Senate Meeting
May 24th, 2007
Page 2
Contact Person: Student Government Office Manager
348 Memorial Union
(530) 752 – 3632
ASUCD SENATE AGENDA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
6:10, Mee Room
October 25, 2012
Senate Meeting
May 24th, 2007
Page 2
I. Call to Order
Meeting is called to order at 6:10 PM.
II. Quorum Roll Call
(Crisologo-Smith, Diaz-Ordaz, and Calderrazo arrived late)
III. Presentations
A. ASUCD President
Sterling: I just wanted to go through some updates from me. Everything is set with the Court. They had a meeting last week and will start having regular meetings soon and I’m sure you will all be informed on where it will be. Around campus, we’re doing recruitment for the vice chancellor position. The goal is to have someone in place by the end of the academic year. Similarly, the recruitment for the ABC of student life should be starting up. They should get going again chaired by Laura Giovazzio. There’s also recruitment for a new dean of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Science. It’s pretty significant. Some more internal hirings we’re doing is AS dining services. We received the applications, we’re hoping to get it done within the quarter. There are still two directors still left that need to be confirmed through you, Cal Aggie and then Whole Earth interviews are scheduled for next week. That was not an oversight but that is how the units like to operate. Also, the provost initiative for the year, they’re doing a series of lectures and unique speakers to campus to talk about social issues. They’ve been having pretty high attendance. Are you all getting notes of the events happening? It would be titled “provost initiative.” You are all very much invited to attend. We’ve been asked to be partners in the initiative and the aim is to be forward looking. As you all know, we’re increasing in the number of international students we hire. Brazil, India, and China are the three countries known for increasing their spending on education. There will be opportunities to host certain individuals. Aggie traditions are also rolling out and ASUCD is a co-sponsor of every tradition. We haven’t really been asked to do that financially this year but to really promote it. It falls in line of the mission we do relating to campus environment and feeling it’s their community. The next is “attend a football game” which falls perfectly in line with our elections. We also have this blue and gold committee, the alumni association, downtown Davis, various other people. We’re putting together a rally at Freeborn just before the Causeway Classic. Right now we’re looking at some live student bands there, possibly KDVS [lol], Aggie Pack, and I’d be happy to include anyone else. This weekend I hope to attend a Council President Retreat in Irvine. If there are general issues, just email them to me and I will bring them up during breakout sessions. The campus climate survey, I know someone came to speak to you about it, but it’s been pushed back until February so it’s not as urgent as I expected. On the topic of Media Board, we are working very hard to get a chair in place. The issue is that Media Board had a really rough year last year and no one was interested in serving as chair. The campus has not offered any benefits or incentives for someone to be interested. We’re still working around some different names and options. If someone comes to your mind who would be a good leader, please let me know. We don’t want it someone from our association, we want it to be removed, kind of impartial.
Kapur: 4931, it’s a pretty good number, right?
Sterling: Pretty good J
IV. Status of Legislation Previously Passed
V. Introduction of New Legislation
VI. Public Discussion
Goss: public senate meeting: got confirmation that we’ll have it in the second floor of Mrak and there is a high percentage that the chancellorship herself will attend—will either be the second or third week of November. Also, there is a Court now and I have some questions I want to ask them: does a resolution expire after the senators who wrote it are gone? What happens when a senator graduates and becomes a professional student? What happens when a branch other than the legislative branch tries to remove a legislature from their seat?
Jackson: I just wanted to remind a lot of you that many of you are terming out and I have never seen some of you at an EPPC meeting. I think you should come by and not just in the last week you’re in office.
Sheehan: What you see before you is a resolution spurring off Paul Medved.
VII. Public Announcements
VIII. Approval of Past Meeting Minutes
IX. Appointments and Confirmations
A. SHAWC Chair
Gerhart: We had a lot of applicants, he was by far the best. We’re really excited to have him on board and we’re looking for a lot of collaboration within ASUCD.
Padgett: What do you believe is the number one health issue within the student population in UC Davis and what would be your efforts to try to fix it?
Justin Lee: Off the top of my head, I think it would be meningitis. There has been a meningitis outbreak. That could be addressed. We can’t really set up testing for students but we can send out a mass email notifying them.
Cano: First, what do you think is the most common accident?
Justin: Come on, we’re a bike town.
Cano: What area on campus would you say students get injured the most?
Justin: The roundabouts, but the one in front of the Silo, I know the first week there are chairs laid out by people to watch accidents.
Cano: Do you have plans or goals to remediate this problem?
Justin: We’re not bike cops, I’m chair of student health and wellness, so I think that’s something TAPS can take care of saying like, “be careful.”
B. B&F Commissioners
Schaeffer: So everyone, he is one of our finest candidates. We had an extremely competitive interviewing process and without a doubt, he was one of our finest candidates.
Crisologo-Smith: What is the difference between senate reserves and capital reserves?
Andre Garcia: The senate reserves, are they specifically going to actions devoted for the senate and capital is brought in by the people?
Irind Suschch: I’m not sure.
Zach Griffiths: Senate reserves is a yearly fund allocated for senate projects and capital reserves are the excess senate reserves stored for later use.
Crisologo-Smith: What do you think is an appropriate use of senate reserves?
