Student Assembly

MINUTES
Cornell University Student Assembly
February 24, 2011
4:45pm — 6:30pm
Willard Straight Hall, Memorial Room

I. Call to Order

V. Andrews called the meeting to order at pm

II. Roll Call

Representatives Present: S. Agard, V. Andrews, G. Block, A. Brokman, M. Finn, A. Gitlin, J. Kay, D. Kuhr, R. Mensah, A. Pruce, N. Raps, M. Scheff, U. Smith, A. Yozwiak

Representatives Unexcused Absent: A. Bajaj, C. Jenkins, T. Lenardo

Representatives Excused Absent: J. Rau

Representatives Excused � Absence: M. Danzer

Representatives Unexcused � Absence: R. Desai, C. Feng, M. Gulrajani, A. Nicoletti

III. Approval of Minutes

• February 10th, 2011

The approval of the minutes was postponed until next week.

• February 17th, 2011

The approval of the minutes was postponed until next week.

IV. Open Microphone — Ray Mensah

No one came forth to speak.

V. Announcements/Reports

• 1. Elections Update — Charlie Feng

Vote in elections from March 1–3.

VI. Unfinished Business

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

This was postponed until later in the meeting.

2. Resolution 54 — Amendment to the 2010 — 2011 Standing Rules

R. Mensah said that this changes the way to add items to business of the day. With the first draft of the rules that were passed, the power was given to the e-board to move items up to business of the day and that wasn’t meant to take power away from the SA as a whole, but to streamline the process. By the rules it’s technically not allowed to vote to move items to business of the day, this is to legitimize the practice that’s already been going on. D. Kuhr called to question. There was a seconded. They voted in the form of a voice vote. All in favor said yes. There we no no’s. The resolution was approved.

3. Resolution 55 — Making Student Housing Equitable

This resolution was postponed indefinitely by the sponsors.

VII. New Business

1. Resolution 57 — SUNY Student Assembly Legislative Agenda

R. Mensah was added as a co-sponsor. The resolution is self-explanatory. New York State has experienced some deep budget problems and cuts need to be made. Contract colleges have steep cuts. He and Danzer serve as reps and he asked that all constituent governments pass the agenda. This calls for state legislature to be mindful of how they make the cuts and restore funds ASAP. They are fortunate here in that the contract funding from the state is not the only revenue but other institutions SUNY schools where they’re taking a much more direct hit. This was tabled until next week.

2. Resolution 58 — Increasing Spring 2011 Elections Committee Budget

C. Feng motioned to move this to business of the day. It was seconded with no dissent. There was a lot of promoting for the election in terms of when packets were handed out, the debate, when voting starts. They’re working to partner with dining to hand out coupons or discounts on coffee once people register to vote. It’s all coming out in the budget, which is why it’s made as an additional request. D. Kuhr asked exactly how the 800 dollars will be spent. C. Feng said that it will be 800 dollars in coffee discounts, then dining is putting that out, too. It’s really having flexibility. People will get these after they have confirmation that they voted. A. Yozwiak asked if there is anything left in the budget from fall. C. Feng said that there’s around 500 dollars but if it were a five hundred dollar expense it could be automatically done going to Vince, so they figured they’d ask for a little more to clear it with the assembly. In order to make sure they have enough now and the meetings, it’ll be there. U. Smith suggested they open another tab with candidate profile. U. Smith called to question. It was seconded with no dissent. It passed by a vote of 15–0−0.

3. Resolution 59 — Formal changes to the SAFC Attendance Policy

This was postponed until later in the meeting.

4. Resolution 60 — Discovering the Necessity of Paper Syllabi

A. Brokman said that if we approve a message to be sent on our or our committee’s behalf and then forward to registrar and then registrar puts it on a list, it will go out. This message is about sustainability. For the AEM major itself, there are 57 courses and if you assume each course has 50 students it’s 2–5000 pieces of paper. S. Agard motioned to bring this to business of the day. There was a second with no dissent. S. Agard asked if he had talked to any professors about this. They have not yet. The main point is to get the students’ opinions. A. Brokman said that as of now, it’s the universal opinion of faculty, as a student.

