Hartwick college

Summary of Minutes:

• Focus on Tradition
• Safety Issues Continued
• Pet Proposal
• Financial Disclosure (IMPORTANT!)
• OH Fest Survey - implementation
• Raising the Student Activity Fee
• Debt Issue - possible solutions
• Pine Lake - vehicle problem and equipment issues
• NO Senate Meeting has been scheduled for October 16th due to Fall Break

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

Senators Absent: Parker, Intrilligator, Russell

Passage of Minutes:

• Fiteni - motion to pass minutes
• Seconded
  • Motion Passes

Committee/E-Board Reports:

• VP of Campus Affairs, Whetsel: -Nothing to Report
• VP of Finance, Utterback/Treasurer Kendall: - No SMRs and a pre-gas SMR in committee
• VP of Judicial Affairs, Rudy: - You will receive club constitutions in an e-mail before the next meeting - please read over and bring notes if things need to be changed
• VP of Senate Affairs, Doboze: - Nothing to report
• Secretary Roods: - There is a new Senate AOL Instant Messenger screen name - "WickSenate"
• Chairperson, Riviello: - New nametags - instead of repeating verbatim just wave your signs in the air. Also if you are absent please e-mail me.

President's Report:

• No meeting next Tuesday because of October break.
  • No meeting November 20th
  • Last meeting of the semester is December 4th
• We are confirmed to meet with SUNY Oneonta's senate October 24th Hunt Union at 6pm.
• E-board met with the cabinet of Hartwick College
  • President is pleased on how we've done thus far and hopes we continue doing so well
  • President is a big fan of "traditions" and boosting moral around campus
    • Keep a lookout for anything that you guys think could be turned into tradition or maybe if you see an old yearbook and see something people used to do
    • Smithstock is a great tradition
    • We tend to be front-heavy on our traditions - a lot in the fall, not so much in the spring
    • If you see something interesting or want to start something knew please tell someone
    • Lillie: my school used to have a school-wide wiffle-ball tournament at the end of our spring semester
    • Harrington: an Olympics for the school would be nice
    • Ramos: a March Madness would be nice if people were interested
    • Hight: what if in j-term we had some sort of winter carnival? Maybe something where classes can compete?
      • Gardner: there was a snow-sculpture contest between the dorms in '57
    • Murillo: maybe a jack-o-lantern contest for the dorms?
    • Gardner: as I said before if you have more ideas please let us know
  • Safety Issues:
    • Kendall: on the way here my friend commented on the lights in front of the library by the main entrance
    • Harrington: a friend told me she wanted more blue lights
    • LoSardo: letting people into dorms at 9, after chatting with people I have yet to encounter people who have had an objection to that
      • Fiteni: we had the opposite, everyone was opposed to have a later entry
      • Murillo: Van Ess was okay with it
      • Schultz: Holmes was animate that it would happen
      • Podmijersky: Wilder likes it § Hight: people who showed up to the hall council didn't mind
      • Post: smith said it was okay
      • Gardner: Were there a reasonable number of people at these respective hall meetings?
      • Ramos: smith hall hasn't had a general meeting yet, so we'll let you know
      • Hight: Shouldn't this be more a dorm to dorm thing?
        • Harrington: why was it 7 before? What was the reasoning?
        • Gardner: the year before that it was always locked - so last year they just picked an arbitrary number and it worked for the most part, now since that was the test year we're starting to refine it a little
        • Kendall: my freshmen years the main doors to all the dorms didn't lock, then they were always locked.
      • Gardner: keep your ears open on that issue, if things tend to change on that issue
    • Lillie: when it rained last week - in Van Ess the stairs near the townhouses were flooded and it was difficult to let people in without them slipping

Old Business:

