Hartwick college

Summary of Minutes:

• Appointment of Kim Post as new VP of Senate Affairs
• Tentative OH Fest date/discussion
• Removal of Debt/Yearbooks?
• Hall Councils and their successes/failures
• Safety Walk
• Recycling on Campus
• 2 SMRs:
  • APO (Theater Honorary Committee)
  • Cardboard Alley Players

Senators Present: DesRoberts, Fiteni, Harrington, Hight, Kelsey, Kopstein, Lillie, Negrich, Parker, Podmijersky, Post, Ramos, Woskoff

Senators Absent: Blea, Isbell, Jones, LoSardo, Murillo,

Passage of Minutes -Podmijersky: motion to pass the minutes - Fiteni: seconded - Minutes Pass

Committee/E-Board Reports:

• VP of Campus Affairs, Whetsel: -Thanksgiving baskets, we’ll start collecting food Nov 13th. You will hear about it soon to do a basket and keep you posted.
• VP of Finance, Utterback/Treasurer, Kendall: - 1 Pre-Gas SMR and 2 SMRs. Newman Club’s SMR that we got last week and passed, there is some problem because their rep said it’s open to the campus but their advisor said that it wasn’t. They weren’t going to take the money to see whether they should still have it or not. We need to discuss that and see what we’re going to do.
• VP of Judicial Affairs, Rudy: - Nothing to report
• VP of Senate Affairs, NO APPOINTED MEMBER: - No report
• Secretary, Roods: - Nothing to report
• Chairperson, Riviello: - Absent
• Co-Vice President, Schultz: - Absent
• President’s Report: - Gardner: First order of business is I need to appoint the new VP of Senate Affairs. Thus, I asked Senator Post to leave the room while we discuss her future on senate.
  • Gardner: Senator Post was the one who put in a letter while conducting interviews and she established herself as the best of the three candidates and we would like to appoint her to the position.
  • Kopstein: motion to appoint Kim Post to the VP of Senate Affairs
    • Podmijersky: second that motion
    • Motion passes
  • Kimberly Post is sworn in as the new VP of Senate Affairs
• Gardner: Quick note, write this down in your calendar… OH Fest will happen on April 26th, 2008. Just so you know.
  • First off, I would like to thank all of you who handed out surveys, we have roughly 400ish and we haven’t put all the data in to SPSS, we will sometime soon. Flipping through all of the surveys it appears that the strong opposition to OH Fest is a strong minority of surveys that were filled out. It was pretty much evident for those of you at the forum that there was a strong, but small group that are truly opposed.
  • Hight: the campus-wide e-mail was sent out the day of the forum
    • Gardner: well the clubs were notified, and the campus was notified the day before. There has been plenty of times for people to raise their opinions in Senate and the open forum
    • Kopstein: how many people came who weren’t senators?
      • Gardner: seven
      • Kopstein: if the time was given in advance would more people have come?
      • Hight: I know five people that if they knew about it they would have come.
      • Utterback: the other thing is that yeah that was the forum but in the agenda minutes for the meeting before that and before that it said that OH Fest was going to be discussed in Senate and no one showed up
      • Gardner: the sad fact is, and this is something we can work on its part of our job, this is a really apathetic campus and people are not so inclined to go out and do something about anything. Nobody showed up but the seven people who did were totally against it. To answer it I don’t believe many more people would have shown up that’s why we did it in Laura’s. We had Anderson theatre also reserved in case there was overflow.
      • Hight: regardless on whether or not the OH Fest survey had results I was under the impression that senate was going to discuss whether OH Fest was going to happen
      • Gardner: well the date that we assigned is as late into the year as we can go. That’s “the date”
      • Hight: I just want to make a point that next time you have senators go around personally and have senators hand out surveys
      • Kopstein: smith did do that and I watched people do that. I think that smith had its results taken personally and seriously
      • Utterback: I’m not sure if you missed that meeting but we discussed that that’s how the surveys went out.
      • Hight: I distributed 100 and I thought we were going to discuss this as a senate. If we do this in the future can we have a discussion of senate before the dates are set?
      • Gardner: the date had to be set. That’s the date it has to be because we’re working with SUNY Oneonta and we have to work with them too. Senate can discuss whether or not we’re going to go forward with OH Fest. I feel that the surveys do not reflect that enough people on campus want to stop it. Even if all four hundred people are neutral that’s still a sign to go forward
      • Rudy: I think the point that we’re trying to make right now is the fact that OH Fest isn’t necessarily set in stone. If we do go through with OH Fest that will be the date. For everyone’s information, I work at Today’s Lounge, and OH Fest has discussed there a lot. It wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to bring OH Fest in there. The general consensus was that people wanted it. People had different ideas as to what the carnival would be.
      • Kopstein: I know that OH Fest is a big deal but we put so much time into OH Fest and we should buckle down and make a decision.
      • Fiteni: most people’s complaint was yeah the carnival needs some work and if they changed the graph of music, if we attacked things that way I think more people will come to respect and like it. I feel that experience in the past will come to use now. I feel that we have to be optimistic.
      • Harrington: I talked to a lot of people as well, a lot of comments are they only want it if we can get “good music” and when I told them that 40,000 was how much we were paying, they felt that SUCO should pay more.
      • Hight: how are we going to choose the band?
