GENERAL ASSEMBLY MINUTES FOR MEETING OF NOVEMBER 21, 2019 I. Council Roll Call A. 17 Councils in Attendance
II. Special Guests A. Kate Lower, SHIFT Director i. Interested in joining the SHIFT Student Advisory Board? Email shift@austin.utexas.edu to learn more.
III. Special Reports
IV. Organizational Announcements A. Habitat for Humanity UT Campus Chapter: Adhrit Srivastav ([email protected]) i. Act! Speak! Build! Week ● Events on the Horizon: a. Holiday Craft Night | December 5 i. PCL Learning Lab #1 - 6-8 PM ii. Destress by drinking hot chocolate and making some crafts for Habitat homeowners in our community b. Advocacy Open Forum | December 6 i. WCH 1.120 - 7-8 PM ii. Learn and ask about current campaigns against gentrification in ATX from guest speakers c. 2019 Blitz Build | December 7 i. 7025 Zachary Drive - 8 AM - 4 PM ii. Volunteer to help build houses at a construction site. Must be an active UT Habitat Member to sign-up. ii. Contact Information: ● Email: [email protected] ● Instagram: @utexashabitat ● Facebook: UT Habitat for Humanity
V. Regular Guests A. The Office of the Dean of Students: Marcus Mayes ([email protected]) B. Student Government: Camron Goodman ([email protected]) i. Michael Pontikes ([email protected]) ● A.R. 6 In support of the creation of a non-traditional student center on campus ● A.B. 6 In Support of defining focus of Student Government ● J.R. 19-01 Passed through SG ● J.R. 19-04 Passed through SG ● J.R. 19-03, really redo the bill C. Graduate Student Assembly: Christina Baze ([email protected]) i. Passed J.R. 19-04 (menstrual products) and J.R. 19-05 (UT podcast) ii. Passed G.R. (F) 6 - A Statement in Support of the Student Safety Working Group Addressing University Sexual Misconduct Policies D. Campus E+E: Mario Aparicio ([email protected])
VI. Spotlights
VII. Internal Implementation Updates
VIII. Unfinished Business A. S.R. 1906: A Resolution in Support of Increasing Online Accessibility of Gender-Inclusive Restroom Locations i. No changes ii. Discussion & Debate iii. S.R. 1906 PASSES BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT B. J.R. 19-03: A Joint Resolution in Support of Instituting a Fall Break or Week-long Thanksgiving Break i. The authors need more time to make edits, so they’re requesting to table. ii. Discussion & Debate ● What changes are you all looking to make? a. We heard about some technicalities around that fact that UT is required by law to start on a Wednesday, so want to make sure that if we were to pass something, it would work around that. iii. Motion to Table ● PASSES UNANIMOUSLY C. J.R. 19-04: A Joint Resolution in Support of Putting Menstrual Products in Women’s and Gender Neutral Restrooms i. Title has changed, and we made the change from all relevant restrooms to women’s and gender-neutral restrooms because after speaking with all three LSOs[Legislative Student Organization], there was inconsistency throughout the J.R. in our wording wherever we used “all relevant restrooms” and wherever we specified it, and after speaking with faculty and administration, the authors and supporters of J.R. 19-04 decided that it’d be best if we stuck to women’s and gender-neutral restrooms for now, and then hopefully expand it to men’s restrooms. And the rest of the changes in J.R. 19-04 follow just to make the Joint Resolution more consistent, and furthermore, we deleted the Whereas clause where it said that it cost $5-7 to account for each menstruator on campus just because after we number-crunched with the number of women on campus, none of the numbers really aligned with the numbers that we had from the Unions Board, so we decided to go with the Unions Board numbers just because will be using the same wholesale distributor to push this initiative into the rest of the buildings on campus. ii. Discussion & Debate ● Are there going to be different sizes of pads, and what’s the company going to be? a. As for now, the Unions Board doesn’t use multiple sizes of pads or tampons, which is something that we realized is an issue, so that is something that will come up in the discussions with the CFO after this passes through. And I think having that kind of feedback from the College Councils [is beneficial] so that we can it to the CFO and see the possibility of getting different sizes of tampons. ● With how HealthyHorns does currently with condom delivery, do you know why that wasn’t looked into? a. I’m not exactly sure, because with the Unions Board, half of the cost was being covered by the Student Services Budget Committee, and so, as a result, I don’t know the exact correlation as to why they haven’t funded this project, but hopefully that will be brought up with the CFO, and after speaking with administrators, I can definitely bring that up with your Council. ● So this is only going to be in buildings with classrooms? a. Yes, so not dorms. i. So is there a goal later on to expand this to dorms and also to male bathrooms? 