Student Government Association

I. Call to order

5:33pm

II. Roll Call
Chidi and Aditi absent, Simmi late @ 5: 37pm

III. Approval of Minutes

Minutes will be approved next week.

IV. Special Guest – Dr. Larry Wilt, Director of the Library

Larry Wilt: There are four things I would like to go other with you.

First, the issues of quite in the library. There was a lot of about this on the UMBC underground. There is a need for quite study and group study in the library. We try to accommodate both by designating different floors. We have developed a signage program to help students become more aware of quite areas.

Secondly, the extended hours have gotten good publicity. I am impressed with the way you brought that forward to the campus. Today is the first day we are going to have extended hours. We will have data gathered from that to evaluate the success of this is.

We have been working on a project to repurpose space in the front of the library to a student-learning center with computer equipment and flexible furniture. We engaged an architectural firm to create a concept study. We are finalizing our plans. We will have to get funding support for this. It would take at least a half a million dollars to do this well.

We are having budget pressures on the library. We have had to cancel some subscriptions but I can say we do have some services in place that will make up for the loss of some subscriptions. We can assure you that we will continue to meet undergraduate needs.

I wanted to see if there were other issues I hadn’t covered that you all thought were important.

Amber: I was sitting on the information technology steering comities and I have seen the plans for the changes to the library. I was wondering what source of funding are you looking at for that. Students do want study space available so you will get student support. I was wondering if it would be possible for us to develop a pilot program for this project.

Larry Wilt: We talked about putting in a demonstration space. I had identified money to put to that, we were hoping to do it this spring, but with the uncertainty of the budget it was held off.

Josh Michael: have you thought of putting descriptions for the floor on the elevators.

One of the concerns for that is getting clearance. We have been looking into that.

Josh: just remind them that the commons had some in their elevator.

Michael: There is an issue differentiating between the language on the different floors. For example the difference between “Quite” and “Absolutely Quiet”.

There’s a program to change that. The new sign will be a stop sign: red for total quiet, caution for relatively quiet.

Larry Wilt: we discovered through the UMBC underground that we had some signs taped to tables that were not current, so we took them down.

Amber: I really appreciate you guys checking sources like UMBC underground

V. Open Discussion

A. Review of past week
Sunaina: we went to the library policy committee.

Rahilla: I was at RSA’s last meeting. We voted on resident ids for Walker residence.

Josh: I've been working on some textbook issues that will be important in the next coming year. The administration is looking for some new options. They are exploring a textbook rental program and doing some exploring into open source textbooks.

Gabe: the lowered the number of transcripts to get the discount from 8 to 10

Toby: We had the fee forum

Yasmin: I think we need to start exploring new ways to go about that. There might have been there or four students were there who weren’t in the SGA. Most of our questions were dodged. I know we’ve done it or a couple years, but I think we need to try something new. IT was an awkward setting.

Amber: I think this speaks to a larger issue about SGA visibility. We need students with us supporting us.

Josh: We are locked out of shared governance in this process. Collage Park has a student fee review board which we’ve talked about.
There a couple other things that came out of this. We talked about athletics projects. We should be able to look at priorities on this list. FY 2010 there is a pot of money that will not be used for what it was supposed to be used because the state is not allowing for merit pay that we can tap into.

Amber: Maybe instead of projects we could form comities. The executive board can do projects, but the Senate had a different weight between being elected.

Rahall: Dr. Diane Lee got back to me and said the undergraduate program meeting will be June the 5 this is open to anyone. I have a more detailed version of the minutes that will be sent out.

VI. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours (Matt, Simmi, Sunaina, Toby)
B. Reaching out to International Students (Chidi, Rahilla)

Rahilla: Having a meeting may 12 with an official form admission to start forum with international students. The mosaic center will have a forum to inform students.
C. Black and Gold Campus Signage (Aditi, Whitney, Jen, Toby)
Whitney: I think she’s still trying to work out the financial situation.
D. Follow-up on Transit Tracker (Simmi, Matt, Amber, Rahilla)

Amber: We are keeping conversations open and building partnerships with the surrounding community. People want to see more of a collage town. More of a UMBC presence outside the loop and more support form outside business

VII. New Business
VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports
Gabe: The lacrosse game was last Wednesday. There was little SGA support there. Joe is doing the dogs on wheels thing at stress free zone. This group is bringing dogs to campus.

Yasmin: we are having treasurer training this week at wed at noon ad Thursday at 7pm. Check out the website for the new arts and humanities building. It’s worth looking into.

Gabe: there was a big debate on the cabinet meeting about the CPS system in labs (the clickers). They are either doing away with the program or moving to a new company that’s better.

IX. Announcements
Transition materials due. Next week I sour last meeting. The new senate will come in and finish the meeting. Our terms end on the 15th.

X. Roll Call
All members are present except for Chidi and Aditi.
XI. Adjournment
6:18 pm
XII. Pass the Gavel

Call To Order: everyone here

Roll Call

Approval of minutes

Pre-Meeting Discussion

New Business

Written Descriptions

Delta Sigma Alpha Culture Happy Hour

. The event will be on Mainstreet from 4:00-8:00 PM
. Food will be catered from Indian Delight restaurant and Caribbean Restaurant
. We will order the food then pick it up
. other half of the food will be home made
. Expecting 40-50 people to be there
. goal this year is to make the event at a greater scale
. 4 tables and 8 chairs will be needed at the event
. music will be playing in the background
. open floor to more food, talent of the audience, socializing and then cleaning up
. open it up to other greek organizations
. Harsh: When is the event?
. The event will be on May 8th
. Yasmin: How will you be advertising?
. word of mouth, Common-vision ( posters, and flyers), different organizations have been promoting this event
. Yasmin: So is this your greek week?
. It is more community based week which we would called May week
. Emily: How many people will come?
. 40-50 people will come
. Discussion:
. James: we are not intending to go over $600
. Yasmin: we could take it out from the GL expenditure
. cost for the event is $450 and advertising for others
. The club is paying for more than expected to
. James: what would you do, if the event was partially funded?
. the event will happen but on a smaller scale
. Silva: I put this before the Poli Sci, I do not think it is necessary to put food in the discussion
. Catherine: I agree with silva, but it is a restricted funded organization
. Yasmin: it is not necessary that we cover their whole may week and also keep it in mind that this is a restricted funded organization
. Emily: we already funded a lot of Poli Sci events
. Yasmin: we do not have to spend the whole money tonight, it is good to compare the events
. Harsh: we could potentially get some more requests for this semester
. Emily: can we cut down on food
. Harsh: how much would we want to cut down?
. James: Does the Poli Sci event happen without the food, because this event needs money to be successful
. Harsh: What happen If other organizations begin to come to us for their greek week
. James: but this event is open to everyone
. Silva: but it is on Mainstreet
. it event is open to everyone
. it is not advertised as a greek week
. Yasmin: I do not think we could afford this kind of greek events
. James: the policy doesn’t say that we can’t fund this because it is a Greek organization
. Yasmin: this is restricted funded organization
. James: the event is open to everyone, I am doing it based on the benefit that brings to the campus, its a fair game
. Yasmin: I understand what you are saying about the policy, but you also have to look deeper
. Emily: I think it will be a great event since it is on Mainstreet
. James: Who are you targeting through your advertisement?
. everyone because the event is open to everyone, it is kinda like at the end of the year thing
. James: $250 for culture hour
. Vote: 3 rep, 1 oppose, 1 abstaining, none absent

Poli Sci COM’s United States of Africa
. educate students about the ongoing problems in Africa.
. Yasmin: these two are the only ones for this semester
. James: are they still in the negatives
. Yasmin: the account it self is not in debt
. they are fine on our records
. Stephanie: how many people are going to this event?
. There will be about 30-40 people
. Yasmin: would you mind cutting down the food cost
. Emily: Is the food really necessary for this event
. Poli Sci withdraws

Bartleby’s Publications
. Money will go towards the publication fee
. Total amount requested is $350
. Silva: what happen if we do not fund this
. Yasmin: they would not be able to have the event
. James: I would put Bartleby on top, if i had to prioritize
. vote: 4 rep, none oppose, 1 abstaining, none absent

Campus Crusade for Christ’s Family for Freshmen
. laundry bags
. inspirational cook on values and principles
. Total amount requested is $400
. making freshmen feel welcome and connected
. we do not fund gifts
. Emily: I do not think we should fund it
. Stefan: I think they can definitely bring in a lot of people, and I can see it working for them. This semester they have 70 active members, and they have done a lot of fundraising for themselves, I think we should consider it still.
. Silva: I do not think it is necessary
. Yasmin: I think its creative
. Catherine: I think the idea behind is similar to the funding of food
. Stephanie: to me it is like advertisement, it is not open to entire campus
. Harsh: how is it different then funding t-shirts?
. vote: 4 oppose, none rep, 1 abstaining, none absent

Personal and Business Finance Club’s Cashflow 101
. Money will be needed for Cashflow 101 game, shipping of the game, and office supplies
. Total amount requested is $225
. Yasmin: We probably have to ask them about how are they going to be keeping it, have somewhere to store it
. Vote: 4 rep, none absent, 1 abstaining, none absent

Post meeting Discussion
. 2 meetings left for this semester

Roll Call: everyone is here

I. Call to order

5: 37pm

II. Roll Call
All members present expect for Amber and Chidi
III. Approval of Minutes
Minutes from last week will be approved next week.

IV. Open Discussion

A. Review of past week

Whitney: emailed Mr. Mozie-Ross she hasn’t responded yet. I was Just asking genera questions about transcript fee costs. The campus-dining hall met. We went over the names for the dining hall. I’m going to pass them around for you guys to help me narrow it down. Looking at something to replace Gelatto's. Might serve milkshakes and smoothies there. They are looking to add veggie burgers to the grill in the dining hall.

Rahilla: Dr. Diane Lee did respond to me and she said she would bring up our issues at the faculty senate meeting.

Sunaina: was someone going to draft a pro and con list?

Yasmin: I thought we were going to send students as representatives.

V. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours (Matt, Simmi, Sunaina, Toby)

Sunaina: We are coming up with flyers design. Academic row has some signs that show extended library hours. We requested a spotlight. If we can prove that students utilize this, the administrators can be convinced that we need this in the future.

Jen: the library keeps data like this normally so we will have something to look at.
Sunaina: they have a team going to get this date

B. Reaching out to International Students (Chidi, Rahilla)

I went to the library to find about the cards issue. They used to see them on campus. I have been contacting people about getting hem back.
Paula: students taking English language classes don’t have any representation on campus. We could be thinking about was to engage them.

C. Black and Gold Campus Signage (Aditi, Whitney, Jen, Toby)

Aditi: tomorrow I have a meeting with Dr. Hrabowsk about funding. I haven’t gotten a chance to meet regarding designs yet, but I can email them out. I would like to see them up for welcome week.

Rahilla: how much do you need?

Aditi: $3,500

David: so what’s going to happen now with the submissions?

Aditi: we were going to look throw them and see which ones would fit the size requirement and the ones that appealed the most.

Yasmin: would it be possible to do a revolving thing? So as we get more money, we can put up more banners.

Aditi: we could try to do that.

D. Follow-up on Transit Tracker (Simmi, Matt, Amber, Rahilla)

Rahilla: we didn’t have a chance to meet last week. Most of our questions have been answered. Right now we are just looking at marketing.

Rahilla: I wanted to talk about project wrap-ups and ensuring that we will get transition materials. Due before May the 15th. Do you all feel that these projects will be done, or will they be ongoing?

Aditi: mine should be done by the summer.

Chidi: I think this will be more of a pilot program. I want to leave enough materials for someone to follow.

Sunaina: What we are doing now will be done by the end of the semester. After that it will just be following up with Larry Wilt and seeing where we can go from there.

Rahilla: There well be some following up over the summer for the transit tracker. Just make sure that people later don’t go back to ask the same questions.

VI. New Business
A. SR11-0809 – Resolution to Recognize the Great Job done by the Election Board for year 2009 elections.

Toby: This is pretty self-explanatory. This is to recognize how hard the election board members have worked.

Whitney: I noted a grammar thing on the first line.

Toby: I was hoping of passing this and framing it to give to Katie.

Aditi moves to approve, Whitney seconds.

Members for: 10, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 0

VII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports
Michael: Did a lot of election stuff

Gabe: I’m fighting a cold right now. The cabinet was preoccupied with the election last week.

Yasmin: We have 600 left this year for finance board. We will be allocating that tomorrow. We have been dealing with Greek life and how we will be funding them.

Paula: I had two meetings this week. I met with Lynne Shafer about the smoking policy and transit concerns. With respect to the smoking policy: she did say that upper admin is intending to move the entire campus to smoke free. She is under the impression that the majority of the campus is for this. She has no input form students yet. Looking into getting data about this. We talked about transit and the downtown line. She did say they are looking to space out the lines so that the busses can run later. I suggested changing the downtown line to include the inner harbor. I also met with Nancy Young to discus the changes in housing policy. She called walker herself to confirm that they are no longer accepting fall aid to cover summer housing. They are not telling students this verbally; there is a line on the form. I’m going to continue to work with her about this issue. I’m meting with Katie Boon this week to go over everything before I make public media statements about it.

Amber: there was an issue with the downtown line. They cut it because it had the least attendance.

Michael: In regard to smoking policy: you might want to look into the large subset of students who some hookah.

Paula: my suspicion is that many students who don’t smoke would not support a full out ban.

Josh: conversations about this usually involve aesthetics. Addressing that would be the easiest way.

David: We have a couple of traditions at the SGA. One of them is that at the being of the fall semester, SGA members fill out a survey. It will be sent to you to be done online.
The second tradition is the SGA generations tome. This is a book that graduation SGA offices have the chance to leave reflections in when they leave. The contents of which are in the action guide.

VIII. Announcements
Josh: some of you may have seen news about the swine flue. I have been working on getting intuitions moving on there emergency preparedness plans.

David: Black and gold award next week at 6. We could just keep meeting brief.