        • Whetsel: basically all of us on the OH Fest committee we are bringing forwards bands that are within our price range. In our committee we will discuss our top choices, bring the bands back to campus and see what people are looking for.
      • Kelsey: how is the information about the bands going to be distributed to the campus?
        • Whetsel: we’ve only had two meetings thus far
        • Kelsey: it seems to me that the forum is that the e-mails don’t get read and if they do they get read well.
        • Rudy: the other thing is that there wouldn’t be something necessarily wrong if the vote was between the two senates. This is because you are elected as reps to the campus. It wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing not to go door to door. It is extremely time consuming to do so. They might respond to e-mails.
      • Hight: How could we make sure we get a good band?
        • Gardner: I still need to figure out how we will figure out the Hartwick OH Fest committee because that’s the form in which every student is welcome to have their input. When we’re doing selections for bands its not just whose in our price range and who we want to hear, we have to work around the bands schedules. There is a myriad of things that go into picking a band that we can’t make promises as to what we can and can’t have. It’s just way too early to have.
      • Rudy: I was just going to suggest specifically to Senator Hight that you joint he committee because you seem passionate about this.
        • Hight: okay.
      • Lillie: could we table outside the commons? Maybe have a sheet with the genres of music?
      • Gardner: there are a number of ways we can do it this conversation will come out when we get closer to doing things like this. It’s boring, tedious, and time consuming. Short of going door to door, tabling will not get many people’s input. However, we can discuss all of this ad nausea in the future. We’ve only had two meetings with SUCO; we can’t start talking about what we should do.
      • Parker: do we as a senate physically meet with SUCO’s senate before OH Fest? Evidently, OH Fest is going to happen and I feel that we get feedback from them and there might be problems that they have a solution to or vice versa and it would be good to hear what they thing. It might be good to sit down and do things as a group.
        • Gardner: we don’t really work with their senate we work with their equivalent of Student Union. I don’t know how their group works, there meetings only last around 30 minutes which seems obscene if you go to a Hartwick Union meeting. People aren’t going to like this but the OH Fest Committee is the Senate of the two schools when it comes to OH Fest. You all speak for 1500 students, the 5 committee members speak for us, a lot of people complain that 5 students shouldn’t have this much say. But this is the most efficient way to do this because we can’t have 100 students involved in this because it just gets too confusing and inefficient.
• Gardner: we just had another cabinet meeting. Senate’s current debt is supposedly 18,000. The president asked: if that debt was absorbed by the college as an institution, and senate was given that money back—what would we do with that money? What I thought of that would be of any substantive value was that currently there is nothing set aside to fund yearbooks. We are currently in negotiations with various yearbook companies to get prices. The final is 12,000 total for getting 100 yearbooks ordered. The idea is that senate would pay 6000 dollars and then sell year books at $100 to make back the money. Theoretically, we could make money off of this. Also, the office of institutional advancement is interested in possibly scrounging money to be put towards this; we might not have to have a 6000 charge if we wanted to do this. I’m asking: is this something we want to do?
  • Ramos: may I get a little bit of background on this? Past years: have the purchasing of yearbooks been a problem?
    • Gardner: before last year Senate covered the whole cost and they were free. The cost of the yearbook for this past year was around 22,000, this is a significantly reduced price. Last year senate couldn’t finance the whole price and sold them for 100 dollars apiece.
    • Ramos: it would be good to establish something for the future, I’d like to see senate go back to funding
  • Gardner: The yearbook used to be a club but it has “died”. Senator Blea is trying to restart it and they are trying to get a budget to do this. It wouldn’t be immediate but it eventually could be self-sustaining. If we sold 400 yearbooks, senate would break even. On top of that, we can charge the pages in the back (mom and dad love you pages) those you can charge also. It could be self sustaining and a profiting deal. Basically what we need to know is how senate wants to go about doing this. Or if they want to do this.
  • Hight: even if we do this, yearbooks will still cost 60 bucks?
    • Yes
    • Hight: I heard from someone who told me why senate used to have a 100,000 bank account. They used to put it back into a bank account and have money role over. If we have 18,000 we could get rid of our debt and we should put it in a bank account and save it.
    • Gardner: last year it was the first year they were being charged and it was poorly advertised. I don’t think half the graduating class even knew about yearbooks.
    • Hight: that’s like a gamble though, we should put in into an account
    • Gardner: that might not actually be legal for us to do.
  • Lillie: I signed up to be on the yearbook club, 60 dollars seems like a lot. We had to raise 250 per person and then had to put more money. It sounds like a lot to charge but it’s really not, from talking to Alison Green, it seemed like there wasn’t too many seniors who wanted it.
  • Harrington: my yearbooks were 60-80 in high school and there were people who couldn’t afford them and didn’t by them. The yearbook would be giving back to the students it would be great.
  • Gardner: theoretically we could cover the full price.
  • Kendall: also when he mentioned the 18,000 he asked where he would want the money to be going.