D. Kuhr asked where the giftcard is to. It is a visa giftcard.

R. Mensah asked where the cash is coming from. They have 100 dollars in their budget.

U. Smith cautioned to think about students with disabilities who would prefer to have the copies. Don’t forget about other types of students. A. Brokman didn’t want to just put out these questions with just yes and no options; he is hoping that the comments section will breathe life into it. Also, this is just a recommendation. A. Yozwiak said that if you’re interested in knowing how many would look at it the first day and continue to refer to it online. Have you considered, if syllabi were only available online, would you be inclined to print it out. A. Brokman understands preference and hopefully it’ll be put in the comments. But he is more interested in if they could live without it.

R. Desai called to question. It was seconded. There was dissent. The motion was withdrawn. M. Scheff asked if it was necessary to use the full hundred. A. Brokman thinks more people will respond with 100 dollars incentive than 50. There was a call to question. It was seconded. By a vote of 14–0−1, the resolution passed.

M. Danzer made the announcement that yesterday, he met with the IFC and Panhellenic Councils to talk about the progress of the Greek/LGBTQ ad-hoc committee. He gave an update on the committee’s progress.

There was a recess until 5:25.

5. Presentation of R. 51

M. Danzer said that we need to try something. This is at least a way to say we’re engaging with this issue and we’re committing to do so in the future.

U. Smith thinks we can all agree that there are a lot of things about what the SA should be doing. Since we’ve added the seats to the assembly, think we should dedicate at least one seat to women’s issues. Still, we all should be looking at all these issues.

R. Mensah is against assigning seats to individuals based upon one sex. That’s especially in this case for women when you make up half of campus. They have women on the board. He thinks the SA this year has done a decent job dealing with women’s issues. He doesn’t think it’s going to lead to an improvement on how we deal with the issue. He’s not making the point to make light of things, but in terms of where do we stop, if we have a situation where we have individuals being attacked on campus, are we going to add an obesity seat? Think there are some issues we have to deal with as a whole. M. Danzer said that women’s issues have not been addressed adequately. The only thing we did was condemning violence against women. And how good of a job did that do? The second thing is, we don’t want to give this seat to a specific sex. He agreed. They are NOT doing that. This is not designated for female students, but women’s issues. There is no correlation between what you’re passionate about and what you are. He identifies as a straight male, but he can represent women’s issues and LGBT issues.

M. Gulrajani said that his one concern is that if we find the solution is ineffective, we can change the charter again and have it be an open at large seat. They will find it very hard to do that if the women’s issue seat is in the room at the time. M. Danzer said that if we decided it wasn’t useful and we flip it back, we’d replace it with something better. N. Raps explained why this resolution really needs to be passed. One thing structured differently than an obesity seat or environmental seat. Women’s issues is a chair position voted internally. Every year besides the year she ran, every time people giggled and said “hey Raps why don’t you take it?” Te women’s issues chair is not being addressed, and NEEDS to. If you look at our precedent it needs to be changed.

S. Agard said that when we pass this, can we have a newly elected rep fill in the seat next semester? V. Andrews said that they will not be able to officially fill the seat because they didn’t run on that platform. If they want to assume the responsibilities, they can, but it won’t be able to be fulfilled. S. Agard supports the resolution, but cautions against creating a position just to chair a committee. M. Danzer understands, but if we look at this holistically, it serves a huge number of positive purposes, one of which is chairing women’s issues committee, one of which is related to women’s issues that AREN’T JUST violence. May’ve been the last straw but isn’t the ONE reason for the resolution. Need someone to work with women’s resource center. A lot of positive and if one is of concern, the others should be seen as good reasons.

R. Desai said that there have been a couple people who said that this is designating a person who is the only person who cares about it. But that wasn’t the only person who did that. They needed someone who was taking time out of their day to push their initiative. It’s not saying that students on the assembly don’t care about their issues, but if someone has the time to focus on these issues, we need someone to represent that constituency so issues can be brought to the table. Shouldn’t think about in sense of putting burden on one person, or is this a constituency who deserves the attention. He says yes.

D. Kuhr noted that his female friends are all clamoring for this. They think that the fact that someone will be actively dealing with women’s issues is a GOOD thing. That’s a good enough reason for him to want to vote yes. Talk about reps doing things for their constituencies. How many college issues can the SA afford? Someone needs to think about what the women’s issues do. M. Danzer said that a couple of weeks ago, Vince was approached by a woman who wanted to discuss violence against women, but the idea that the person has to go to the president of the SA as opposed to someone who definitely cares. They could have someone in the future who doesn’t care, a person who doesn’t have time.

