2009 09 03 Minutes
THE NEW SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY STUDENT SENATE MINUTES
September 3, 2009, 10pm
2W13 room 1204
Members (14 voting): Peter Ian Cummings, Taylor Janes, Dan Schulman, Jonathan Ziese, Chris Crews, Christopher Walsh, Rachel Scharf, Nate Kleinmen, Alfonso Cuaycong, Tushar Gogia, Eric Eingold, Helena Wasserman, Pat Korte, Rebecca Mimiaga
(Absent: Helen Weselcouch, Sindy Varela, Daniela Capistrano)
Special Guests: Phillip Quintero (Speaker of the GFSS), AIdan Gardiner (The Free Press), Dave Shukla (Student Member of Facilities Committee), Sarah DeGray
. . . . . . . . .
1. CALL TO ORDER. President Tushar Gogia delivered a delicious pound cake. Tushar called the meeting to order at 10:07 pm. The current qualified voter total requires 11 votes needed for a qualified motion and 9 votes for a regular motion. Pat Korte was appointed stack taker.
2. EXPENSES. The Senate voted to approve these expenditures:
– (a) reimburse Secretary Peter Ian Cummings $125 for office supplies (VOTED 13-0)
– (b) pay Slurve Web Production’s invoice of $85 for time spent (VOTED 13-0). Peter agrees to use students for all future web production (exception, Peter is approved to use up to 4 hours of Slurve time, voted on at 2009 09 15 meeting).
– (c) a budget of $250 for the Multicultural Students Party (VOTED 13-0)
3. ASHOKA. Rachel Scharf introduced the masters focus in Social Entrepreneurship and TNS’s participation in the Ashoka Changemaker Campus Initiative. She read a portion of their press release that went out regarding the same. She noted a press release on TNS’s end is pending. Changemaker Campus partnership aims to develop new models for higher education, envisioning a day when universities everywhere serve as an enabling environment where every individual has access to the resources, learning opportunities, role models, and peer community needed to actualize their full potential as changemakers. Interested students should consult ashoka.org/changemakercampus.
4. BUDGET GUIDELINES. Treasurer Dan Schulman presented his draft budget guidelines. He said these guidelines are a trial run and we can always adjust them later. Tushar noted that because we have 10,000 degree students, we should expect around $100,000, therefore percentages (like 15%) are easily converted to amounts ($15,000). Eric Eingold brought two amendments: (a) remove the word “joint” from “joint events” (b) Expenditures must have not one, but two officers’ signatures, one of which must be the treasurer. USS took these amendments without objection.
Chris Crews moved and Eric Eingold seconded that:
… USS approves these budget guidelines as amended, with the proviso that a budget committee comes back to us with a line-item budget divided by semesters, within a month. (VOTED AND PASSED 13-0)
5. LGBT AND ALANA CENTERS. Treasurer Dan Schulman reported that the administration seems willing to match whatever USS is willing to fund to establish such. This will be discussed at a future meeting.
6. FUTURE SCHEDULING. Secretary Peter Ian Cummings noted that for the first time, there is no time between 9am and 5pm on any weekday when everyone can meet, except 8pm on Friday — and members did not want to meet on Friday night or the weekend. However, several members’ schedules are in flux so Peter will try again to coax people to agree on a suitable permanent meeting time and report back at next meeting. Dave Shukla asked Peter to include divisional student government meeting times in this calculation to avoid conflicts. Peter agreed to do this.
… The next meeting was unanimously APPROVED for Tuesday 9/15 at 8pm in Parsons 1204.
7. FACILITIES COMMITTEE. Facilities Committee Student Representative Dave Shukla made the following report:
(a) PURVIEW. The Facilities Committee’s purview was the current use of all space on campus, as well as the building plans for the new 65 Fifth Ave University Center.
(b) NEW BUILDING.The committee’s most important business was what the new building would look like, and it has drastically changed. Within the next 9 months they will clean up and then demolish 65 Fifth and start new construction. There is going to be a lot of student input. Most of the plans are not finalized. Architecture Prof & Practicing Architect David Lewis has been consulting university members to see what they want in the new building. Phillip Quintero said they are building the new 65 to LEED Gold Standards.
(c) INTERIM STUDENT BUILDING. He noted that there may be an interim student building opened in the very near future. It is about 8,000 feet. It is hoped to open it for Spring Semester. More info should be available soon. There is a debate over whether to use it for social space or study space. In Dave’s view it should be quiet study space. Dave was worried about putting a student center in an inerim space which is not certal to the campus, since he feared this substandard solution would likely become permanent.
8. MANNES ELECTION. Mannes College has no USS Senator because nobody ran. Tushar proposed a temporary amendment to appoint a Mannes Senator for this term only; this was vetoed by several senators. Therefore Tushar will plan for an election and report back to next meeting on progress.
9. CONSTITUTIONAL CLARIFICATION COMMITTEE. Jonathan brought up the vagueness of certain Constitutional provisions. Dan suggested a committee to clarify the Constitution. Without objection Jonathan was approved to chair this committee.
