzie / Hollis / y / 1
Molly / Williams / y / 1
Jessica / McPherson / y / 1
Alexandra / Jenson / y / 1
Misha / Sarova / y
Lee / Haley / Bowman / y / 1
Ola / McAndrews / y / 1
Commons / Julia / Warn / y / 1
(78 Park)
ATO / Jon / Solomon / y / 1
Jon / MacMillan / y / 1
Tyler / Andrascik / y / 1
Rebert / Tim / Lauer / y / 1
25 College / Michael / Crankshaw-Bierce / y / 1
Justin / Newcom / y / 1
204 Lincoln / Alex / Humphries / y / 1
(Phi Kap)
Hulett / Brent / Davis / y / 1
Priest / Brandy / Pestka / y / 1
District / First Name / Last Name
Whitman / Taylor / Fargo / y / 1
Sarah / Callaway / y / 1
Lindsay / Muetterties / y / 1
Gaines / Justin / Hunt / y / 1
Tegh / Kapur / y / 1
Reiff / Harry / Neely / y / 1
?? / Moira / Dietsch / y / 1
?? / Danielle / Rhubart / y / 1
Total: / Total:
38 / 0
President Jon Cardinal:
This meeting of the Thelomathesian Society is called to order at 7 PM on Wednesday, September 13, 2006. We will start by moving to approve the minutes from last semester’s final meeting.
May I have a motion for the approval of the min from the final meeting? (Senate moves)
May I have a second? (Senate Seconds)
Any abstentions or objections? (Senate has none).
The minutes pass.
Thank you very much for being here.
By joining Thelmo, you’re taking on the responsibility for determining the future of the university. I have full confidence in everyone in their abilities to do well this year. This is the first time that the Executive Board has been selective in choosing the Senate, based solely on the essay in which you wrote and how you answered the question. We also considered your thoughtfulness and dedication to answering the question assigned.
Congratulations and welcome. This past year, Thelmo has accomplished a great deal. With the extension of the use of the Campus Wide Accounts, the student body may now use their cards at Sergi’s. We finally said that we were sick of keeping this issue on back burner. I feel that we are moving in a wonderful direction as a student government.
We will now move into officer reports.
Tonight, we are going to run the meeting as a sort of participatory observation in order for the Senate to learn how things are run.
First up for Officer Reports is Matt Brender, our Vice President of Senate Affairs.
Officer Reports
Vice President of Senate Affairs Matt Brender:
Hi everyone. I would like everyone to take a look in their folders at the Committee Preference Sheet. We are reviewing the Constitution and reading about how things are run in the Senate Affairs committee. Other committees also have their respective descriptions.
Next I want to show you our web page (goes to This site was remade last year by two of our senators. Just type in Thelmo.com and it should go right to the web page. There should be the updated Constitution right on the Main Page. I want to show you your Rights and Responsibilities as Senators. I want to do this now because the Executive Board has the right, when the Senate is not in session, to act on its behalf. We made necessary changes.
In Section 1 of the Rights and Responsibilities of the Senate, everyone has right to vote for, against, or abstain from voting. To pass a bill through, we need more than 50 percent in most cases. For Constitutional revisions, we need a 2/3 vote of the Senate. Only people present have a say in the vote. If you are not here, it was tallied as a “no”. We decided to change this because it does not give enough credit to the persons presenting.
Take a look at the preference sheets. There are descriptions for every committee. I tried to give examples of a stereotypical person interested in joining each committee.
For example, for the Senate Affairs Committee, someone joining might be interested to make sure things run efficiently, and may question things like the dress code, and internal affairs.
Lastly, during my report next week I’m going to ask all of you to report, so if you could write this down, please go back and talk to your constituents. Find one thing that you want to present as a possible issue you want to change on this campus, to get used to the idea of standing in front of 40 plus people.
Also, I want to introduce Mike Tudoreanu, my Assistant Chair, who is going to explain Parliamentary Procedure.
Assistant Chair for Senate Affairs Mike Tudoreanu:
Hi, I’m going to talk about Parliamentary Procedure. In the Senate, most of our time is spent discussing and voting on motions.People may come in to request contingency, they may give a presentation, and after that there is a question period where Senators ask questions. This period should be used for clarification, and not for arguments.
After the question period, we ask if anyone wants to debate. You can raise your hand and when called upon, debate for say anything you would like. Also there is a “Speak to” to bring up various points that you see are important. Then we move into a“Debate Against” option.
We divide our debate time because we want to alternate with those in favor against those against it fairly. If we took random discussion, we may only get one side of the issue.
