University of North Florida Student Senate

University of North Florida Student Senate

Senate Meeting Minutes – August 25th 2014 – 6:30 to 9:30 PM – Senate Chambers

I.  Call to Order

-  Meeting is called to order at 6:40PM

II.  Invocation (Senator Talley)

III.  Pledge of Allegiance(Senate President Ramirez)

IV.  Roll Call – Senate President Pro-Tempore Shomari Gloster–

-  Quorum is established with 27 voting members

V.  Approval of Minutes – July 21st 2014

-  Senator Galligan: I move to approve the minutes from July 21st 2014. Second. No discussion. Moved.

VI.  Approval of Agenda

-  Senator Talley: Motion to take SR-14F-2790 off of the Agenda. Second. Discussion. All in favor. Motion passes

-  Senator Kennedy: Motion to add SB-14F-2792 to the agenda on 1st read. Second. Discussion. All in favor. Motion passes.

-  Senator Gloster: Motion to add SB-14F-2793 to the agenda to 2nd read. Second. All in favor. Motion passes.

-  Senator Gloster: Motion to approve the agenda as amended. Second. All in favor. Motion passes.

VII.  Recognition of Students Seeking Appointment

-  Connor Akers. Freshman. Business major. General senate seat

-  Hugh D. Woodward III. Freshman. Undecided. General senate seat.

-  Jonathan Rader. Junior. Political Science. General senate seat.

-  Alin Cepoi. Senior. Financial service. General senate seat.

-  William Thomas Ewer. Sophomore. Sports Management. General senate seat.

-  Leah Melquist. Freshman. Public Relations and Marketing. General senate seat

-  Caleb Grantham. Freshman. Mechanical Engineering. General senate seat

-  William Newborn. Freshman. Business Marketing major. General senate seat.

-  Noah Gomez. Biology. General senate seat.

VIII.  Student Remarks (3 minutes per Student)

NONE

IX.  Guest Speakers

a.  Advisor Shore (5 minutes)

-  I would like to welcome you all back to the fall semester. Your leadership have been busy all summer. They made a lot of changes; they expect great things from this senate. They have high expectations of themselves and you. So I would encourage each of you to take these positions extremely seriously, ask questions, read the constitution, and know the legislation that’s being passed. This senate has high expectations and will get a lot done because of you or in spite of you. So I would suggest it’s because of you.

X.  Office of Elections

a.  Elections Commissioner – True Rains (5 minutes)

-  For those of you who were not here this summer, I know I’m a new face. The position was created to reform the whole elections process. Last year there were no elections because of the lack of candidates. I started in about July and worked on creating the new elections policies and procedures. If you would like to read more about it it’s on the website. There will no longer be a signature requirement for candidacy. It still requires a couple signatures acknowledging FERPA. It is a lot easier to declare candidacy. There are a lot of empty seats, and I want to get those filled. The senate isn’t really a representation of the student body when there are no actual elections. So, I want to fix that this fall. I am hoping to have a lot of students declare candidacy and a lot of students running. I want elections to be a big deal. For those of you whose term expires this fall, the new packet can also be found online. I would encourage you to fill that out and run again. I will tell you that if everything goes as planned there will be a lot of competition. You’re going to have to do a lot of campaigning. Have the expectation to come and work hard for your seat.

XI.  Judicial Branch Report

a.  Chief Justice – Daniel Powers (5 minutes)

-  I’ll start by addressing title 5 that is on first read tonight. There are some things that I want to address but I feel like it would be better if that was done in committee. The council had their first meeting of the semester this morning. We established our vision for the semester. Our next meeting is September 8th at 9:00AM, please feel free to attend.

XII.  Executive Branch Reports

a.  Osprey Productions – John Chwalisz (3 minutes)

-  First thing I want to tell you guys are about our upcoming events, since you won’t be having senate again I won’t be seeing you for about another 3 weeks. Our first one is the OP interest meeting next Tuesday 9:00 in the ballrooms. Second, will be our first movie of the year next Wednesday, Captain America 7-9:45 in the SU auditorium. Our third is the walking dead event; we have an interest meeting for it on September 10th. Lastly the I heart UNF ultimate pool party Saturday September 13th, with the band Split Tones. That is great that we have 9 students going up for appointment. You guys understand how important it is to attend the agency events. You guys allocated $450,000 to OP this year alone. How can you allocate that and then never come to the events? We are the extension of your hand. Come out there and support us. Starting next senate I will be bringing one of my coordinators to every senate that we have. You will get to hear from them, Andrew and I do a lot of work but they do more work than anybody I have ever seen. In closing, I challenge each of you to do more than your expected responsibility. It is yalls responsibility to make this school better. For us to move forward you need to be there as the elected officials, not only supporting but representing. Come to our events it is highly important for you to be there. There is an event tomorrow night (the rally). It’s a pep rally to start off the year; it’s in the arena at 8:00PM. There will be a dunk competition, t shirt launchers will be there, and John Delaney will be there. Every other report will be more light hearted.

b.  Club Alliance – Justin Dato (3 minutes)

-  Club Alliance has been pretty busy over the summer. Last night with the luau, partnering up with campus life, over 2,000 students were greeted, including 70 clubs and 30 departments. We passed out shirts and frozen drinks, which ran out almost instantaneously, which was a good problem to have, so next year we will prepare a lot better. I just want to let you guys know about some events that we are planning. The first is the General Body meeting for club alliance on September 12th, so if you wanted to know about what clubs are doing come to that meeting. I know last year there were specialized club fairs every single week. Rather than focusing on quantity we are focusing on quality. So, every other Tuesday starting September 23rd there will be a specialized club fair. Last but not least, Club Fest is going to be on September 29th, it’s a game night theme so feel free to come out to see all the clubs that will be there.