• Gardner: Financial Disclosure Issue and Pet Proposal:
  • Gardner: we can vote on whether we want to put this pet proposal forward as a formal proposal from student senate and move it on to the next stage where it would be summated to Student Life and Housing
  • LoSardo: motion to not support this from student Senate
    • DesRoberts: seconded
    •  Motion Passes
  • Gardner: the other thing is the issue of Financial Disclosure
    • Last we talked we were deciding what the level of financial disclosure was that we wanted to give to the campus
    • Schultz: talking to residents, they do really like that the minutes are now out and anything that could be disclosed financially they would love to see as well. People feel that each club has different needs and therefore will be okay with different financial situations.
    • Woskoff: we should let the campus know what we're doing with their money. Last year being on the outside it bothered me not knowing where it was going. It made me feel like an outsider, I think the students should know. Maybe they should know some of the budgets and what's happening
    • Hight: I think that SMRs should be knowledgeable but not the denied ones so that it is not publicly known. It could demoralize a club if they continued coming for SMRs and we continually shut them down, we don't want the campus to know about that
    • Fiteni: I feel like we're making ourselves look better artificially by doing that
    • Utterback: if the purpose is to let the students know where the money is going then I don't think they need to know where the money is not going. If we spend "x" amount on a club then that should be open, what doesn't go through shouldn't be pertinent information.
    • LoSardo: I think they should know if they do or don't get their money. This will ultimately
      • Kelsey: at the same time if they see clubs being denied it may discourage new clubs from forming
      • Blea: if there is room to be upset with money being denied then the club will make it known anyways, therefore we don't need to make every denial known.
    • Schultz: this picking and choosing can get grey and hazy - if we do this we should do what SUNY Oneonta does - it should be full disclosure or no disclosure
    • LoSardo: motion to have full financial disclosure
      • Seconded
      • Roll Call needed, Debate:
      • Hight: do the club budgets vary enough to cause a problem?
        • Kendall: exceptions to the 2000 rule include: Ballroom, Wick SAA, WRHO, and Union.
        • Rudy: I just want to bring to your attention in the decision-making for the budgets we take into account the impact of the club on the campus as well as how many members they serve. Obviously clubs with more members
        • Kelsey: full disclosure would mean show club budgets as a whole or general amount? Would it explain why we gave what we gave? - Yes, yes.
        • Gardener: as a governing board, we should be able to stand behind our decisions and explain why we put more money to some clubs and less to others.
        • Doboze: I encourage you to asking club leaders what they think about this before we go about doing it.
        • Hight: "Full disclosure" seems too broad; I feel we need a proposal - if we vote we should vote on a proposal, not a complete decision at the moment.
          • LoSardo: I thought that full financial disclosure is merely numbers, we don't have to explain why - it's just numbers. If people want to know why, they can come and talk to us.
          • Blea: there should be a clause in there that we can vote on not disclosing certain information and did not have disclosed certain information that we felt we shouldn't.
          • LoSardo: that seems like a huge time commitment o Blea: but it could be on an ass-need issue
          • Kendall: it would look kind of shady
          • Utterback: It should be all or nothing if we release individual budgets.
      • Roll Call - motion for full disclosure:
        • Motion passes for full disclosure of financial information.
      • Gardner: at SUCO, you go to their main Senate Page, then you can click on clubs and their budgets - then it says "total budgets" has a number, then you scroll down and it has a breakdown of every single club and budget for the spring semester. That is what I was picturing when we said "full disclosure". Then this is good for even prospective students.
      • Murillo: can we make our page like that?
        • Gardner: that is just one thing, as soon as Secretary Roods gets trained we can make our webpage look "awesome"
  • VP Schultz: the OH Fest survey has been reviewed and edited, hopefully it will be back here next week
    • Gardner: I was wondering how everyone felt if when the OH Fest survey goes out of having the "open forum" for the campus on OH Fest. We could do both simultaneously or have the forum the day before the survey goes out?
    •  If we're looking at the 23rd to pass it, then what would appear as a reasonable time to give it out? During that week? Have the open forum on
    • Hight: if the result of the survey is that students do not want an OH Fest, do we have enough time to realistically stop it and now screw over SUCO?
    • Gardner: I e-mailed SUCO again and asked if we could still get in contact with them and CCed their advisor - hopefully this will lead them to replying. I brought it up in the e-mail that I wasn't sure what our time table looks like
    • Whetsel: the first year I think they did it pretty quick; it's feasible to start working on it soon.
    • Kelsey: does SUCO know that we're going to put out a survey and that we're not doing OH Fest. I was under the impression that SUCO thinks we're doing it.
      • Gardner: I don't want to scare them into thinking we're not doing OH Fest - they keep ignoring me and obviously we can't have one. When I finally get to speak with them it will be the first thing that I bring up. I also personally want to get the general feel of the campus before I move forward or in any direction - canceling or continuing it.
    • Post: back to the survey, how are we distributing the surveys?
      • Schultz: it probably is not a good idea to send it out as a written document under doors as well as e-mail so then people can fill out the survey as many times as they want. We should either do mailbox or have one tangible copy put to each resident - under each door or each mailboxes
    • Murillo: would not having an OH Fest hurt our relationship with SUCO in any way?
      • Gardner: I'm not sure what the lasting impact would be - and it would not only affect our relationship with SUCO but also with the city of Oneonta. The City may also give us some money towards OH Fest. If the student body of Hartwick doesn't want to do it then I don't feel comfortable forcing them into something just because SUCO and Oneonta will be upset.