  • Gardner: the debt would be forgiven based upon what we are doing—if it’s something worthwhile.
  • Fiteni: I honestly can see both sides to this. It was a hard time selling them but I also know that there are issues doing what you say with investing—the president is trying to get the point across that the seniors really want to have a yearbook this year. We may want to say “we’ll use it this year”. If it will wipe the debt out and give us clean money, let’s do it.
  • Kopstein: personally there’s nothing more fulfilling to repaying the debt and given the yearbook to the students who have been at Hartwick for four years. It’s something that’s amazing for them and amazing for the school.
  • Gardner: it’s also weird to not have a yearbook. You can chose not to buy them but for your school to not have them. It’s kind of “trashy”. You have alumni who go in 30 years after they graduate, come into the alumni office and ask to look at their yearbooks. They flip through it and from their standpoint you just got someone who’s that much more willing to give back to the college.
  • Kelsey: is it still possible to just have seniors pay less?
    • Theoretically we could cover more
  • Parker: when I graduate I plan on buying a yearbook. I think its really important to have a yearbook and if you pay this much to go to school, charging 60 dollars might be a little high for something you should have
  • Hight: I agree, yearbooks are very important. They should be accessible at a relatively cheap price. I feel the school should pay for a big chunk of that. Yes, it’s nice that he’s giving us 18,000.
  • Gardner: the issue is that senate screwed up, the budget office screwed up; the sad fact is that it’s our account and our problem. In the spring when we did budgets, I had a calculator out, Raimie did, Jackie did, and so did Leah. At the end of the night there was a 250 dollar difference between our figures and we sat there and figured it out. To get back on the yearbooks what we need is some kind of motion to approve this and if you want to include how much to cover but we need that.
  • Kopstein: motion to make the yearbook process go ahead on president Gardner’s plan of which is no more than 12,000 and no less than 6,000.
    • Lillie: seconded
    • Motion Passes
• Gardner: I met with the Mayor of Oneonta today and basically this is something that has come out of my talks with the president of SUNY Oneonta senate. There are a number of things that the town wants to work with the colleges. I will get you more details on it. There might be an event downtown were venders would go downtown and college students could go downtown and learn about the culture of the city. The mayor would like a list of likes and dislikes that students would have with the city of Oneonta. Next week come here with things you like and don’t like about Oneonta.
• Gardner: we are 2 months into hall council and I want to know how they are going. I’ve been told there have been many issues. This is the first year things have been done but we need to fix problems. We need to make sure that senate and senators are accountable to their hall council and vice versa. Let me have it.
  • Post: hall council for smith is great, we always show up and it’s great. We’re having Smithstock this Saturday. We’re planning a video-limpics.
  • Lillie: Van Ess hall council for the most part, everyone has very busy schedules. We have come up with a lot of different things that we are planning. We had a Halloween costume party before Halloween. We’ve been working together.
  • Podmijersky: wilder has been struggling. Our main problem is coordination and apathy in the dorm
  • Gardner: would you say that the major issue it the coordination?
    • Podmijersky: I know that students don’t know about it
    • Utterback: I think that what we’re seeing is what we expect to see… that the upper class dorms are involved while the upper class ones are not. While they move up hopefully this will too.
  • Hight: there was a really cool Halloween party between Oyaron and Hilltop. We can’t even keep a hall council e-board.
  • Kelsey: Saxton is good so far, we’re having similar problems. I don’t think people in the building realize that it’s open to more than just people who were elected to hall council. We need to put up more signs but they get ripped down an hour after you put them up. It’s difficult to get the word out.
  • Kopstein: we are very successful because our RD comes.
  • Podmijersky: he has come twice
  • Kopstein: maybe you should have the RDs come more often
  • Hight: Ian Kimball, our RD does a very good job.
  • Gardner: do you think that the involvement of the RD and RAs is a really big thing?
    • It is key
    • Gardner: so when we look at possible problems 
    • Podmijersky: all of our e-board comes from the fourth floor, which might also be a problem.
    • Parker: what I gather is that the younger dorms have better success. I think that our RAs are incredibly aggressive. If you don’t go to a meeting our door is pounded down. It works better to have these older kids. The intimidation factor is much lower in older dorms.
    • Woskoff: our residents from our hall supposed to be come to our meetings? I thought it was just E-board.
      • Gardner: they are supposed to be very open in the same way Senate is open… and look how many people show up. Are you getting the feel that residents aren’t just coming through?
      • Harrington: we hold our meetings where people study so usually they
      • Kopstein: it’s not that our meetings are closed but I don’t know many people that are excited to go to hall council meetings. There is no interest that someone would want to go to some bulletin board drawing.
      • Gardner: the reason that Leitizell and the townhouses do not have hall councils is because it is very difficult for someone to represent the townhouse. The reason Lietzell is a breakdown between the RD and Alison. There isn’t programming in Lietzell, people in those areas were encouraged to run in the general, at-large election.