If there are no more arguments to make, then someone says “call”, an invitation for the Secretary to begin the roll call. Everyone can say “Yea”, “Nay”, or abstain. If you abstain you are not counted. That’s about it, once voting is finished we either approve or reject the motion.
Next, I’ll talk about definitions. A quorum means that you need 50 percent plus one to pass a motion through. A motion is a request someone makes. When you table, that generally means to postpone discussion or voting until the next meeting.At any point, you may raise a point of order or a point of clarification. This is in case if you think someone on the Executive Board isn’t following procedure. Also, a clarification is just asking a question.
President Jon Cardinal:
Don’t worry about making a mistake with the rules.We use Robert’s Rules, and we’re thinking about not using them.
Because our previous secretary went to study abroad, we appointed Liz Boyd. We will have two approvals for Liz, because we feel that the Secretary is an elected position, and as student representatives, we want to ask the Senate to approve.
Assistant Chair for Senate Affairs Mike Tudoreanu:
We vote twice on everything; once when the issue is presented to us, and twice to approve again. Anything to be passed needs to be voted upon twice.
President Jon Cardinal:
Thank you, Matt and Mike. Next up, I want to introduce our newly appointed Secretary, Liz Boyd.
Secretary Liz Boyd:
Hi everyone! I just want to first of all thank the Thelmo Executive Board for choosing me as your Secretary. For those of you who do not know who I am, I will let you know that I’ve been on Thelmo for the last four semesters, working as a Senator, Elections Chair, and Academic Affairs Chair for two semesters. I just want you to know that this position is in good hands.
Also, I would like to let everyone know to stand and state your name before you speak during the meetings. Also, please state your name loud and clear. I’m not always looking up to see who is speaking so if you could do this it would be greatly appreciated.
Finally, I would like to ask the Senate for their support in the approval of my position. Thank you.
President Jon Cardinal:
Thanks Liz. Next is Vice President of University Relations, Laura Rabinow.
Vice President of University Relations Laura Rabinow:
Hi! Welcome everyone. I’m excited to get started. I’m the Vice President of University Relations, and that entails communicating with faculty, staff, Thelmo storage, as well as doing Public Relations, which is new. This semester, I’m going to have a committee. I encourage you all to come out to hang out and work with members of the faculty, staff, and administration.
I am also looking for people with really creative ideas for the Public Relations committee.
I need an Assistant Chair because it’s a new committee, and to anyone would like to be that, please email me by Friday at noon. If you want to do this job,please come and see me after the meeting tonight and I’ll give you my email.
On a side note, I read a lot of your essays and I was struck by how passionate you all are, but I also wanted to remind you to speak and listen respectfully and disagree respectfully. Keep that in mind as we move through the semester.
President Jon Cardinal:
Thanks Laura. Next, SLUSAF Central Treasurer, Andy Long. Andy?
SLUSAF Central Treasurer Andy Long:
Good evening. For those who don't know me, my name is Andy Long, and I am serving as SLUSAF (that's Saint Lawrence University Student Activities Fund) Central Treasurer this year. SLUSAF is the big stack of money that gets allocated to all manner of organizations around campus. Making sure that this money is managed properly, accounted for, and distributed fairly is my job, as well as the job of my assistant or assistants (currently just assistant, singular—the incomparable Ashley Cutler, abroad right now due to the requirements of her major). This is also the sworn duty of the Budget and Finance Committee, of which I am chair.
Anyhow – SLUSAF.
The money that's not allocated to organizations is placed into what we call the Contingency Fund. If this year is going to be like any of the other years, you'll be getting very familiar with this process. This Contingency Fund money in turn stays in the hidden SLUSAF vault until some person or people—organization or otherwise, it can be anyone, even you—submits a request to me and Matt Brender. It then faces the rigorous examinations of the Budget and Finance Committee. Then it comes up before the Senate, you vote on it, and if you vote yes, then they come up again next week and you give it what we in the business call second approval and then finally they get their money. It's complicated by design; I'm sure you'll agree that if anyone who wanted money could get it with a minimum of fuss, we'd be bankrupt in a matter of seconds.
A few general announcements: Monday of next week, in the afternoon, will be a Treasurer Workshop for all treasurers of organizations which receive budgets from SLUSAF which will feature information for the new people about how to access their funds and what is and is not appropriate to do with their funds as well as some friendly reminders for the old timers.