IX. Roll Call
All members present

X. Adjournment
6: 15pm

XI. Pass the Gavel

roll call: everyone here

Approval of minutes

New Business

Inauguration ( tabassum)
. Last year gave 50,000 to a student who wanted to change the campus
. 22 people submitted their proposals in which 5 people were the finalist
. The project was completed in 1 year
. Last year we worked on the green space ( outside Finearts building)
. Construction starts on May 8th
. The process received a lot of criticism and praise
. Should we reduce the project budget from 50,000 to 30,000
. Helping to narrow the focus now
. We should include faculty in their groups, so they have a faculty advisor
. This will improve involvement with faculty
. Having a problem with the seniors, mostly undergraduate
. Student input on the proposal - committee thought it was the wrong proposal
. Should we expand the selection committee?
. Yasmin: I would suggest not associating a amount currently to it
. Yasmin: You guys did a wonderful job last year
. we have $10,000 in our budgets, to not associate a number with it
. Harsh: something related to campus and unity

AEPi’s ISRAEL (5:40 PM)

. There is actually need to be some adjustments, since the meeting was delayed a week, therefore getting food for the event will be a fundraiser
. The event will take place May 2nd in the game room
. Room was packed last time we had this event and there were over 100 people who showed up.
. need $15 for student marshals
. We are planning to have a Dj who will perform for free
. The food will be Mediterranean and Israelian
. We want to have smoothies at this event
. Paksa is cosponsoring this event
. Silva: Where is this event held? How long will the event be?
. The event is in the Game room from 8-11 PM
. Yasmin: Have you gone to events planning?
. Yes, we need intelligent lighting to make a club atmosphere
. Yasmin: What about the student marshals?
. We need to have student marshals because they require them to be there
. Nikunj: How long is the event? Do you need student marshal during set up?
. We would need student Marshal for 5 hours
. Yasmin: Last time there was no one taking attendance?
. There was a person taking count, and they stopped letting people in once they reached the 70 people limit
. Harsh: What is the capacity for the game room?
. 200 people with the Marshal Staff
. Erica: OSL doesn’t enforce the policies, its events planning
. Yasmin: With 2 marshals, can you have 125 students or 200 students?
. With 2 students marshals it would be 200 students
. Yasmin: What is the educational purpose of this event?
. We would have a lot of paper publications to teach diversity
. Emily: Can you elaborate on the decoration?
. Blue streamers, blow up stuff
. VOTE
. Yasmin: I am really torn, I did go to Purram, but at the same time it is a fraternity
. Last time we only had 12 fraternity people, and the rest were umbc students.
. James: I think its a fine event, but couple of things should be cut down.
. If you do not want us to charge for the drinks, we won’t
. Nikunj: Are we cutting down the hours of the student marshals?
. Yes, they will be there for 5 hours
. Yasmin: Intelligent lighting is $150, it is not necessary for the event to happen. I think we should cut it
. this would make Decorations $25
. Yasmin: Cutting drinks to half?
. James: If it is not a lot that they are charging for the drinks, I think it is alright to charge students for the drinks
. Catherine: How much would you charge for drinks?
. $25 cents to a $1
. total came out to be $490
. vote: 4 representatives, none opposed, none absent

WILL’s Global Women’s Health Action Week ( 5:40 PM)

. this event will be held at mainstreet and commons terrace
. Harsh: What were the changes?
. We changed the commons package which was $200
. Yasmin: 300 quarter sheets (white), 100 color flyers, it will be $70
. total will be $415
. Emily: How many people are you expecting?
. we have a lot of cosponsors, at least 300 through out the week
. Yasmin: Does that say mailing tube? Who are are u mailing the tube?
. We put mail in the tube which is shaped like a tube. We will be mailing it to Dr. Hbrowski. It will be part of local community to have a larger impact. Having people fill out card saying we would like to see that happen
. Harsh: What is Kiddie pool and rubber ducks for?
. Each duck will have a question inside. It is for UMBC campus
. VOTE:
. Yasmin: I think this event sounds really good. It is pretty unique and draws people in.
. Emily: I agree especially when it is on Mainstreet and Commons Terrace
. We have six co-sponsorships, so therefore the event is campus wide
. 4 representatives, none oppose, 1 abstaining, none absent

Delta Sigma Theta’s Financial Fortitude ( 6:00 PM)

. It is part of the May week
. Programs will bring in someone to talk about the economy
. The entire week event is free to UMBC students
. We are asking for food, decorations, and flyers
. We went to commonvision and for the big banner and 250 flyers, it would cost $150
. The other two events are taking place at the Erickson Field
. Yasmin: Are you also advertising through spotlight, LCD?
. Yes, we will be using those as well
. Harsh: Were you talking about the entire May week or just one event?
. The whole May week
. Silva: What is the food for Happy Hour?
. Sometime they have performances
. How many people come to get food at Happy Hour?
. About 30-40 people
. Stephanie: What is the decoration for?
. Baloons
. Stephanie: Are bingo cards part of decorations?
. No
. Silva: Can we cut decorations?
. Catherine: Does decorations include plates?
. Yes
. Yasmin: I feel comfortable with Financial Fortitude, but we should focus on hoe it is restricted funding organization. The Happy Hour cost about $ 450. It might sound really cool, but they are restricted funding organization
. It is a big thing for UMBC students and it will help to educate UMBC students
. Silva: I do not mind the first two, but the Happy Hour
. Yasmin: We did fund OPHi’s food. Also keep it in mind that this is a similar situation
. James: move to cut the decorations
. Yasmin: it is in a room
. Yasmin: I do not feel comfortable funding the refreshments
. Harsh: Are the flyers just to advertise the one event or the whole May week?
. The flyers will contain the entire May week
. Everyone agrees on cutting the refreshments from all events
. Yasmin: Can we go one by one
. Cutting refreshments from Financial Fortitude
. decorations are cut as well
. $20 for Financial Fortitude

Delta Sigma Theta’s Bingo

. The bingo will have something informative
. Harsh: Are we ok with the flyer’s and refreshments?
. Silva: It is a fun interactive activity
. cutting $50 for refreshments?
. vote: 2 representatives, 3 oppose, none absent

Delta Sigma Theta’s Cultural Happy Hour

. Stefan: we can cut the food
. Food is the main part of the event
. It is in commons, and It is a big event in commons
. Yasmin: Where is this at commons?
. Mainstreet
. Yasmin: Have you reserved it yet?
. No
- Harsh: Does everyone agree on this event?
. James: I guess I am slightly leaning against, although this event is for everyone
. Harsh: I am concerned about the message
. We are also paying for the speakers and this is the biggest event of the week
. Yasmin: Object to voting, I would be more comfortable voting If I knew more information. AEPi’s came to us with the same problem. I do not feel comfortable voting for it yet. I would like to table it. I do not want to fail something that could be beneficial
. Vote: 4 representatives, none opposed, 1 abstaining, none absent

JSU’s Family Shabbat

. every friday Jewish celebrate Shabbat
. This event will be at the Interfaith Center, from 6-7 PM, and the dinner will be from 7-11 PM
. This event is family shabbat where families are invited in order to promote growth
. We would like to know families by holding this event, the audience will be UMBC students
. JSU is asking for decorations, utensils, and materials
. We are also asking for food which would be for about 100-110 people
. Yasmin: How many will be UMBC students out of the 110?
. 60% will be students
. Harsh: Is the amount 440?
. No, it is $990
. Silva: Will you be charging families?
. Parents $18, and the kids will be $12
. Harsh: Is it free for UMBC students?
. yes
. Emily: I think it is a bit much for 90 students
. The food is Kosher and that is the reason it cost a lot. This is the cheapest caterer I could found
. Silva: I think it is a great event, but it is a lot of money
. You funded one of my Shabbat’s before but you took 2 away
. Catherine: It is not enough UMBC students, and also they are charging parents $18.
. It is open to all UMBC students
. Harsh: What else happens at the event?
. speeches, prayers
. Harsh: I wouldn’t mind UMBC students paying for the food If they wanted
. Catherine: I wouldn’t mind cutting the food
. Yasmin: There are a good number of people who go to this event. Students to go this event will benefit from it. I would like to fund the event partially
. Emily: How many people came to Topsy Turvy Shabbat?
. I do not know
. Yasmin: I would say $500
. Catherine: I like $500
. Vote: 4 representatives, none oppose, 1 abstaining, none absent

Cleftomaniac’s Acapotluck ( 6:30 PM)

. It is a cookout to attract more people
. The event will be at Commons Terrace
. It is an outdoor Concert
. We are asking for food, money for balloons, and utensils
. Stephanie: How many people are you expecting?
. Do not know. It would vary
. Yasmin: How necessary are decorations for the event?
. Not completely necessary
. Yasmin: How will you be advertising?
. Free printing from Honors college, facebook
. Yasmin: My only concern was decorations
. Silva: Decoration is necessary because it will draw attention
. Yasmin: Cleftomaniac will draw people even if they do not have decorations
. Taking out decorations $200
. Vote: 4 representatives, none opposed, 1 abstaining, none absent

TSA’s Nightmarket Additional

. written description
. Want to have a joint event
. Want to make it bigger this year
. $ 350 for food, $150 for decorations
. The event will be on commons terrace, 8-9 tables with food and games
. Silva: What time is the event?
. The event will be from 5-10 PM
. Silva: What kind of decorations?
. lights ( Asian), not sure yet
. Catherine: How many people will be attending?
. 200
. Yasmin: When is the event?
. It is next thursday, but we are having an Asian forum on wednesday before the event
. Yasmin: $ 150 is a lot of money for decorations
. We added tables and chairs with the decorations
. Catherine: I do not think we need $ 150 for decorations
. Yasmin: They should use paper lanterns
. Total is $425
. Vote: 4 representatives, none opposed, 1 abstaining, none absent

Written descriptions

Erickson COM’s Professor of the year

. Presenting one faculty Professor of the Year award
. Yasmin: It is wonderful, but we do not fund gifts
. Vote: 4 oppose, 1 abstaining, none absent

Erickson COM’s Executive Board Transition

. Passing down notes to the next generation
. They need 8 GB memory stick ( from the bookstore) which will cost $29.99
. Yasmin: OSL does have someone who can do this
. Vote: 4 oppose, 1 abstaining, none absent

Craft Club’s Blanket Races

. Craft club will hold a Blanket Race event from 4/20-4/24 holding knitting, crocheting, and scrap quilting races
. The event will be at commons from 12-1 PM and 3-4 PM monday through thursday
. This is there first year holding this event
. The money will go towards supplies, needles, hooks, blocking wires, and stitch dictionaries
. Yasmin: They changed their date from 27th-30th
. Yasmin: I like everything, but the dictionaries
. Silva: What will the dictionaries be for?
. Maybe prizes
. Yasmin: I think they are kind of pricey
. Vote: 4 representatives, none absent, none oppose, 1 abstaining

Erickson School of Aging Majors Ecofest Table

. need money for poster board, pictures, food and decorations
. total is $30
. Yasmin: move to vote
. Vote: 4 representatives, 0 oppose, none oppose, 1 abstaining

Christine’s Announcement

. Student inauguration
. Nominating people from the finance board, and they have to be finance board members

Roll call
Every one here that was here before

Adjourn at 7:15 PM

I. Call to order

5:34pm

II. Roll Call
All members present except for Chidi
III. Approval of Minutes

IV. Special Guests – Yvette Mozie-Ross and Dr. Rutledge

Dr. Diane Lee: What has just been passed around to you is a sheet on the positives and negatives about making a change. We wanted you to see the arguments. There has been a presentation to the council of deans who said this might be a good way to proceed. We wanted to come to the SGA to hear your voice.

We currently have a drop date that is much later that what most institutions have. The suggestion was to have our drop date conform to the graduate school policy. There will be a push to have the grad and undergrad programs in synch.

Next we will go to the faculty senate and undergraduate program directors. These are faculty from every department who come and talk about their issues. We wanted to see if there was anything we did not consider.

Yvette Mozie-Ross : federal guidelines require that we facilitate inventory of where students stand on their enrollment status after the institutions freeze day. The problem with our drop deadline is that its 10 beyond the freeze day. It currently requires we go back and look at the drop date to make adjustments. The issue that I'm closest to is the co use demand issue (on the hand out). I want to make sure there are sufficient courses for allowing students to progress in a timely manner. It’s hard to justify adding another course when many students will drop anyhow.

Toby: I think two weeks is two short to get a tutor etc. Having the drop date so close might encourage students to drop before they try it.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: You still have a lot of time to drop the course. This discussion regards the date to drop without a W.

Amber: A later date to drop the class allows students the opportunity to do well in a course and to make sure they are taking into account all the different factors and trying everything. Students are not taking advantage of the system they are able to make choices that will impact them in a positive way. Having students rush their decisions is dangerous especially at a university like UMBC. What exactly is our biggest argument for this policy?

Yvette Mozie-Ross: Students are confused about this. It’s a lot of dates to keep in mind.

I think that for students – part of what takes the degree time to be so long is that students are trying out courses. Your doing work for more classes instead of focusing on the ones your going to keep.

Amber: If the add date not change, why does the drop date have to?

The W motivates students. This cause you to make a decision earlier, this is better for you because it allows you to focus on the course you have.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: the current drop date is not serving the students well. The last day to add is the 10-day so someone who needs to the class cannot take it.

Jen: moving it to tow weeks aren’t going to change the situation regarding that, but it will hurt a lot of other students who sign up for class and intend to finish it but cant. Most students who enter the class to drop it will do so on the fist day.

David I.: A lot of freshmen want to experience different classes. 2 weeks isn’t really enough to experience a class.

Dr. Rutledge: UMBC is actually out of the norm on our drop date.

Yasmin: How did this conversation come about? How long was this discussed? Where these graduate professors talking about this?

Yvette Mozie-Ross: it stated in enrollment management. And then we went to the deans to present. They encouraged us to come talk with you.

Yasmin: what were the reasons for that.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: what you see as the positives was what spurred that conversation. There are a lot of reasons we want to support that.

Yasmin: has it been looked at to extend the add days. Is there any talk about extension of add dates.

Dr. Lee: they think that it’s too late already. Faculty say student struggle when they are late to add a class and make up the work. My hunch is that many faculty would be opposed to this.

Josh: 4 weeks is out of the norm. Why is that a bad thing? UMBC has a lot of things out of the norm; I think that’s why people come here. You can’t know after tow weeks whether not you can handle it.

Amber: There’s a lot of merit to the arguments being made, and I would agree with most of them. But the purpose of an institution like UMBC is to produce scholars. We want to make things easy on the institutional level. But if there will be a detriment in the quality of the scholars because of something like this happening.

