Student Assembly Appropriations Committee

SA Appropriations Meeting Minutes, February 10, 2009

Present

Vincent Andrews-SA Member, Emily Cusick- SA Member, Matt Danser- Appointed , Zach Semin- Put here, Tony Miller — VP President for Internal Operations — SA Zach Losh, Chris Basil — EVP of the S.A., Nukhail — SA Member, Mike Heinz — SA Member CJ Slicklen — Former President, Greg Mezey, Chair

Zimride:

� Usage of special project funds that need to be decided on. The recommendation is made by the committee � Vice President Miller provided some Zimride statistics as an online carried application. Basically, the transportation department has a system. John Zimmer, Cornell Alum, is permitting the university to use the system for free. It is integrated into uPortal: o $9500 / per year o $3750/ semester, for Facebook Application � Service links up technology so people can meet up. Very similar to a ride board. � Vice President Miller has a car. � Environmentally friendly because it is carpooling and is an initiative that the university has been working on. o Cornell rides post: 2943. Avg. Distance of 216 Miles. 638,000 total miles. � Can be found on Facebook through the carpool application. Dartmouth and Penn both use the service. SAS pay the full cost for the full service at Penn. Dartmouth splits the cost with the Student Government. � Is there a way to share it with other schools such as Ithaca College and Syracuse? Miller said that other people from other networks could contact one another because of the Facebook application. � No costs associated with Facebook, but if we don’t pay, then we may not be able to have access for it. � Funding would come directly from the Student Assembly. � Questions proposed by the group to ask him during the phone call: o Will he let us try the full system and then budget the money? o Is it possible to link the Ithaca College and Syracuse networks? o Would he let us use the whole system at half price? o What exactly are we paying for, especially since we can register for free? � How much would it cost to do something like this if we were to do it ourselves? � Will trends dictate usage? Publicized? � We’re paying this amount of money so that is can be customized to Cornell.

Vincent Andrews (pros and cons to the Zimride) 

� If we use the system for free, why are we going to just use the money to have a link to the site?

Get the full version at a reduced price, and hopefully it can be paid for entirely in the future. 

How do we know how many faculty members will use it.  Has a lot of potential for the future.  

Will senior administration cover the cost of an application?  If we can try it out for a full year. 

� Conversation with John: o Cost for two separate systems. Facebook system and the full system. $790/ month, so $9500 per year & $9827; Facebook: $375, so $4500 per year � What are the advantages of having everything? o Full system gets both o Anyone that does not have Facebook can use the whole program. o Also can be viewed in real time through the uPortal.

President Lavin joined the meeting 

� He spoke about the Student Assembly being able to pay for the Facebook portion. If we are able to use the full system, then there is more to be done in the future.

Greg asked for a contract to be prepared with Cornell language. 

Greg stressed the need for a marketing campaign to be brought to the full assembly.  

� Blitzing list serves � Potential Cornell Sun advertisements

There was a motion to vote. Per year, this means approximately $2250 over the next several years. � The motion pass 10–0. Chairman Mezey voted.