Minutes for September 22nd 

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Opening  & Reports

(No statements are direct quotes unless specified by quotation marks.)

President Holmes called the meeting to order at 5:03 p.m. by the Senate Clock.

Roll call 

Guests:

• Nick Fredrickson

• Nicki Elkin

• Jennifer Ohren

• Laura Zeiher

• Jessalyn Brown

Proxies: 

• Nick Fredrickson - Treasurer Schwegel

• Nicki Elkin - Chair Obach

• Jennifer Ohren - Senator Smolley

Approval of the Agenda   

• Randhawa/Welle - Remove Item 6 (Adopt-A-Highway)

• Secret Ballot 

• 4y/15n/1a - fails

• Braddock/Cailao - Approve Agenda - pass 

Approval of the Minutes  

• Welle/Bard

• 9-15-05 minutes approved

Public Hearing

Mihal

• Near the Lommen ground level entrance there is a huge bush which is overgrowing a bench and making it impossible for students to sit there.

Elkin

• There is only 1 map on campus by Lommen and none by the parking areas, residence halls, or anywhere else!

Braddock

• There are 2 maps on campus.  1 by Lommen and 1 in the A-lot by Ballard where most of the visitors park.

Cailao

• I had a suggestion that the time limit on the parking meters be moved from 1 hour to 2 hours as most classes go over 1 hour. 

Pugsley

• A student complained to me that he was charged $3.18 for a pudding that was marked at $2.50 at Subs and Sweets

Break for Adopt-A-Highway

Senate Rejoins at 6:52pm

Roll call for Adopt-A-Highway/Senate

Reports

Advisor Wiese

• Moved to End of meeting

Justin Schwegel (Treasurer)

• Report

James Cailao (Vice President)

• New Senators take the ARS

• New Senators pick up your binders

• New Senators pick up a blank schedule form

• New Senators choose an office hour and let me know

• I attended Take the Lead

• I attended SOAC and SABC

• I have noted the changes in committee meeting times for TFOC and Marketing

Billy Holmes (President)

• First off, some things I forgot to mention last week:

  • 51 years ago last Thursday, the famous picture of Marilyn Monroe, laughing as her skirt is blown up by the blast from a subway vent, is shot on this day during the filming of The Seven Year Itch.

  • Also, I received two resignations that I failed to mention:

    • Jesse Harder

    • Nicole Booth wished her resignation to be read aloud to the assembly:

      Fellow Senators, I am very sorry to inform you that I will be resigning from Student Senate.  It is too hard with my job schedule to take every Thursday off, and that is why I haven't been present at the past meetings.  I am really going to miss you and wish you luck this year.  I will certainly be aroudn a lot, and would love to help out when needed!  Also, if anyone is in need of a good back rub, you know where to find one!  Thanks for all the good times!  Sincerely, Boother

  • Secretary Pugsley's office hours from last week: 5 hrs.

    • I finally got the 8-25-05 minutes posted, played billiards online, attendance, boosted Chair Wilson-Mattson's self-esteem, made more motion forms, criticized Chair Obach for flogging the Bard, helped choose a Senate mascot (Chair Wilson-Mattson won), set up recycling thing and other things that are undoubtedly important.  I also told VP Cailao to stop going everywhere that I went...freaky!

  • The thank you card for the Alumni Foundation is coming aroudn now as I left it in the office during last week's meeting.

  • Continuing on with this weeks report:

• Since last week's day in history was about Marilyn Monroe, I thought it appropriate this week's be about J.F.K.

  • On this day in 1961, in an important victory for his Cold War foreign policy, President John F. Kennedy signed legislation establishing the Peace Corps as a permanent government agency.

• Good work tonight cleaning Senate's Adopt-A-Highway section.  Student Senate is lucky enough to have a prime location it looks good thanks to all of you and Secretary Pugsley's incessant reminders.

• Please make donations of liquid foods and nutritional beverages to Treasurer Schwegel as he will be consuming his diet through a straw for quite awhile.  I will place a box near the fridges for those, I'm sure he'll appreciate them.

• In addition to the aforementioned resignations, I also received one from Senator Okondo this weekend.

