Thelomathesian Society s4

Thelomathesian Society Minutes April 8th, 2006

I. Call to Order This meeting of the Thelomathesian Society was called to order in the John W. Hannon Jr. ‘44 Room of the Student Center at 7:39 pm by President Jon Cardinal.

II. Attendance The following Senators were present, absent, or excused from the meeting on April 12th, 2006:

Present, Excused, Residence Name Unexcused Senior Townhouses Mandie Barney Present

62 Park Dean Eaton Jana Morgan Present Harold Sammis Present Brent Davis Present Emily Denham Present Brandon Bates Present Amanda Dox Present Gaines Hulett Kaitlyn Bradley Present Kaitlynn Reyell Present Jenks Amanda Kenton Present Drew Crawford Present Lee Justin Newcom Present Cameron Bruns Present Alessandra Necamp Present Mihnea Tudoreanu Present

Off-Campus Christine Akin Present

Priest Zoe Bludevich Present Rebert Alana McNeal Present Christian Amendola Present Larysa Balysky Present

Reiff Michael Bierce Present Sykes Joe Kondratowicz Present Simon Mawson Present Kirk Donovan Present Meghan Moore Present Emily-Anne Gullickson Present

Theme Cottages Harry J. Little Present

Whitman Andrew Ruhs Present Kevin H. Keepper Present Andrew Long Present Ashley White Present Kelly Meisch Present

On Campus Live in Greek Stephen Cotton Present

FYC Emily Rama Present Patrick Rossi Present Sophomore Class Dennis Willette Present Elizabeth Pimentel Present Junior Class Michael Wieneke Present

Senior Class Randy Olivo Present

Senator At Large Geoffrey Walano Present Tiffany Spoor Present Ben Sears Present Jillian Staffield Present Ashley Cutler Present Eve Gatawa Present Sarah Callaway Present Meredith Kane Present Chance Johnson Present Kristen Bednar Present Emily Taylor Present Julia Jones Present Jasper Burch Present Robert Courtney Present Present Jim Albrittain Macy Steers Present Dimitri Velikov Unexcused Suzy Bayard Present Karla General Present Catherine Ramsey Present Katherine Farrell Present

III. Officer Reports A. Vice President of Senate Affairs – Matt Brender VP Brender announced that the Senior week proposal would be on the agenda for next week. Also, whoever will be running for student delegate will have opening statement, then there will be a period of questioning and then a closing statement. VP Brender informed the Senate that his committee was in the process of making constitutional revisions which will be posted online. VP Brender urged Senators to review the constitutional changes, which will include elections and VP of University Relations taking over the responsibilities of the PR Chair.

B. Secretary: Sasha Tedeschi No Report

C. Vice President of University Relations: Laura Rabinow VP Rabinow announced the Unity Council met Friday and did a lot of brainstorming. The summary of the meeting will be sent out tomorrow. In addition, VP Rabinow reported that she had met a number of times with representatives from Commons College and the Java House, and since there have been lots of rumors going around regarding the uprooting of the Java house, she hoped to clear that up. Everyone read an email on Sunday that informed people that a banner was hung over Vilas that read “ Save commons, save java, save student voice.” As a result, the administration took this student response into consideration, and decided that commons will remain where it is for next semester, in other words, Java would not be moving there. Whereas the situation was resolved to that extent, the incident raised questions about the quality of communication between students the administration. VP Rabinow said that she did not think that students should have to hang a banner in student hall in order to get the attention of administrators. VP Rabinow asked the Senate to comment on where the student body should go from here, how can we engage in better dialogue with the administration?

Discussion

Senator Wallano said that putting up a banner is a good way of sending a message to the administration, that really there isn’t a better system. Also, if you’re not happy about something, you can simply write to the administration.

Senator Cotton said that he didn’t think systematic approaches are always the best, such as in this particular instance , when spontaneity was best method.