Old Business:

• Gardner: does wilder have hot water and heat yet?
  • Yes.
• Harrington: how was the safety walk?
  • Gardner: during the walk around campus, the suggestions you had given me in prior weeks were already typed up and given to Tom Kelly. A lot of those concerns were addressed the best they could. Pretty much we were looking primarily for lighting issues were someone could hide behind a bush, blue lights that were out. We found a lot of blue lights where the lights were out; we found a lot of lights in the parking lots that go out. There are also a couple places that could use lighting. He will have a list, type it out and send it out to all of us.
  • Hight: Kudos to you, things you are saying are definitely getting done. I noticed that everything that’s been brought up is getting done. I’m very happy with this.
  • Lillie: Potholes around campus are rough.
    • Gardner: they’re going to get worse before they get better because we’re entering winter. They might not get fixed until May, possibly the summer. The best advice I can give you is to avoid them the best you can.
  • Fiteni: just so you know, my dad works in the construction and trash industry. All asphalt plants have been shut down do to weather.
• Gardner: Recycling does get done on campus. There is actually a full-time staff person whose only job is recycling. It does get done. The only issue that they’re looking into is they want to know what locations seriously need more recycling. We covered all of those. If you find you don’t have recycling bins in your dorms it’s not that you never had one but they have been taken. People have taken them for “beverage coolers” and we are losing them.
  • Harrington: smith is nailing them into the walls.
  • Roods: I will send out an e-mail to the senators about recycling.
  • Gardner: once you guys send the e-mail you’ll see more details about the program
  • Hight: I like our website. I’m not ashamed to give the link to family members and friends.
  • Gardner: I like the overall look of the new website, not just Senates.

