Student Assembly

Dear President Skorton,

I would like to formally communicate to you SA resolutions 67 and 69. The resolutions are briefly summarized below.

R.67: Qualifications for College Specific Representatives - This internal policy resolution is a change to our Charter and requires your approval. The proposed change would require that students who are elected to a specific college seat remain registered in that school or college in order to occupy that seat on the SA. This comes as a result of receiving a number of complaints from college constituents about representatives who have switched out of their respective colleges and have no longer been serving the needs of those constituent groups. The SA expressed that we wanted to ensure that all representatives were accountable to the constituencies that elected them, and that we had a mechanism in place in our Charter to enforce that value.

R.69: Transitioning to an Opt-Out Emergency Mass Notification System - This Sense-of-the-Body resolution comes as a result of both presentations and open conversations with CUPD and IT about emergency notifications here at Cornell. Many members expressed that the current opt-in emergency notification system has only 28% of students enrolled. This means that the vast majority of students do not receive notifications when the operating status of the university changes, and would not receive notification if, God forbid, there was a shooting or another immediate crisis on campus. The sponsors, with the support of CUPD, are requesting that Cornell change its emergency mass notification system to an opt-out system. This means that all students (undergraduate and graduate) would be automatically enrolled in the system, and have the option to opt-out. Understanding that IT is currently undertaking a number of large projects, the SA is not requesting that this be immediate. The SA agreed that we would do what we could to advertise this notification service and try to get more students to enroll in the interim.

Both resolutions are attached for your reference.

Regards,

Ulysses