VP Rabinow said that the creativity was wonderful, but these students should have been contacted in the first place

Carla Hunter said that in order to avoid such instances as this, the faculty should communicate better with students. Senator Cotton said that another way would be not just to have the administration solve problems, but to make the problem an issue that every student can comment on, as in an open forum

Senator Pimentel asked what the administration can do in terms of removing a theme house

Delegate DeRosa answered that they can do pretty much anything they want to do Basically, if a theme house is not meeting its mission statement, then the administration can seek to remove it.

VP Rabinow stated that she wrote an article for the hill news regarding the issue.

Senator Weineke asked Senior Exec if there was anyway to take a few Senators along to meetings. Weineke added that this incident was the third time within one year that students haven’t been informed about a decision made by the administration. Perhaps if more students were able to be present at those meetings then conditions would improve.

Jon noted that even Senior Exec has had trouble even getting one meeting with the President, let alone students.

Weineke said that students don’t seem to take well to coffee chats, and that a lot of administrative decisions you have to make on the spot

Jon stated that this could be a huge battle, but there should be a clause included in the handbook where the administration is required to contact students.

Carla Hunter said that we have to strike a balance, it is the president’s discretionary ability to make a call on these types of decisions, and we have to make sure that our opinions are understood so that they can have clarity of mind.

Bludevich said that the most important thing is that they didn’t contact students

Liaison Hutchins-Cabibi said that she agreed with the fact that the Java Commons situation was not dealt with well, and encouraged each senator to take advantage of coffee talks, we have been trying to have student voices being shared on campus, student voice is first and foremost of priority, we should all take personal responsibility to speak our voice.

VP Brender said that Dr. Tolliver is looking forward to advising Thelmo.

Jon asked for any more suggestions on where to go with the Java problem.

Carla Hunter said that we should utilize space in the Hill News. VP Rabinow said that there’s an article I wrote about less than an hour ago

Senator Burch said that he didn’t think that we can do much about the Java issue, that it is pretty much settled, there is a general trend of the atmosphere of decision making. Burch urged people to write up a draft of what you think needs to change, and what needs to happen. If you have a petition, and get people to sign it, it will make a difference. He urged people to show an opinion has support, which would change the administration’s perceptions.

Senator Weineke said that there’s been rumors about building another Java house on campus and asked if there had been any talk with the president about this.

Spencer Homick 06’ said that the administration wants a new barn plan in place in the next 6 weeks, and it’s going to be up to the members of the barn to come up with ideas and develop a plan. Homick said that there are a ton of places for Java to possibly move to, and giving a quick history, explained that Java used to be in Atwood Hall when the nature of the music in 1993 was very folk, coffee house style. The change of the music style came along with the change in location, and Java has been in the barn ever since. The changing of the barn has been on the radar for a while. In September there was a meeting in town, a proposal making anything over 60 decibels illegal.

Senator Weineke asked what the situation is exactly?

VP Rabinow said that residents on Elm St. said that would not be an acceptable solution

Senator Weineke suggested having double doors in order to muffle the sound.

VP Brender said that the residents of Elm St. said that they must be displaced .

Jason Derosa noted that the moving of Java should not come as a big surprise.

President Cardinal said that the Elm St. residents do not blame the students, they are outraged with the University, with the fact that the University has been sweeping the issue under the carpet for years.

Senator Cotton said that he thinks students, senators, student body, and administration to should be invited to promote a working dialogue and to think of ideas.

Homick said that at this point, they are inflexible.

President Cardinal said that Elm St. residents don’t see the students as the problem, it’s the University

Senator why did the University let the problem get to this point President Cardinal said that back when it was first built, the Dean was against putting it at its current location, but nobody listened, and here we are because the administration wants to please the students.

Senaot Akin said that if they knew Java was going to be ultimately moved, perhaps they should have developed a plan before it was too late. It should have been done sooner.

President Cardinal said that basically they messed up, but there’s nothing we can do about it now.

VP Rabinow thanked everyone for their comments, and urged everyone to email her.

Spencer Homick, representing Java, said that Java will start having a presence at Thelmo in order to keep everyone informed.

D. SLUSAF Central Treasurer : Andy Cook

Treasurer Cook announced that he would be absent next week, and that it would be an important week because of the Senior Week contingency request. Since there are a lot of new senators here, Cook wanted to warn everyone that the contingency was going to be a lot of money, more than any request we’ve seen this year. With that in mind, however, Senior Week has never failed to get approval for contingency.

