4:30 � 6:00 p.m.
Clark Hall Room 701

I. Call To Order

The meeting was called to order at 4:42 p.m.

II. Roll Call

Present: Tammy Bishop, Sean Boutin, Richard Depue, Pamela Dusseau, Jon Feldman, Henry Granison, Opal Hammer, Kenneth Hover, Leon Lawrence, Jack Liou, Ellis Loew, Rodney Orme, Janet Vertesi, Laura Wang, Randy Wayne

Excused: Jim McCrindle

Absent: Robert Kay, Douglas Kysar, Julie Singer, Christine Tschiderer

III. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

J. Feldman said that he wanted to open discussions on the opening of course evaluations.

IV. Approval of Minutes

There was a request to get the minutes ahead of time.

There was a question to someone�s name that was in the minutes but not present at the meeting.

There was a motion to table the acceptance of the minutes, until clarification of the identification of the person as P. Dusseau. The motion passed.

V. Internal Reports

Executive Committee: J. Vertesi spoke about the revision of the charter and wanted to know how the charter had worked for other members, what wasn�t working with the charter and what wasn�t working before they drafted the document. They are working on putting up an event with the new president. One of the things talked about at the Leadership Breakfast keeping members engaged, and they are looking for possible ways of doing this across board and ideas to approach the issue.

Campus Safety: T. Bishop said that at the last meeting they talked about protocol for sending out the crime alerts and that the Public Safety Advisory Committee includes the people who worked on protocols and procedure. She also said that she got a call to be the liaison between campus safety, UA, and the task force. She said that their next meeting is May 1st and that historically they�ve only met twice a semester but due to recent events they want to meet more.

L. Lawrence wanted to know if they did anything productive.

J. Feldman responded that if they didn�t meet at least once a month, nothing productive would result.

L. Lawrence asked if UA have authority over the committee.

T. Bishop said that the committee does not report to any assembly but is just a committee that the university must have.

O. Hammer said they drafted a letter and it was submitted to the Sun, and it was submitted two weeks before.

T. Bishop added that it was what Laura Wang talked about.

L. Wang believed that there were many who had something to say but wouldn�t speak out on it in any other setting and agreed with P. Dusseau that they did deserve a quick response.

L. Lawrence asked if there was a way other than email.

P. Dusseau said that he would advise partnering with someone in Gannett.

L. Lawrence asked if is there was a possibility people can talk to her by means other than email. He said that he didn�t know she was the victim advocate, this should be more publicly advocated.

The person said that Gannet had a great site and had really been forthcoming in making sure the community was served

R. Wayne responded to put it in the UA mailbox

T. Bishop said that it was a special one that Laura and Jim set.

L. Lawrence said that it all sounded good but if it no one was aware of the resources what was the point.

R. Wayne said that the people who read the sun could respond.

Transportation and Task Force: J. Feldman said that TAC had been working on TGEIS and on how to get a more sustainable transportation committee at Cornell, GPSA made three recommendations all of which was included, the SA had talked about it but not really voted on. He also said that as of yesterday it was approved and it was sent to SRI. And that it was set to go out mid-April. They would be a sampling of undergraduates, graduates and faculty. At the next TAC meeting there will be TCAT rep, to address various questions, so if anyone wants to come please attend.

Liaisons � J. Liou reported that he had gotten information from Z. Wang and had met with the Gannet associate director. He said that the had his first meeting today and that it was mandatory to have student health insurance as an undergraduate which was roughly 12,000 dollars. He said that it went out for bid every few years and that there were three bids. Sometime next week, there would be a presentation from the Blue Cross Blue Shield and that the following Wednesday they would decide what bid they wanted to go with.

L. Lawrence asked how Cornell student insurance compared with other schools.

J. Liou responded that the amount that they pay were actually about the average but that other schools i.e. Upenn, Penn State had an option to choose health insurance or not. And that overall most students paid about 2,000 a year.

E. Loew said that schools with medical school on campus were different than campuses without medical students. Because if a medical school was on campus, students had on campus care.

Discussion continued.

VI. Constituent Assembly Minutes

EA, GPSA, SA, Faculty Senate� L. Lawrence said that unfortunately they had to cancel elections since not enough people ran and at the next meeting will brainstorm how to get more staff involved.

GPSA representative said that the GPSA had an active meeting and that one thing that was concerning them was the designated supplier program. A resolution was passed about off campus housing and requesting the foundation of off campus housing and that two resolutions were coming around.

J. Vertesi asked if there were no off campus housing or no campus advisory.

J. Feldman said it was currently at RPU which and that there was no full time person working there and that there was a talk about reviving student work. He also said that ideally they wanted to put it in collegetown but a lot of factors wouldn�t let that happen.

Discussion continued.

P. Dusseau wondered if anyone had seen a copy of the task report.

J. Feldman said that he had a meeting with Hubble and talked about the fact that the off campus housing puts out a pretty dense packet with housing information and seeing that information condensed into a more streamline packet.

L. Lawrence asked if they had the information on line.

J. Feldman responded that at the last meeting they said the information wasn�t very good.

J. Vertesi moved that they consider the resolution. It was seconded.

Mike Walsh moved to vote. Pam Dusseau seconded.

The resolution was passed without dissent.

L. Lawrence suggested adding a date on the resolution.

Discussion continued.

VI. New Business

Revision of CJC codes- K. Rourke said that changes that were made administered a need of additional members. She said that they used to interview people and that whether they were on the review or hearing board pool they come from the same pool. And that they were unnecessary complications and that they were trying to condense since the pool was increasing and it was becoming hard to distinguish between the hearing board pool and the review pool.

