MINUTES
University Assembly
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
4:30–6:00 p.m
G01 BioTech

I. Call to Order

M. Lukasiewicz called the meeting to order at around 4:39 p.m.

Voting Members Present: Kyle Albert, James Blair, Evan Cortens, Philip Goldstein, Tanya Grove, Howard Howland, Melissa Lukasiewicz, Sean Murphy, Natalie Raps, Randy Wayne

Voting Members Absent: Ramsey Ataya, William Candell, William Fry, Robert Kay, Ned La Celle

Also In Attendance: Amy O’ Donnell, Bridget Cristelli, Bridget Schafner, Alex Bores

II. Approval of the minutes from August 30 and September 13, 2011

� M. Lukasiewicz called for a motion to approve the minutes from August 30. E. Cortens motioned to approve the minutes. S. Murphy seconded. All were all in favor, and the minutes were approved.

� M. Lukasiewicz then moved to approve the minutes from September 13. E. Cortens, J. Blair and R. Wayne suggested some minor changes. M. Lukasiewicz motioned to approve the minutes with these corrections. S. Murphy seconded. There were 9 in favor, 0 opposed and 1 abstained. The minutes were approved.

III. Call for any Late Additions to the Agenda

K. Albert suggested the UA committee websites should be updated, with agendas, implemented decisions and important changes posted online on a regular basis. The assembly members agreed.

IV. Committee Updates

1. Policy Advisory Group Representative

M. Lukasiewicz informed the members the UA now has a representative on the Policy Advisory group, J. Blair. J. Blair said the next meeting was set to be held on October 20.

2. UA Vacancies

� M. Lukasiewicz asked if anyone had any updates on the two faculty and two employee positions that were still vacant in the UA. T. Grove said the 2 employee vacancies had been filled by Bridget Cristelli and Bridget Schaffner from the Employee Assembly. They are now official UA members.

� M. Lukasiewicz said the two faculty positions were still vacant. E. Cortens said one of the Faculty positions was filled by Robert Kay but he was unable to attend today’s meeting.

3. Standing Committees Vacancies

M. Lukasiewicz asked S. Murphy to give an update on vacancies. S. Murphy said they now have people from the EA on committees. B. Cristelli said all staff vacancies should be filled by the end of the week.

4. Committee Meetings

Regarding future meetings, E. Cortens asked the chairs of the committees to send a friendly reminder to ask when the vacancies would be filled and determine when future meetings would be held. M. Lukasiewicz suggested the chairs send out doodles or Google spread sheets to coordinate dates and times for the meetings.

V. New Business

1. Talking Points for Skorton on 10/25

M. Lukasiewicz said the UA needed to have 3–5 talking points for their discussion with President Skorton at the next UA meeting on October 25. J. Blair asked the Executive Board for a recap of the talking points they had prepared at their meeting last week. M. Lukasiewicz repeated the talking points as:

a) Financial Budget Updates

b) How to get the UA involved with administrative changes and issues

c) What changes the UA should expect in the upcoming year

d) E. Cortens suggested in addition to these, they should also discuss the Cornell Tech Campus Proposal.

e) R. Wayne stated that President Skorton wanted to explain how decision-making processes took place in Day Hall. The UA wanted to know how decisions were implemented and what level of transparency was exercised in making these decisions.

� E. Cortens suggested the Cornell Tech Campus proposal. J. Blair agreed. He wanted to know how this would affect the Cornell community. J. Blair further wanted to know the plan of the administration in terms of organization and budgetary procedures. S. Murphy explained how architects for the masters program for the College of Architecture, Art and Planning had spent an entire year abroad before and it had worked out well. H. Howland asked to what extent the UA would be responsible for affairs on the NYC campus. J. Blair inquired if the Weill Medical Campus in NYC had an Assembly. To this, E. Cortens said the medical college was handled differently, in that students didn’t have to pay the student activity fee like students in Ithaca and Geneva do. He said the Tech Campus would be structured more along the lines of administration for students in Geneva than Weill. It would be part of the Ithaca campus administratively but separate, physically. One thing that E. Cortens said should be discussed with President Skorton was that students in NYC should get benefits for the activity fee they pay, unlike students in Geneva. He said he felt the UA should be involved in the decision-making processes of the Tech Campus in NYC. J. Blair further added it needed the support of the Ithaca community and the Ithaca administration should control the underlying administrative structure for the NYC campus. P. Goldstein wondered if it would similar to the ILR model of having professors and staff going back and forth and if there would be proper integration of the Cornell and NYC campuses.

� E. Cortens said a possible area of concern would be the budget allocation and funding for the Tech Campus as it would be a significant expenditure in these times of limited finances and donations. According to him, two current grad concerns were Maplewood and the Big Red Barn. Both are suffering structural deficiencies on account of insufficient funds for these two buildings. While at the same time, Cornell is thinking of building an extravagant campus in NYC. E. Cortens said while financial gains for the Tech campus would be a long time process down the road, they needed a concrete short-term plan for at least the next 5 years. A. Bores stated in the request proposal, the administration had a tentative plan for the next 30 years. J. Blair noted the main competition in this was Stanford or Cal tech, two motivated players who were also very keen on a New York City campus. Therefore, this required an extensive amount of commitment and might not be such a stable payback.

� At the conclusion of this discussion, M. Lukasiewicz said there were three core issues that were to be discussed with President Skorton:

1. Transparency in the Decision Making Processes in Day Hall

2. The Cornell Tech Campus in NYC Proposal

3. Budget Updates on the Tech Campus

N. Raps motioned to present these points to President Skorton. P. Goldstein seconded. All in favor of the motion, none opposed and none abstained. The motion passed.

2. Resolution: Reviewing the Role of Student-Elected Board of Trustees

� N. Raps presented the case before the UA. She said the Student Trustees play a very important role in university administration and in the recent past, there has been an unprecedented number of students running for the post, both in graduate and undergraduate elections. She further elaborated on how it was unfair for the undergrads as the elections were only held once in two years in which case, there was a new Freshman who barely knew anyone on campus pitted against an upper classman who had already built connections. Additionally, with around 14,000 students and many departments, it is difficult for one undergraduate student to effectively represent the needs of the student body to the Board of Trustees. It is indeed a daunting task for the only student trustee to tap into some many entities that Cornell has and act as an effective liaison between the Board and the students. Since students have started to play an increasingly important role in decision-making processes, it has become more of a challenge to discuss the issues and act as an adequate representative of the entire student body with just one undergraduate trustee on the board. Therefore, M. Lukasiewicz, E. Cortens and N. Raps had got together and prepared a resolution, which was to be presented at the next SA, GPSA and UA meetings for an additional member to the student trustee as an additional seat was as a necessary to represent the student body effectively. N. Raps read the clauses of the resolution, which stated amendments to the existing procedures and roles of the Student-Elected Trustees on the Board of Trustees. (The Resolution is put up on the UA website under its Meetings and Materials for October 4)

� R. Wayne asked if students could sit on the Executive Committee for the Board of Trustees. To this, A. Bores said they could until 1984 when the Board was contracted. The Executive Board now usually allowed all trustees to attend meetings, so while students didn’t have a vote, they could still attend meetings. R. Wayne asked if students felt like second-class members. To this, A. Bores said while it would be nice for students to have a vote without any distinctions, in general they don’t feel like second class members as the their suggestions and opinions are valued.

� E. Cortens asked how would it work if the idea was adopted. To this, A. Bores said he had submitted a proposal with 3 different solutions:

1. Adding another student seat. This would require passage by the New York State Legislature.

2. Replacing a current board appointed member with a student

3. Add an additional student without adding an additional vote. This would mean there would be elections every year, but in the candidate’s junior year, he/she would be a Trustee Designate; they could have their voice heard but they would not have an official vote. In the senior year, the candidate would be an official voting member on the Board of Trustees.

R. Wayne asked if A. Bores had any preferences of the three options. A. Bores said he preferred the first option. If this couldn’t happen, he wanted the Board to take some action and have some change implemented in the existing procedures. J. Blair asked if they wanted an additional seat and at the same time, go off the existing two-year election time-table. A. Bores said that the first two clauses wouldn’t change the existing two year time-table, they merely asked for an additional member whereas the third was more complicated. This would require a candidate to get elected in his/her sophomore year and go through the regular orientation, serve as a trustee designate in the junior year and become an official trustee member with a vote in their senior year. R. Wayne said the last option would be the most viable one of the three, as it required internal action within the Board of Trustees without having to go through the New York State Legislature. A. Bores agreed. J. Blair agreed it seemed to be a good option.

� On a different note, E. Cortens asked if there would be elections for undergraduate students every year whereas there would be elections for graduate students every other year. This would lead to some sort of disparity as an undergraduate candidate would only get to vote for one year whereas a graduate candidate would get to vote for two years. H. Howland said it was important to have another student voice heard. M. Lukasiewicz agreed. J. Blair questioned the sixth clause of the resolution and asked what the term “ease campus tension” meant. N. Raps explained there are no current issues luckily, but added that an additional member would reduce the workload of the current Student Elected Trustees. S. Murphy asked if they were looking at an additional member student trustees from the graduate students also. A. Bores said they were focusing on adding an undergraduate seat at the moment. E. Cortens noted most graduate students had only one or two year programs as compared to the four and five year programs of undergrads. He also said there needed to be a balance between undergrads and grads in the Board of Trustees and the numbers be roughly representative of the student population as the number of undergraduate students on campus far outnumbered the number of graduate students. He said he felt it was the right decision made in 2006 when it was decided there would be separate graduate and undergraduate elected trustees. This representative structure, he said is similar to the current structure of the UA, whose representatives mirror their respective numbers on campus.

� M. Lukasiewicz asked if there was any opposition moving to a vote on the resolution. Seeing none, there was a vote on the resolution. All were in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstained. The Resolution passed.

VI. Adjourn

Seeing no further business for the day, E. Cortens motioned to adjourn the meeting. N. Raps seconded the motion. Without objection, the meeting was adjourned at 5:21 p.m.

Respectfully submitted, Shriya Patnaik