President Cardinal asked if in the past contingencies have been this large

Treasurer Cook replied yes.

E. Student Delegate: Jason DeRosa

Student Delegate DeRosa said that he was supposed to be stepping down tonight, but was happy to be here longer. DeRosa announced that he was looking forward to having a new student delegate in place as soon as possible, and that one of the first things that he would be handing off to that particular individual would be the shepherding of the Board resolution.

In the last couple months the Board let DeRosa know that they would be happy and willing to pass a resolution of their own. The overall curriculum of the university is going to be reviewed over the course of the next year. It’s worked out, full faculty is supposed to vote on it early next week and the plan is to put this in the university course catalogues section character, changing its core values. Senator Spoor asked if Academic Affiars looks into certain departments to see if those departments have problems.

Senator Steers stated that as a freshman he blocked out economics classes, and that the economics department has a policy that allows people to block out classes.

Delegate Derosa noted that the Economics department is a huge department with many students and a surplus of classroom space. Plus, classes are generally in lecture format.

Chair Boyd mentioned the possibility of an online waiting list.

Senator Newcom asked if the earlier a major is declared, does that mean you get preference earlier? Yes

Senator Wieneke said that he felt that a professor who teaches classes of 8 and 20 students isn’t doing as much work as a professor teaching larger classes.

VP Rabinow said that it depends on the department

Delegate Derosa said that some departments add extra sections if needed.

Senator Farrell said that in reference to visiting professors, certain professors go on sabbatical, and asked if there is anything to be done to get them to stay longer.

Derosa replied that it would be worked out from department to department, and urged everyone to inform the department if you feel strongly about a professor.

F. President: Jon Cardinal This week, President Cardinal met with Dean Bass and with Mayor of Canton, Bob Wells, to get a better understanding of the Java situation. From what he has heard from both sides, the Elm Street neighbors do not blame students, but rather the University for erecting such a facility in a residential neighborhood. In addition, what he also understands is that the university does not want to displace anyone in this situation, Java or Commons, as the circumstances almost led to earlier this week. However, the university is in a spot where they must do something. Java seems to be very open to cooperating with this difficult problem and is willing to move the barn to a different location. Thelmo will be with Java every step of the way if they would like us to be. President Cardinal has contacted two of the house leaders in Java to stress this fact. The return of the “green wall” is great. President Cardinal was not here at SLU when the first one existed, but believes it is an excellent way for students to voice their opinions. He believes it is a medium for change and praises whoever put it up. President Cardinal has written an article on the Elections for the Hill News this week. Be sure to remind your constituents to read this over so they know what is going on. Encourage people to run for student delegate! In addition, tell everyone to vote!!! President Cardinal stated that if anyone has issues they would like to be included in his May report to the Trustees to please pass them his way, as he is beginning to write it. He will begin to go door-to-door next week raising awareness of what Thelmo is and what we are doing, as well as asking our fellow students what they would like him to argue for in his May Board Report.

IV. Committee Reports

A. Academic Affairs Committee: Chair Elizabeth Boyd

Chair Boyd reported that the University Academic Affairs Committee met to discuss potential changes in the Graduate Studies Education Minor program. Basically, four new courses need to be approved and there was some discussion about changing the Masters in Education (M.Ed.) label, however no major decision has been discussed at this time. Also, the U AA Committee is revising the rules and procedures of the Academic Honor Council, and these revisions will be presented to Thelmo this semester for 2/3 approval. Finally, the Academic Advising Resolution is up for approval tonight.