• Attended UPBC this morning.  MnSCU has approved a work plan for this academic year which focuses on areas of revenue, productivity, Centers of Excellence, strategic planning, and serving the underrepresented.

  • Also during UPBC the wireless was reported to be working well in all residence halls except two trouble spots; Dahl and South Snarr.

• Attended SABC on Tuesday.  The general reserve is up to approximately $72,000.

• Last weekend we hosted the MSUSA conference.

  • I've heard good things about the conference overall.

  • Thank you Chair Schmit for your hard work on that event.

  • Clayt Freed has resigned his position as MSUSA's executive director.  The position is open and a search for a new executive director will begin soon.

  • To address this weekend's confusion between myself and the MSUM General Assembly members, before Fall Delegate's Assembly, which convenes October 28th, I would like this body to drat a formal motion stating the capacity in which I should serve the delegates/General Assembly members.

• I notice in meetings and again in the minutes that new Senate members do not speak often.  I hope this isn't because you are confused or scared.  This Senate is composed of members whose words are equally important.  If you are unsure about procedure or background information regarding a topic say, "Point of information."  I will acknowledge you by saying, "State your point."  All points of information must be questions.  If you have a question about this, please ask me after I finish my report.

• There has been some talk about proposing bylaws this week.  I believe Senate's freedom to add bylaws to its constitution is an emergency loophole to be used only when waiting for an election would hinder the work of this assembly.  Fall and spring elections allow the student body the opportunity to vote on proposed changes to our constitution.  Don't deny them their right if at all possibly.  After all, it is the students' rights we work to preserve.  

• Also, if you haven't already, read through the constitution.  More specifically and immediately important, read over the duties of your position and the jurisdiction of each committee, especially your own.

• One recommendation I have for all Senators is to find out when departmental and residential meetings are held.  Attend those whenever you can to find out information about the areas you represent.

• Secretary Pugsley's office hours this week: "All the time"

  • Attendance, minutes, sent out 9/8/05 minutes, watched Mr. Show (on Comedy Central), and ate a bean burrito (with no meat of course.)  Unfortunately I had to hand out taxi cab stickers (NOT MY JOB), website stuff, harassed Chair Welle about turning in his reports to me (Grr!!!), cleaned some things and led a break dancing class.  Senator Bard was the quickest learner.

• Tonight there are four students up for appointment to Senate.  Please question them thoroughly and fairly.  It would be great to have this addition of human power on Senate and on committees.

•  Again, I will be out of the office from Saturday through Wednesday lobbying in D.C.  Please wish me well as I will be flying with Northwest and their mechanics have been on strike for quite awhile.

• I will see you all at our meeting next Thursday.

• If you need anything contact VP Cailao.  He will be stopping into the office more regularly until I return to handle any urgent business.

Grace Pugsley (Secretary)

• Hello!

• I am still sick! yay!

• This week I completed the minutes from 9-8-05 and sent those out.

• I also did the 9-15-05 minutes and sent those out too!

• I updated the attendance.

• President Holmes asked me to go over the attendance policy:

  • We use a point system.  Once a Senator accumulates 12 points that member will have to come up for removal from their seat.  (This consists of the member detailing why they have missed enough to be brought up and Senate then votes on whether or not to remove said member.  It requires a 2/3 vote.)  

  • Points are tallied as follows:

    • Unexcused Office Hour = 2pts

    • Excused Office Hour = 1pt

    • Unexcused Committee Mtg = 2pts

    • Excused Committee Mtg = 1pt

    • Unexcused Senate Mtg = 4pts

    • Excused Senate Mtg = 2pts

  • If a member has a proxy for a Senate meeting it is a 2pt. or Excused absence.

  • When a member is absent for half of a Senate meeting (to be determined by New Business) that counts as 1/2 of an Unexcused absence, or 2pts.

  • If a member is absent from half of a Senate meeting but has a proxy, it is 1/2 Excused, or 1pt

  • Committee meetings are counted as Unexcused for all members if no report is sent to me by the committee chair.