      • Rudy: one of the questions on the survey is whether or not building a relationship with SUNY Oneonta and building a relationship with the City of Oneonta is important
      • Ramos: as far as putting surveys under doors, something we should look at is how people can hand it in. We had a survey dispersed but not collected.
        • Utterback: we could always do a door to door and knock like we did with the constitution votes. We could also table outside the commons.
        • Kelsey: is there any easy way to guarantee the surveys that we will get it back?
        • Schultz: some people who do mailbox surveys have shiny and flashy boxes next to the mailboxes.
        • Hight: what if we had a stack of surveys with 10 pens and then a box next to them, computer usage should be thrown out the window
        • Whetsel: we could also utilize RAs and hall councils because I feel that's what its there for
        • Utterback: the issue of having people vote more than once isn't a problem - we have enough trouble getting people to vote as is.
        • Post: smith hall councils have a meeting soon and its "mandatory" and we give them smith bucks. We could do the surveys there and have them put it in a box before they leave.
        • Rudy: maybe an idea would be that since we're doing this by paper ballot and we'll have to go through, maybe we could require name at the top and that case we can see if there was an epidemic with one name happening over and over again.
        • Hight: I really don't think that hall councils should be doing this because I know that we can barely have an e-board in my dorm and nobody cares.
          • LoSardo: I don't think that student senate should support this survey. If kids show up then that's enough of a survey there
        • Blea: I support the stuff in the mailbox - if you make something look professional then that will have an impact, if it looks nice people are more apt to fill them out.
  • Gardner: current the student activity fee sits at $200. We have several mandatory things that we need to spend. Generally we have 120-150,000 for 64 clubs to use. That gives us the roughly 2000 per club to use. One "quick fix" is to increase the student activity fee which hasn't been done since 2002-2003. Quick estimate on numbers, a 50 dollar increase would give us an extra 70,000. The alternative is that we continue as we are and make due. This can be approached at another time when it appears more dire
    • Jones: I think that Hartwick students get charged up the wazzoo as is and I don't think we should raise it
    •  LoSardo: I think this would be an issue for a survey
    • Fiteni: I was doing research and most schools our size have double the amount of the student activity fee that Hartwick Students pay. In comparison we are one of the lower paying schools (as far as student activity fee).
    • Hight: I think that Senate should raise it to 10 per person and start a financial cushion for senate that no one should touch unless it's deemed necessary. You would think there would be a huge financial cushion before the debt
      • Gardner: another option is that we could option to raise it by x% per year perhaps 5% per year and so it goes up every year
      • Hight: can we figure out legally how to find out what happened? Can we hire a lawyer?
      • Ramos: could we perhaps use tax-free government bonds? We could maybe make money on this and not raise the student activity fee?
      • Kendall: I'm going to read a memo that Marisela Rosas typed up after an E-board meeting.
        • Hight: can I propose that somehow we create a committee to find out how this much money was spent? We laugh it off but that is a lot of money and whoever did that shouldn't be able to get away with it.
        • Kendall: no one in the business office knows how that happened
        • Hight: then that makes it a legal thing - 170,000 doesn't disappear.
        • Kendall: it didn't disappear it was given out over a period of time
        •  Gardner: this would be another matter separate from the student activity fee - if as a Senate you're all interested we don't know 100% where it is, that memo was the best explanation as to what happened. If as a senate we can form a committee if you so choose.
        • Utterback: from what the memo said the surplus came from raising the student activity fee and then people thought we had much more money than we had
        • Ramos: according to that memo the negative balance was created by student senate - therefore the problem lies with student senate.
        • Ramos: motion to create a committee to see where the money went
          • Harrington: also, I think that we need to make sure that this doesn't happen again. I'm going to be here for three more years
          • Hight: I agree with Ramos but I would like to have the committee that formed that the committee looks into what happened, that it never happens again, and that the proper actions and disclosures occur so that it isn't - "hush hush".
          • Utterback: the issue in the past was that it was very "hush hush". Now that we know what we're working with it is taken into account.
          • Gardner: just a point of interest - now that we have full disclosure, it will be a lot harder for something like this to happen.
          • Kopstein: I second the motion to create a committee.
          • Vote is called: motion passes
        • Gardner: I would like volunteers and I need to speak to Marisela Rosas and Alison Green before this goes into effect
          • Ms. Rosas: There are so many new people and the people who were here - who may know what happened - are no longer here. Even the Senators that were here are now gone.
          • Hight: the office of financial accounts should have all of this on record, correct?
          • Utterback: an issue that you might run into - it got spent on legitimate things, but too much was spent.
          • Fiteni: I know that they keep finances back 5 years - when you investigate we will find out how it was spent and why - we might be investigating something that was legal but just overspent.
          • Kendall: at the end of the last school year all the money that clubs had not spent was put towards the debt. Also there were trustees who gave money to help the debt. All the money that we have gets recycled into next years
          • Schultz: motion to table the issue of raising the student activity fee
            • Gardner: seconded
            • Motion Passes
        • Volunteers:
          • Jones, Podmijersky, LoSardo, Kelsey, Harrington, Hight, Ramos.

