University of North Florida Student Senate
Senate Meeting Agenda – July 22nd 2013 – 6:30 PM – Senate Chambers
I. Call to Order
Meeting is called to order at 6:35 pm.
II. Pledge of Allegiance – Sen. Collin Waychoff
III. Invocation - Vice President William Namen
IV. Roll Call – Senate President Pro-Tempore Kaitlin Ramirez –
Quorum is established at 15 voting members.
V. Approval of Minutes
Motion from Sen. Turner to table minutes from last senate meeting. Second. No objections. Moved.
VI. Approval of Agenda
Motion from Sen. Reich to add Kyle Henning under senate appointments. Second. No objections. Moved.
Motion from Sen. Reich to add JR-13SB-2703 under second read. Second. No objections. No discussion. Electronic vote.
Motion from Sen. Reich for unanimous consent. Second. No objections. Moved.
Motion from Sen. Reich to add SR-13SB-2704 to second read. Second. No objections. No discussion. Electronic vote.
Motion from Reich for unanimous consent. Second. No objections. Moved.
Motion from Sen. Estrada to approve agenda as amended. Second. No objections. Moved.
VII. Recognition of Students Seeking Appointment
None.
VIII. Student Remarks
None.
IX. Guest Speakers
a. Spinnaker - Jacob Harn, Spinnaker Editor in Chief; and Joey Taravella, Spinnaker Art Director
Hello everyone. My name is Jacob Harn, I’m the editor in chief of the Spinnaker print and this is Joey Taravella.
Joey Taravella, Spinnaker Art Director – I’m the art director of the Spinnaker print as well.
Unable to discern between Mr. Harn or Mr. Taravella – And over the summer we have been researching the possibly of transitioning into a monthly magazine and transitioning our news week operation into a daily operation, focusing all of our content online and as soon as it goes it, as that seems to be the trend in media today. The consumer wants things immediately and they go online to seek it out. And with adding a magazine, that would give us a chance to flush out stories more, get more time to work on them and incorporate more of a narrative development into them, basically telling a more entertaining story. And so we started doing a poll I think May 16 and it’s still open but our last respondent filled it out July 1, but it’s been open for over a month. One of the main questions that’s on there is this one right here: how would you feel if the spinnaker became a print magazine, and the margin of fair on this was plus or minus 2.3 because we had a total number of student respondents that was 453; with this question the results were actually really close, it was pretty split. Obviously we rated it from 1 to 5 from disagree to strongly agree and the field was nearly split; and in the middle it seemed to be; a lot of people seemed either indifferent or maybe there was an exchange of cost and benefits to one side or the other, still as keeping a weekly newspaper versus a monthly magazine; we’re not exactly sure where in the middle ground people were thinking. The second question, interestingly was: do you feel the spinnaker could better serve its readers if it changed to a monthly magazine instead of its current weekly format?, and both, between students and alumni the majority strongly agreed, so there’s a little bit of conflict there with people saying that it was evenly matched saying they didn’t want it but they did want it, but the majority of people thought it would better serve the readers. With that, we decided to research a little bit deeper and with current media trends we’ve been thinking that it’s a very good idea to do so, transition to a monthly magazine. One of the misconceptions with a lot of the respondents who said they didn’t disagree, or who said they didn’t wnt the magazine, was that it would cost the students more money, it was would rais A&S fees and they thought it would be wasted money. There was a lot of respondents who answered just that way. It won’t be raising tuition, of course, we won’t be asking for any more money to operate. We still have to negotiate a bid with a printer but from the research that we’ve conducted it won’t be costing us any more. Obviously we had to talk to our advertisers and they’re very eager for the shift to the magazine and that’s one of the ways we’re going to be containing our cost to what we previously were spending because they’re willing to spend just as much in the course of the year as they were before. Some of the problems we’ve been having with the adverttisers for example is being on newsprint, their not getting the high-wuality add essentially when you’re printing on a newsprint; when you hold it up to the light it bleeds through. Advertisers are generally more xcited to spend the same money, if not potentially more, on an ad in a glossy magazine than they are in a newsprint newspaper. Also, we’re able to offer a better opportunity for the writers; they’re content will be posted online daily instead of this sort of weekly trend that the spinnaker has now. Also it’d be a better opportunity for all the graphic design and visual media department students, they’ll be more excited and willing to come in; photographers will be more willing to shoot for glossy print magazines; graphics look better on there, it’s more legible, it’s easier to read, there’s exponential benefits for going to something of more quality and a better looking feel than the newsprint that we have right now. And what we have passed out is about the same size that we were thinking about doing and similar paper type so this is just an example of what it might look like. Based on what ads look like in this glossy print and as you can see if you hold up the page, you’re not going to be able to see through it to the other side, things like that. If some of you have been around for quite a few years, you’ll recognize this; we have made major changes in the past, we used to bea broad sheet newspaper and then we, to make a more magazine feel, in the summer of 2009, we switched to the tabloid newspapers to get the more magazine type feel. This really is just a continuation of the process to make a higher quality product. This essentially started the trend of getting that magazine feel. You guys are essentially used to seeing a magazine-like cover on the spinnaker, that’s the way it’s been since the switch. It’s also worth noting that this year when we made the switch to the tabloid, they won ACP Pacemaker Award which is a national recognition. Keeping up with current trends is always a good thing. This is some more examples of Florida Atlantic University, and University of Georgia, and Distraction, and these schools have a much different format for publication than we were planning to be doing. The first two are weeklies and the university of Miami is quarterly, they publish 4 issues per year. So we’re going to the punch right there for you, because not too many schools have the monthly magazine and gone full online for daily news. It would essentially be the middle ground, between going quarterly and weekly magazine. This would be the tentative schedule for the coming year. We’d have a total of – this is the wrong one, we would not have a July and August, otherwise it’s all about 8 issues, starting in September, October, published issues in November, December, and so on.