Dr. Rutledge: these are things that will benefit a student. If a student drops below 12 credits they have to pay back financial aid which can be a big burden for students. It’s not a problem for us to change it in the system. You want to drop courses if there is a great need, not as a strategy for going through the semester.

Jen: most of the people who drop the class at a later date have to choose between a low grade and dropping. These people will have to choose between a low grade and a W.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: You’ll notice on the negative side the FTE production will be negatively impacted. We know that this happens to other institutions that have done this.

Jen: the issue will be for students who initially intend to take the class. By the second week it’s hard to tell if you will be able to handle a class for the rest of the semester. If I were a transfer student I would take notice of this. I think if this does happen I think it’s important to make sure students are aware of that.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: I'm sure we'll have some sort of process in place to look at students on a case-by-case basis during the transition period. I think that because this is the way of life here at UMBC we look at this as a chance to “shop around”. This is unique to UMBC. That is the reason we have pre requisites. These should guide you.

Jen: that depends on the professor. Some are completely different.

Dr Lee: one of the things about adding a course last minute is that they will heir a part time professor. This can be detrimental to students if they do not know about how this professor teaches. Students struggle the most in those courses.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: we ran the number and if we move in this direction there will be substantial FTEs (full time equivalency) drop. We feel the benefits outweigh the costs.

Simmi: Part of what I like about being and inter disciplinary major is taking classes that are different. We are also known for the liberal education here. Is there anyway to open up the add date for an extra week? I think its possible for students to do well in a class after the 10th day. Do you think its possible to extend the add date?

Yvette Mozie-Ross: I don’t think we would do a service by changing the add date.

Josh: This would increase the seats per class. UMBC has large classes as it is. I don’t think big classes would be good. Capacity is too much.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: people who didn’t get in the class might not feel the same way.

Jen: I don’t really feel like students would want this. We want to encourage students to stay in classes and explore. I think that’s what makes us different from other schools.

Amber: as a senator sitting here I have to represent the student body. I can’t fathom students being for this. Jen is right, we shouldn’t conform ourselves just to be like other universities. We should be leaders in that respect. Chances are if students are in the course by the 4th week they will need it for something. This policy would make student chose between a W and an F in the first two week. You should consider the increases in lower grades.

Part of this might be an issue with the instructors. They should make sure students have a better understanding to of what is needed in the class.

Brian: do you have any feedback from other schools? As students does this 4-week drop date make us less competitive then other schools?

Yvette Mozie-Ross: no. 4 weeks is a lot of time to be in a course with no indication that students were actually in a course.

Jen: in a lot of classes you don’t get to the course material by the 3rd class. We need to address the issue of professors not giving enough information for students to know if they need to drop the class. Students will have nothing to base the decision on.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: part of the textbook policy was to get students the information about the class early enough to start making these decisions.

Naina: at other university I have heard of class dropping days. Where people can explore classes. Also I don’t know if you guys have considered classes that only meet once a week. Two classes are not enough. Maybe you could consider 3 weeks to drop a class instead of 2 weeks.

Rahilla: I'm curious about how the FTEs actually affect the system.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: when we looked at how many students drop between the 11th and 20th day. This number equated to about 107 FTEs.

Dr. Rutledge: The state provides money per FTE student. The more FTEs we have the more money goes to the university. The state doesn’t consider you FTE until you have 15 credits. Some students aren’t taking a full lode because they couldn’t get into a class.

Yasmin: Some classes do a two-day absence policy. If you don’t come to two classes they you get dropped. This might help open up seats. My concern in this policy is the freshman. This would determent them.

David I.: I think now with the current financial situation is not the best time to be lowing FTEs and getting less funding from the state.

Dr. Lee: when you have to heir a part time person for a new section is not cost efficient. When I came to UMBC if felt like this should be like a place where student can explore. We have one of the poorest recodes on the state for 4-year graduation. Our culture has promoted exploratory learning. One of the outcomes of this is the late 4-year graduation date. Even our 6-year rate is among the lowest in the state. I think the point about holding faculty very responsive for this. We should do a much better job of having these things online. We tell faculty to spend time explain the syllabus.

Dr. Rutledge: we have discussed the FTD issue with the state so they know about it.

Dr. Lee: Regarding transfer students. One of our most common criticisms is that we cannot get transfer students the courses they need. Course availability is a big issue.

David I.: my concern is the website saying that the drop date was at 2 weeks

Yvette Mozie-Ross: we didn’t know they had changed this. It could be a technical issue. It’s easy to set it up so you could implement it. It hadn’t actually been changed.

Amber: I hope when this issue is presented to the faculty senate, you will bring up our issues. I would be a lot more comfortable with this if I knew w hat other solutions were discussion this you end. What other options do you have? Were these things discussed?

Yvette Mozie-Ross: honestly I'm not sure what other options we listed. The three weeks would not be an option. We wanted to align it to the schedule adjustment, which was 2 weeks. You cant extend the add date.

Amber: would it be possible to have more discussions in the future for other solutions? I would like to see more long-term conversions.

Josh: I'm getting the impression that you guys aren’t here to take input. I feel like this is a done deal for you.

Yvette Mozie-Ross: this is not the case because we haven’t talked to all the people we need to. We haven’t had a discussion with the faculty senate. We are in the midst of implement a new student information system. I don’t know why that showed up on the website. The only people who can see this are the consultants. I’m guessing they set up the back end because they know these conversations were happening.

Joe: how long has this been an issue?
Yvette Mozie-Ross: the conerns have been going on for years.

Joe: I feel as a transfer student this just sort of came out of nowhere. I thought it was nice to have the 20 days.

Dr. Lee: we’ve actually had a person for the first time that has been looking at academic policies. That is why this seems out of the blue. There are more committees working on this now. As we go forward there’s no reason why we couldn’t share this portion of the minutes. You will capture the words and the issues brought up here. You would know for sure threat we were trying to represent what was said here. I would bring forth this section of the minutes. I can invite persons to come to undergraduate program directors because I chair that. I would let you send some representatives to come.

V. Open Discussion

A. Review of past week
Transcript fees – Could look into discounts for students with financial aid. Agreement to research it and then bring it up to the USM.

Brian: USMSC met yesterday. There was a long discussion about whether or not to allow for shadow reps in the constitution and we're going to vote on it next week.

Whitney: Emailed about the academic standing issue. I reviewed the proposal and will pass it around so you guys can look at it.

Gabe: steering committee had two presentations. One final about legislation tuition freeze passed. No pay increase for anyone on famous also a small cut to UMBC. Also talked about the textbook legislation pass. Also did a presentation on housing and parking. Issue with parking about weather or not to build garage or to make current parking more efficient.

Rahilla: RSA’s meeting had Chartwells talking about their plans for next year. Dogapallooza is April 25

B. proveIt! Updates

VI. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours (Matt, Simmi, Sunaina, Toby)

Naina: Were just working on publicity. Were hoping to do stuff with stress free zone.

B. Reaching out to International Students (Chidi, Rahilla)

Rahilla: I sent out a couple of emails, will keep you guys posted.

C. Black and Gold Campus Signage (Aditi, Whitney, Jen, Toby)

Aditi: I got a couple of signs. I’ll get back to you with that. I’m meeting with Dr. Hrabowski next week to see about financial issues. I’m determined to get the remaining money.

D. Follow-up on Transit Tracker (Simmi, Matt, Amber, Rahilla)

Rahilla: We couldn’t get all of the details on the contract. It changed. They made a lot of improvements. They did carry out a lot of advertisement but funds were a bit of a problem. They had a whole campaign package and everything. Planning on putting up LCD but funding is an issue. Might wait till master plan is complete before putting in LCD.
VII. New Business
VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports
IX. Announcements
X. Roll Call
All members present except for Chidi, Brian and Amber.
XI. Adjournment
7:55pm
XII. Pass the Gavel

Finance Board Meeting 3-31-09

Roll Call - everyone is here

Pre-Meeting discussion
0. need to email the organizations ( before the spring break)
0. Silva - we should tell organizations that we will get back to them within a week instead of saying on thursday.

New Business

Poli Sci Commons Brown Bag
0. It is once a month event where different professors talk to students about the major
0. this time the event will cover American/ racial politics
0. The event will be during free hour and 20 or so people will be attending
0. They are requesting food
0. Yasmin: How do u advertise?
0. list proc, fliers around campus
0. Silva- how many people showed up last time?
0. 17-20 people showed up last time
0. Harsh: Did u funded one last month? When is the event?
0. Yes, the event is on the 24th
0. discussion
0. Stefan: it seems like a monthly event now
0. Yasmin: 2 dollars and a quarter per student. She thinks that students have positive interactions with the professors
0. Vote: 4, 0 opposed, abstaining 1, none absent

UMBC Debate Club’s Parliamentary Debate Competition
0. The event is every weekend
0. it would be in college park ( so it would be cheaper for us)
0. Harsh: 2 people in each team
0. Catherine: How do you choose who go?
0. Anyone can go to the event
0. Silva: Are there any other fees beside the registration?
0. No
0. How important is the competition? it is really important because it is the qualifier for the nationals
0. Yasmin: would this be your biggest request for this year? Yes
0. Emily: have u tried fundraising for this event? we just got recognized
0. Discussion
0. Stefan: its pricey
0. Catherine: I think we should fund it
0. James: Since It is their only event, we should fund it
0. Yasmin: they travelled to UVA by themselves..i think its their first event..we have funded some other events like this..but they are not asking for transportation
0. 4 representative, 0 opposed, none absent

Game Developers Club’s DEC
0. 4th year doing the event
0. biggest event
0. get speakers from local game companies..sounds engineers, designers etc come in
0. need money to advertise the event, but they are advertising through facebook, Myumbc, and commonvision
0. have luncheon for the event because the speakers are volunteering there time to come
0. food, water bottles, name tags
0. food is mainly for the speakers
0. Emily: how many people are u expecting?
0. last year they had 200, so they are hoping to get more high school students come
0. Stephanie:Are u using the advertisement for both on and off-campus?
0. They will be emailing some high schools that he worked with last year
0. Yasmin: how many people is the food for?
0. Roughly 35-40
0. Yasmin: where did u get your food quote from?
0. Chartwells
0. Harsh: how many speakers are coming?
0. 6 speakers
0. Silva: Food is just for speakers?
0. yes
0. Harsh: Events is open to everyone right?
0. yes the event will be open to everyone
0. Yasmin: It is a great event, although food is a little bit pricey, but I still feel comfortable with the event as a whole
0. Catherine: can we cut down on the food?
0. cut food down to $250
0. total now is $460
0. 4, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining, none absent

Chess Club’s UMBC Championships
0. cannot vote on today because Finance Board haven’t open request for next semester

Chess Club’s World Open
0. total is actually $450 less
0. major tournament in philadelphia ( first week in july)
0. entrance fees are expensive
0. Stefan: are there more than six people going?
0. yes then we would split the money
0. Yasmin: Is there a limit on number of people u can take?
0. No
0. Yasmin: Is this a chess club could I join and go?
0. Anyone is be eligible to go
0. Silva: Where is this event held?
0. Philadelphia
0. Yasmin: what If we partially fund the event would people still go?
0. yes probably
0. James: I am not fan because its only six people and its over a summer, what would they bring back to the UMBC campus
0. Yasmin: wants to 2/3rd the cost of the hotel
0. yasmin: wants to vote on $430, nothing for entree fee, silva seconds
0. 3 rep, 1 oppose, 1 abstaining, none absent

Hindu Student Council’s Pittsburgh Temple Bus Trip
0. every year they take a trip down to the temple
0. first hindu temple of N.A. was built in Pittsburgh
0. it has never happened before
0. Stephanie: How many people expected?
0. 30-40 people expected
0. Catherine: Can anyone go to the trip? Will you be advertising?
0. Yes
0. Stephanie: How will you advertise?
0. facebook event, fliers in dorms
0. Yasmin: what are those $50 for tickets?
0. Not sure
0. Yasmin: where did u get the bus quote from?
0. We got the quote online
0. James: how long will u guys be staying in Pittsburgh?
0. It takes 4.5 hours to get there and back.
0. Silva: have they had other event this year?
0. yes Bhangra Night
0. James: it doesn’t seem to be that great
0. Silva: they don not have any other things planned for the trip
0. Stefan: why this temple?
0. Yasmin: I actually like it, I think we should partially fund it because it is really creative. I don’t want to fail it because I think a lot of people would benefit from it.
0. James: want to vote
0. Stefan second the vote
0. 3 opposed, abstaining 1, none
0. Yasmin: moved to fund the event partially $750, silva seconds
0. 2 rep, opposed 2, abstaining 1, none absent
0. it fails

Hindu Student Council’s Final Puja
0. pray to do wells on finals
0. happens every semester
0. Harsh: is it open to everyone?
0. Emily: where and when?
0. It would be a week before finals, resident hall or interfaith center
0. Yasmin: puja supplies? are there two types of plates?
0. yes
0. Silva: what kind of food?
0. We will be getting Indian food
0. Catherine: How many people are attending?
0. about 50 people
0. Yasmin: I don’t think it is a necessary event
0. Stefan: they haven’t had it in a while
0. Silva: If we are doing the other two, this one doesn’t seem that necessary
0. 0 rep, 4 opposed, abstaining one, none absent

Hindu Student Council’s Holi 2009
0. Hindu tradition which illustrates the beginning of spring where we go outside and throw color powder
0. Harsh: where would this event be?
0. Erikson field
0. powder would be couple hundred more...$200
0. Silva: If they snacks? would they need a table?
0. Harsh: I would be for cutting the snacks
0. cut to $100 for color
0. Harsh: $15 to make them buy the card board poster
0. 4 rep, oppose 0, 1 abstaining

Hindu Student Council’s Holi Hungama Formal Dinner
0. Food in the skylight room with performances in the background
0. Yasmin: where did u get your food quote from ?
0. Chartwells
0. Harsh: how many people will be attending? 120
0. Stephanie: can u reuse the decorations?
0. yes probably
0. Silva: what kind of food are u serving? probably indian food
0. food for $120 people, would cause about $2500
0. Yasmin: we might be able to use another caterer rather than using the chartwells
0. Yasmin: we should vote on everything but the food, we might be able to use any caterer for the skylight
0. James: likes the event, it sounds like a fair idea
0. Catherine: do like the event, but they are not asking for advertising.
0. James: they are expecting 120 people, they might be able to hit their goal without even the advertising
0. Harsh: advertising making it more open to the whole UMBC
0. Yasmin: wouldn’t feel comfortable voting not knowing about the advertisement situation
0. vote for it next time

