2010 11 30 Minutes
The New School
University Student Senate Minutes
Tuesday, November 30 @ 9pm
2 W 13th St, Room 1204
Submitted by Kim Hurley, Secretary of the Senate
Present: Sean Elias, Chris Crews, Anna-Karin Loureiro, Kim Hurley, Shannon Lumpkin, Alex Cline, Cordelia Eddy, Minju Bae, Melissa Holmes, Hajir Sailors
Absent: Rachel Housle, Corey Mullee, Jake Atchoo
Suspended: Maggie Martin, Barbara DeLaleu and Fonzie Cuaycong remain suspended for non-attendance, and Nicole Park is now suspended for non-attendance under Constitution XII G.
Special Guests: Anthony Wille, Amnesty International; Charlotte, Theatre Collective
1. Amnesty International Proposal
Anthony came on behalf of Amnesty International to submit two proposals for funding. The first is ‘Write to Rights’, which is an international letter writing campaign on behalf of major figures whose human rights have been violated. The New School chapter has set a 300 letter goal and will be tabling December 6-9. Their primary expense is postage, which they have estimated at $265.50.
The second proposal is an event on December 10 for International Human Rights Day. They are doing a film screening of a film on human sex trafficking in Tishman Hall. The funding is for a guest speaker and catering from Chartwell’s for about 30 people. The total cost for this is $675.
USS voted on a total of $950 for Amnesty International’s two events. The proposal passed as follows.
YES: (7) Bae, Crews, Eddy, Elias, Holmes, Hurley, Loureiro
NO: (0)
ABSTAIN: (2) Cline, Lumpkin
2. Theatre Collective Proposal
Charlotte from the Theatre Collective presented a proposal for their event coming up. Their group is a student-based art organization that started at Lang and now has members from 5 divisions of the university. Their main focus is doing theatre for non-theatre majors. Currently they are doing a one-act festival, interchanging the performances with a full play.
They have used the 13th St Repertory theatre, costing $2,550. Usually OSDA funds the full amount; this year they have only funded $400. The group has to pay for it by the end of the run, two weeks from this Friday. There are 40 students involved. They are also going to Lang Student Union to request funds. They had previously been told that their funds would be in order by OSDA, and were informed 2 days ago that they would only get $400.
Sean asked if there was an admission charge; Charlotte responded that it was $2 suggested donation.
The senate motioned to vote on $2,150 minus whatever LSU votes to give them. The vote passed as follows.
YES: (9) Bae, Cline, Crews, Eddy, Elias, Holmes, Hurley, Loureiro, Lumpkin
NO: (0)
3. Senate Transparency
Shannon brought up a debate about USS transparency that has been ongoing. She stated that our role as senators is to be representative of the students. To that point, she proposed creating constitutional amendments to open up the meetings. This would create a digital platform, with 72 hours of open discussion, and digitally voting. She further stated that those discussions would then be made public as minutes.
Sean wanted to clarify that the three main things she was concerned about were projects, proposals and spending money. Shannon opined that anything policy-based should be open. The possibility of doing audio recordings of meetings was also brought up.
Melissa stated that on the topic of ease of taking notes, we should invest in a Lightscribe pen, which would also record audio.
Kim stated that she was open to recording meetings every now and then to post on our YouTube account. She followed up stating that she reserved a camera for tomorrow to record the Town Hall and upload it to YouTube, following a student’s comment that she would not be able to attend the meeting but still wanted to know what was going on.
Sean said that he was on-board with the fundamentals of transparency. However, he said, it was the responsibility on the behalf of students and senators to do things without holding hands. He followed up stating that if he knew the whole student body was listening, he may hold back on his opinions or just go with public opinion
Cordelia expressed confusion over what the 72 hours of discussion would entail. Shannon responded that she has not proposed anything specifically, and that there are a number of creative ways to solve the problem. Her main issue, she said, is creating the potential for discussions on funding where students don’t have access, as well as making sure the agenda is released ahead of time.
Chris moved to table the discussion and move on to Town Hall planning.
4. Town Hall Planning
Melissa proposed a survey of attendees on the recommendations presented in the report, perhaps having people rank them from 1 to 11. Alex suggested making them like course evaluations, having people rank each recommendation on a number scale for how important this is to you. Melissa and Anna-Karin will build the survey.
Anna-Karin, Sean, Chris, Kim and Alex will be available the whole time.
The format of the Town Hall was determined as follows:
Intro and welcome: Chris and Anna-Karin
Aims of Town Hall: inspire future student involvement, LGBT/ALANA center, connecting students across the university and forming an alliance on social justice, and hearing students’ opinions and how we might be able to move forward.
Overview of the report: powerpoint with embedded videos
5. Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at 11:30pm by unanimous vote.
Respectfully Submitted,
Kim Hurley
Secretary of the Senate