Resolution on Academic Advising

Discussion:

Debate for: Debate against: Speak to:

Motion passes unanimously

No abstentions or objections

No second approval necessary

B. Sexual Violence Education Liaison: Mia Hutchins-Cabibi

No Report

C. Student Affairs Committee: Chair Lindsay Muetterties The student affairs committee had a lively meeting yesterday, 4.11.06. There were three big ideas that were discussed: Springfest, revision/suggestions to the student life division, which lead to an idea about funding for student life events. Each idea is still in the very early stages, and the committee has recognized this fact. The committee is very excited about Springfest and although the event is mostly organized by Student Life, the committee eagerly wants to be involved in this. Currently the plans for Springfest include a third party vendor to serve alcohol as well as Dana Dining Services providing food. Some of the committee members are disinterested in the event being planned this way because there will need to be a roped area around the quad which makes it exclusive and intimidating to many people. This event has potential to draw a large amount of students especially due to the music being performed by the Grace Potter Band, and the committee would like to see the event well attended. Suggestions for this event include: no third party vendor and instead have it be a BYO event, allow organizations and clubs to bring grills and allow students to provide food this way, and lastly not to include a roped off area of the quad because this creates a much more restricted atmosphere. These ideas are being worked out still and as stated before are still in the beginning stages. There was a discussion that the committee had about student life, specifically a result of the Student Life calendar that was handed out at Thelmo last week. The committee recognizes that there are events that are held each week, although not all of these events are highly attended. The committee came up with an idea, if Student Life could streamline the activities down to just the ones that are mostly attended or well liked there would possibly be left over funds for other things. With the extra funds, assuming that there would be extra, each senator could be allotted a specific amount to which their constituents could use to spend on events that they come up with. This idea is in efforts to get students more involved in activities that they like, as well as provide a way for senators to get to know constituents. The money would have to be spent with restrictions obviously and would have to be monitored in some way; this idea is again very young and has not been looked into in depth. Lastly, the committee within the last few weeks will be surveying the current seniors of the townhouses about the meal plan. It was agreed that the current seniors in the townhouses will have more insight to the meal plan over someone who has not lived there yet. As for the campus lighting project, there is difficulty with specifics in ways most useful for security for the committee to note the lights out or dim, this will hopefully be completed within the last few weeks of the semester.

D. Public Relations Committee: Chair Salvatore Cania, Asst. Chair Justin Newcom

Chair Cania presented the results from his 3-week survey

Do you feel safe in your residence hall? Majority answered yes

Is your residence hall clean and quiet enough? Half/half Do you run out of meal plan money early? Majority answered no

Carla Hunter asked what the ratio was of students who have full flex vs. 21 meal plan.

Senator Pimentel said about 120 students have 21 meal plan.

Chair Cania asked for his committee to stay after

Elections Chair Chance Johnson spoke about the elections. He said that he had sent out a few emails and that the entire election process would be redone because we didn’t get the number of voters we needed which is 40 percent of the student body minus one half of the fully matriculated senior class. If anyone is interested, they could pick up applications for student delegate, applications would be due this Friday between 12 and 5 pm. The actual voting period will be on Thursday and Friday of next week. Paper ballots would be used for the election. This hopefully would be better than E-ballot which has always had problems.

Carla Hunter said that she knew logically people will return to campaigning and that previous candidates who hand longer to debate would have an edge over other candidates.

President Cardinal said that this is circumstantial, the other candidates may have an unfair advantage but the new candidates are lucky to get an opportunity to run because they did not decide to run in the first place.

Senator Callaway said that she thought having the debate in the Winston Room was better

Senator Tudoreanu asked what happens if there still aren’t enough votes?

President Cardinal replied that the election must be once again redone

Environmental Conservation Committee: Chair Bob Glover

The committee met yesterday and set up a plan for placing conserve stickers around campus. It was decided that the committee should target lounges and bathrooms and then move to individual rooms depending on the supply of stickers left. Any member of the senate or campus community who is willing to help with this project or has areas on campus that they feel would be appropriate is more than welcome to request stickers from the committee. The committee has found it difficult to gather information on reverse vending machines but with the sticker and bulb projects completed, the committee hopes to have progress made very soon. VI. Old Business

No Old Business

VII. New Business

A. Earth Day: Contingency Reqeust

Purpose: to celebrate Earth day and inform the SLU community about environmentalism on campus and beyond

Target audience: the entire St. Lawrence community and Canton residents

This event will also involve a Sociology Class presentation on the International monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as readings by EAO.

Senator Olivo pointed out that ATO would be having a live band the same night and said that the two events might interfere.