  • Office hours will be counted as an Unexcused Office Hour unless an office hour report is filled out and placed in the envelope on the wall.  (This will be for all members of Senate from now on.)

• I attended SABC on Tuesday. Woohoo!

• Please do your part to keep the Senate office clean.  When you leave please take all of your things or put them away.  If you eat in the office, please throw away your garbage and return trays/plates to the Union City Cafe.

• Glad to see people using the recycling bin! Yay!

• Thank you to everyone who went to Adopt-A-Highway!  Your Earth thanks you as well...  To the rest of you...someday you will regret your apathy for the care of your Earth.  One hour of labor will not kill you, but failing to take care of the only thing that can provide for you, will indeed eventually kill you.

• Quote of the week:

  • One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team. - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Emilie Mihal (S.P.A.M.)

• Did cosemetic changes to the site

• Went to call in day

• MSUSA

Campus Affairs (Chair Randhawa)

Attendance

• Randhawa 

• Maurina

• Lien - U

• Bliss

Guests

• Kemi Oni

• Parking ticket issue was discussed and resolved

• Todd meeting.  Message left with man in maintenance for Todd to get back.  Will try to go and meet Todd for a special meeting.

• CMU has put in toilet fresheners.

• Lot E had a light out.  Action taken.

• Update our past weeks issues.

• Researching special projects.  Making progress and getting ideas, will be presented in due time with more concrete information.

• Student insurance discussed.  Waiting for responses from concerned people. 

Committee on Committees (Chair Obach)

Attendance:

• Obach (FCO)

• Czapiewska

• Bard (Sparrow)

• Braddock (Lt. Beef)

• Shauna "Soaks Up Information Like A Sponge" Haken

• Report:

• Marching orders for the coming week were issued and a new member was welcomed into the fold. 

• FCO informed the committee he would be out of town and left instructions with Braddock to complete several tasks in his absence

Legislative & Internal Affairs (Chair Wilson-Mattson)

Attendance:

• Wilson-Mattson

• Ascheman

• Trenbeath

Guests

• Schmit

• Good job on Call In Day! 70-85 people called

• Went over two constitutions.

  • One was concerning hazing.  We sent that back to be looked into.  There was not a certain time amount for advance notice when a student would be expected at a meeting.

  • The second was the Muslim student Association and we sent that one back because it said people could be asked to leave the group if they showed "disrespect" to the Muslim religion.  We were concerned that later down the road "disrespect" might turn into anyone disagreeing with what most of the group thought so we asked that that be defined.  The rest was great!

• Text Book Action Day

  • Wed. September 28th. We have been getting conflicting information between MSUSA and the Bookstore so we will be doing our own research concerning book bundling and why prices are so high.  We will change the events to work with what we discover.

  • We will have an 'emergency meeting' for this on Monday at 9 pm.

• Caucuses

  • We want to make these large events so the mayoral caucus will be Tuesday Nov. 8th.  We are thinking of getting student bands.  Senator Ascheman knows someone who works with the candidate so we are going to try to get her help along with working with someone for the opposing side. 

  • City Council Caucus Feb. 21.

Marketing (Chair Schmit)

Attendance:

• Schmit

• Peeters

• Chaudry

• Deutz

• Set a meeting time for Wednesday at noon.

• Seeking approval to have a 2 week extension to allow more time to work on a better and more successful event.

• Will be reviewing the students savings club and seek to work on further discussing marketing plans.

Tuition & Fees Oversight (Chair Welle)

Attendance:

• Welle

• Ellefson

• Smolley

• Vrtis

• Report

Cultural Diversity Sub Committee (Chair Oni)

• No Report

MSUSA Campus Rep. (Schmit)

• I sat at the National Call in Day table which surpassed the goal of 50 calls and reached about 85 for the day.  

• Presented a request for seven people to write letters to the editors and also mentioned that St. Cloud, Bemidji, and MSUM hit a grand total of 310!

• I met with Legislative and Internal Affairs and spoke with them about text book action day and received a requests for more information from MSUSA.

• The previous weekend of Sept. 16-18 I attended the MSUSA conference at MSUM where I gained valuable experience and made some good connections. 