Honors College Council ( Mirror Ball- GL expenditure)
0. It is an annual event where Honors college student and UMBC students to come together for a dance and food
0. 70 people showed up last year ( but 70 only signed in)
0. 120 people maximum expected.
0. Yasmin: social times

Bangla Club ( Boishaki Bang)
0. we were waiting to see if JHU is partially finding the event
0. there is no money coming from JHU
0. first year we began this tradition, but the location gets switched around.
0. JHU hosted the event last year
0. waiting to hear about food, but they are not getting any money from JHU
0. Silva: we had problem with the students coming through?
0. it is free for college park, JHU, and UMBC students
0. Silva: college park doesn’t fund food
0. Yasmin: there clubs fundraise for food and either way they made it free for students
0. they will be charging parents
0. The event will be in the UC, for about 450 students
0. this is the one of the big events Bangla club is doing this year
0. Silva: can we cut the food down?
0. Stefan: it is about less than $4 a person
0. total requested is $2827
0. James: how is this set up?
0. Yasmin: this is not the ballroom tables, there will be rectangular tables going on outside the ballroom
0. Yasmin: only thing we can cut down would be the misc
0. Stefan: everyone is ok with the food
0. Catherine: they said they wont be using common vision fliers off-campus
0. 4 rep, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining

MSA Islamic Awareness Week
0. they are doing ice cream for their event
0. James: should we just cut the advertisement, is everyone fine with cutting the advertisement?
0. Silva: banner would probably go up monday or tuesday
0. 4 rep, 0 opposed, none absent, 1 abstaining

Written Description

UMBC freedom alliance
0. game night
0. people who dress up in drag would get free pizza
0. $15 per hour or the game room
0. SGA is not funding for the pizza
0. 4 rep, 1 abstaining, none absent
0. Trany101
0. Yasmin: they asked money for spotlight but I explained to them that it is free
0. James: they are the most funded club
0. Yasmin: they have a pretty active membership
0. Yasmin: wouldn’t mind partiallly funding it because it might be beneficial to the campus
0. Yasmin: 150 would be the carryover
0. 4 rep, oppose none, 1 abstaining, none absent
0. freedom alliance drag show
0. 3 rep, 1 oppose, abstaining one, none absent

BUDGET
0. Yasmin: moved around some things in the budget
0. adding 10,000 GL expenditure
0. from 15,000 to 17,000 in the red
0. LG - might not even spend it
0. went through each organizations and found $25000 and she does not feel comfortable spending the whole amount.
0. right now we have spend $78, 000
0. we are definitely going to spent more than last year
0. James: what were the followups from fred in business?
0. went through organization to organization ( spent $ 78, 000)
0. 4 rep, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining

voting for the budget
4 rep, 0 opposed, 1 abstaining

Who’s contacting Who?

Stefan: HSC
Yasmin: formal dinner, freedom alliance
Emily: MSA, Bangla club
James: games dev. club, chess club
Catherine: poli sci

roll call: everyone is here that was here before.

I. Call to order 5:34pm

II. Roll Call
All members present except for Aditi and Naina (late)

III. Approval of Minutes

Minutes from last week approved

IV. Special Guest – Katie Boone, Director of Residential Life
Go over requested information. Today I’ll be going over early move in program for spring 2010, management of occupy levels, housing master plan, housing selection process.

Early move in program: It’s a price tag of just over 6000. I am not opposed to this, I just really want to make sure it’s a really well organized and sustainable plan. We did write into the student staff contractual agreement we just put out, which has them cutting back a day earlier for training in thinking that this would be passed.

Management occupancy levels: Read the articles in the paper and read the underground. I am not opposed to dissent. I started in July, read the data on the numbers and knew this would be a problem. We started working on this in September. The philosophy for the University for the Department is to show Preference in housing to freshman. We all embrace the idea that the older student is better equipped to live off campus. We did a lot of data collection. To receive funding to build a new building or addition you have to have an established waiting list for a significant amount of time. We were able to establish a number of spaces that we had on campus that were actually rooms we were using for something else. We decided to establish a triple rate for people who are more financially strapped. We can rent a triple room that will be permanent. We wanted to make sure students with triples could get a discount. It yields more space. The economy is another issue. We as a university are excited that when the economy is down parents tend to send their students to state school, however, housing is risky. Every spring semester we loose a significant number of students we budget to be at 97% percent but we are currently at 101. In the 90s there was in the large waitlist, and then they build the newest communities were built: Erickson and harbor and walker. University state system has decreed in order to have new construction have to have a private-public partnership. We philosophically have chosen not to do that. We have been very creative in how we’ve been able to find something. We opened this year with 220 waiting lists. Over the summer, we had 400 but got cancellations. Commitment is to house freshmen students. We are not in the position to guarantee housing to returning students. Our commitment is to solicit a lot of feedback. We had three student focus groups in the fall semester we then established a 2009 housing selection task force. We also met with RSA.

Josh: what is the deal with walker, do they own it for x number of years and then you get it?
Katie: We have a land lease. We own the land and they pay us rent on it. It’s a 20-year lease. They manage facilities.
We did the math and we said based on the admissions data how many students were coming in and what percent lived off campus. We realized we were going to be in a deficit of just under 200k. We decided to take 5-year residence. So students who have been in housing for 4 consecutive semesters they have been displaced. Those seniors with 75+ credits were sent a letter that they were displaced. I think more information is better. We are currently considering a wait list for them. We are not saying they won’t get housing. Majority of those students in a few weeks we can determine if we can send them all up to walker. Walker had the least people in applications than we foresaw. We will do it in a very fair and considerate way.
Chidi: Isn’t walker more expensive?
Annual lease is not that much more expense. Academic lease is pricier.
Paula: if a student had UMBC listed as permanent address how would you determine Distance A?
This information wasn’t publicized to students until it was too late for them to do anything about it. I live in Walker.
Katie: it was only 32 students and all scholarship student athletes excluded. This was no secret and we got a lot of comments.
Paula: I had a concern because this info wasn’t really publicized to students. Some people might have lived in walker permanently.
Katie: only 32 students, second we exempted out all scholarship students and athletes. We did a significant amount of research. We got a lot of comments, so when we told the students it was not a secret. I can only use what's available to me. If student don’t chose to read what I give them.

What we are doing for people who are displaced:
“Just for Fun” is on May 6 and we're having an off campus housing fair. We will do overnight sessions. We take you on a bus to all the apartments on the transportation route. We did form an appeal committee the met last Friday.

Assistance for waitlisted students:
Some people are asking me why it is called license now. A lot of collages are moving towards license agreement. It’s not a contract and not a lease. Contract is what you provide for services. I’m providing hosing for you, but I don’t want to look at it as a contract. We are rolling up 200 deposed so you don’t have to redeposit to walker. It is a great benefit to students. A stack in west hill will have gender-neutral housing.

Paula: Does reslife have any sway over walker’s decision for license?

Katie: We encouraged them to. Their license is under a different agreement. The reality for walker is it’s very hard to kick someone out because it’s a land lease. Have to go to the courts. So by going under a similar agreement like our licensing agreement To make them a little bit easier to us to move student for non payment. It’s still a 17-day process.

Paula: why did the email Walker sent to students say only 5 days notice instead of 17, and secondly don’t those requirements to go through the courts for a lease provide protection to student so that they cannot be made homeless on short notice. And if they do provide protection why did reslief encourage Walker to remove those protections?
Katie: what we kick people out for is nonpayment but also threats to community. With in 5 days if you’re a threat to communities then yes. Lacked any sense of privacy they put a huge notice on you doors. This was a kinder gentler way to do that.
We did not include residents in that decision
Paula: The ease of being able to kick a student out was chosen over having a safe stable place to stay. I’m not comfortable staying at a place where I can be removed by somebody’s arbitrary decision without a legal process. I don’t understand why that decision was made without including student in that process.

I think that you issue is your issue. I think that community perspective. On the whole it is much better to mange what happens in walker on license agreement.
Paula so reslife does have the final say in who gets kicked out?
Katie: Yes. I manage this really closely.
Paula: It would have been really good if this were announced earlier. I know I'm not the only student this affects. When we dint have any information.
Katie: I didn’t contemplate that would be a big deal. I apologies, I frankly didn’t think people would notice.

Housing mater plan:
Phase one: planning and financial analysis- we are in phase 1 we did significant focus groups before I get here
Phase two: is an additional to Patapsco
Phase three: is the renovation of west hill
Phase four: we will access if we need more beds. We build the addition to Patapsco to be open fall 2011. All the students that used to live in west hill are now in patapsco. West hill will be closed the whole year. If we need more beds then we will make the addition to sus
Phase 5: Addition to Susquehanna or Renovation of Terrace and Hillside

In this whole plan will be passive and active recreational spaces that will be put in. We can only build so many additions. We really have to consider room.
I’m very aware of how costly everything is. I don’t want to have to raise the rooming price. So we are going to try to start raising the rates now for buildings that will happen later as well as all the renovations which you will see. I really like involvement with students. I have no problems sharing the plans for patapsco. I like to be transparent and have no problem sharing that with you. It’s a plan it’s not set in stone.

SSDC: Student judicial and counseling program at interfaith center. They will have to pay me rent just like university health services. If we still need it than sus will expand. There will be a breezeway through Chesapeake and sus when they are connected. All wings will have elevator access. It will be a suit style like Erickson and Harbor.
Michael: will students from sus be able to go to Chesapeake.
Katie we’re thinking about that. They are going to be run as two separate complexes.

West Hill Hillside and Terrace apartments Building envelope is the structure of the building. This plan includes no building envelope.
Includes taking down a wall. All of the inside will be changed. All the plans say is that we are going to do it, not how. Students will be involved in those choices.

There will be Basketball and volleyball courts. Grills and picnic tables. Can get to do one this summer.
Poll: What’s your preference, passive recreations pace in the apartment are or a sand volleyball court a basketball quarter to a tennis quart (basketball is the preference).

There will be a new entrance to the dining hall. And this all will have picnic areas. We will place the basketball and volleyball near by, so this whole community is surrounded by the dining hall and brings people in. The plan does include community center for the apartments. Its 10,000 square feet.

Summer we are putting in 3 million dollars into renovations. There will be renovations in Patapsco and Susquehana in 2009. We’re going back to sus and doing a little bit more work. We had to go back into Chesapeake too. Two smoke detectors. Also making changes to the dining hall. The middle section will shrink down where the pizza used to be is where the deserts will be. Given all the work we will be doing over the summer we can’t do the balcony and stair replacement in terrace. Will do plan B: paint and carpet and get new mattresses. We need to go back to patomic and west hill.
All this past summer the residence halls got wireless Internet access?
Katie: No, that’s actually happening this summer. Patomic, patapsco and sus don’t have it. The apartments are really hard because there’s no room to put heading room. It’s three times expensive. We are trying to come up with a plan.
We are increasing the rates for the rooms. I know students who need to reside need to pay no matter what. If students are not going to be here in 2011, I can understand students feeling a certain way.
Well space it out so that the residential hall areas are paying event if we are actually renovating the apartments.

Housing selection:
Walker deadline passed.
We actually allowed more academic leases this year which is new and all summer school students will live in Walker this summer.
Deadline is March 31st if you want to live on campus.
Squatting – pull someone in. It’s my philosophy that people who want to live together should stay together. If you’re in Erickson or Harbor or anywhere can pull in a room. And in an apartment, you can pull in your whole apartment.
Most credits gets to squat
Commuter student have the least amounts of preference.

Toby: questions about the commuters. How about hose in residential area?
Katie: They are down at the bottom of the list. But they could have appealed.
Katie I welcome your comments.

V. Open Discussion

A. Review of past week

Rahilla: Last week I was at RSA meeting and they had their elections coming up. They have dogapalloza coming up. And NRHH is doing thing where them make paper cranes. Each community will try to make 1000

VI. New Business
I. SL23-0809 – Amendment to the Election Board Policy

Amendment to SGA election policy
Katie what we were wondering about: there was a GPA requirement to run for office. This makes it difficult of someone who is first semester transfer. We wanted to get some clarification form you guys about what you thing about handling that situation. I dint want to discourage anyone from running. I think that having a perspective of coming from somewhere else right away is good.
Toby so this will be in effect for first semester transfer students in the spring, not the fall?
Katie: Yes
Amber how did you guys come up with this solution?
Katie: how we would calculate GPA was based off of what the registrar does. We looked into social works department. We just felt really strongly that someone who wants to get involved shouldn’t be prevented from doing so just because it’s the first semester. It would be great if this could be in place for the future.
James: the thought behind this being in the constitution was that we don’t want people to be coming to campus and not really know hat the issues are on campus and seeking those positions because they are the higher-up ranks. Do you think that is something that is important? Because for president, vp and vp of student orgs, is it something that someone form an outside school would have a good perspective on?
Katie: the way that it currently reads was the fact that that was stated for those positions only meant that the person who originally created it had that thought in mind. We know how they felt about that, but this part was a little more ambiguous.
Toby: this second clause only applied to vp president ad vp of student ors
Katie: it applies to anyone but those three.
Yasmin: I think this is really great I think we saw this past fall we saw something in the constitution that there were no steps or clarity about what to do when that situation arises. This really clarifies the situation for future students.
Jen move to approve
Amber second

Members for: 9, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1 Absent: 1

II. SL21-0809 - SGA Approval of FY 2010 TRW Budget

Jen moves to vote Brian second
Members for: 7, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 2

III. SL22-0809 - SGA Approval of FY 2010 SEB Budget

Toby: We are not going to discuss any more?
Rahilla: You can if you want to
Toby: In a way I wanted to say that the SEB quadmainia, it only caters to small amount of students. Probably because of funding and space.

Amber: That a legit concern but they do a get a different artist ever year. I think that one way, maybe SGA representatives looking on how we can advertise to students to be a part of that section process
Jen: SEB member are also students I think having SGA members sitting in on meetings won’t change anything. They work for moths and moths. UC ballroom only holds 400 people anyway.
Rahilla: Did we want a more detailed budget? She did not get back to me on that?
Yes
Rahilla we will table this then
Tabled

IV. JL09-0809 - Approval of SGA Budget for FY 2010
I did include a change from Josh about moving leadershape out of co-sponsorship.

