Student Assembly

Minutes
Cornell University Student Assembly
February 3, 2011
4:45pm — 6:30pm
Willard Straight Hall, Memorial Room

I. Call to Order

V. Andrews called the meeting to order at 4:45pm

II. Roll Call

Members present: S. Agard, V. Andrews, A. Baja, G. Block, A. Brokman, M. Danzer, R. Desai, C. Feng, M. Finn, A. Gitlin, M. Gulrajani, C. Jenkins, J. Kay, D. Kuhr, R. Mensah, A. Nicoletti, A. Pruce, N. Raps, J. Rau, M. Scheff, U. Smith, A. Yozwiak

Members absent, unexcused: T. Lenardo

III. Approval of Minutes

December 3rd, 2010- The minutes were unanimously approved.

IV. Open Microphone — Ray Mensah

No one came forth.

V. Announcements/Reports

1. Updates from the Trustees

A. Craig said the Board of Trustees met on the weekend before classes started. The tuition increase was discussed and all increased tuition should be covered by financial aid if you are currently receiving aid. The state cutbacks will be felt. The alumni also met recently and are actively engaged. We are also looking to have some discussions on the further development for student housing in Collegetown.

A. Pruce said the Daily Sun published that the financial aid will change in the next few years to be more like Harvard and Princeton’s process. Can you elaborate?

A. Craig said it’s to match the other Ivy Plus standards and will be implemented in the next few years. N. Evensen said we will disperse more information about this as soon as it is available.

D. Kuhr asked how will the cuts be divided among the colleges?

N. Evensen said the state funding comes into a pool before getting distributed to the colleges, so the cuts will not be all pushed onto the state contracted colleges.

2. Election Update

C. Feng said the election packets are available at the office and the website. We are currently working on finalizing a blurb to send out to organizations and the ad in the Sun.

U. Smith said Resolution 43 should be taken off the agenda. He received a positive response from the assistant director for housing and he will meet with her to discuss the matter further.

A. Pruce said 34 mock trial teams were at Cornell for the Big Red Invitational.

D. Kuhr said the financial aid March on Washington is on March 1 and 2.

3. President Skorton and Vice President Murphy (5:00pm — 5:30pm)

D. Skorton said the security of the financial aid is the university’s first priority, especially after the recent news about the state funding cuts.

A. Nicoletti asked about the pressures on the contract colleges due to the state cuts.

D. Skorton said Cornell has a wide variety of revenue streams. The largest is tuition (25%), followed by state funding (10%), endowment (10%), research funding, etc. State funding has been up and down over the years, but contract colleges have dealt with it. If the cuts happen, we would be down 25–30% in total state support in the last 4 years. Colleges around the nation increase tuition to balance the budget, but Cornell has a downward trend regarding tuition increase over the years. Half of the students at Cornell receive financial aid, and the net cost for families below $75,000 for attending Cornell is lower than it was 10 years ago. D. Skorton promised to stay in touch with the student leaders about any relevant developments.

Melissa Lukasiewicz, a community member, asked about the treatment of workers at Cornell’s Qatar campus compared to the Ithaca campus.

D. Skorton said he has discussed this issue with COLA and will get back to the community.

U. Smith asked how do you make sure that with the financial cuts, we will not make cuts to the needs of the minority students and the student body in general?

D. Skorton said diversity is greatly valued at Cornell, and we will need to have open dialogue across the community to make sure everyone’s need is properly addressed.

S. Murphy said we have 7–10% reduction in staff while the student population is up, but we hope the cuts are mostly administrative. We all need to make sure we reduce redundancy, both in student groups and in administrative departments.

Zackary Murphy, a community member, asked about the administration’s vision for what Africana will be, especially in the Reimagining Cornell process.

D. Skorton said some things are not changing: there will be a physical place called Africana. Changes include the establishment of a doctoral program and increased faculty. We are committed to Africana.

G. Block said you asked us to bring a cost analysis for soap. Why is this important?

S. Murphy clarified that residential life does not make a profit and is currently understaffed. The living rate is going up but we are reducing expenditure to contribute to the university’s effort to balance the budget. Therefore before approving an increase in any area, I need to know the cost.

M. Danzer said last year we saw a lot of incidents involving violence around the country. With the pepper spray resolution shot down, how is the university helping the students protect themselves?

D. Skorton said we need to have open conversation and recognize expertise to solve the problem. S. Murphy added the whole community needs to have common standards of what is okay and needs to work together to stop violence before it escalates.

D. Skorton said he is willing to have more communications from the SA other than resolutions. It does not need to be a formal resolution or provide specific remedies.

VI. New Business

1. Resolution 53 — Communications Budget Change

N. Raps said we’ve been having problems with the social media outreach, so we are changing the website in a huge way. It will debut in 2 weeks and will be Cornell’s first social media network, where students can log on from facebook. Student organizations can chat and send messages. We need extra fund to get this website off the ground. It will be taken out of the special fund, but it needs to be approved by the SA.

A. Nicoletti said it will come from the surplus funding.

D. Kuhr moved this to Business of the Day. It was seconded.

There was a call to question. It was seconded. No dissent.

The resolution passed by a vote of 18–0−0.

VII. Unfinished Business

1. Resolution 37 —Addition of Environmental Impact Statements to By-Line Funding Process

A. Brokman said there are some amendments to the resolution, including a change to the name, insertion of the word “undergraduate,” changes in the sponsors, and deletion of the wording regarding penalty.

There was no dissent against the amendments, so they were approved.

A. Brokman explained the changes were to make the wording more friendly and get more student leaders involved.

V. Andrews asked if the penalty wording is not written down, how would the groups without the proper statement be penalized? A. Brokman said we can inform the groups that as a SA committee, we can bring those groups under SA review, which may result in loss of funding or recognition.

There was a call to question. It was seconded without dissent.

V. Andrews reminded the SA that since this is a charter change, it needs 2/3 majority (16 votes of yes) to be passed.

The resolution failed by a vote of 13–0−5.

2. Resolution 43— Requiring SA Review of Housing Information

This resolution was removed from the agenda.

3. Resolution 50— Proper Waste Management by SAF Funded Organizations

J. Rau introduced the resolution.

V. Andrews pointed out a typo in the 3rd “Be it further resolved” clause. “Form” was changed to “from.”

J. Rau said the beauty of this resolution is it leaves the decision up to the groups whether or not an event warrants composting and recycling.

There was a call to question. It was seconded with no dissent.

By a hand vote of 18–0−0, the resolution passed.

4. Resolution 51— Addressing Women’s Issues Through Internal Changes to the Student Assembly

M Danzer said there are 2 amendments: add some sponsors, change the wording to “women’s issues.”

V. Andrews clarified this is a charter change so it requires 16 votes of yes. Also, since the election cycle has already started, this change will not apply to this election cycle but the cycle next spring.

G. Block said should we ask this question next year, since the number of women on the SA changes a lot from year to year?

M. Danzer said the number of women on the SA doesn’t matter to this resolution. We need a specific representative designated to represent women’s issues.

A. Bajaj said we should all be representing women’s issues and shouldn’t push this on one person.

A. Gitlin said just because there is one specific representative for women’s issues doesn’t mean other people will not care or bring related issues forward.

M. Danzer added that by having someone constantly devoted to the issue, we will all be more aware of it and be more willing to contribute.

VIII. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 6:30pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Melissa Arguinzoni