A. Pruce called to question. There was dissent so the motion was withdrawn.

J. Kay supports this. It is not even an issue of representation in numbers, not an issue that there are only two girls in the SA, but is an issue of people representing the constituency. Even if in the future there is a 50/50 split of girls and boys, this would benefit the assembly still.

A. Brokman inclined to vote for this, but there is one concern. Concern is that in his mind with no philosophical tilt. What harm would it be to change 3 at large seats to 2? There are a lot of candidates. Presently have 9 running. That election would essentially cease to exist. M. Danzer agreed with the idea that it’s an issue. But agrees it’s an issue and the issue is that pres/evp works toward the fallout of pres/evp. A. Brokman said that if you have a women’s issues seat, can get plenty of people to run for the seat hypothetically, but the immediate effect would be that it locks people out. M. Danzer said that if half the people are interested to run, the same thing would happen to them. V. Amdrews noted that there is a typo on the charter.

C. Feng had a couple of thoughts. Biggest challenge is that we as reps want to think we represent all students whether they be male/female/so forth. Two considerations are, are we covering women’s issues. If no, then implementation. Second is should we designate a seat in terms of asking the women’s resource center sending a liaison. If women represent fifty percent of our constituency. Why designated a seat? M. Danzer noted that non-voting liaisons aren’t here�women aren’t underrepresented on campus which is why he reframed it as women’s issues and not female. While women aren’t underrepresented, women’s issues ARE. Think that’s why it’s important to pass the seat. The Women’s Resource Center member present said that it is ludicrous to say the SA has adequately addressed women’s issues on campus. As far as the concern with quota, it is not that. They would be fine electing a man. As far as the WRC sending a rep, she doesn’t think that the women on board would go for that. They try not to be political. Don’t think it should come from us. Want it to be representative of women on campus.

A. Gitlin does support the resolution, but continuing, don’t you think that if there was a rep, she would be a lot more focused on women’s issues? Looking at the minority/international representatives, they don’t ONLY focus on minority or international issues, but if you’re looking for a very strong voice, might want to consider that. Think you’d have a stronger voice if it is directly from women’s resources. WRC is dedicated to that, but they do a phenomenal amount of programming. They don’t want to ask that of one of the members. You guys are elected into positions by the entire student body. This isn’t a general student body election. She sees a lot of problems arising. See as a time constraint.

A. Pruce knows that the WRC has feminist food for thought now. To have a WRC liaison is not a plausible option, but to have a women’s issues rep IS plausible. The WRC doesn’t want to be the only organization responsible for women’s issues. Think it should be an elected issue.

U. Smith said that to the point of liaisons is asking them also to have the WRC be the women’s issues committee because they’re the only ones functioning. They SHOULDN’T be the only one focusing on it. And didn’t mean to imply that we don’t do great things, but while there are great things coming out, we still have a lot of issues. Even with this seat, we’ll all still be addressing these issues. What’s the harm of having people there?

M. Scheff understands the concern of having a liaison from the WRC, but an interesting compromise would be making the women’s issues seat stronger to have a designated seat or chair of SA committee from the WRC. M. Danzer said that the women’s issues committee hasn’t met a single time this year. We need someone on the SA who can do that and vote. There was a call to question. It was seconded with no dissent. M. Danzer closed by saying that yes, compromised solutions to come up with, but at the end of the day 2 things matter. 1) Votes matter. To have someone who can vote and advocate for issues at every SA meeting is CRUCIAL to addressing issues in an institutional approach. 2) Granted, nothing we do generally is the PERFECT answer to all of our woes. May not be the silver bullet. If it is, is wonderful. If it isn’t, this’ll keep us engaged with the issue. If you think we’ve done a dandy job, you may want to vote against. You’ve heard and seen it; women’s issues are not addressed on campus. By a role call vote of 16–1−1, the resolution passes.

6. Resolution 59

There was a motion to move to business of the day. It was seconded with no dissent. They will be voting on this.