We meant to take out advertisement for TRW. We took that down to 4000. The other thing I did was add 10000 to student orgs pot. We are pushing for student activity fee. By taking away the 6000 from adverting we can Still kept it below the red with the taking away the advertisement. If the student activity fee doesn’t pass will be 17000 in the red instead of 15000. I'm not totally warred about us spending a complete amount of 16000. I have a copy of the budget those were thon only things that changed
Paula: we talked about that little note getting added to the student org advocates.
Yasmin: We had that discussion on Friday; that will be up to the next treasurer and vice president. I would rather see it go into the exec fund then the president or treasurer get to given out as stipends. Paula raised a good point that money was put there to be working with student orgs and she asked to put in the budget that the money goes there. Honesty it was really late in the game for me. I don’t think I wasn’t ready to make hat step. We plan it but it’s all up to change.
Paula: The president could go in and remove whatever they wanted. If the present next year or the treasurer next year decided that we want that money to go somewhere else we could end up having removed a resource for student orgs without replacing it. If that is our intention that the money should go there, I think we should indicate it.
Michael: best place for this conversation to go there would be the debates for treasurer and president.
Paula: maybe but we have to pass the amendment to review the senior org advocate position.
Yasmin: I’m really careful about adding things for the first year in the budget. I feel the budget is something that comes over time. I’m just not comfortable putting my name on a budget that says were never tried this out before but we will put money on it.
Jen: I agree. Executive staff do not get paid however it’s up to the VP of studentr orgs if they want to have staff. The VP of students orgs can chose to to have staff. It is something that should be addressed when it comes.
James: I have a question. Isn’t there a line item for executive staff?
Yasmin: We have an executive pot
James: I wouldn’t think the vp for student ors, if they want to higher staff it would come form that pot of money
Brian move to approve
Naina: second
Members for: 9, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent 1

V. JL10-0809 - Additional Funding for Student Organizations

Yasmin: I did work over spring break. We’re not going to spend the 10000. We have 25000 that we’ve allocated and haven’t spent.
We allocate about 140k dollars, So far. At the end of the year, it usually turns out that we get 35k rolled back in our general ledger of student org money that has not been spent. We Wanted to do it month by moth, but the way business services work it doesn’t work that way. I went through during spring break. And so what I found 25k hasn’t been spent. I’m assuming that some of that will get spent. So the expenditure is more ceremonial.
James: last year we allocated more money to student orgs and it was 160k allocated and we spent 110 k this just increases how much we put up for student orgs, but were very unlikely to hit that. This will increase what we can allocate out
Jen: they could go through and reallocate the money that’s already been spent, looks weird on paper, this is just a formality.
Matt: I not getting why you need ceremony
Yasmin: We’ve already allocated it all. In my books money has been allocated. Some of that hasn’t been spent. It looks weird.
Jen: it’s just sitting in their account.
Toby: will your process of allocating money to student ors change?
Yasmin: No our process has changed a bit on what we’ve been giving out money for. I could come back in a week and say we need another 10k.
Chidi: What happens when org gets money allocated to them and they don’t spend it? What happens to it?
Yasmin: They would have to come back. I’ve been trying to be a little less lenient about the reallocations
Michael: would be fair analogy that the senate loans this to the finance board for wiggle room and then goes back into the general ledger

Toby motion to approve, Simi second
Members for: 9, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 1

VI. JL11-0809 – Funding for Erickson Field

James: Legislation in front of you is the accumulation of the work that Michael and I have been doing with regards to Erickson field. A lot of the problems with Erickson field involve it not being taken care of properly. Not regularly seeded or aerated. It has been seeded only once this year. What we needed to do was take this field and make it into something sustainable and more appealing. Erickson field was in the maser plan 10 years ago. We are not sure where it is any more.

Plan is an Outside contractor that would take care of the field. Seed and aerate after every major event. Fertilize 3 times a year. Maker sure it gets water. We also have plans for drainage on east side of the filed. We will implement those as we see fit.
Josh: is the 2600 just for the contractor?
James: aeration is a big part of draining.
Simi: is this really something that we should be paying for.
James: its facilities management deal. My reason it’s that we are a primary user and destroyer of the field. Facilities management will not have the have the money to do a plan like this. They are also putting money toward this project. This is just a commitment for one year. I think it’s a necessary
Simi: would there be any restrictions for people using using field
James; if we're paying for it, we set the restrictions on it.
Simi: Just because we don’t like how it looks?
James: Not just how it looks, how it functions as well. You can’t use it when it floods its not a nice field for recreation
Brian: this is a one-year commitment?
James: this amount of money would cover one year. We can look for other places for funding the office of institutional advancement was interested.
Brian: I've only bee here for two years, but it seems like they always try to do things and none of them have worked. This might be t he same way. I don’t know if it’s responsible. We're struggling to fund student org events. This could be a commission to look into for the future. We should be lobbing facilities management to take on whole thing. .
James: Even if it is in the master plan is not implemented in a year. It’s going to be like that for years into the future. Maybe only 5 years.
It’s never been implemented in such a fashion where it came together. They only partially fix it.
Josh: I agree in the sense that it is the scar on the campus 26hundred dollars for something that we don know if it works. I’ve seen things where different campus get different student orgs to go do it. For every student org that does that we give them 10 bucks for their student orgs.
Jams; we wanted to do it with volunteer week coming up. With that you have to buy aerating equipment. We were having trouble organizing that especially how many people it really takes. I like the idea. That’s why I wanted to go with the Outside contract proved methods. Their jobs are landscaping they know what their doing.
Chidi: if we do put this money into it, it’s going to be hard to entail that it is taken care of or IF no one walks on it. We would want to maintain it. If feel like it would take a lot more to enforce this.
James: we went people to be using the field.
Amber: I think this is an important project to increase student interaction between different types of people. That doesn’t mean that we can’t spend where we can affordably do so. How many contractors did you get quote form
James: Faculties management too care of that. They have a way to do that.
Jen: I think this is a good project, the price is too low for me, for that little it would have been done by now. I don’t that 26 would have done it
James: we went to have it not just after events but other times of the year
Whitney: I was wondering if a contractor came out and was on sight and if they think it will be successful
James: yea that’s what we were doing. It’s easily aerated there concern is also drainage. We tested a clay drainage system. Want to see what an aerating will do.
Yasmin: I was wondering who you spoke to. There is a facilities management plan to implement something that is 200000. Their next plan is a 500000 pan. I think it would be important to get hold of that plan. I don’t want to see us put money into a field that will be taken over by facilities management later. I would like to see a bit more research into this plan.
James: There is a plan to fill it ion. I did see the master plan. The might be the one you are talking about. I can look ore into that.
Michael: I see no mention of Erickson field.
James we can look into that. That plan will not bb implemented by next year
Josh: I don’t feel like a 2500 band-aid will help. I don’t see how that could possibly do anything thing on a field that big. I don’t feel like any amount of throwing seeds or aerating is going to fix it.
Brian: this is a good project, but in the fiscal times we are in you have to decide where to draw the line. Our priorities should be student life and funding.
James: would you guys be more comfortable voting on this if the contractor came in here and talked to you? I don’t know how to prove that planting and watering grass makes it grow.
Paula: I feel like you guys want James to just through hoops. Brian was right in saying. Our job is to find events for student organizations. There a huge pop of this school that are not represent here. The field is a big part of student life. I’m feeling real inconsistency here. I’m concerned because we’re not representing the needs of campus.
James: I'm cool with bringing in more information.
Brian it’s our job as senators to be responsible with the students’ money.
Move to table the motion
Whitney seconds.
Amber: just because it might not work doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to solve it for students who want it.
Yasmin: my worry is not fiscally. My worry is the number of co-sponsorships we do and then we find out there wasn’t enough info given to facilities management. This happened with the banners. We had these issues with the banners. I’m proud of you guys for really questioning things.
Event tabled.

VII. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours (Matt, Simmi, Sunaina, Toby)
Toby: Naina and I met with OCSS has a study place at chick-fil-a. And talked about a study place at chick-fil-a we wanted try to use place after it closed as a study place. We discussed some issues with that. One issue is staff No one staffed the place after 8, security; we would have to rearrange the furniture. Going to talk to OSL to make rue that we can get this to work out. If not we might look at other places.
Jen: It was renovated to be made into a 24hour space
Toby it was
Student: how is going to be set up?
Toby I think right now tables and chairs are ok place to study. Not a lot of rearranging needed.
Toby: meeting tomorrow about extending library hours the week prior to final exams.

B. Reaching out to International Students (Chidi, Rahilla)

Chidi: Other institutes that have large pop of international student have outsource vender, that come and sell different food. Another thing we talked about was getting scholarship for international students. Something to just help students out. We are having a meeting next week with office on institutional advisement, English learning center, the admissions office, career services, etc.

C. Black and Gold Campus Signage (Aditi, Whitney, Jen, Toby)
Whitney: Aditi was saying timeline was pushed back. Still issues with commitment from other people.
Jen: I have been doing advertisement. I not going to put it up until we have money
Toby: black and gold card is going really well. I want whomever the contest winner to be on the card. But he said possibly the winner can be iffy its need committee to approve to.

D. Fees (Jen, Aditi, Chidi, Josh, David)

Fees: we spoke briefly I sent a bunch of requests to business services.
I’m looking into all the mandatory fees. Where exactly is all the money going to? One thing laundry fees, RSA also looking at that, a lot of schools don’t charge for laundry any more. Looking to change contract for laundry provides. Lastly printing. I would like to see some sort to of quota. I’m guessing that’s not going to go very far.

E. Follow-up on Transit Tracker (Simmi, Matt, Amber, Rahilla)

We haven’t met yet.

VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports

James: a lot of meetings with student orgs Michael has been working on constitution generator that will allow student orgs to enter information.
Paula: Gender-neutral housing met. We placed some students in walker. I know that a lot of students were rejected because we had a number of students apply. Asked them to apply to west hill, which is what they are doing. No RAs are going to be allowed to live in gender-neutral housing. We decided RAs apartment to be a safe place.
Michael: election website up.
Gabe: diversity is working on what makes you different thing. We should be happening next Wednesday. Fouad said early move in thing is done. We have UMBC bumper stickers in bookstore now. Prove it has been set for May
Retriever rewards been having issue with website. Push it back until next fall.
Yasmin: had a student activity fee meeting with student leaders were going to start putting flyers up.
Josh:
RSA’s report: dogapalooza coming up. You’ll get more in email. We are sending a delegation to Tucson, Arizona for conference in May. We have been working on paper cranes for children’s hospital. Campus smoking policy, we are planning to meet with facilities management. Facilities management will move designated smoking area to place your not allowed to smoke. RSA exec board is doing nomination. We need more people running. Need pictures of room for 3D virtual tour.

IX. Announcements
Bryan when are we going to be doing the rest of the conformations?
Gabe: next week

Gabe: election time rules for the office: no campaigning, materials in office.
Simi: first year council doing black and gold thing 17 same day as quadmania. For food we would do barbeque or to have ice cream.

Lynne Schaeffer will coming next week. VP of finance
Questions for her ill take them now.
Student activity fee will be talked about with her. She will be one those who says if we get it.
Do your office hours.

X. Roll Call

Aditi and Rahilla absent

XI. Adjournment
8:00pm
XII. Pass the Gavel

Finance Board Meeting

Call to order: all here except Harsh 3/24/09

SIKH STUDENT ASSOCIATION
. Vaisakhi Langar - name of the event
. April 16th - date of the event
. Location - UC ballroom
. Purpose of the event - to spread awareness of the new year, similar to the free kitchen (usually have that at the temple). The idea behind is that anyone can come to this event
. $1341 total amount requested
. common vision package would be used for advertising
- $75 others - utensils, plates, etc
. James: likes the event because it seems like a good event
. Silva: likes the event
. 4 in favor, none opposed

GO CLUB
. UMBC spring go tournament
. the event occur every semester, since fall 2006
. It is a board game tournament ( similar to chess)
. Location: skylight
. money would go towards the equipment ( boards)
. 50-60 people would be attending the event
. This tournament is also a qualifier for a national tournament
. James:
. how many go boards would you purchase with the money?
. About 20 boards
. How long would they last?
- For about a year
. only members could play in the tournament.
. The tournaments occur 2 times per semester
. In the past they have charged the non-umbc students, but this time non-umbc students would be permitted free.
. $34 is for the chapter membership
. Silva:
. are membership necessary?
. it is not necessary in order to be in the club, however chapter membership is necessary in order to play the tournaments
. Yasmin:
. how will you be advertising?
. flyers, e-journal, club website
. college park:
. This event will happen in college park ( charging $20 per person)
. Are there prizes that will be given out? Last year there were cash prices given out.
. Yasmin:
- How would u advertise?
. Mainly flyers
. They requested $400 dollars
. yasmin: It is a big tournament and also this year they haven’t gotten much money this year.
. Group suggested that they provide half of the fee, so $10 per person
. Silva: cut it at all or fund it all
. James: 20 sets is a bit too much
. Group need the organization to answer some more questions, then will vote on it.
. Emily: What if we charge the students, as college park is doing.
. cut KGS
. James: cut the boards, stones, bowls to 150
. keep pizza and soda to 150
. total comes out to be $ 635
. 3 in favor, 0 opposed, abstaining 1

. BANGLA CLUB
. Event: Boishaki Bang
. When: Sunday April 12th at 4:00 PM
. Purpose: spread word of Bengali culture, because it is always overshadowed by other cultures and showcasing the Bengali talent
. it is a family event
. What does Boishaki Bang means - it is a bengali new year.
. 450 people expected ( 250-300 UMBC students)
. charging adults ( only parents, not off-campus students)
. charging adults $5 and children are free, and students with ID are free
. food - food would be catered from an Indian restaurant
. Accapella groups, dances, and many other performances
. The event is mainly a show and a dinner
. The event is happening in collaboration with college park and JHU
. they had this event last year with same number of attendees
. total amount requested is $2,820 dollars
. JHU AND COLLEGE PARK - making their own tickets
. club is getting partially funding from JHU
. Group will wait one week to vote on it

THE AMERICAN RED CROSS CLUB
. Event: American Red Cross Concert
. When: April 23rd, 7:00 pm-11:00 pm
. Last year they had a concert and they had more people attending than they expected,
. This year, they want to have this event on a larger scale ( 450 people)
. The event is a free concert where free bands would be performing
. Purpose - To raise awareness for the red cross chapter in MD
. The concert is free to everyone

. Emily:
. - how will you advertise?
- Myumbc, radio/ local newspaper
. Yasmin:
. - what is the purpose of event?
- learn about Red Cross in general rather than just the idea that Red Cross is involved with blood drive
. Silva: would commonvision be used to advertise off-campus?
. commonvision - will be used to advertise on campus and not off-campus
. James: likes the event beside the advertising
. Silva: can’t they use the flyers Red Cross is giving them to advertise off-campus
. Since they need tickets, they would have to go through commonvision
. Yasmin: cut the advertising down to $ 200 since Red Cross is also helping them advertise
. Yasmin: the event is not a charity event, rather it is for awareness
. Total amount given is $1145
. in favor of 3, oppose 0, 1 abstaining

BIODIESEL PROJECT
. The club won MTV GO green award ( $1500)
. The money is used to making biodiesel
. farm funding, tools and equipment
. They requested $1000
. James: farm funding, do they require money for that?
. It is kind of paying them for the space we are using
. food: when they are out for 3-4 hours, its for the students
. Group decided to keep the food
. 2 in favor, 0 opposed, 2 abstaining

HONORS COLLEGE COUNCIL
. This is not a recognized student organization
. Event: semi formal dance,
. Where: Skylight
. Purpose: dancing, people to have fun, student DJ
. Money would go towards sound and security
. 100 people expected
. Silva:
. how would you advertise?
. honor college department, myumbc, facebook, email list
. What kind of decoration will we be using?
. flowers and balloons
. main purpose of the event: opportunity for the members of honors college to have fun time in a semi formal setting
. Catherine: Since Honors College and SGA would be sponsoring it, but they are mainly asking SGA for funding
. Yasmin: cant see purpose of this event
. it is a traditional event.
. Silva: members should pay $10

HISTORY STUDENT COUNCIL
. meetings food
. oppose 2, abstaining 1

STAND
. Event: knowing then acting
. requested $170
. Group decided they do not need student marshal
. audio visual is $50
. food cut down to $55
. $85 total
. 3 in favor, 1 abstaining

WIDE
. Event: trip to national aquarium
. tickets for $8 per ticket
. total $200 requested
. they are advertising for the event
. organization is open for anyone to join
. James: it should be ok to funds things mainly for the club members.
. Yasmin: This group wasn’t funded this year, so it is reasonable to fund them this year
. James: we are not paying for transportation, so we should fund it
. 3 for, none oppose, abstaining 1

PRE-VET SOCIETY
. V-tech pre-vet open house
. gas money for transportation
. Silva: cut it down to two cars
. cut it down to $60 total cost
. 3 for, oppose none, 1 abstaining

ETHIOPIAN ERITREAN STUDENT ASSOCIATION
- Event: ESAI Annual Summit
. asking for total of $ 500
. they have $500 in their accounts
. all executive board + 10 members are going
. they don’t feel comfortable using the money that was donated to them.
. Catherine: as long as it is open to everyone, we should fund it
. James: we shouldn’t fund it even though the organization is open to everyone
. Stefan move to vote, James second
. 2 opposed, 1 for, 1 abstaining
.
At the end of the meeting:

James: american red cross, biodiesel
Stefan: go club
James: honors college
Emily: history student council
Catherine: stand, wide
Stefan: ethiopian
Silva: pre -vet

Roll Call: Everyone here that was here before

SGA Senate 3/23/09

Overview

I. Call to order
II. Roll Call
III. Approval of Minutes
IV. Special Guest: Lisa Gray, Assistant Director for Cultural and Religious Diversity
V. Open Discussion
VI. Project Updates
VII. New Business
VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports
IX. Announcements
X. Roll Call
XI. Adjournment
XII. Pass the Gavel

I. Call to order
5:36

II. Roll Call

All members present
III. Approval of Minutes

Postponed until next week
IV. Special Guest: Lisa Gray, Assistant Director for Cultural and Religious Diversity
Lisa not sure what you all want to know so I'm going to give a general overview. I’m one of the assistant directors in the student life office. We are a student focus support area that does programming and provides resources related to diversity. We don’t define diversity solely in terms of race and ethnicity. We define it broadly. Were always looking to expand and do programs around populations that have not been as visible on campus. Our mission is to Redefine or make it more inclusive of all diversity. Extend the meaning of diversity to age, class, area of study. We want to hear about how were doing. What you all might have been hearing as the representatives of the student body. If you have any questions we’ll be happy to take them
Kara: I’m in the mosaic center Monday through thus 10 to 3. We have 8 student workers mon through Friday. Spread the word about where we are. We encourage people to use the mosaic center as a place to hang out. I’m a student in the LLC (language literacy and culture) program.
Toby: you guys have done a wonderful job with the UMBC talk.
Simi: speaker series are wonderful and Eye opening.

Brian: I also enjoyed the talks. I hear there are a lot of cultural groups on campus; they are supported but they ten to stick together. To you all have any plans to bridge those gaps.
Lisa: that’s something we struggle with as well. Inherent with any underrepresented group there is a mentality to “take care of our own”. A pulling in happens. There may be ways to look at how funding is done, so it doesn’t feel as if orgs only have to look out for themselves. I’m not sure what can be done about his. There is not a lot of reason for orgs to co-sponsor given how the budgeting process is. Orgs may not always think about whom they can partner with. The roll we see ourselves playing is to see how we can affect this. Number of ogs. in comparison to staffing is an issue. Always tension with asking to workers to do more than what they can do. Try to rely on student leaders like yourselves to give us information.
Brian: I also meant students in general. Not just orgs. I was just wondering if you’re trying to address that
Lisa: We see it and we try to address it in our talks. We haven’t gotten at how to impact it. Trying to create opportunities for students to come together. That’s the sprit behind UMBC talks. We would be interested in what you all think about this. You see these dynamics played out in your lives. We would be interested in hearing how you deal with it in the groups you work with. You all are your own best source of information on this.
Chidi: I am interested in your projects about increasing visibility. I know UMBC is diverse. My first question is: What is it that you can to increase visibility on campus. A lot of student haven’t heard bout this. My second question is how do you all target you goals every semester. I hear you all asking for feedback. Way to contact events put project up to makes sure they are being utilize
Lisa: where we get out budge form. Our center is within the office student life, student affairs budget is allocated to student life, and we get a piece of that. What we get is limited to about 10000 for the year to address all the needs you all have asked about. We do what we can to make it go ads far as you can. That Impacts what we can do with visibility. We have to look at resources that are available to us like myUMBC spotlight, webpage’s or brochures. Electronic means to get the word out. Part of the issue is the amount of information coming at people on this campus. We don’t want to bombard people with messages. We try to be calculating with getting word out about certain programs and using myUMBC and lower the amount of emails we send. Those are some of the things we do to increase visibility. Looking to get banners we can hang. Hopefully something that gets rotated on main street. Honesty, it cost a lot to do poster and banners and flyers. We would love to be able to do that, but that’s not feasible. Try do to things like this: come to talk about what we do. Creating a snowball effect, we are slowly getting people to realize what we do.
Lisa: we’re challenged in that this is a very transient population. Some students don’t have the time or aren’t here. We do have limited space to work in. Space wall allocated in 04. There’s never been any discussion round any larger space.
We get a lot of information through office of student life. W would love to do regular surveys of the entire student body to choose what programs would make the most sense, but that takes money.
Simi so if we have any ids of our project, should just come in and stop by
Kara: we have an idea box
Simi: maybe putting it outside the door so people can just stop by would help
Lisa: mosaic@UMBC.edu or interfaith
Michael: I can talk to you about recording UMBC talks and putting them online
There are websites where you can do survey online and send them out for three.
Lisa: we have to be careful we don’t want to overwhelm the student body. I think we have an account to zoomeang
Could put out a survey on facebook page
Lisa and we do have a facebook page. I’m on facebook as well; you can find me that way.

V. Open Discussion

A. Review from Past week
Brian: New frat for Greek life. Will be coming on in the fall.
Whitney: service committed meeting. Peanut better back in dinging hall
5.99 for Refillable coffee mug and refills for 129. Have Passover diner options. Campus Dining hall renaming contest. Will narrow it down and it goes to steerning committees. Forming committee for people who will do the ground opening in the fall.

Aditi: can we petition t rename outtakes the spot?
Josh: there not going to be very receptive to that because Charwells logo places are always called outtakes.

Whitney: the winner gets a pizza party and 4 tickets to oriole’s game.
Rahilla: what are there plans to promote the new name?

Whitney: ill find out for next week.

B. Review of Retriever weekly budget

TRW: Biggest change that we see is advertising revenue is up so had to adjust our expenses. Built in a cushion there, our circulation went down so cut down circulation now printing 3000 per issue instead of 5000. Also taking into consideration minimum wage increase in June. 7.25. renamed some stuff and added a few dollars to staff development. Office supplies reallocated to photography. We are doing too good of a job of bringing in new writers because we bumped up pay. We attracted too many people caning how they get paid. 30 dollars for senor writhers, 15 for staff writhers and 10 for contributing writers. We attracted too many people.
Chidi: $30 to senior writers. I feel like that’s kind of on the high side.

TRW: Only two or three senior writers. The amount and is in line with other places

Chidi: why $30
TRW: That’s in line with others
Chidi: so it could be $25
Aditi: Is other schools budget similar to your budges?
TRW: University of Maryland is daily and Towson is by weekly so it’s hard to compare
Josh: $30 compared to other schools or professional newspapers
A lot more for professional newspapers, 30 well in line with students. You really don’t want to take away from your best writers and photographers; you need to provide an incentive for them to stay.
Josh: for subscriptions for the Baltimore sun, 500 seems like a lot for a subscription
TRW: I actually don't know the exact price of that
Toby: you said you cut back for m 5000 to 3000 copies will you have leftovers?
No we hit the mark on that one.
Rahilla: what are the education funds for?
TRW: For conferences and workshops. Ideal to go.
Rahilla: do a lot of writers attend it? Has this been utilized?

TRW: This is something new, so they haven’t utilized it yet, but we have had people go to conferences at college park

Matt: circulation? In terms of where papers going to go

TRW: We’ve already cut it back to 3000 still distributing it everywhere thought-out campus.
Matt: so the papers that aren’t getting distributed are the ones that you cut

Amber: what was the biggest discrepancy between what you set and what you actually spent?

TRW: For last year to last year, other than the printing, we did well this year not having to spend too much on tech equipment. You see that in 2008, we spent 8000, we wont do that again. We were fortunate we have not had to replace anything.

Yasmin: are there things that are missing. You have probably heard about out beget problems, is there any ting you think is missing from the e budget.

TRW: No. At a certain point it become what could make thing s a bit more efficient

Simi; is that amount hour cutting back going towards the wages?
TRW: No, the money that we save printing is in our goal and adverting revenue. Total expenses drop.
Rahilla: costs with domain?
TRW: For about 6 months we didn’t have a Webmaster and now we do. We host it so no cost.
We haven’t tapped into adverting online yet. The 80k advertising revenue goal has be the same every year but last.
Matt: question said you felt like you were only cutting pleasantries. Say you had a reduced budget, would you still be cutting out pleasantries or sorting Important?
TRW: I don’t think there are too many frills in this budget. First thing to go is advertising. This is pretty Spartan
Amber: I appreciate the attention to detail, but I think we are being nitpicky. They have done a really good job. They have to cut back a lot. They did a good job.

C. Review of SEB budget

SEB: Our treasurer couldn’t not come I will try my best to answer your questions. Were asking for the exact same thing as last year. The Allocation goes to major events, like homecoming, quadmaina. Only thing different this year, we have to move some of our operation expenses into salaries because of minimum wage increase
Rahilla: other weekend events, you all have oriole’s games. I've never seen adds for that
SEB: We do that once every year. That’s an example of things we’ve don it the past. We do a wide range of things, sports zones events, open mic night, and general weekend events. This money isn’t just sitting here.
Whitney: what are operation expenses?
Contracts, security, when we hire people at events.
Amber: how you guys account for recording attending at events and putting the most money into events
SEB: We evaluate every single event. Track which events are more popular. At every single event count how many people are there at the beginning and at the end. Our graduate advisor tracks that.
Josh: what is on there looks good, but I think before anything is voted, we should review a more compete budget, its rather lacing in details.
SEB: Is there any kind of detail you me to provide?
Operation expense only thing listed are major events. It doesn’t total when it ads up. I’m curious where all the money is going.
SEB: SGA dost fully fund this only ask 163 the rest we get from revenue from ticket sales.
Adidt: the company that you gets film from is that the cheapest you can find?
Because of the release dates, tried to cut down by finding slightly older films. Tried to have like a movie pass to cut cost.

Jen: can you get the actual expenders for 08?
Yasmin: actual expenditures will be in the same format. We do it really general. A lot of people expect to see it broken down, but it wont be.
Brian: and idea could be make the old salary a stipend
SEB: It actually is a stipend but we still have to deal with minimum wage. Were still required to bump it up.

D. Review of SGA budget
Yasmin: Anything that’s highlighted I’ve changed for this year. Notes on the side for myself. Mistake in calculation last year. Only nine senators. We dint want make some major cuts. If we cut out all the red, what’s the point of the student activity fee increases. We kept stipend the same. Anything with an asterisk is probably something that would be cut if the student activity fee doesn’t pass. If it does pass 50000 in the red 15000 if we don’t. If the activity fee doesn’t pass, co-sponsorships could go. Asterisks are fist things to be cut.
Naina: why do we allocate SEB 14000 when we already allocated them money?
Yasmin: we don’t have to.
Gabe: they do have to come to us to get it.
Naina: did you guys consider cutting that?
Yasmin: no. Its not like what’s in here is going to absolutely be spent.
We can look at cutting quadmanina
Josh: what is the readershape program?
Yasmin: that is now completely funded by us. It’s the newspapers in the commons. That was one of our main debates. It has been a big investment in the SGA in the past.18-19 for circulation next year.
Toby: what does that do to help raise awareness about student activity fee?
Yasmin: we will be sending out a complete know-it-all about the student activity fee. I will be sending out an email on Wednesday night about forum. Discuss what’s going on.