No objections or abstentions

B. Contingency Request: Greek Week

Jon Solomon, the recruitment char for IFC and member of ATO, this February attended a Greek week on another college campus. He reported talking to many Greeks from other schools, and found out that Greek Week is a big event on other campuses. SLU, however, doesn’t even have one. Greek Week has been planned over the past couple months. Basically, next Tuesday will open up with a Greek banquet, this will get people interested and provide entertainment. On Thursday there will be a charity run for St. Judes Children’s Hospital. On Friday, there would be Greek Olympics. On Saturday, from 12-2 pm there would be speakers set up on the quad. In addition, there would be American gladiators style jousting. On Monday, there would be a cheer off in the quad. On Tuesday, the week of events would close with a BBQ and live event behind Whitman Megan Harris who is on the Greek week committee said that she knows a friend in Rochester who can supply dunk tank and jousting equipment, which is what the funding would include

Total: Jousting Equip: $550 Dunk tank: $250 Travel: $150

Discussion:

Jon Solomon stated that St. Lawrence used to do this, it used to be something that the Greeks put on for the whole campus. Now, the Greeks are trying to revive it and revive interest in the Greek system as a whole.

Senator Courtney said that he was a former employee at Blue Apple productions, the company that would be supplying the jousting and dunk equipment, and said it was definitely worth it.

Senator Morgan asked if there has there been fundraising for the event.

Jon Solomon replied that all other events would be funded by Residential Life or the Alcohol Initiative.

Senator Kenton asked when the event would take place.

Solomon replied that it is starting this coming Tuesday

Liaison Hutchins-Cabibi suggested that President Cardinal be dunked.

Senator Tudoreanu: asked if the event would be on the same day as the Earth Day event

Solomon replied Yes, but it will be during the day

Motion passes 44 for 0 against 1 abstention

C. Budget Approval : 2006/2007

The Budget and Finance Committee submitted a budget proposal before spring break. According to Treasurer Cook, it took a total of 100 hours to go over all of the budgets. Discussion:

No abstentions or objections.

VIII. Members Time

Senator Burch announced the next Math Club meeting

Senator Cotton said that if there’s going to be a 3rd party vendor during Greek week there will have to be a fence all the way around the quad, Cotton asked if people would prefer a 3rd party vendor or BYOB.

President Cardinal said that there would still have to be a fence.

Delegate DeRosa pointed out that you still have to stand in line to get your beer.

Chair Muetteties said that any way we can attempt not to rope off the quad would be better

VP Rabinow stated that it seems that 3rd party vendor would be the way to go.

Senator Morgan asked once you go into the fence area if you could leave.

President Cardinal said that he doubted it would be that restrictive.

Senator Weineke said that if there was 3rd party and bracelets were handed out, then people would be able to go in and out.

Senator Cotton asked if people preferred there not to being alcohol

VP Brender said that he would support that, people shouldn’t be corralled

Senator Cotton stated that if Dana provides food, the Quad will have to be roped off, and asked why can’t we make it an all day thing where people can toss a ball, have BBQ, etc.

Delegate DeRosa said that during his freshman year, nusic started at noon, it was freeform, the quad was packed all day Jon announced that Thelmo would be having a grill and urged people that are part for organizations to come and bring a grill.

Assistant Liaison Kenton stated that for male advocate trainings in next week, Sundays may be a better day for people, and if anyone is interested, to please let her know. It is important to have male advocates.

Gullickson: any independent women out there... Sunday 23rd there is an informational meeting.. if you are interested, its open

Senator Cotton asked how many people attended Go Beyond?

Kenton replied that the attendance could have been better

Senator Weineke said that next Thursday the Student Athlete Advisory Committee would be putting on an event. It will be only a dollar to get in, and will be their biggest fundraiser of the year at 730 in the Newell Gymnasium.

VP Rabinow stated that in light of such a buildup of events around the 22nd of April, Unity Council would be a good solution to remedy such a situation.

IX. Adjournment

Motion to Adjourn: 9:12 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted,

Alexander J. Tedeschi Thelomathesian Society Secretary