Student Assembly

MINUTES
Cornell University Student Assembly
April 19, 2007
4:45- 6:30 P.M.
Art Gallery, Willard Straight Hall

I. Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 4:46 p.m.

II. Roll Call

Present: Mazdak Asgary, Chris Basil, Sarah Boxer, Daniel Budish, Mark Coombs, Shivaun Deena, Kate Duch, Maddie Ehrlich, Danielle Fernandes, Adam Gay, Roger Gousse, Elan Greenberg, Vince Hartman, Ryan Lavin, Grace Leonard, Remy Roizen, Ahmed Salem, Rammy Salem, Calvin Selth, CJ Slicklen, Kwame Thomison, Gene Weinstein

Unexcused: David Crockett, Jos� Gonzales, Neal Nisargand, Sarah Santana

III. Open Microphone

M. Coombs asked if any members of the community wished to speak.

No one came forward.

IV. Approval of the Minutes

There were no corrections to the 4/12/2007 minutes. There was a call for acclimation. It was seconded. There was no dissent. The minutes from the 4/12/2007 SA meeting were approved.

V. Announcements/Reports

End-of-Year Report Reminder — C. Slicklen

C. Slicklen asked that anyone he had asked to write an article for the end-of-year report please get it in to him by Monday, April 23. He said that it would be very helpful in putting the final report together.

Student Involvement in Crisis & Emergency Mgmt. — C. Slicklen

C. Slicklen said that he and M. Asgary had brought a resolution regarding crisis and emergency management before the SA a couple of weeks ago. Although the resolution failed, he said that it was important to discuss the issue in light of the Virginia Tech tragedy. He said that he and K. Thomison spoke to VP Murphy about a service in which the university would, in emergency situations, send out a mass text message to students who provide their phone numbers. He said that the Chronicle of Higher Education had published an article about such a service and that VP Murphy believes that it a good idea. She is going to put C. Slicklen and K. Thomison in touch with Steven Golding about further communication efforts. He and K. Thomison will then report back to the SA and work to potentially establish a committee that will act as an advisory group for the effort to improve communication in crisis and emergency situations.

Renewable Energy Update — C. Selth

C. Selth said that he and N. Nisargand met with individuals from Kyoto Now! and VP Golding. They concluded that there are no longer any undergraduate options for enacting the fee and would like to create a fee outside of the student activity fee. C. Selth said that he and representatives from Kyoto Now! believe that the general sentiment is that students support a renewable energy fund and it would be best not to subject such a fund to the politics of the SA every byline funding cycle. He, representatives from Kyoto Now! and VP Golding reached a compromise agreeing to implement the fee in a new bursar system beginning in the fall of 2008.

VI. Business of the Day

K. Thomison said that the President of the Korean Students Association had contacted him about doing something in response to the Virginia Tech shooting. He said that he knew that the administration had a couple of programs that it had been thinking about doing. There was vigil April 19 in Sage Chapel. There will also be stations set up shortly where Cornell students can sign cards that will be sent to Virginia Tech students. He said that they would like to have a discussion about mental health at Cornell next week. He asked that representatives think about how to respond to, reflect on and learn from the tragedy.

E. Greenberg said that he feels as if a lot of students have been indifferent to the shooting. He said that he was surprised that more students did not appear to be affected and was curious to know if other representatives experienced a similar feeling.

R. Roizen said that the vigil that occurred was scheduled in the middle of the day when many students are in class. She feels that there has not been enough of a campus wide sentiment which seems bizarre. She said that she has not heard anyone really talking about the shooting and it has not been discussed in any of her classes. She pointed out that the university has only communicated with students about the tragedy through e-mail.

C. Selth said that the situation is to a degree similar to Cornell’s stabbing incident and the snow day in that the university was unsure of how to communicate with students. He said that he appreciates the text message system. He had hoped that the university would have conducted a vigil or some event at a time when more students could attend.

K. Thomison said that he approached Reverend Kenneth Clarke and VP Murphy about conducting a vigil in the evening but they had said that President Skorton was already planning a vigil for during the day. He asked if any of the representatives had attended.

No one was able to attend the vigil because of the timing.

S. Deena said that she walked by the vigil on the way to a class and the attendance looked extremely low. She added that barely anyone knew about the vigil to begin with.

K. Thomison said that students should have been aware of the vigil because two e-mails were sent out. He recognized that the university could have however done more to notify students that service was taking place.

C. Basil said that responding to the situation can be more difficult because Cornell is geographically and psychologically removed from the events occurring at Virginia Tech. He said that he spoke with his friends from home where students had played the shooters school in high school athletics. Cornell is lacking in the concrete physical and social connections that other areas of the country closer to Virginia have. The situation although tragic is not a pressing influence for the residents of Ithaca or the Cornell Community.

M. Ehrlich said that she believes that more could be done. She said that seeing how much students are discussing the tragedy or counting how many people attended the vigil are not an appropriate measure of the shootings’ affect on students. People are affected in different ways and deal with events such as the one that occurred at Virginia Tech in different ways.

