Student Assembly

Minutes
Cornell University Student Assembly
March 4, 2010
4:45–6:30pm
Willard Straight Hall, Memorial Room

I. Call to Order

R. Salem called the meeting to order at 4:46 pm.

II. Roll Call

Voting Members Present: I. Akinpelu, V. Andrews, C. Basil, A. Brokman, A. Cowen, M. Danzer, M. Danzer, M. DeLucia, R. Desai, A. Gitlin, Z. Glasser, N. Junewicz, N. Kumar, R. Latella, J. Min, C. Moreno, A. Nicoletti, S. Purdy, N. Raps, J. Rau, A. Raveret, R. Salem, U. Smith, K. Welch.

Voting Members Unexcused Absent: H. Yang.

III. Open Microphone

Community member Ray Mensah said that he would like to launch a complaint against recent occurrences on campus due to last week’s snow. He felt that the university had put student safety at risk because many fire exits were not plowed until many days after the storm.

R. Salem thanked Mensah for bringing that to the attention of the assembly.

U. Smith said that this issue had been brought to residential student congress earlier this week and they are now drafting a resolution to prevent this from happening in the future.

IV. Announcements/Reports

a. Academic Honor Code- Chris Basil and Alex Cowen

C. Basil said that he is in the process of drafting an honor statement and he would appreciate the help of anyone who would like to contribute.

b. Student Judicial Council-Alex Cowen

A. Cowen said that there will be an organizational meeting for the Student Judicial Council in two weeks. This organization will hopefully be running by the end of the semester.

c. AAP Update- Ulysses Smith

U. Smith said that there will be an information session with the Dean next Monday in East Sibley from 6:00–7:00 pm. SA members are encouraged to attend. Also, a task force has been assigned to create a new class, AAP 1111, linking all of the AAP departments together.

V. Andrews asked if this was a student or administrative run task force.

U. Smith said that the task force is currently composed of students, but there is a curriculum committee that meets with the dean. There is also another committee of predominantly grad students, but they are working toward more undergraduate participation.

d. Update on Strategic Planning- Provost Kent Fuchs and Prof. Ed Lawler

K. Fuchs said that they wanted to accomplish two things during the meeting: 1) Making the assembly aware of a document that E. Lawler is writing with others students, faculty, and staff to set a direction for Cornell for the next five years. The current version of the document is online under the strategic planning link, but a new 76 page version will be online a week from Monday. 2) Receiving the assembly’s input on the strategic planning process.

E. Lawler said that there are four questions in their plan: 1) Who are we? 2) Where do we want to go? 3) How do we want to get there? 4) How do we know if we have arrived? In order to accomplish this, there is a strategic planning advisory council composed of faculty and four other working groups with faculty, staff, and students. The highlights of the plan are as follows: 1) To look at Cornell as a singular unit and thus create more opportunities to take courses across colleges. 2) To renew the faculty because half of the faculty is 55 or older. 3) To enhance the teaching culture across campus. 4) To emerge as a leader in research. 5) To continue and enhance our traditions of diversity and inclusion. 6) To make public engagement a distinguishing feature of a Cornell education. The long-term aspiration for Cornell is to become a top ten research university in the nation and world.

M. Danzer asked to what extent the strategic planning committee envisions Cornell as a singular unit.

K. Fuchs said that there has been a suggestion to pool all of the undergraduate tuition and reallocate it to the colleges. Also, the unification of Cornell will make it easier for students to double major in other colleges.

E. Lawler said he recommends enhancing shared educational experiences across colleges. Although no specifics concerning double majors are in the document, it does say there should be a review of the obstacles surrounding taking classes in other colleges.

J. Min said that many professors think it is difficult to be rewarded for service learning classes because there is a greater emphasis on publishing research papers. Will awards and recognitions be extended to service learning professors as well?

E. Lawler said that he thinks service learning and research is interconnected and that you cannot award one without the other.

K. Fuchs said even in service learning opportunities, professors try to make an impact on the community using their research, so students can benefit from this as well.

A. Brokman said he had two concerns: 1) If we are moving from 30,000 vendors down to 2000, how many local vendors will be wiped out? 2) The provost’s office is considering a tax on tuition. Will there be an elected advisory committee to say who receives the millions of dollars generated by the tax?

K. Fuchs said Cornell has a 70 million dollar deficit that will grow if they don’t act. Managing purchases can save a lot of money, but they don’t want to create a large bureaucracy or damage the local community by laying off local vendors. There have been meetings with the community about this matter. Local vendors will need to offer competitive prices if they want to continue serving us. As for the tax, the provost controls almost all of the budget and it is an autocratic process. Additionally, tuition taxes have always existed, but no one knew about it. Now they are making it public and all of this tax money goes back out to the school.