Chief Justice Goetz – What does your online traffic look like right now?
Spinnaker Representative – It’s actually been getting quite a bit better. That’s actually one of the advantages with the model that we have, the convergence model. A lot of schools, their newspaper and their online organization and the TV are all separate, they don’t have any relations with each other, and we are all involved with each other so we have the benefit to cross promote. And we’ve seen the effects of that recently, I think at the end of Fall Semester in April, our online traffic of unique viewers matched that of our online pick-up rate for the paper.
Chief Justice Goetz – Would the distribution of the magazine be the same as used for the paper?
Spinnaker Representative – It will go down a little bit. Right now in a month we produce 16,000 papers, and from others, we pulled a lot of other universities to see how much their printing costs were, for the various numbers of magazines they produce and for the same price that we’re doing 16,000 papers a month we could do 12,000 magazines. But, once we get the bid that might even go up; we might be able to produce more. The interesting thing worth noting there, however, is the past readership, for every newspaper you assume you get 3 readers out of that, someone leaves it here in the chamber, there in class; the benefits of the magazine is it’s a sturdier print product so you get a large readership than you do in these newspapers which essentially blow away in the wind with no staples and bindings, so on and so forth. And the average readership for papers is about 3.2 and there haven’t been a lot of studies but I found one study on college magazines and the average readership was 4.2.
Unknown Speaker, Spinnaker Representative – To continue address that question: the reason that I’m up here is because, as a result of going through a monthly publication rather than weekly, I know a main concern, at least with us, is how are we going to retain the Spinnaker name on campus if people don’t recognize what’s been phrased. I’m not the station manager of the Spinnaker Television, formerly known as Osprey Television, and Osprey Radio is now also known as Spinnaker Radio; this creates a unified brand under the Spinnaker name, which gives people print, digital, television, radio, it’s also a business prduct all udner one name. which makes that name retentive on campus to hopefully push more people to that platform, push more people to the television platform, push more people to that radio platform, which will continue to drive ad revenue and continue to see what we do offer them. So the Osprey Television did change to Spinnaker Radio, Spinnaker Television, to keep that name on campus and in students’ mouths, all the time instead of just switching to the monthly issue.
Chief Justice Goetz – Would there be a way to potentially subscribe to this magazine?
Yes that is more of the plan to make a subscription plan. We haven’t looked into it to much but it wouldn’t be too hard for alumni to subscribe. Absolutely.
Sen. Estrada – Would there be any added costs to the spinnaker newspaper/magazine type itself?
Spinnaker Representative – The cost of producing one magazine to one paper is obviously more, but that’s why we won’t be able to produce quite as much at first, but, like I said, we should be able to produce and the bidding contract, we haven’t gotten that in yet, but we should be able to produce 12,000 at first. Like I said, we’re not going to be spending more money, we’re not going to be asking for more money, and the students won’t have to pay any more money to get this product.
President Fassi – Do you think you’re advertisement revenue will increase with the transition?
Spinnaker Representative - I think it will. Like we said, our current advertisers are really eager for it and generally it’s a better. We’re obviously hopeful that will be the outcome from what we’ve gotten from advertisers; The Loft and the District and some of the bigger advertisers, they seem eager to jump on board for the magazine and yes essentially you do charge more for the magazine rate than you would for the newspaper. Short answer, yes we’re very hopeful.
X. Judicial Branch Report
a. Chief Justice – Alex Goetz () (5-minutes)
Nothing new really to report on for the Judicial branch, however we do have a judicial appointment coming up tonight, so please appoint him. Thank you.
XIV. Executive Agency Reports: (3-minutes each)
a. Osprey Productions – John Chwalisz, Director -
Good evening guys, hope you’re all doing well and that your summer B is going great. I know I’m happy because my class just ended after 10 weeks. We had a couple events this past week, actually we had one event last night. We had Warm Bodies, and we have one more movie; we are showing Elf on July 24 for a Christmas in July. I encourage you all to come out, it’s going to be a great movie. If you know any freshman or have a class with them bring them with you. We also have trivia on this Tuesday at noon; unfortunately it’s not going to be run by our regular graphics designer, Stormy Goodman, who we also like to call Grumpy Cat. But it will be run by me and hopefully Tony Stevens, so you should come on out to the boathouse, grab some lunch, it’s going to be a really great time. Also, since yesterday, we announced our Ozzie’s Weekend featuring Corey Smith. It’s the first time concert sponsored by Student Government and also our Athletics Program. It’s August 31, the first Saturday of school in the Coxwell Ampitheater; it’s going to be a great show, it’s going to be free of course that’s the best part. If you have any friends who aren’t students, they’re only $15 which is not too bad. That’s it.
b. Club Alliance – Brett Weisman, Director
We don’t have all that much to update. Pre-registration is over at this point. We have 150 clubs pre-registered; way more than we thought we would. We had out last general meeting of the summer last Friday. We had 145 of the 150 clubs we had signed up; we were ecstatic about that. Other than that, we are planning dor Week of Welcome come August 25. Again, if anyone wants to come out and help we would greatly appreciate it. Other than that, I’d like to thank OP first of all for helping us at General Meeting. We were packed that entire day; we had our entire staff to help us.
XI. Executive Branch Reports
a. Attorney General – Paige Lehman, (3-minutes)