R. Roizen agrees with M. Ehrlich but feels that it is disconcerting that it sometimes feels as if people do not even realize the shooting occurred. Although she recognized that an e-mail may be the only way for the administration to get in touch with the entire student body, she felt that it is important for students to feel as if they can express themselves.

K. Thomison said that in a survey conducted in 2004, more than 50% of Cornell Students expressed that they have at some point in their time at Cornell felt too depressed to function. The result is consistent with the national average. Although Cornell may appear to be geographically and psychologically removed from Virginia Tech, depression and stress is an issue at every college across the country.

Mitch Fagen expressed his concern regarding the reaction of the Virginia Tech administration. He described how there were two waves of attacks with the majority of individuals being killed hours after the first shooting. He said that this made him wonder how the Cornell Administration would respond to such an occurrence and asked if the university had a policy in place. He said it would be good for the SA to check and make sure that there is a policy in place. If representatives find that there is not, he encouraged them to urge the administration to develop one. From reports, he said that he heard that the police at Virginia Tech believed that the first shooting of a student and RA was a lover’s quarrel. For this reason the police and administration did not believe that the university needed to be shut down. He said that it seems that in the case of a shooting the university should be shut down and people should be kept off the main campus.

K. Thomison said that there was a shooting incident earlier in the year at Virginia Tech when an escaped convict shot a police officer. The administration responded to this incident by canceling all classes and closing the university. He said that it interesting that the university chose to handle the situation differently in the recent shooting.

K. Duch said that two of her professors held moments of silence during their classes. She noted that not all professors have ignored discussing the issue.

C. Basil agrees that Cornell and Virginia Tech have similar environments and may not be that psychologically removed from each other. Cornell students are highly competitive, motivated individuals and the learning environment is very stressful. There is the potential for an event like the one that occurred at Virginia Tech to happen in any similar environment.

D. Budish that students and educators in one of his classes had a thirty minute discussion about the Virginia Tech shooting. He believes that all students and professors are aware of the issue and are taking it seriously. He said that he aggress with M. Fagen in that the university should have some policy in place to react to and communicate regarding emergency situations. He also said that Cornell needs to evaluate its police force. There is a small proportion of police officers to students. Although he does not believe that there should be police officers walking around campus with guns, the force needs to be equipped to handle emergency situations.

M. Asgary said that he attended a meeting last night with other RAs. The system in place for the evacuation of residence halls was discussed. The university does have a public plan for dealing with emergencies but it is not specific. The plan calls for the administration to look at individual situations and decide a course of action based on the details.

G. Weinstein said that Residence Hall Association would like to become more active members of the committee and have been recently working towards doing so.

S. Boxer said that it sounds like the actions taken by the Virginia Tech administration and what they have been criticized for is very similar to the mechanisms Cornell has in place. Virginia Tech sent out an ambiguous e-mail after the first shooting indicating that the administration would be handling the situation and that students could choose to attend class. If a shooting were to occur on North Campus it seems that Cornell would handle the situation very similarly from what M. Asgary said. She believes that Cornell’s current plan needs to be improved.

C. Selth said that theoretically anyone could enter an open building on campus and start shooting people. He believes that it is impossible for the police to be all places at all times and thinks that the Cornell Community should really focus on togetherness and a preventative approach.

S. Deena asked what the roles of Gannett and the CAPS Service has been in helping students to deal with the crisis.

K. Thomison said that e-mails have been sent out making students aware that counseling services are available. To his knowledge Gannett has not reached out to anyone because it is difficult to determine who to reach out to. There has not been a real reaction but the services available have been reiterated.

M. Asgary said that all students from the Virginia Tech area were sent an e-mail from the CAPS service. The Lets Talk sessions administered by the CAPS program have been increased in frequency and are being held everyday on campus.

M. Fagen said that he was not suggesting that the campus be flooded with police officers. He hoped that the university would at least have a plan in place to cancel classes in the event to an emergency similar to the shooting at Virginia Tech. He really hopes that the university has a plan to keep students off of central campus if need be.

M. Asgary stressed the importance of a preventative approach. Since it is impossible to plan for every possible emergency situation, he urged all to notice and reach out to people who appear to be having problems.

S. Boxer made an announcement on behalf of one of the student representatives from the Master Plan Committee. There will be meetings on April 21 and April 25 to discuss the thirty year plan that the university is working to implement. Feedback is wanted and all SA representatives will be invited to these meetings. She said that the meetings would be a good time to express concerns regarding university security.

VII. Unfinished Business

R. 41 Resolution Regarding ‘06-‘08 Byline Funding Deadlines — S. Boxer and A. Gay

S. Boxer said that she and A. Gay presented the R. 41 at the previous meeting. She said that none of the representatives expressed concern about passing the resolution last week, that the Office of Assemblies was fine with pushing back the budget due date and that byline funding groups would really appreciate the passage of the resolution. The resolution moves the official deadline form April 25 to May 25 and strikes the clause from the charter that requires the current year’s Appropriations Committee to look over the budgets. This duty is more appropriate for the incoming Appropriations Committee.

There was a call to question. It was seconded. There was no dissent. The resolution passed unanimously.

VIII. New Business

There was no new business.

IX. Adjournment

There was a motion to adjourn. It was seconded. There was no dissent. The meeting was adjourned.