DRAFT Minutes
University Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
4:30 � 6:00 p.m.
316 Day Hall

I. Call to Order R. Orme called the meeting to order at 4:33 p.m.

II. Roll Call Roll was taken via sign-in sheet. Present: R. Orme, M. Fontana, M. Hatch, S. Pardo, L. Lawrence, B. Liddick, R. Wayne, J. Blair, K. Speiser, K. Laden, E. Sanders, A. Frieden, A. Craig, A. Strook, C. Robertson. M. Walsh Not Present: E. Loew, N. Brideau, E. Strong, R. Stein Also In Attendance: A. O’Donnell, P. Beach, E. Shin, D. Koyanagi, D. Roth

R. Orme asked everyone to make sure to sign in.

He then asked the members to quickly review the minutes from November 19, 2008. K. Speiser asked for a correction on page 3. R. Orme asked for a motion to approve the corrected minutes. K. Speiser made a motion to approve the minutes as amended. M. Fontana seconded. The minutes from were approved with all in favor.

III. Reports from Constituent Assemblies — SA, GPSA, EA, FS FS — There have been no recent meetings to report on. EA — B. Liddick said the EA met today and former Dean of Faculty, Charlie Walcott came and gave a presentation and answered questions from the members on possible changes to the university calendar and asked for their input.

They are also reviewing the Employee Emergency Grant Fund and discussing new ways to improve communications.

L. Lawrence said Brian Cornell, the president of the EA and Beth McKinney, the employee elected trustee were members of the Campus Savings and Efficiency Committee. He explained that before Thanksgiving, over 200 people had submitted suggestions on how Cornell could save money or energy. He said the top three categories discussed were 1-energy management and conservation, 2-reducing printing and procurement, and 3-grounds and maintenance.

On December 23rd, the committee will submit a final report. The university will look at all the suggestions, and will implementing some and will then track the savings. He also announced the third and final public forum to gather ideas would be held tomorrow.

J. Blair asked if the university was trying to change the length of orientation duration to help with saving energy or if the university was concerned with students having too much time to party, drink and get in trouble during the long orientation week. SA — A. Craig said there were no recent meetings to report on. GPSA — There was no one from GPSA present to report.

IV. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda K. Laden said that CJC met right before Thanksgiving break. A resolution on Gorge Safety will be coming in January and they want to present this to the UA. He said the CJC’s main concern was that there was not enough student presence or involvement on this issue. The CJC’s members are mostly from the JA and CUPD.

A. Craig said he thought there had not been much discussion and the SA had not been asked for input. M. Hatch said the CJC meeting with the SA was a good idea because they could save time before bringing the resolution to the UA for its review.

V. Business of the Day � Discussion of Peoplesoft Resolution — 10 minutes M. Fontana explained the resolution. He said it outlines the committee was formed in September of last year, and they have identified two questions to evaluate the efficiency of Peoplesoft. They have obtained survey data from the Vice President of Student and Academic Services and they were in agreement the university was handling the situation well once they were able to review it. M. Hatch made a motion to move the resolution. S. Pardo seconded. Discussion on the resolution resumed. L. Lawrence made a friendly amendment. The resolution was voted on and approved with 10-in favor, 0-opposed and 0-abstentions.

� Presentation on UA’s potential role regarding sustainability at Cornell — 10 minutes M. Hatch said he did not want to consider a formal resolution today, but rather use it as a backdrop to presentation. M. Hatch then read the resolution. L. Lawrence asked to add “staff” to the list of committee members.

� Discussion of sustainability at Cornell — 60 minutes R. Orme introduced the guests from The Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future (CCSF). D. Koyanagi and D. Roth introduced themselves. J. Blair asked how the UA could help them achieve the sustainability goal. He then asked if they found the resolution and comments helpful. D. Koyanagi said there are still a lot of issues that need to be looked at. For example, electricity billing is very complicated. To change this would require a lot of cooperation and study because it involves so many stakeholders.

D. Roth said any issues involving energy, water, or transportation were symptom issues that were really hard to tackle. For example, if the university would create a cost for its carbon emissions. This is something various companies and nations around the world have started to do. This is a very difficult problem to be resolved because there are many different points of views and constituencies involved in this. Another example is how people get oriented for promoting sustainability. This would require some education, training and cooperation from the UA. The UA is one of the few groups that have representatives from all parts of the university. He said that collaboration was a real key of all this, but it did not happen often. S. Pardo said there needed to be a body constantly involved in the discussions of sustainability, a body that would go back and forth between all decision-making groups.

M. Hatch said the Campus Planning Committee (CPC) can only delay items for a short period of time and TAC (Transportation Advisory Committee) also has to work within an administrative unit. This committee would give strength to sustainability at the outset. J. Blair said this was a start and the UA could help with the draft of the language.

K. Speiser said that as a member in the committee, she noticed that people did not necessarily take the responsibility of sharing information. In the “suggestion box,” 3 levels of responsibilities were addressed, which are 1) administration level, 2) polices level, and 3) business services level. She explained each level.

A. Stroock said they could save more energy cutting down on electricity and heating usage than reducing copying and using less paper. He said he believed the electricity and heating are accountable for the 70% of the energy pollution. Even transportation is under 10% of the carbon footprint. A. Stroock asked if there was a measure to help them make decisions about priorities.

M. Hatch said that he would send the resolution over e-mail so they could review and discuss it more in the January meeting. S. Pardo said this committee was designed to be able to amend the agenda, as they needed to. M. Hatch said the committee might generate working groups as well and bring important things to the attention of other groups on campus.

A. Frieden said there were institutional and individual problems to be looked at. He said the UA was the representative of all individuals at Cornell, and they needed to focus on making individual-level decisions that would eventually drive institutional changes. Therefore, the UA should focus on representing and affecting individuals. He does not want to lose sight of small yet important issues, but that should be done by changing the culture and people’s minds first.

J. Blair said they should put the data out there so people could read about what is happening on campus and come to talk to them. He proposed to move the resolution forward to the January meeting so in the meantime there would be more discussions.

M. Walsh said he felt that personal empowerment was important now, and the UA needed to get involved and use its strength to connect all the constituencies to affect change. L. Lawrence said that he hopes that they will vote on this at the next meeting.

M. Hatch said what J. Blair came up with should be a motion. L. Lawrence seconded the motion. M. Hatch said the motion was about supporting to move forward as quickly as possible, developing the resolution and establishing the UA committee. He said the resolution would be presented at the assembly meeting on January 28, 2009.

D. Roth asked whether the UA would report to all the constituencies after the January meeting. S. Pardo said he sent this out to GPSA. All other representatives agreed to bring this up at their upcoming meetings.

R. Wayne asked if the new provost was coming to a future meeting. R. Orme said he had made a request to the acting provost and the response was that they should wait until the new provost is in office. M. Hatch suggested a follow up request for February. R. Orme decided on February 24th. M. Hatch asked the members to vote on J. Blair’s resolution of making sense of the body. The motion was voted on and approved with all in favor.

M. Hatch asked the members to remember to send comments on the resolution to the executive committee.

VI. Additional Items from the Floor There were none.

VII. Adjournment R. Wayne made a motion to adjourn. K. Laden seconded. The meeting was adjourned at 5:55 p.m. by R. Orme.