o  Question: Where will the General Body meeting be held? - That will be held in the Ballrooms.

c.  Attorney General – Matthew Harris (3 minutes)

-  Henry Clay once said, “Government is a trust and the officers of the government are trustees. Both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.” I am also going to quote to you this evening the preamble to our Student Government constitution. “We the students of the University of North Florida in order that we may maintain the benefits of constitutional liberty and may create a representative government through which the individual student voice can be heard and where students can actively participate in this university by promoting cooperation among the student body, faculty and administration do herby ordain and establish this constitution of the University of North Florida.” Never forget why we sit in this room every 2 weeks. Never forget that we the students ordained and established this government almost 40 years ago to benefit the people by letting the voice of the students be heard. Never forget that it was for that purpose that this Student Government exists. Henry Clay was right to say that government is a trust. It is a relationship between those who offer their voices to be heard and those who guard and speak them. Never forget that you as the senate are entrusted as the bastions of representation of the student voice. Never be afraid to take a stand to do what you know is to be right. As we embark on this next semester together and prepare to work hard yet again, to better our university and the student body, let us not forget that sometimes the right choice is not always popular. As Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “Yes the medicine is harsh, but the patient requires it to live.” When you take a stand, stand firm on the principles that this great association was founded upon. Never be afraid to speak up or change the status quo. Often times the medicine is indeed harsh, but principle is required. Do what you know to be right even it’s unpopular, as long as it’s legal. All of you know that my job as Attorney General is to serve as your chief legal officer; I love my job and what we do here. My job is to be here as a service for you. Please come ask me questions, I hope to get to know each of you personally throughout the semester as we continue to do great things.

d.  Treasurer – Morgan Wolf (3 minutes)

-  Welcome back to those of you were gone this summer, it’s nice to see the room a little more full. The executive branch has had a very good summer; we have worked on a lot of initiatives. July 1st began our new fiscal year. The SB-14F-2792 that was put on first read tonight, that allows for all of the un-dispended funds and un-dispersed funds to be allocated to our new fiscal year. I encourage you all to go over it; it will go through B&A in two weeks and back to senate on 2nd read on September 15th, the total was $18,330. Matthew and I have also been working on lots of revisions to title 8, which is the finance code for senate. Student Government officially has a new business manager, Dawn Knight. According to title 8 chapter 831.7 I am required to report back to the senate about all of the funds that were associated with the search positon. The search cost for this position cost a total of $347.50. $345.50 was expended for her air fare and $2 for her parking pass. Chapter 831.7 states that we may use this fund to search for our operating reserve. However Director McGuire left it not to do, but instead use this money from our B&A index the travel line items. This positon is for the business and accounting office. One of the projects that I have been working on this summer is our scholarships that Student Government gives out. The scholarship committee has finalized the scholarships and will be posted on the Student Government website on September 2nd. They are available to everybody in this room, and they are available to every A&S fee students that meet the requirements. We will be doing our own marketing, road signs, social media, and so forth. But I ask that you also advertise on your social media and just through word of mouth. There are a lot of students on our campus that are struggling financially. They are available to you as well. We have a new senate leadership scholarship, and that is going to be two scholarships awarded, $750 fall and spring semester. I hope you have a great rest of the week and enjoy the next Monday off.

e.  Vice President – Anthony Stevens (3 minutes)

-  I just wanted to say welcome back. For those of you who were not here during the summer, the lounge furniture was ordered, and should be coming in the next few weeks. During the summer we adopted a bed in the Ogier gardens. We now have our own Student Government bed that we are going to be planting and harvesting. I encourage you all to come out there at any time; I know John and I will be out there on Fridays. Lend-A-Wing also just got a big bed out there for students to come out and volunteer.

f.  President – Joseph Turner (5 minutes)

-  I just wanted to update you on a few projects that we have been working on. Hopefully you all got my email today. Last Thursday and Friday we took a trip around the state, we saw 4 universities, 3 of which are major institutions with beach front areas that we went specifically to look at: UF, FGCU, and UCF. They all have lake front recreational areas that I perceive to be the best in the state. We have a beautiful lake front area here at UNF and we do offer some amenities for our students but I think we can do better; we want to make sure that we have the best in the state. We can do more and we should do more for our students especially if we have the resources to do so. Over the summer we passed a free printing bill, I said there would be a possibility for a free print lab for the fall, and we were able to do that. Starting next Tuesday students will have the unlimited free prints, in the free print lab located in the club commons. We are going to start marketing that and let students know that we are providing a more improved service now. We will need your help promoting because you are the best messengers for what Student Government is doing. Some of you might have known if you were here over the summer that the university is investing 2 million dollars of nonrecurring performance funding into major renovations of the Thomas G Carpenter library. Those projects initially came in over budget so we had to go back to the drawing board and cut a few things. The new and improved library will be opening in February. I have a meeting with the dean of the library on Thursday to talk about some of those things that we had to cut from the project budget to see if there is anyway Student Government can pick up some of those things. I didn’t know this but twice as many students use the library every year than the recreation center. That is something that is coming down the pipeline. In my email I mentioned the text book affordability; the state wants to keep college affordable. The cost of college is rising for students and a big part of that are the textbooks. A big push for the executive branch is to address the textbooks. I am looking for feedback from you, your personal stories about textbooks. This will help move this issue in the state. These are all large projects. September 16th we will be hosting executive branches your choice your voice rally. I spoke to Chase Baker and he will consider having this in place for your osprey voice for the month of September. The final thing is, we will be hosting the rally tomorrow night; it will get students pumped up for athletics. It is important for us to support athletics financially, but also to recognize the importance of athletics and go out to the games. Come out tomorrow night and show athletics that we are going to have a great year.