10. WATER BOTTLE SPENDING / CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
SUMMARY: President Tushar Gogia spent $4950 of the USS Budget (matched by $7500 from the University) for 1250 water bottles for the students at a cost of $9.96 each. Tushar spent the $4950 based on a vote of 7 USS members over the summer. However, 11 votes are required for spending according to Constitution XII so Tushar may have violated the constitution. The votes in August were as follows: YES (Crews, Gogia, Kleinman, Mimiaga, Scharf, Wasserman, Ziese). NO (Capistrano, Cummings, Eingold, Janes, Schulman). ABSENT (Cuaycong, Korte, Varela, Walsh, Weselcouch).
DEBATE: Tushar said: “I did not mean to disregard anyone’s opinions. I was just trying to have the USS start the year on a really good note. Having a good impression for students coming in and working on partnerships… I did not intend to be all autonomous… I am sorry and I know that I pushed the boundaries of the constitution with this expenditure.”
Eric Eingold said the problem was not whether Tushar “stepped on anyone’s toes” but rather whether he “compromised the constitution.” Eric said Tushar “went completely above and beyond how the constitution lists financial expenditures. I’ve never seen anything like it. I was suprised not only by it but by the fact that the school didn’t stop it happening. A sitting president who completely threw out precedents and spent $4000 even without the constitutional requirement of a vote. A $4000 investment by the student body without a vote just shows that the student senate knows no way to govern itself.”
Pat Korte said he agreed that Tushar violated the constitution, but that he was more concerned about the nature of the spending. Pat said he was concerned that USS would spend its money on “more ‘stuff’ for the stuidents, which they already have “a lot of” and said it would be far more important to spend on “being a political body that fights for the students” as well as ” addressing issues of class, race, gender and sexuality.”
Jonathan Ziese said it was important that we separate our opinions on water bottles from the separate question of whether Tushar violated the constitution. He said he supported the water bottle puchase and had voted for it, but he still opposed violating the constitution to do it. Jonathan said it was a “clear constitutional violation.” Dan agreed with Jonathan. Pat and Peter said the issues could not be separated.
Peter Ian Cummings said nobody should consider breaching voting rules unless possibly in an extreme emergency like campus violence and/or when there is not time to vote. Peter said he could not understand why Tushar would spend this money when he did have time to get a proper vote and when he knew in advance that half the executive board was vehemently against the proposal. He said he had texted Tushar before the vote announcement warning him not to do it. Peter said Peter had gotten a vote of 13 for the $2500 fall parties budget just a few days before Tushar took his vote, so he felt Tushar could have sought enough votes, but Tushar just didn’t do it. Peter said he was concerned what would happen the next time.
Dan proposed to have Tushar speak for 3 minutes, then exit the room so the Senate could debate what to do. This proposal was rejected.
Tushar said he could not change what he did. He said that after a month of discussion, 7 out of 12 voters supported the proposal. He said: “I did not intend to violate the constitution in any way. It was intended to serve the purpose of serving the students. The people that did give me feedback said they were in favor of doing that.” Tushar noted that he had secured and made commitments with the President and EVP regarding the water bottles, and “if there is a commitment on something, it is important and good to follow through with it.” He said, “Was it an emergency? Absolutely not. I think we had to have something good to start the year off with.”
Christopher Walsh said he personally was in favor of waterbottles but had reservations about cost. He said the way the decision was made was unacceptable, but that we should all give Tushar more credit for doing all the work for it, and that clearly Tushar had just done it with the sole motivation of helping the students.
Dan said this issue is only about the Constitution. “Whether or not you voted for the water bottles is not important… we are elected officials and this is our vote. Does the time we spend discussing any issues matter if our leader is going to take power into his own hands? … If our votes are going to be disregarded, why are we here? … If we are going to make decisions that are unilateral, its worse than Bob Kerrey.”
Tushar noted there was general consensus over the summer except for Dan and Peter. Nate Kleinman said that the constitution is vague about summer voting. “The constitution says nothing about what we do in this situation. So, while I don’t agree with being unconstitutinal,” Nate said he supported Tushar’s decision because “we got something done.”
Jonathan read the following provision from the Constitution: XII (B): “An absolute vote of: 75% of all qualified members is required to pass an amendment; 60% of all qualified members is required to pass a special motion; and 51% of all qualified members is required to pass a regular motion.” Therefore, J said, “Tushar made a decision to order the water bottles without 60% of the vote. I do not have any words of defense constitutionally for that.” Jonathan said he was looking at the constitution to see if there is anything “we can do about it.”
Dan said the only way currently to hold an executive committee member to account is “impeachment and we should explore that.” Dan also said we might want to consider developing some other types of reproachments as alternatives to impeachment, and wondered “what an alternative to that would be.”
11. ADJOURNMENT. Pat Korte made a motion to adjourn at 12:15pm. This was passed 8-5 and the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Peter Ian Cummings
Secretary of the Senate.