Co sponsorships problems we saw this year is that we don’t don a lot of work with them. We send away our money and expect things to happen. Things we talked about were events we could really put effort into. Service events were cut. Were not dong it for the finance board. Why do it for the SGA if not for students?
Josh: Programming and initiative fund what is it? Could some of that money be moved to senate additional allocation?
Gabe: exec does projects, SGA senate does not
Josh: 10 for prove it?
Yasmin: a lot of people like prove it. I think it’s a good place to be spending 10k
Gabe: Contest on campus where any group of students or student organization to come up with an idea to affect the campus. The selection committee picked the project they thought was the best: that was greenspace project
The area by the pond to FA building is going to a nice garden space. Place to hang out outside. May not cost whole 50k. But it was a project we were willing to spend 50k on.
Toby: so every year we will do that?
Yasmin the way to put it, this money doesn’t get entirely spent. Next years SGA really decides what they want to do with it. The stipends might not even go through next year.

Yasmin: one thing I want to talk about. We did alto more research this year. Asked a lot ore questions about the administrative overhead. For the pest few years we thought that hat money goes to the university pot. Found out it goes to OSL. Talked with OSL to see where that’s money going. It is something we kept in the budget, but left a lot of room in the budget. 1998 when the agreement started. A lot of place that we cross over, we were looking for a little bit more information as to where the money goes. They do pay overhead to administration. We need to step up our game with it. Get a person at OSL staff meetings and say we want more involvement. I want to let you guys know that we have done a lot of research. By next week ill have a clearer idea of where money goes.

Rahilla if all things go well we will vote on this next week.

VI. Project Updates

A. Increased Library Hours

Naina: having a lull, haven’t been able to research stuff we will do but are getting on that now. Head of study place committee approached me and ask if I would like to take the lead on this. I figured that them directing out approach toward studepy place would be a good idea. Trying to gather history about study place.

B. Reaching out to International Students
Chidi: planning on meeting on Wednesday.

C. Black and Gold Campus Signage

Aditi: Jen and me were talking over break decided to change deadline again. Were having problems with funding. David and I are working on that. Communication gap is the biggest issue.
Toby: how much do you need?
Like $6,000 more. We do have campus partners. We keep having to push it back.

D. Fees

Josh: We need a bit more time.
E. Sales of Gum at stores on campus

Whitney: I talked to Kim Leisey again and talked about issue. I want to see their willing to get gum at the outtakes event thought they’ve been advised against it. Probably a touchy situation.
Josh: gum is sold in the commons - the bookstore does sell gum.
Chidi: gum everywhere on the floor that might be a reason they don’t sell it. Seeing gum everywhere is gross.
Brian: We didn’t ever really debate this. Someone just brought it up and the senate just ran with it. I don’t support it. I think we have legislation
Rhaila: you all could have debated it then.
Brian: I think its Important we have a conversation about it
Josh: I agree with Brian. It makes a mess and people don’t throw it away. If whiney wants to pursue it they go ahead, make sure you don’t tell people you are going on behalf of the senate because I don’t think the senate has debated it.
Aditi: the reason we decided to do this we wanted to look at things form a micro level perspective. At least this student knows that a senator took initiative too look into an issue. I think it made a difference for the people that cared.
Matt: I remember the debate that we had there were two sides. I thought that the argument was that students would buy gum anyway, but I see now that some people say if its more accessible there will be gum on the ground.
Brian: We never talked about the process for this. But we are advocating for this as a senate. When we haven’t talked the isuue.
Whiney: I think its done.
Brian we should tell the student.
Jen ill do it.
First proeect complete.

F. Follow-up on Transit Tracker
Transit tracker. Keeping you guys updated starting next week.

VII. New Business

A. SR08-0809- Resolution to support the present smoking legislation
This is just saying what the legislation is and to tell everyone what it does.
Brian: I’m glad you put this together. As an RA I was told to enforce a policy that didn’t exist and that’s a huge issue.
David: drop 4th 5th 6th clauses.
Josh: that was my Attempt to appease certain groups
Rahilla: motion to amend?
Toby: if we pass this policy how do we promote that to the students?
Josh: RSA planning to put posters up and to inform community directors enforcing what they think are the policy.
Jen: designated smoking areas in hillside?
They do in the res halls
Jen: I think reslife is going to do this. Were going to have to tell people we cant just pass this.
Josh: I agree
Yasmin: I would like to have some research. Have ash treys not 20 feet away. Designated smoking area will go, if its not 20 feet away than its contradictory. We should visit that.

Michael
David: everyone agrees that following through should happen. In order for it to be worth ore then we have to talk in more specific terms. Not just what we “should” do
Aditi: which one is the right version?
Josh: On the first page three is a really long whereas: that is the version that has been passed. This is supporting the one the SGA has already passed.
Rahilla what department past conflicting version?
Brian: reslife were one of the culprits. Had a meeting were told this is the new policy.
Josh: student judicial programs website. Has a ling to copies. PDF is the one we passed and word is the reslife
Adidt: moving to approve
.
Rahilla: do we want to have discussion on how we will actually follow through?

Josh: The three groups we heed to talk to are the student judicial program the campus police and facilities management
Michel: walker is still incorrect.

Brian second move to approve
Jen move to approve but scratch lines 4 5 6 and residence life

Members for: 10, opposed: 0, abstaining: 1, absent: 0

B. SR09-0809- Resolution to support the name change from Non-Exempt Excluded Senate Staff (NESS) to Non-Exempt Senate Staff (NSS)
Rahilla: Should be a paper that explains reason for name change

David: It’s your document, you can change it
Rahilla: I changed it motion to approve
Naina seconds
Members For: 10, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 0

Brian: are we going to see more conformations?
Rahilla: we have a few more

Gabe: I have a personal statement form Fo but I still have to get some things out.

VIII. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports

Gabe: I had a lot of meetings last week. Wednesday I had a meeting with Elliot Hershman about the transcript fee. It went very well. He was good to talk to about this. In the end they are going to look into two models, one is an overall lowering of fee, or decreased cost for a bulk load. So you would save money I you have to order several. We also brought up PDF how it makes no sense to change for PDF. Dr Hershman agreed with that. Said she would look into it. I want to see the issue wrapped up at the end of the year.
Michel: what about he chat function
Gabe: I pointed out that is was something student wouldn’t use. Should have done more research on that.

Gabe: Thursday I had a meeting went over retrievers budget
Yasmin: they recommend to the president that they pass our budget.
Friday was steering committees. Lease change dinging hall deal. Going to be the last day of our terms. Where they pick the dining hall name.
Thinking about putting Exam bubble sheets fill out tat end of semester, online and want to change questions. Formation of a committee to bring plus minus grading to UMBC. I made it clear that he would have negative feedback for that.

Websites are being updated. James testing stuff on Erickson field. Fo is good for early move final proposal.

Michael: election webpage: all candidates profess are up. It is ready to go live. Working with James on constitution generation website for new students who want to make a club.

David: 35 candidates. Good showing election bard working extensively together
Consider my class for this coming fall

Yasmin: Wednesday is kite-flying day for PSA on Erickson field

IX. Announcements

Dave: want to make it so that we can only drop classes after 2 weeks

Arguments in favor of it were preserving academic integrity of transcript and if student stay in class till third of 4th week they will take spots from other students. I asked for numbers. All other USM schools have them

Jen: stress fee zone Thursday at 5 in SGA office. Registration starts tomorrow I don’t thin anyone here will have an appointment time that early

Rahilla: office hours
No team building next week.
Next week were having Katie boon

X. Roll Call

All members present
XI. Adjournment

8:04 pm
XII. Pass the Gavel

SGA Senate 3/9/09

Overview

I. Call to order:
II. Roll Call
III. Approval of Minutes
IV. Representative for NRHH (National Residence Hall Honorary)
V. Open Discussion
VI. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours
B. Reaching out to International Students
C. Black and Gold Campus Signage
D. Fees
E. Sales of Gum on Campus
F. Follow-up on Transit Tracker
VII. New Business
G. JL08-0809 (Confirmation of Election Board member)
H. SLI9-0809 (Confirmation of Executive Cabinet Directors and Assistant Directors)
I. SL20-0809 (Confirmation of Geoff Beebe as Student Orgs Committee Member)
J. JL09-0809 (Allocation of funds for Buses to Binghamton)
VIII. Gabe’s Speech on file sharing
IX. Team Building Activity (Brian Frazee)
X. Executive/ Ex0officio Reports
XI. Announcements
XII. Roll Call
XIII. Adjournment
XIV. Pass the Gavel

II. Call to Order: 5:34

III. Roll Call: All members present except for Simi and Chidi

IV. Approval of Minutes: Minutes Approved

V. Representative for NRHH (National Residence Hall Honorary)

Brian: I was sent to talk about National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) its top 1% of residential leaders in the country. We’re dedicated to service and recognition and were trying to get applications. Applications will be available through spring break. You do have to be a residential student. You don’t have to be in Reslife. NRHH provides an opportunity to give back to your community, to recognize your peers, to get cool blue hoodies, etc.
Brian: It’s free. We meet every other Sunday night for an hour.

VI. Open Discussion
A. Review of Past week

Whitney: Met with Chartwells. They now have wheat bagels in the commons in addition to plain. Also looking for examples of bad service and getting feedback. They are working on issues with student orgs and lowering prices. Help them advertise. Kind of like a partnership.

Aditi: I went to Alumni association committee. Were touching base about economic issues. Their Happy to hear about things were doing. A lot of them thought it was cool that waiting list for residential halls. Planning alumni dinner thing for scholarship students. Alumni would like to see the student they are giving their money to. First alumni magazine just came out. Looking for submissions from students and alumni and what they remember.

Brian: USM student council met yesterday. We had Chancellor came and talked about what he wants us to do as council members. Talked about UMBC transcript fee. The Chancellor knows about it, which is good. Talked a lot about textbook bills. Process of choosing new reps. next meeting they want us to have new reps. May be a few seats open.

VII. Project Updates
A. Increased Library Hours
Naina: I went with Simmi and talked about FY10 cuts coming up. Cutting serials from about 9% to 14% budget cut. There will be a freeze to preserve course services. No new programs on the horizon because they have no money. 13 departments are exempt from this cut because their budgets were so small?
The vibe of the meeting was that there was No money. Our way to handle it is to see if its possible for extended hours at least during finals. Find out what other places we can go on campus. Talked about multipurpose room. The feedback for that wasn’t good. Didn’t think it was a good idea, might as well study in your own room. Any suggestions for study spaces?

Rahilla: Did you meet with deans of collages?
No. Postponed until later.
Amber: What about extending any other building hours? Like LH 1
David: study place in the UC
Naina: Chick-fil-a is there
David: during the day.
Naina: They don’t fee comfortable with students being in there. Things get stolen.
Aditi: Public policy is open until 5am. Let people know that they are open. Only concern is that there are a lot of chemicals in there.
Josh: engineering labs are already open 24 hours. People go to use computers and a quite place to study.
Paula; engineering is formally open all the time. Get permission for LH 5, get vending machine and stuff like that.
Jen: the point of leaving the library open is so people can check out books. A big step to getting extra hours is to prove that people use those study spaces overnight. We need to work on making sure people use engineering. Herd that people don’t use the atrium (which is not true). Half the people leave the library because the atrium is full. Encourage people who are leaving to use engineering.
Paula: There is currently a poll The Retriever is doing. Might be good to think about intruding a fee (not this year) to have it open later. Needs more research.
Naina: TRW is coving this. Were Advertise about engineering space and figure out which places people would prefer.
Rahilla: might want to talk to dean of engineering for LH 5

B. Reaching out to International Students

Rahilla : Chiti not here. Previous event idea was too big and not enough resources. We are reverting to our original idea: admissions office to set up someone to reach out to international students. More about that next week.

Yasmin: What about The Skylight room reservation? There is an org looking to use it at that time.
Rahilla: that event is not happening. Will talk to you after the meeting.

C. Black and Gold Campus Signage

Aditi: Catherine from first year council sent me quota sheet and they look awesome. Get commonvision to print them out. Sent them examples for banner. Deposit for half the amount of money due next week. Were having problems getting people to give us money. Athletics decided they want to extend their project would cover banners going down into stadium.
We pushed back deadline, which is good. With event first year council is doing.
Rahilla: New deadline?
Aditi: date of the event is the same. Date for submissions was extended.
David: what is funding situation?
Aditi: I know we have $6000. We were promised a certain amount from VP of student affairs. We asked where the money was and got no direct answers. Athletics and admissions are waiting to see how much she gives us before giving anything. We need another 4000-5000.

D. Fees

Rahilla: are the people on this committee still interested in doing this?
Josh: Chidi and me have been following up on it. We have list going on primary things were looking at: transcript and printing fees.
Rahilla: Get in contact with David and Steve

E. Sales of Gum on Campus
Whitney: I emailed the director of facilities management. Finally got an email to call him. I first mentioned the concern about gum. He said 13 years ago they decided to implement a law prohibited vending machines and the convenience store from selling gum. Costs them so much money to clean it up. It cost more money when they sold it. My next question was about how the dinging hall used to sell it but they weren’t mentioned in places prohibited. When they spoke to Chartwells he strongly advised against.
I’m going see what I can do about it. Also Habrosky doesn’t like gum. Supplemented mints in vending machine for gum.
Rahilla: was that with Sodexo?
Whitney: its separate. They just advise food services against it.
David: seems like one of those issues where the only way to make any progress is to actually solve the problem.
Whitney: I thought maybe by promising to make students aware of the waste issue, they might want to make some sort of agreement.
David: if it costs student extra to get gum, many of them might not want it. Maybe you could look into specially type of gum wont stick
Student: There is a push on campus not to smoke. I see it violated every day. If we got the gum thing lifted. It might not do any good.
Brian: they strengthened the smoking policy. You can only smoke in designated smoking areas.
Paula: We need to address this. Added smoking areas to policy. Nothing that says you can’t smoke anywhere else. Res life is marketing policy incorrectly. There are making it sound as if as all over.