New Business:

• DesRoberts: there has been an accident with the pine lake vehicle and so we're asking for a Van as a new pine lake vehicle - we have 10 students without a ride to campus every day. Is there a van available for Pine Lake to use this week?
  • Chairperson: I think there is for tomorrow but I will discuss this with you.
• We looked and we're going to reevaluate the vehicle contracts
• Hight: the boats and lifejackets at Pine Lake seem to be very worn and aren't kept well. I go to Pine Lake twice a month and I'm wondering why the storage room is empty
  • DesRoberts: it might be because people are still coming in and out so they leave things outside. Assuming that all that will be taken care of once the dock is taken out - which may happen the weekend after break - I would be surprised if all that stuff is left out. I don't know if it's always been that even during summer you have to go inside to get all of that stuff, we could look into building an outdoor shed. I would be concerned if it wasn't in after the dock was taken down.
• Harrington: this week is national breast cancer week - do we give money as a senate?
  • VP Doboze: you can give as an individual
• Blea: we should maybe thing about starting a long-range planning committee that looks into the future so that we can have better steering
  • Gardner: the new VP of Finance for the College is looking into creating a contingency fund that would be used for emergencies. That is just a discussion that the two finance people can start and update us on as it unfolds
    • Kendall: the finance committee has the ability to check all accounts and we can look into it.
  • Blea: you want some sort of direction for Senate in order to help it to grow.

Announcements:

• Ms. Rosas: I need student volunteers to help out with check-in for homecoming as well as parking. I have a sign-up sheet. I hope that you think about signing up. It's Friday October 19th and Saturday October 20th. They are broken up into 3-4 hour shifts.
  • Kopstein: can we sign up at a later date?
• Doboze: when we get back from break, College Republicans and College Democrats will be having a debate. Hopefully it will be in Stack Lounge.