R. Rodewald asked how the committee would be able to determine our ranking as a top ten research university.

E. Lawler said that there is no way to measure this, but there are many ranking that come out yearly and they would generally like Cornell to be in the top ten when those come out. They will work to develop a set of indicators to assess where we stand against our competition.

K. Fuchs said that the reaccreditation effort led by Dean Hubbel focuses on improving educational objectives, learning outcomes, and teaching effectiveness. They are trying to launch a new era of being very goal-drive.

V. Andrews asked if they would include students on the strategic planning advisory councils.

K. Fuchs said that there were some students working with Lawler and Fuchs himself has created two provost advisory groups consisting of students.

A. Nicoletti asked how will they will reward good teachers and incentivize bad teachers to improve

E. Lawler said that the plan calls for an assessment of the departments to determine teaching effectiveness. They will look for model departments around campus to use as benchmarks for those that can improve. Thus, when salaries are decided, teaching quality will play a part in determining them.

K. Fuchs said that they would apply “peer pressure” to the faculty to encourage all professors to work to their fullest potential. For example, in the College of Engineering, Fuchs decided to make teaching evaluations public to motivate teachers.

e. Environment Committee Update- Adam Raveret

A. Raveret said that the committee is working on some initiatives including the lights out resolution, the first event of which is on Friday.

R. Salem asked when this event would occur.

A. Raveret said he was not exactly sure.

R. Salem said that when he finds out, he should send the time to the listserve so that S.A. members can help out.

f. Women’s Issues Committee Update- Natalie Raps

N. Raps said that from April 10–11 under the Balch arch, the committee will be handing out lollipops to advertise the blue light service. Escorts will also be there to talk to students.

g. Committee on Transfer Affairs Update- Chris Moreno

C. Moreno said that he is setting up a meeting with the Director of residential services concerning blocking on West Campus next year. They will be surveying living experiences of transfers on campus to prove that living in Schuyler House has a negative effect on the assimilation of transfer students into Cornell.

h. JAMIC Update- Nikhil Kumar and Darin Jones

N. Kumar said they held their first meeting on Monday. They are meeting with Dean Hubble on Friday. There are many student concerns about commitment to diversity on campus, so they will continue to discuss these issues. They would also like to have more transparency with the housing process, but they are not sure if they will be able to receive all of the information concerning how many rooms will be available for sophomores, juniors, and seniors, respectively.

V. Business of the Day

a. R. 59- SAFC Appeals�Chris Basil

R. Salem asked Basil to explain how groups that the SAFC decided not to fund can appeal for special project funding

C. Basil said that groups may only appeal if they did not turn in their information on time or were missing some things.

A. Brokman asked what the difference is between the standard for granting appeals used by the SA and the standard used by the SAFC.

C. Basil said that the SAFC’s rules don’t always apply to the situation, but there are no rules regarding what the SA can or cannot do regarding funding.

A. Baretz said that his organization, Dilmun Hill, missed their deadline to turn in packet materials by one day due to confusion. One of his group’s members had read the SAFC website incorrectly because it was ambiguous. The SAFC denied their funding because they allegedly sent Dilmun Hill an email with the deadlines. However, they could find no such email in their inbox and the website had been down as well. Thus, the SA should remedy this unjust outcome by giving them the 1000 dollars they deserve.

C. Feng said that all of the information was on the website. Several other organizations reported that the website was down but they contacted the office and they got their materials in. Additionally, emails had been sent out to club leadership.

A. Baretz said that they contacted the office, and their president had been in India without Internet access, so there was an unequal expectation for their club compared with other clubs.

J. Min said the he sympathizes with Baretz, but the SA should try to be objective regarding appeals. If the website was so ambiguous, why did other groups not have problems?

A. Baretz said his group wasn’t confused about the date; they just thought the date was on Thursday, not Tuesday. There was no confusion, just a misreading of the website.

A. Nicoletti asked how many times the date had been listed on documents available to the public.

C. Feng said that they send emails to club presidents.

A. Nicoletti asked if group members can receive emails if they are not the president.

C. Feng said that these members can check the office calendar or attend information sessions.

A. Nicoletti asked Baretz if he attended an information session.

A. Baretz said that he had. Additionally, they could not find an email. His group’s members went to both information sessions and they were sure that the date was Thursday. It was an honest mistake.

K. Welch asked what Baretz meant by an unequal expectation.

A. Baretz said that the fact that other organizations received emails and his did not makes the others more likely to succeed.

SA moved on to discussing COLA’s appeal.