F. Follow-up on Transit Tracker
Rahilla: Transit tracker – they were trying to Model the gps system after program called translock. It is up and running, its just not marketed. Don’t include harbor and cut down some busses. Inner harbor one doesn’t work totally because their still building up GPS system. Trying to strengthen it. There is a link where you can see the red dots that show where the buses are on the map. Can come through to your phone.
Jen: main problem. People who use it frequently know that it exists. The issue is that there were supposed to be screens at each station. Currently the GPS is only beneficial if you have a cell phone. Need to figure out where the TVs in the station are.
Amber: isn’t there a contract somewhere?
Rahilla: there is a contract I think we have to go to procurement to get that contract.
Jen: it (the transit tracker) was broken before. We had to get an extra 15000 to not have wasted the original 45000.
Amber: things like this need to be kept in our records.
Paula: the inner harbor line isn’t tracking?
Rahilla it isn’t working
Paula: Downtown and inner harbor line are different. I would ask them to combine those two lines.
Toby: when translock updates Harbor line will open again?
Rahilla: that’s what supposed to happen
Paula: I know a lot of students who use that line. You could combine the two lines would be pretty short
Rahilla: will get back to you guys by next week

VIII. New Business

A. JL08-0809 (Confirmation of Election Board member)

Rahilla: Sean will not be able to make our meetings. Personal statements to read out to us and bring answers from election board questions. She is going to read those and answers. We should read both of those.
Katie: Sean wants to emphasize that he is not an English major
Katie reads personal statement for Sean who could not be present.
Brian: Issue with his answer to question 4. He does not say whether or not he can be neutral.
Katie we already discussed that with him. Says important to make sure student voices are heard not that we promote a particular candidate.
Amber: what is your confidence level in him?
Katie: I think he’s really creative. I am confident in his ability to get things done quickly. This past week we’ve been planning on having on having Posters done by last Wednesday. Video card crashed and he lost all his work, he got the flue, and he’s recovering from a broken foot. He still got everything done.
Amber: how many more designs did he have?
Katie: Yes have three more that are being produced. Will see them out more. It shows a bunch of different leaders when they were our age. He has another one of a toilet that says, “Don’t flush your four years away”.
Katie: he likes to make people react to his posters.

Aditi: moves to approve, Brian seconds
Members For: 8, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 2

B. SLI9-0809 (Confirmation of Executive Cabinet Directors and Assistant Directors)

Gabe: Fou for director, Paula assistant director, Michael is going to be my new director of communications Puja for diversity affairs Nikunj and Justin are going to be like aids/ secretaries. Ill let each of them go around and say something about themselves.
Paula: I’m working on gender-neutral rest rooms and gender-neutral housing as well working with the myUMBC team right now to improve collaboration between different aspects for student life. I have become more Aware of every one else’s projects.
Nikunj: I’m vice presidential aid. I help out with whatever with exec. board needs. Doing secretary stuff
Mike: I’m updating the website already. I’m catching up on all the stuff done that didn’t get done during the lapse and get all the new stuff done people are asking.
Justin: I’m on the fist year council. Also working on red box thing and I order offices supplies for Gabe.
Gabe: do you want me to talk about the people who aren’t here?
Brian: I think we should push this through. But I don’t think we should confirm people who aren’t here. Get personal statements.
Jen: They can come back or get statements. We will amend.
Toby: Paula, you seem involved a lot of projects do you think you can do them all?
Paula: I try to stay updated. I know I can’t be involved in every thing. Some of my projects have been carried on by other people.
Rahilla: I have more questions for the two aids: what have you been doing?
Nikunj I’ve been going to exec board meetings and throwing in my opinion.
Justin: I've been going to meetings and I'm working on updating wikipedia article about the SGA.
Gabe: both of them are there to help with little administrative things. Support to lean back on. Instead of having chief of staff.
Rahilla: did the chief of staff resign?
Gabe: Yes.
Aditi: one of the biggest problems would be accountability. If we don’t have chief of staff who will keep people accountable? Someone needs to overlook the staff.
Gabe: I will keep them accountable
David: the reality is that as SGA takes on more responsibility, we may need to structure things differently. Next year I’m hoping for chief of staff and several aids.
Brian: How do you plan on making sure the directors help make sure new SGA members know what to do?
Gabe: Steve did things where everything went through him. I don’t think that’s how it should work. I’m leaving it up to the cabinet director to use staff correctly. If someone feels like they cant get involved, I'm open to showing them projects that are going on.
Brian I think that’s essential. Try to stay on top of your directors, or maybe have a director welcome.
Jen: do all the directors getting confirmed have staff?
Gabe: Michael is the only director.
Jen: what are his plans? He needs to haves staff. It’s a lot of work.
Jen: Michael, what do you see your job entailing?
Michael: probably lots of people coming to me asking to get websites for projects and facilitating those needs.
Rahilla asks directors to leave the room

Discussion:
Jen: I have a concern with Michael’s position. The position is not just websites. He needs staff to be effective.
Brian: it also ties into the bigger point of making sure were supporting each other. He might not have considered that. The biggest flaw in this organization is that People in new positions don’t know what power they have. Needs to be direction. I don’t think it’s a reason we might not approve him
Yasmin: This raises much bigger issues. We need to make sure people feel empowered. Don’t feel like they just do what they are told to do. This may be your position, you can do what you want.
Matt: elimination of chief of staff would make that clear to the staff.
Aidti: I feel like you have so much to do. There should be a go to person, like a chief of staff.

Bryan moves to approve
Jen seconds
SL19-0809 amended to only approve Paula McCusker, Michael Hincke, Nikunj Divechka and Justin Donlan.
Members For: 8, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 2

C. SL20-0809 (Confirmation of Geoff Beebe as Student Orgs Committee Member)

Gabe: The student orgs committee is the committee that decides to approve or not approve new student orgs on campus. I chose Geoff for his experience with student orgs and drafting constitutions.
Geoff: When I started college a few clubs needed to update constitutions. I am a political science and biology major. When it comes to constitutions I’ve been involved with large number of groups. Have logical mind and I want to help other clubs. I am a certified parliamentarian.
Brian: have you been working with James on helping student orgs?
Geoff: Since being recommending I haven’t worked with them. I didn’t know what the protocol was and I didn’t want to be presumptuous. I plan on doing it.
David: hoping to see that the committee will become a bigger part of the disciplinary process
Yasmin: It’s a large part of the finance board as well if people aren’t following procedures. For example, and org charging a ticket price when they told us they wouldn’t. We want someone well qualified.
Rahilla: how many applied?
Gabe: 5
Rahilla: what were some of the qualities you saw?
Gave his experience with student orgs and constitutions; he’s not running for a position that could benefit from being on this committee. His work ethic.

Discussion:
Bryan he seems really qualified.
Naina: yasmin brought up point about the finance board. Need to be about being able to negotiate with people and be unbiased
Jen: he wouldn’t apply for this position if he could handle it. I don’t think he would have a problem with being unbiased.
Brian: second what Jen said. I’ve worked with him. I don’t feel like he would drop the ball on anything.

Aditi moves to approve, Jen seconds.
Members For: 8, Opposed: 0, Abstaining: 1, Absent: 2

D. JL09-0809 (Allocation of funds for Buses to Binghamton)

Yasmin: were not going to be doing GL I'm going to find it out in the budget. Depending on price for busses – we haven’t received a quote yet. If its something reasonable I have found a couple places in the budget we can use.
David: is athletics contributing to this? I
Yasmin: I think so. It depends on the quote.
Gabe: We were hoping to do in house transportation but they’re not usually the best price.
Aditi: One bus costs $2000 plus however long you’re staying
How much money do we have for this to happen?
Yasmin: It will just depend on me and Gabe decided. I’m planning out the budget for next year and I Have to be very careful about this event. I wouldn’t give anyone a yes right away, but we should be able to do it.

IX. Gabe’s Speech on file sharing

My fellow SGA members and students,

I come before you today to talk about an important issue that is going on around the country. I have recently become a statistic in the ongoing disagreement between the music recording industry and large number of Americans over the nature of copyright law. I was charged recently as a copyright infringer.

A Kentucky grandmother, a computer illiterate Brooklyn health aid worker, and even a networked printer are some of the number of people who have been charged like me as online distributors of music by representatives of the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. UMBC has intelligently opted to deal with these complaints “in-house” rather than deliver the names of students to the RIAA. As a first offender, UMBC Judicial Services required me to pay a $100 fine, ban me from ResNet for two weeks, and give the short speech.

The RIAA’s campaign of labeling music lovers like myself as some kind of criminal is disturbing, and by all independent observations has done nothing to remedy the industry’s woes. Rather, it has spent the past eight years attempting first to ignore, then to hold back the tide of progress.

Many advocates, including SGA members, have been pushing for a modern business model that would allow students to buy their music in whatever format they choose by paying a small monthly fee, the proceeds of which would be distributed amongst rights holders. It is my hope that in the near future, the music industry will realize that upstanding students like myself are its greatest supporters, rather than faceless criminals.

In the meantime, it is importation for users of file sharing software who are concerned about infringing copyright to configure their programs to disallow uploading. UMBC policy is to disable or get rid of all file sharing programs on your computer. Along with switching away from older software like LimeWire, this is the best way to prevent “unauthorized distribution: of copyrighted material. Those who are further interested in the best practices for complying with UMBC’s policies regarding copyright accusations or who are curious about the status of more progressive models can contact Michael Castello, Director of Student Initiative (Michael.c@umbc.edu).

X. Team Building Activity (Brian Frazee)

XI. Executive/ Ex-officio Reports

Gabe: Two weeks worth of reports.
Fou has been working on early move in.
Exec reports. Researching SGA at other USM institutions. For us to be in contact with them and meet with them. Not on a formal level. Launched retriever rewards program at the tailgate. Webpage. Communication about getting webpage up. Jake starting stuff on red card program. James is working on Erickson field. Diversity planning events for April. Working on Constitution generator online. Also working on the fee increase.
Transcript fee: sent letter to freeman. Had not gotten response back so I sent him an email. Yes he go letter and are setting up a meeting next Wednesday.
Yasmine: I’m doing a lot of budgeting right now. Where a lot of my time has be going. I still want to get projects done anyone still interested in projects, it probably wont happening for a while. We’ve allocated a lot, we have about 20000 to allocate. Make sure orgs are actually spending that. On Thurs I'm trying to gather a few org leaders together to discuss the student activity fee. If you have anyone on mind let me know so I can contact them. A lot of big events are coming up.
David; have two candidates and a few rumored candidates. Most of the applications come on the last day. Schedule of classes is out for fall. Class I'm teaching will be taught again. Called civic imagination and social entrepreneurship. Plan and execute social change programs.
Michael: stuff I've been doing redid election board page. Everybody’s names an email should be up on website with pictures. Working on retriever rewards page. Working a lot on cleaning up behind the scenes stuff. Next person who is director of communication will hopefully have an easier time. Want to do an April fools page for the SGA if anyone has any ideas.
Met with student orgs who serve. They want to become a charger org.
Rahilla: it’s a service commission. This would be like a different version of Shriver center. Any student Looking for a service can go there. Have advisor. Elected positions would have student workers. A lot of other schools have service centers and UMBC doesn’t.
Amber: I think the reason a lot of other schools have program like that is because they don’t have Shriver center. I don’t know if it would be competition. Would they be doing service placement for students?
Rahilla: centralized place where you can get information. Information related to service. Resource that student would to. Right now Shriver center has GPA requirement.
Yasmin: what would the funding go towards?
Gave: to take to advisor
Yasmin: so be paying salary? We don’t fund charity. Fund staff to be coordinating service. That is a student activity. I had to turn town 10 orgs because we don’t fund charity.
Rahilla: would not happen immediately
Yasmin: main issue would be if were funding actually charities. We are funding salary for someone planning the charity.
Rahilla: we haven’t promised anything yet.
David: they are not looking to give money to charity, not looking to substitute for Shriver center. Would be like an SEB for service. Volunteers are going to research things and maintain contact with agencies. Will pull people together once a month and then disperse. Umbrella org. Money not to support there advisor but to stipend people to compensate workers.
Jen: how do you become a charter?
David: charger doesn’t go to finance board and ask for money.
Jen can we talk about this later
Gabe: their no way going to happen this year
Aditi: I was talking to some student about Quadmania. People concerned small population of people that can go to girl talk. I feel like because we fund SEB we should look things like that. I don’t know how to go about it because I've never worked with SEB.
Jen: I'm interested
Michael they could not reserve the RAC they were forced to scale it down
Aditi: I'm not sure that’s the issue.
Yasmin: we will be talking about venues. I think that is a lot of the issues. We cant get a hold of the RAC and student orgs cant even get a hold of the UC this semester. Yasmin: I would like to have you on the team if you’re interested
David: you should talk to SEB and get answers but don’t be presumptuous. SEB is just another group of hardworking students.

Michel (rsa): Josh is new RSA rep. I'll still be in and out.
Josh: got 500 for dc bus trip 550 requested 500 allocated. Gender-neutral housing was discussed and had Unanimous support. Early move in discussed. Some people for it same concerns raised about. Presentations last two weeks from housing and dining severs about fee increase.
Michel: exec board discoed concerns. Support ideas want to see something with event planning see how many are actually coming. People may see it as more of a convenience and not take it. Smaller events would be more manageable. Survey to talk about cable TV channels. Large list of all channels available top and bottom. Try and allocate budges to switch channels.
We also voted on giving money to plant a tree for student who died in Erickson courtyard. $500 for that. Someone coming to talk about master plan tomorrow night.

XII. Announcemnts

Rahila: starting next week almost every Monday we have a guest. Told gave we wanted to see.
I want to get questions
Toby can we add more people?
Jen: last semester we were burn out from guests. A lot of consecutive meetings without time to talk. We have to skip over some things
Rahilla: initially were breaks, snow day caused an issue. We will try to keep it short
Michel: housing for next semester. For those of you have 75 credits. You probably have received a notice staying your housing may not be available. Something you may keep that in mind.
Rahila: only for people who live within an 8 mile range.
Rahilla: don’t forget time sheets and individual meetings with you guys starting this week.
Jen: stress free zone is coming up. I’m sending email out. I will need help.
If anyone’s tried to check out schedule for classes, may have noticed it’s different. I can answer any questions for you guys. I think we need to be mindful that people need to deal with that transition. It’s a lot better but it’s a really big change.

Matt: dogapaloza is the 25th. UMB student have special parking permits can use to go onto buss for free so UMBC student are denied access to bus, I think we should look ingot that.

Naina: if you a regular person that goes to UMB you get a privilege pass. Made those passes for people who work there. You can contact transit services and ask for a privilege pass should get that for you.

XIII. Roll Call: all members present except for Simmi and Chidi

XIV. Adjournment: 7:54pm

XV. Pass the Gavel