P. Dusseau asked if she could explain why there was an increase in numbers.

K. Rourke said that had a larger pool since there was so much judicial hearings coming up. She explained that having a larger pool meant more interviewing, which would take more time. She also said that she felt it was important for people to be on the board for a hearing to happen.

J. Vertesi asked for clarification on the relationship between the review board and the hearing board.

K, Rourke said that the way the judicial process works is that if the individual is not happy with the hearing they could go to the review board. But since there were a lot of problems with language, it was hard to follow. And as a result, they are trying to combine the pool into one so that they would no longer need to explain what�s happening on the review board since it would just be one board.

L. Lawrence asked for a point of clarification that in the first paragraph when she talked about fifteen non faculty members if she was talking about staff

K. Rourke replied yes she was.

L. Lawrence asked if it was possible to put staff.

K. Rourke said that she had no objection to that

Discussion continued.

K. Rourke replied that the reason for the language was it was representing a constituency and that it didn�t matter how they were worded as long as the however u want to word it as long as the constituency was represented.

J. Vertesi asked if graduate students were included in the definition of students.

K. Rourke answered that was a question for the JA

O. Hammer said that non-academic staff was probably the best way to word if and asked if someone wanted to move to change this.

J. Vertesi asked if they needed to pass this, or if they needed to make recommendations.

P. Dusseau made a motion to accept the amendment proposed with the adjustment from non-faculty members to non-academic staff throughout document.

It was seconded.

O. Hammer asked if anyone was interested in accommodating for the graduate students.

J. Vertesi said that they could talk about the graduate student representation.

K. Rourke said that they would have to look at entire code to see how student was used

Discussion continued.

T. Bishop said that historically assemblies would make sure there were an equal representation of grads and undergrads

J. Vertesi asked if it was usually half.

T. Bishop replied yes.

K. Rourke asked if they were talking about pool or review board

P. Dusseau asked if waiting to table the motion would impede the CJC chair in anyway.

K. Rourke replied that it would because then the number would remain at forty-three as opposed to forty-five.

O. Hammer said that they could pass it as is and run the recommendation later.

K. Rourke said that her recommendation would be not to put limits on the pool, but to put limits on the majority of constituency that match the individual coming before the board.

T. Bishop said that for the past two years the number people wanting to serve on the hearing board had decreased.

J. Vertesi said that�s why she would like to see some recommendations and that at least five should be grads and five should be undergrads. And that since they we�re in the process of having massive turnovers in the office of assemblies, it was important that there were provisions to say how things are traditionally done.

K. Rourke responded that she could take back the recommendation that there is something that says there are adequate undergrads and grads.

Motion to vote. The motion passed with one abstention.

Campus Code Revisions- B. Krause apologized for missing the last meeting and said that she would spend time updating everyone on the process. She asked if an overview or a Q&A would be most useful for the group. She went on to say that her deadline was April 1st but asked President Rawlings to change it to 3rd. And that it had been a daunting task.

She spent a summer trying to change code without making any real sufficient changes and trying to get input from people who were most familiar code, and people in the community. But she hadn�t heard from a lot of people in the community. She said that her work was just a starting point and that her task was to draft it to the community could think about it. She tried to listen to concerns and that there were three constituencies: the victims, the accused and the greater community. She said that there were no scientific formulas as to weigh the opinion of the three.

She went on to say that she had tried to hard to listen to concerns but there were a lot of compromises in the document.  A couple of the concerns that she had heard was that the document is too complicated and difficult to read and that it delayed what needed to be done: issue with availability of pools, processing them and then selecting them takes a long. She mentioned that she had attempted to make it easier. 

She explained that the JA had more than one hearing and that it took a lot of resources to find people who might sit in on a hearing. And that she tried in her draft to address that. She went on to say that her hope was that people would read the entire document and take a fresh look as it as a whole.

She also said that the judicial system would be explained in a more educational than legalistic way. And that this was very much a start and just a draft. She hoped that people would look at the draft and say that with all its problems, this system does have process. She ended by saying that the document did take community input into consideration and that she had great cooperation from people. She then opened the floor for questions.

L. Lawrence asked when the community would get a draft.

B. Krause replied that she did not know.

L. Lawrence commented that the former document did a great job with law of engagement.

J. Vertesi asked about the provisions that Kraus had on how the assembly should be involved.

B. Krause replied that she had told of the groups that she didn�t know yet and that she didn�t have a roll on how the process moved forward. She said she was unaware if Rawling intended to start a new process or pass it. So she couldn�t answer that question.

H. Gransion asked if the board of the trustees asked to approve some of the titles would the UA also have a chance.

B. Krause answered that the Board of Trustees (BOT) had authority over everything and that the code must be approved and amended only by the BOT. She said that the code came out in the sixties at a time of great unrest and that to give the short answer there would continue to be a section in the code that says only the BOT can approve the code. She went on to say that as the UA was involved one of questions that she heard was how to get community input and that one of the suggestions made was that the student disciplinary should be incorporated more in student affairs since whole community.

K. Rourke said that the judicial system expressed concern that they would like to be involved and wanted to know what that they do be involved in the process.

B. Krause replied it would be a trade off involved in integration.

E. Loew made a comment that if the code applied to employees and faculty then the dean of faculty should deal with it and if the code applied to students than the dean of students� office should deal with it.

B. Krause said that was one of recommendations made were during the time they were in counsel office.

J. Vertesi tabled discussion and said that she would send out email for suggestions, as they started to draft the new concern.

Feldman said that a discussion was going to happen about declassified course evaluations and that he waned to breech the topic here.

J. Vertesi asked if he could email the resolution as it comes out.

VIII. Old Business

No old business was discussed.

IX. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 6:02 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted, Dahlia Raymond OA Clerk