Kevin Song introduced himself as one of the co-chairs of SAFC, and the vice-chair of Internal Operations, Kristin Jenkins. Hopefully this is an easy one. This policy has been the policy for the past four years but due to a clerical error on the SA or office’s part, never made it into the charter. They found it effective and this is to change the policy in the charter to what they’re using today.

A. Pruce asked if this works retroactively. K. Jenkins said that the one we’re attempting to pass is what we’ve been using so nothing will change if it’s passed. Have been using the point system laid out her for the past semester at least. A. Nicoletti said this is closing a loophole, especially when trying to implement new SAFC guidelines.

R. Mensah said that his only concern with applying retroactively is that there are a few commissioners who would be in violation and off the commission. Also understand that those members when a vote came up to remove them, the vote failed. Thinks there’s something wrong with them being off now if they weren’t on Monday. K. Song thinks you’re referring to the three members voting on this past Monday. Moving forward to have this policy in place, if those members don’t accumulate any additional points, they will not be voted on again. If they do accumulate it, it’ll be going in. they can make up these points.

R. Desai had no reservations. One thing is that Kevin, Kristin, Adam, would hope we see more SAFC/SA collaboration and less infighting. Call to question. Second. Dissent. Withdrawn.

C. Feng said that the only other thing he’d say is in terms of the vote now, is that they had someone at 13 points, they’d be automatically off? Obviously voted on the system but didn’t follow it to the letter. What happens if someone accumulates another point if they’re above the eleven? K. Song said that with that member, he did find the loophole that it wasn’t officially in the charter, which is why it’s being brought up. Would still leave it up to a vote per this semester and then next semester would be 11 points would be off. Charlie made the motion to add “Be It Therefore Resolved that going forward on this semester, that anybody who has more than five points has five.” K. Song understands where you’re coming from, but that’s very unfair because those people did miss the meetings, hearings, office hours, etc. have the opportunity to fix that but not fair to bail them out.

A. Gitlin said that instead of reverting them to five, why not say they have a week to lower their point total below the thirteen. Or a certain amount of time to lower it. K. Song said that there should be opportunities. If you look at individuals, they are giving additional flexibility. Should the individual have not found the loophole he’d be off the commission, to give him so much additional leeway seems unfair. D. Kuhr said it is unfair to impose rules retroactively. Need to be bound by the charter. V. Andrews added that until a week ago, the ENTIRE commission, including commissioners assumed this was the policy. But when the co-chairs spoke to us, we realized it wasn’t in the charter. K. Song said this is not retroactive. Have been using it. Every commissioner on the commission knows it. Everyone but three have followed. Came up because one member was on exec board. Found additional loopholes and tried to find more flexibility for himself. Not fair to the rest of the commission.

R. Mensah said this was more of an internal document. Not fair to use the rule that isn’t in the document. Support this because it’s not fair to retroactively impose this.

M. Danzer trusts the SAFC to run their internal operations. Give them what they want.

R. Desai said the first thing is that, this came from a past co-chair, it’s not coming out of the blue. Second, the SAFC attendance structure isn’t like the SA, if you’re out of town, you can rack up a lot of points very quickly. There were certain people already voted on. He made an amendment to the amendment to change from 5 to 9. This way they’re not automatically disqualified but they won’t. It was found as friendly.

K. Song doesn’t think it makes a difference, but thinks nine is fine, but in terms of fairness, it’s a bit unfair but in the right direction.

M. Scheff said that if you make it nine, and then you enact rules, they’re off, there’s no vote. Did you say to these people, if you told them they got votes, they’d be off or auto-removal K. Song said automatically. But hope that the members who have gotten it want to be at SAFC so they come to the meeting. It takes a LOT to get to 13. Doesn’t think it’s fair. 9 is fine, allow them an opportunity to make it up. Any more is unfair. M. Scheff understands that and thinks we should give what you want.

There was a call to question. It was seconded. There was dissent. There was a vote to vote. The dissent was withdrawn. They voted on the amendment. “Be it therefore resolved that any members who have more than 9 points currently will have their point total reset to nine.” 14–4−0 passes. There was a call to question. It was seconded. There was a call for acclamation. There was a second and no dissent. The resolution passed.

VIII. Adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 6:28pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Brittany Rosen