Andre: Depends, anything that will benefit any unit that is proposing use of the reserves. If something needs to be updated, if something is hindering the operations that needs to be fixed to preserve the necessary projections of that unit.
Irind: Probably projects that would benefit students. I think last year, they did something to renovate the library.
Zach: An appropriate use of senate reserves… I don’t know.
Cano: What role does B&F play in advising the senate?
Andre: We’re the financials, we want to help. A lot of people don’t like to talk about money, that’s all we do. We have that background and questions that can be answered and haven’t been asked that should be, we can provide some of those options.
Irind: They let them know if projects are worth passing and if there are no other projects that would deserve more attention and revenue to fund the project.
Zach: We advise if it is economically feasible because we only have so much funds we can pass through the school.
Cano: How important do you think supporting evidence is when it comes to numbers in a bill?
Andre: The numbers usually don’t lie. They are factual which is why it is so easy to trust in them.
Irind: As accurate as they could possibly be.
Zach: You need backing for a bill so if there’s numbers, it’s pure speculation and assumptions but we won’t have any knowledge of whether or not it’s correct.
Han: Could you touch on your experience?
Andre: I’m a fourth year man econ major with a music minor. Other than my classes, I’m an intern at a consulting firm here in Davis. I’m familiar with financial statements, business plans, I read a lot about the news.
Irind: Right now I work for a financial advisory firm which deals with private equity and I would like to be a financial analyst when I graduate. They have me booking capital calls and handling all of their documents.
Zach: I had an internship this past summer that was a tax economic internship at Blackhawk. In this, I was responsible for journal entries and our response for them, the updates, I had special projects, over 20,000 in extra marketing revenue with our contracted partners. I was also involved with planning.
Han: Do you think B&F should be looking at legislation holistically or just the financial aspect?
Andre: Are they different? The financial aspect is apart of the angles of what the legislation has. You should be looking at both. Our job is to focus and the finances are our focus so that should be our main funnel of attention but at the same time if you don’t understand what the point is then your judgment can be skewed.
Irind: Holistically because sometimes there are aspects that affect the finance.
Zach: It has to be holistic because it’s all of the students that pay to be a part of the association so you have to be holistic by weighing the benefits and the costs and we’ll have to justify the return against the cost for each student.
Kapur: How important do you think B&F’s recommendation is to the senate?
Andre: I would hope that they are very important, depending on how good our recommendations are.
Irind: Very important because they will actually look at the numbers which leaves everyone else’s job a little freer so they could specifically give a good recommendation to whether the bill passes or not.
Zach: I think we should be taken pretty seriously because as we have a certain amount of allocated funds and our units are losing money, then we can’t spend money on things that students really need. Obviously you guys have your own decisions and beliefs, but I would hope senate would take our recommendation seriously.
Min: Suppose worst comes to worse and you didn’t get confirmed, what would you do?
Andre: I might ask someone why and I would not dwell on it. Think positively, move forward and move on.
Irind: Go and cry, no jk. You know it’s not the end of the world.
Zach: Well I am hoping to get confirmed but if not, I will just go back to my studies.
10-0-1 (Crisologo-Smith, present)
C. EPPC Commissioners
Jackson: I interviewed a bunch of people at the end of last year with Margaret. They both gave really good interviews. They both have some really good ideas.
Diaz-Ordaz: What are fair trade bananas and how are they better than other (non-fair trade) bananas?
Haley Proehl: I don’t really wanna answer that.
Anjali Kadakia: Fair trade, based on their name, gives back to people.
Diaz-Ordaz: For future reference, I will be at EPPC meetings.
Crisologo-Smith: What unique characteristics, experience, knowledge, or passions, do you have that you think will contribute to your tenure on EPPC?
Haley: I am also apart of Project Compost so basically my knowledge of compost, waste reduction strategy, and connections with Project Compost.
Anjali: Over the summer, I interned for a company where I had to do a lot of research of other countries and how they are dealing with sustainable and environmental issues.
Crisologo-Smith: Do you see any environmental issues on campus you would like to deal with?
Haley: There are problems regarding the zero waste policy but ASUCD has a goal to reach 90% zero waste by 2015 so I think what we can do is audits into each unit and help them reach this goal. Also, working to update and rewrite the bylaws so that they are clear and can be followed.
Anjali: I think the projects we’re talking about right now, if we follow through, it will actually make a difference.
Anguiano: What is your favorite thing to recycle?
Haley: I like to recycle food scraps into my compost bin.
Anjali: I’ll just say what I recycle the most, which is water bottles, because I don’t actually GET REALLY EXCITED when I recycle.
D. ASUCD Justice
Cano: This is the last associate justice. She gave a great interview and stood above the rest.
Crisologo-Smith: Have you read the ASUCD constitution?
April Johnson: I brushed through it but I’ve read through the bylaws.
Sheehan: How would you define justice?
April: Equal representation.
Bottoms: What do you think is the importance of judicial importance?
April: We need one of the branches to be completely neutral and make sure that people are equally represented.
Bottoms: What do you think your role is as an independent justice?
April: to be neutral and give an unbiased suggestion.
Min: What do you think the role of precedent is?
April: I think it’s important for people to look in the past and see how things were done but it is situational and we should look at the current context.
Schaeffer: What’s your major?
April: Poli sci.
Schaeffer: What is your favorite political philosopher of the 20th century?