J. Ertl said that his group, COLA, was missing documentation, so they missed the deadline. They had printed and filled out everything and had two people in the office look at their packet. However, when he went to the budget hearing, he was informed that they did not have sufficient documentation. The SA should make campus a better place and if COLA’s appeal is rejected, it will be detrimental to students in ILR and labor activist students won’t be able to be active on campus. Please take this into consideration.

C. Feng agreed that COLA is great for the university, but the way the SAFC approaches every organization is equal and as long as they follow the guidelines, the SAFC is happy to fund them.

U. Smith asked if the SAFC sends out emails if organizations are missing anything, or if it is a “you have it or you don’t” situation.

D. Gusz said the SAFC runs help sessions, but there is no time to look through everyone’s paperwork to see if they have everything or not.

J. Ertl asked if the SA wants to be an advocate for students on campus or not.

R. Desai asked if COLA got the original online application in on time. If so, they could apply for special projects funding.

D. Gusz corrected Desai and said that this was not correct.

R. Desai retracted his statement.

N. Raps said the SA should be subjective. She understands the function of COLA and thinks it is important. What would this campus miss out on if COLA doesn’t receive funding?

J. Ertl said someone wants to premiere a documentary on campus and they will not be able to afford this if they don’t receive funding.

N. Raps said that denying COLA funding could hurt us as a campus. She motioned an amendment to fund COLA.

Amendment seconded, with dissent.

V. Andrews said that many groups missed their deadline and could not receive funding. Therefore, if they decide to fund COLA now, they should also fund Dilmun Hill.

There was a call to question. Seconded with dissent. By a vote of 16–1−1, the SA decided to vote on the amendment.

F. Eden said that organizations like his, COLA, can exist without funding, but they are largely ineffective that way. He understands that they made a mistake, but funding is about something bigger than that. Don’t be so objective.

By a vote of10–7−2, the amendment passes.

J. Feldman asked if the SAFC system is so rigid, why isn’t more being done to ensure that the proper decision is being made initially. His group, OneCornell received funding for a camera case, tripod, and microphone, but he wondered why he had not been funded for a camera.

D. Gusz said that this would not be fair to those who actually turned in their funding.

N. Kumar said that a camera is a reasonable demand, since they have already received the case and tripod.

A. Epstein told the SA to keep in mind that SAFC students work hard to try to apply their rules fairly and thoughtfully to 350 organizations. It isn’t fair to these students and to the office to say that the rules don’t matter here. He is concerned about the precedent that this sets.

R. Salem asked if they should change the wording of the resolution to make it make more sense.

M. Danzer said he respects SAFC students, but it is a one deal shot for student organizations who want to enrich Cornell life but are missing some documentation. The job of the SA should be to ask if the group was purposefully negligent in their actions.

Motion to table the resolution to next week.

b. R. 49 Announcement- Vincent Andrews

V. Andrews said that he is trying to schedule a meeting Friday or Sunday to resolve an issue in the resolution before spring break. The committee is expected to settle the issue within three meetings and SA members should send him an email if they wish to be included in this task force.

VI. Unfinished Business

a. R. 54- Removing the Charter Test for SA Members�Alex Cowen and Nikhil Kumar

A. Cowen said that he and Kumar presented on this resolution last week.

R. Salem asked that Cowen summarize the resolution again.

A. Cowen said that under current policy, all SA members must score a 75 percent on a test in order to vote. He thinks that SA members should be able to vote as soon as they are sworn in, with no test necessary.

Discussion of this resolution was put on hold for the presentation by K. Fuchs and E. Lawler.

VII. New Business

a. R. 57- Resolution in Support of a Korean Studies Program and the Korean Language Program�Justin Min and Sung-Hag Ahn ‘10

S. Ahn said that there isn’t much support for Korean studies on campus, as there are no clubs and few classes, although there are almost 2000 Korean students at Cornell. Other colleges of our size offer more for Koreans. However, since 2008, there have been no tenured faculty teaching on Korea and the number of Korean classes decreases yearly. In Korean classes, the enrollment rates have increased, but the number of courses has been decreasing. Koreans are becoming the largest minority on campus.

Professor J. Whitman said that he helped initiate a Korean language program in 1990. However, it has been a blow to Cornell to lose Korean-specific faculty. Cornell lags in the field of Korean studies considering how many people we have with Korean backgrounds.

U. Smith asked why the former Korean faculty members left.

J. Whitman said that they didn’t receive tenure. One professor was from Asian Studies, and the other was from Government. The Government Department doesn’t want to replace this position, but Asian Studies wants to bring in a post-doctoral fellow to teach two courses next year.

S. Ahn said that compared with many other universities, we are seriously lagging and this is unacceptable.

Salem thanked the speakers for attending. The SA will be voting on this resolution next week.

VIII. Meeting Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 6:43 pm.