New Business:

• 1 SMR: APO (Theater Honorary Committee) is asking for Rocky Horror Picture Show: $600
  • We will be showing Rocky Horror Picture Show in Johnstone 202. We are going to be handing out candy bags or trinkets with individual candies.
  • It’s 500 for the rights and 100 for gifts for attendees.
  • Kopstein: why this movie?
    • Mostly tradition, we’ve done it every year for the past several years. There are many people interested in it and come every year and are looking forward to it again.
    • Harrington: how many people usually show up?
      • 50 give or take.
    • Harrington: do you know about the previous years?
      • I’m not exactly sure
    • Hight: I remember that a lot of people I know like to go and get dressed up.
    • Woskoff: I went last year and it was a lot of fun and it was jam-packed. It was very enjoyable.
    • Hight: the only recommendation is that there should be more units of candy.
    • Kelsey: is it open to the entire campus? · Yes.
    • Ramos: so will I be correct in saying that you have to pay for the rights of this movie? Is there any way to buy it currently?
      • Kendall: the way it works is a lot like student union, we have to pay rights to do a big showing of it. You can’t just buy the DVD for it and then buy the movie rights. Because it’s a big open showing.
  • Finance Committee Recommended to pass the full amount
  • Woskoff: motion to pass the full amoun
    • Fiteni: seconded
    • Motion Passes
• SMR 2: Cardboard Alley Players, $1685
  • We are asking to go see Mary Poppins, the Broadway Musical. Tickets are 80 dollars a pop and that is the cheapest we could go for anything. They are really expensive. We’re looking for 21 tickets but it works out with the vans and the driver.
  • Hight: you fundraised 50 dollars how?
    • All the proceeds from show go into the CAP Agency account. We’ve raised 50 this year.
  • Rudy: how many people from your club will go?
    • This will be open to the entire campus because it is an SMR. I know that many from CAP will go because they have a strong interest
  • Kendall: are members paying out of pocket?
    • Yes, they are paying for transportation. Which will be $30 total.
  • Rudy: how many people are in CAP?
    • 25 but 75 on our distribution rate.
  • Kendall: we could not meet with Seth last night because he had a prior obligation. The only problem with this SMR is that we can’t pay for shipping.
  • Rudy: I don’t like the idea of them making it open to their club first; I would really like to go.
  • Kelsey: it seems to me that the rest of the campus is not going to have a chance at all to go to this. It kind of seems “club-only”
  • Hight: can you flash-forward to the SMR for gas?
    • Kendall: they will most likely come in later and ask
    • Utterback: the estimate of gas will still have to go through committee.
  • Harrington: I propose that we pass the full amount if they promise to have it equally open to the entire campus.
  • Rudy: when do these tickets need to be bought?
    • Utterback: maybe we could recommend a lottery system?
  • Kopstein: he did say that it was open to everybody. It would seem like a mess to have it like a lottery. Their distribution list is pretty high. I would love to see Mary Poppins but I don’t think I’ll be able to get on that list.
  • Kelsey: this is the first time finance committee has seen this? Is this within our budget?
  • Hight: how much is left?
    • Kendall: 11,901 minus the first SMR.
  • Hight: if people go to New York on a bus trip and they pay 30 out of pocket. That means that they get 80 dollars free for the show. I propose that maybe they pay 10 per person per ticket.
  • Kopstein: is there a way to get more tickets because I like VP Rudy’s idea.
  • Parker: the only thing with more tickets is if we have a problem with the costs now then everything goes up with more tickets. There is a lot of campus interest.
  • Rudy: is there any deadline you need to order these tickets by?
    • I got an estimate from this company and there is a deadline and it can be pushed back slightly—we’re going Dec. 2nd. The idea would be by the end of this week.
    • Rudy: could you open it up by sending out a ZHDlist to the campus and so you could have a different number. You might take two vans, right now it just comes across as a very self-served SMR. That’s not to insult but that’s typically what happens with clubs.
    • Hight: do you know the group rates that if there were 42 people would it be cheaper?
      • Group rates do not change; it will be $80 per person.
  • Gardner: Would it be possible to be pushed back to Wednesday of next week?
    • It’s a possibility.
    • Gardner: maybe you could send out a ZHDlist tomorrow and get a better idea of how many people were going. This would be better than just opening it up to your club.