MSUSA Cultural Diversity Rep. (Oni)

• Report

Taxi Cab Program (Ellefson)

Election Board (Chair Mihal)

• I want to add Leigh Wilson-Mattson to Election Board

• Traced people for an advertisement for elections.

Old Business:

Approval of 9-08-05 minutes

•  Welle/Obach - move from the table

Minutes from 9-08-05 pass unanimously

New Business:

Open COC Nominations (Trenbeath/Obach)

Unanimous approval of all appointments

APAC

Grace Pugsley

Global Studies

Hajimi Ishizuka

Enrollment Management

Prince Amattoe

Technology

Gabe Haukness

Cultural Diversity

Molly Fontaine

Women's Center

Trista Schwind

Mackenzie Taylor

Student Tech Fee

Nicki Elkin

Chris Haugen

SABC

Joe Rapp

CUC

Stephanie Dassinger

Sustainable Campus

Amanda Frahm

Jessie Rock

Paul Dustin

Close COC Nominations (Bard/Braddock)

Appointments

• Shauna Haken to Undeclared/Undecided

• Welle/Obach - suspend rules to question candidate

• Welle/Wilson-Mattson - Executive Session

• Welle/Vrtis - Exit Executive Session

• Welle/Randhawa - previous question

• 18y/0n/1a - passes

• Laura Zeiher to Dahl/Ballard

• Braddock/Obach - suspend rules to question candidate

• Obach/Ascheman - Executive session

• Randhawa/Trenbeath - exit Executive session

• 18y/2n/0a - passes

• Nicole Elkin to Off Campus

• Randhawa/Obach - Executive Session

• Obach/Randhawa - Exit Executive Session

• 15y/3n/2a - passes

• Jessalyn Brown to Education/Human Services

• Peeters/Randhawa - Executive Session

• Randhawa/Obach - Exit Executive Session

• 14y/6n/2a - passes

Motion 06-12 Braddock/Welle

Whereas MSUSA Campus Rep. Dan Schmit has been appointed chair of the Marketing Committee

Whereas attendance at all Student Senate and Marketing Committee meetings is essential for this position

Be it resolved that Campus Rep. Schmit be held to the same attendance requirements as all other Student Senators.  

Be it further resolved that if the attendance policy is violated, Chair Schmit will be brought up for removal as Marketing Committee Chair

Be it further and finally resolved that the point system start for Dan at this meeting at 0.

• Randhawa/Obach - Call Previous Question

• Division called by President Holmes

Motion 06-12 passes with 1 nay

Motion 06-13 Marketing Committee

Whereas the marketing committee chair has recently been appointed, the committee has not had an opportunity to meet to discuss in depth the Hurricane Katrina Relief event

Be it resolved an extension of two weeks be granted to the marketing committee to help formulate a solid event

*Be it further resolved that Senate contribute to the victims of Hurricane Rita with 1/2 the proceeds from this event.

• *Cailao/Vrtis - amend - passes

• Ascheman/Randhawa - Call Previous Question

Motion 06-13 passes with 1 abstention

Motion 06-14 Braddock/Welle

Whereas ringing cell phones are a distraction to Senate proceedings

Be it resolved if a cellular phone audibly rings, that Senate member be assessed the equivalent of an excused office hour absence.  

• Trenbeath/Randhawa - amend to .5 instead of 1pt. - amendment fails

Motion 06-14 passes with 1 nay

Motion 06-15 Braddock/Welle

Whereas MSUSA Delegates need to make informed decisions during MSUSA conferences

Whereas the MSUM Student Senate President has information not generally known to delegates

Be it resolved that the Student Senate President be encouraged to attend MSUSA General Assemblies to answer questions from the MSUM delegates and provide pertinent information to subjects of discussion, within the bounds of information the President is allowed to disclose publicly according to MSUSA policy or legal constraints

Be it further resolved that this participation be in the form of question and answer, initiated by the delegates, to aid the President in avoiding issues of propriety and influence.  

• Obach/Czapiewska - table until 9-29-05 - passes

Motion 06-15 tabled until 9-29

Points for the Good of the Order: