Hartwick college

Summary of Minutes:

• Up Till Dawn presentation
• Cooperation and possible meeting with SUNY Oneonta's Student Senate
• Passage of appointee Victor Schultz as Co-VP to Student Senate
• Moving dorm quiet hours to 9PM Safety Issues around campus
• Recycling - is it an issue?
• OH Fest Survey
• Financial Disclosure
• Pet Policy petition
• Dorm bathroom/cleaning issues

Senators Present: Blea, DesRoberts, Fiteni, Harrington, Hight, Jones, Kelsey, Kopstein, LoSardo, Murillo, Negrich, Parker, Podmijersky, Post, Ramos, Russell, Schultz, Woskoff

Senators Absent: Intrilligator, Isbell, Lillie

Up Till Dawn Presentation

• Presented by All-Greek Council
• Bring 50 names and addresses to the Letter Writing Event on October 23rd.
• Letters will then be sent out; asking for donations
• There will be an e-mail with a label set up
• Food, games, entertainment, prizes.
• Any questions? E-mail: Parletj@hartwick.edu
• Will be outside the commons tomorrow (Wednesday) and outside the library 8-10PM Thursday night

Passage of Minutes

• Schultz: motion to pass the minutes
• Fiteni: seconded
• Motion passes

Committee/E-Board Reports:

• VP of Campus Affairs, Whetsel: Nothing to Report
• VP of Finance, Utterback: one SMR report
• VP of Judicial Affairs, Rudy: Absent
• VP of Senate Affairs, Doboze: Nothing to report
• Secretary Roods: Will send out the minutes to Senators on Tuesday so you all can check minutes for spelling errors
• Chairperson, Riviello: Nothing to report

President's Report:

• E-mail was sent out earlier
• SUNY Oneonta senate wants to get together with us, play a 45 minute team-building type session over at SUNY Oneonta
• This would be on Wednesday, October 24th 2007 at 6pm
• I will let you know more details when that comes up
• The next big item is the tentative Co-VP proposal as it stands thus-far.
• What we're looking at is to see if this is something as a Senate that you feel comfortable with.
• Hight: Is this void after this semester?
• Gardner: yes, its not going in the constitution
• Jones: Can you clarify one of these points?
• Gardner: the second-to-last-point states that being the Co-VP will not guarantee the placement of the Co-VP into VP Forst's position
• Gardner: Move to pass this proposal as it stands
• Fiteni: seconded
• Motion Passes
• Gardner: My appointment for the semester is Senator Victor Schultz, he has proven himself over and over, he has established a good working relationship with VP Forst, and he is one of the few returning senators.
• LoSardo: motion to pass President Gardner's appointment of Senator Schultz
• Ramos: Seconded
• Motion passes
• For those who live in residence halls: we're wondering if we can move quiet hours to 9. It's very easy to change, but we're not sure if the majority of the campus wants this.
• Senators need to go back to their hall councils and see how comfortable people feel with that kind of change. I need that kind of feedback. For those of you who don't live in res-halls, please ask around. The proposal is for 9pm for 7 days a week.
• DesRoberts: do you want something formal or just "do you want this or not?"
• Gardner: that works well, just informal.
• Parker: I've seen people sneak into Van Ness and it makes me feel really uncomfortable - I do not want to see two doors open, it's bad enough with one.
• Gardner: semi-annual safety walk - we walk the campus in the early evening at a TBD night and we look for spots that are unsafe: poorly lit, unsafe, place for people to hide, broken steps, railings loose, broken blue lights. Anyplace that you guys see that please tell me and I'll point it out on my walk
• Kopstein: there is a concrete step on the way from Johnstone from smith that blends in with the concrete landing and people miss the step.
• Gardner: there is a broken blue light as well up by the tennis courts
• Blea: there is also a step going down to Anderson where a piece is missing
• There's also a step from Johnstone to Van Ness
• Ramos: the door on Charles side by townhouses side frequently does not lock. Also the stairs to the tennis courts do not seem sturdy.
• VP Utterback: lighting coming back from binder is really dark, also on the way to Oyaron and Hilltop the lights flicker on and off. Also the new lights by the townhouses are very bright - could we use them in other places?
• Podmijersky: Wilder hall door swings openly and the opposite door just doesn't lock
• Secretary Roods: leaving Dewar from the mailboxes towards Frisbee field is poorly lit
• The lighting for the commuter parking light is very dim
• VP Utterback: upper Yager is also very dark, potholes on campus are also a big problem
• Gardner: over the next week ask your constituents if there are any other places, I'll bring this list to Tom Kelley and then we'll discuss it more on the walk.
• Recycling:
• To those who I talked to about this, it is believed that recycling is done on campus. People do notice that it gets thrown away, there have been many explanations for why that is the case. One of the big things is that they just got a contract with a new waste remover company - John Anderson is interested to know whether or not they're following recycling guidelines. He asked Senate to keep and eye out and see if indeed recycling is being followed
• Kendall: can we get recycling bins in the townhouse area?
• Ramos: Wouldn't it be easier if we had a huge recycling bin outside separate from the garbage bins? It might be a little easier for recycled cans. I think upstairs by the main lounge, people don't sort the recycling - they just throw everything in together. Downstairs in the kitchen the cans were all together, the garbage was all in the garbage bin and they were sorted pretty well.
• Hight: a huge part about it is knowing that there are recycling bins around. Also tablerock doesn't have recycling
• Kopstein: we brought it up in hall council and we agreed to table it until senate decides what to do. The president wants the issue of recycling brought to senate.
• Secretary Roods: Grassroots environmental club has been approaching this subject for a while and we've been told that it is illegal for Hartwick College not to recycle. We've also seen people throw the recycling into garbage.
• Negrich: we have separate bins in Oyaron - I've seen people carrying the bags out into a van and then leaving
• Gardner: I will take these questions/concerns to the appropriate people.
• Hight: can you ask about the laws?
• Gardner: there is a law, but I will ask about it to John or the Cabinet.

SMRs: (Omitted)

Old Business:

• VP Schultz: we talked about bringing back the option of surveying our res-halls for OH Fest and that whole issue. I brought it up at my Hall Council and was told that we need a standardized one to go across all halls because the administration wouldn't go for anything that each individual hall would come up with. Would you be able to come up with a standardized survey that we could give to our respective halls? I feel this will be much more effective than the e-mail/tabling.
• Fiteni: I agree we should get more than online. I feel that at least my perception is that they would like to see OH Fest again but we need to do revisions as how to its being effectively run. I see there are issues with the street fair and the concert itself. I would like to see an open forum to see what happens.
• Hight: I was surprised to see one of my meetings and have a petition sent around "revolting" against OH Fest which would cut into club budgets. They were shocked that we spent that much money on the street. One out of every three people from Hartwick went to OH Fest, in my opinion.
• VP Schultz: I'm asking the E-board if there was some way we could draft - through committee - a standardized survey that we could pass out to the entire campus
• Gardner: would you like to do this?
• Blea: if someone does become the center for drafting it, could we send them suggestions for questions?
• Kelsey: how much time do we have left to address OH Fest
• I'm not certain, but it is very soon.
• Gardner: there is a petition going around to stop OH Fest for the year until Senate becomes more financially stable (among other reasons).
• Jones: what will canceling OH Fest do with our relations with SUCO?
• Gardner: in a way, we have an agreement that we're going to do it but at the same time we haven't talked about it at all. I've spoken to their senate but we work with their union, not their senate.
• Harrington: a lot of freshmen don't know what OH Fest is.
• VP Schultz: there would be an unbiased description of OH Fest's past.
• VP Utterback: I've spoken to a SUCO person and they think that they're doing it with us.
• LoSardo: I think we should exclude freshmen from this, because they haven't experienced it yet
• Utterback: I disagree but we should have an "amended" survey so that we could see if freshmen would support an OH Fest.
• Gardner: I move to approve a standardized survey to be created by VP Schultz to be brought back to senate for approval
• Podmijersky: motion seconded
• Motion Passes
• Hight: I would like to have a run-down of financial information in the survey as well.
• VP Doboze: and I would like to have you ask the class-year on the survey
• Gardner: we need to discuss - the level of financial discloser to the campus. As it stands, its 99% closed to the campus. People can't find out the budgets of other clubs, people can't know SMR information. The reason we do that is tradition, mostly. However, it is my personal opinion that since it is the student's money that funds out budget that there is no reason that ANY finances be kept secret from the campus. I can go on SUCO's website and find out their total budget and the budget of every club that they oversee. Basically, I need to gauge the feeling of student senate or the student body and we'll keep all financial information as it is right now. We'll vote on this next week
• Kopstein: I think we should keep it closed
• Gardner: as a governing board, and we should be taking actions that we can stand behind and be held accountable to. We need to be able to say "this is why we did this". We shouldn't feel guilty for what we did.
• LoSardo: this is student's money, every student has the right to know with what we do with their money. It's their right and it's good for us to know if they're not satisfied.
• Blea: it's good to make it public knowledge. Maybe we could have votes to see whether or not information could be disclosed on an as-need basis.
• Kopstein: has anyone ever complained about the budgets being closed?
• VP Utterback: Yeah, several times. Especially during debts and budgets
• Hight: how about they know what senate does but individual club budgets are confidential - that way it works on a smaller level. We'll know the cushion and when people SMR the campus can know how much we've spent.
• Russell: I feel that we'll get more student involvement if people see where their money is going.
• Gardner: another thing we're trying to overcome is that senate is a secret club. This is why we're now e-mailing out the minutes. I got a lot of positive responses about this.
• Fiteni: something we did at my other school was that - in order to suite the student's needs, the VP of Finance gave an overview of the current school/whatever but here it might be helpful to do that for senate: this is how much is going to clubs - budgets - SMRs… I think it would be nice to have that broken down. A general presentation would be good to see.
• Secretary Roods: I'm not sure if anyone here knew this but we have a Student Senate Website. Go to www.hartwick.edu, click "current students", then the "res life" tab, then "student senate".