    • Would you then be looking for a cap to be put on this as far as people? If it gets to big I can’t get the money for it.
    • Gardner: I understand the cap at 21, if you decide that you wanted to keep it at that then that’s fine as well.
    • Utterback: you said that there is 25 active members; do you know roughly of those how many are interested in this? Are the 21 slots likely to be filled by your club?
      • 25 is how many people come to meetings, I would say that 2/3 would be filled with CAP Members. The show we’re going to see was voted on by CAP Members at the meeting.
    • Kopstein: how many vans do you need?
      • One of the large vans and a smaller one.
    • Lillie: could you push back the actual show date?
      • That was the latest time we could do it without interfering with stage events and finals.
    • Ramos: if more people wanted to go, what comes up for you is transportation. Could you look into taking a bus if we approve money for a bus?
      • If you’re willing to pay for a bus then I guess we’ll take a bus.
      • Ramos: I’m going down to NYC on a bus and paying 40 dollars. The bus transportation all the way down and back is 40 dollars.
      • How many people are going?
      • Harrington: 25 but we have open spaces. It seems like that’s a better deal than the vans.
      • Ramos: and you don’t have to worry about vans
      • Harrington: I just went to NYC with the art program and that was 30.
      • Woskoff: the thing is that those are academic departments and I wonder whether or not they chipped in.
    • Ramos: I’ve had to pay around that, somewhat less in high school on trips were the school did not support us with any funds at all. Senior year we took a trip to six flags, our school didn’t help us at all and it amount to 35 per bus ticket.
    • Parker: I just think, bouncing of Ramos about it being 35 dollars. The distance, not every bus trip is the same; going to the city must be more. It has to be thought about much more before we decide anything.
  • Harrington: motion to open it to the entire campus and then we can pay for it.
    • Hight my motion was the second one: that we should basically pay for it but take away 10 dollars per person per ticket.
  • Utterback: I just wanted to clarify in order to changing the trip. The club came up with this number for a reason. If we jack it up we don’t have that much money to give them. If the club wanted more people to go they would have asked for more. I think that the more people you get going its going to be more chaotic.
  • Hight: the last time we SMRed this much money to the club was the Geo club. Every member paid 100 out of their own pocket. They went on an educational thing to further their careers. I think it might be unfair if we give this much money to have kids just go to a play.
    • Utterback: this is the theatre club going to see a play, which this is what they are going to see in their careers.
    • Gardner: I second the motion by Senator Hight
      • Motion Passes: 1,470 dollars.
    • Kelsey: this is making them pay 10 dollars per person, plus 30 per pocket. What about the problem with the bus? Would a bus be cheaper?
      • No they’re a little more expensive.
• We need to discuss the SMR from Newman Club from last time. Their advisor believed that the event was open to only the club members.
  • Gardner: isn’t it just to get any money from senate don’t they have to open it to campus?
  • Kendall: not necessarily because this is team building
  • Gardner: is that what they SMRed for? A team building activity or an activity? It’s not a question of whether they get the money or not—if they were calling this a teambuilding immediately.
  • Kendall: the advisor thought it was only open to the club whereas the treasurer thought it was open to the entire campus.
  • Utterback: when we had the discussion with her, it was described as a good way to “team build” because they were cooking together and bonding. It was a nice way for the club to get to know each other, but they were going to have it open to the campus.
  • Parker: I agree that they might have thought it might be teambuilding, but they did say it was open to the campus. How much did we give them?
    • Kendall: $75
    • Hight: I make a motion to give them the money regardless of whether it is teambuilding or not because it is such a small amount
      • Kelsey: seconded
      • Motion Passes

Announcements:

• VP Post: Smithstock is from 7-11 this Friday.
• Kendall: History thesis defenses are this Monday and Tuesday starting at 7:30 in Eaton Lounge.
• Lillie: my children of War class is doing our final projects and opening it up to campus. If anyone is interested look out for that.
• Hight: it anyone sees the bear please let me know.
• Gardner: move to adjourn
  • Kopstein: seconded
  • Motion Passes.