Also, at the end of this meeting will be your chance to sign up for the Budget and Finance Committee. If you like numbers, or you like money, or you're a sophomore interested in becoming a SLUSAF Treasurer—probably the most important thing any person can be—please sign up. If for some strange reason you want to sign up for another committee, I suppose I'm willing to allow that.
President Jon Cardinal:
Alright, and last but not least for officer reports, we have Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees, Mike Wieneke.
Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees Mike Wieneke:
Welcome everyone, my name is Mike, and I am your Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees. I have two aspects to the work that I will do this semester.
First of all, I would like to lay out the role of Student Delegate. The Student Delegate is here to communicate and act as a liaison between students and the Trustees.
So far, I’ve attended two of the four meetings for my term.
My job requires me to relate to the Trustees and tell them what we want to see changed. I also chat with them and tell them what students are up to.
So far, President Jon Cardinal and I talked about the Java situation, Greek Life, and the Environmental Resolution.
I want to ask Matt to pull up the Thelmo Website for me.
So, go up to “Board of Trustees” on the website. Jason DeRosa, as you all know, did a lot of work in his time as Student Delegate.
On the left hand side of the page,(Jason put the site together, I want to edit and bring it up to date), there is information about the Trustees that you might find appealing. Please ask me any question if you cannot find in on this page.
I will be in the StudentCenter for most of my day everyday, so feel free to approach me with any ideas that you might have.
I’m looking forward to addressing the Comprehensive Fee and Student Financial Aid issues. For the past three years, the Board of Trustees voted to raise the Comprehensive Fee. Tuition is high, and its not easily affordable. We have upwards of 80 percent of the student body receiving some form of financial aid, but I want to see the Board of Trustees set a trend of not raising the costs of a private institution.
I’m starting a subcommittee of Student Life to research, address, and prepare a multifaceted report so that we can decide to not raise the comprehensive fee.
My goal is to get to the Trustees in October, and to continue communicating with them in the winter so they can understand where students come from on this issue.
The next part to my speech tonight is I get to go over the meeting procedures. First of all, please be on time to meetings. If you get here 5 minutes early, we’re here. We can get going, get the meeting rolling and get our stuff accomplished.
Also, in terms of attendance, make sure you sign in when you come in. The Sign-in sheet is right there on the Chair table by Chance, our Academic Affairs Chair.
Also, we start with approval of the minutes, and we actually just did that and approved the minutes from last semester.
During Officer Reports, actually you’re going through it right now. Every week, Executivemembers and Chairs will report about what has happened in the past week.
In Old Business, for Contingency Requests, people come for two approvals. If the person’s request is approved, they come back a second week. There is no formal vote for the second approval.President Jon Cardinal asks for abstentions or objections, and hits the gavel.
If you ever have abstentions or objections, please speak up.
If something goes through and you don’t know how constituents feel, go back to talk and come back the next week to discuss the request or issue being passed.
In order to pass a vote, we need 50 percent plus one Senators voting for it.
Next is Contingency Requests. This is where Andy does a great job shaving down Contingency Requests when they go before the budget committee.
Members’ time is at the end of the meeting. Anything you want to announce to the Senate: plays, games, Tea time, anything you feel is necessary, please announce.
During Adjournment,President Jon Cardinal will call the meeting to a close.
I’m looking forward to working withyou guys, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me, email up at the website, anything, seriously. Feel free to talk.
President Jon Cardinal:
Just to let you all know, Senate procedure will be clarified as we go through the semester.
So, after officers give their reports, we move into Chair Reports.
Academic Affairs Chair Chance Johnson:
During the last few semesters the Academic Affairs Committee has accomplished many goals, such as the grading scale change, and the changes in the course evaluations. I want to continue that trend by focusing on the following:
First, we want to determine what options are available to complete the .5 requirement and to educate the campus of these options
Secondly, to evaluate the effectiveness of the experimental surveys that the biology and history departments had recent batch of majors complete. I seek to improve these in an attempt to assist all advisors in guiding/mentoring their advisees.
Thirdly, to stress the seriousness of plagiarism and cheating, which are important academic issues.
Furthermore, I see this semester as a chance to be retrospective, to look back and review the past changes that Academic Affairs has been involved in. I believe that this is an important step in determining our future direction and our past effectiveness.
I encourage all senators who are able to work as a team member to join the Academic Affairs Committee. Past experience has shown me that a committee that is able to sit down and discuss all ideas and options before acting is a truly efficient committee. This is how I intend to run this committee. This Committee also requires motivated individuals who can think constructively on their own because we have a grand agenda and little time to accomplish it.