New Business:

• Russell: I've heard that there were concerns raised over rowdy fans at football games.
• LoSardo: I would like also to do this for the safety of the fans, there was almost a fight at the last game.
• Jones: I hate to bring OH Fest up again but a couple students thought OH Fest should be based around a cause - just an idea.
• Blea: this is a petition for Pet policy reform. This is ultimately a res-life decision.
• VP Doboze: what constitutes a "small pet"?
• Blea: it's in the proposal.
• Hight: a perfect example - the director of housing can have a dog, the seeing eye-dogs are all around campus. There are lizards and critters that we could have. Maybe we could have a list of things.
• Parker: a note, if your roommate complains about the animal - there is a rat living on my floor and a snake on the floor above. People get used to their pets being there and their roommates complain daily.
• Harrington: small pets can also be very smelly - and it would be a big roommate issue. It would be a lot of work for RA's and RDs.
• Allison Green: I live on campus and I do have a pet and it took me a year and a half to have approval to get a cat (who stays in my apartment). I'm an animal lover and I know that I'm very responsible with my pet. Will all students be as responsible? Is it fair to an animal to live in a resident hall room? Are allergies and issue? This is a great idea, but I'd like to see these issues addressed
• Blea: it's also on the petition. It would be an animal that would live in tanks mostly - cats would be the judgment of the person there if that's enough space for the cat.
• I lived in Van Ness and a little girl left small mice left over October break and they were all dead. It's hard to distinguish who is a responsible adult
• Ramos: is it possible to amend this and say that the roommate must agree?
• Blea: this is why I'm bringing it to you, to have suggestions and your opinions on such a petition.
• Hight: about New Res 2 bathrooms (for men) get cleaned once every three or four days. I don't feel that this is sanitary.
• Ramos: I work at a Starbucks over the summer and we cleaned it every night.
• Harrington: smith senators were asked to figure out what our students wanted and almost every students wanted cleaner bathrooms
• Hight: what about toilet seat covers?
• Secretary Roods: those tend to clog up the toilets, we addressed this somewhat last fall and came up with that conclusion
• Fiteni: They are also a huge waste.

Announcements:
-Black Gold will be showing in Johnstone 202 this Wednesday at both 7 and 9pm.