1. Yes. ● Is there administrative support for those initiatives? a. So as of right now, we’ve just been speaking about buildings that have classrooms in them and for women’s and gender-neutral restrooms, so I’m not exactly sure about administrative support, but after this gets implemented, Women’s Resource Agency in Student Government is hoping to continue pushing this initiative. iii. Motion to end Discussion & Debate ● Passed iv. J.R. 19-04 PASSES - 17-0-0 D. J.R. 19-05: A Joint Resolution in Support of Establishing the Official UT Podcast By and For the Student Community i. Reintroducing the Podcast Legislation, some majorish changes to the language, not just the voice of the student body, but also a way to help communicate between the administration and students. Just having an avenue where we can sit down in a studio with an administrative behind a microphone and have students get answers, just to increase our transparency, since it’s a really big issue. Cheap, affordable, and simple but effective way to dispel the division between students and administrators. Administrators are on board (ex: Dean of Students), they think that it’s a great idea, and to talk about whatever is bothering us. ii. Discussion & Debate ● How does this differ from existing podcasts on campus put on my student organizations like KUT or the Daily Texan? a. The ones that you’re mentioned are not student-focused at all, and the Daily Texan kind of focuses more on student activities. I can think of several other podcasts, but most of them are done by faculty and such, but this one will specifically serve the Academic community (the student body), get administrators to come on and talk with students, to create this open dialog, so that’s primarily what we’re looking to do ● Will this podcast be built under the banner of the official UT podcast? a. Yes, that’s what the resolution states i. Why should GSA be the ones specifically the ones who are spearheading the podcast of UT. 1. Not that it’s GSA spearheading it, it’s just that we’re the ones who came up with it, not that it’s just graduate students. We’re not opposed to having undergraduates working on it ● How does we make sure that this doesn’t become a few students representing all 50,000-70,000 people on this campus? a. Because we have been recruiting from all over campus. We literally have people from various different colleges who are interested and going to be on this platform. So that’s basically the idea, just to make sure that it’s distributed evenly. ● Who’s going to be deciding the topics that are covered, administration, students? a. It should be a group effort, administration definitely not i. So administration is not going to get the chance to decide? 1. No ii. Just to clarify, I have another podcast that I’ve done on campus already, and it is completely a student production, but funded by the University, but they don’t have any say at all what we do, and we are not censored in any way, shape, or form. ● So part of the purpose of the legislation is for students to talk to administrators, but when it comes to quoting administrators and such, there’s a lot of barriers, so how are we going to ensure that doesn’t happen? a. Administrators are very hesitant to go on record in a print format, but podcasting is a lot more relaxed environment. When you’re sitting down relaxed, you say a lot more that you wouldn’t say [in a formal interview]. ● So if you’re saying that administrators are more hesitant to go out on a print medium, what’s stopping students from just completely transcribing the podcast, and then having that be a report in the Daily Texan? Will administrators be willing to go through that? Because that’s always a possibility with students. a. You’re right, there’s nothing stopping students from doing that. [However,] there is no negative side to it, if administrators are willing to do that, then we should allow them to. ● I think we’re getting a bit too far into the weaves and talking broadly about whether this happens or not. I think that people are rightly skeptical, but we also don’t want to feel like anybody doesn’t have a voice or a platform. I want to delve more into a specific here: what catches my eye, is a proposal for a 20-hour-a-week Graduate Assistantship, could you describe that a little more? a. That actually wasn’t my idea, that was an idea of another author. This was just one of the ideas that another author came up with for sustainability, and that was just an option that we were adding. i. So it wouldn't be created through this legislation 1. No, it’s just a suggestion, not that it’s necessarily going to happen. ● Where is the technology needed for this going to be coming from? Where are you going to get everything that you need? a. We’re just going to be doing it in the studios within the College of Liberal Arts, because that’s where a lot of the podcasts that you mentioned are done. ● Do you all want this to tabled today? a. Not really, it doesn’t matter to be b. So the idea we had with tabling it is that there’s been a lot of changes so we wanted you all to take it back to your Councils, but if you feel like you have enough information today, then you can vote on it today. ● We as a Council voted this down because there wasn’t a lot of information when it came to censorship and the roles of administration, and I know it might seem in the weaves, but I think that people in our Council brought up a lot of really good points especially when it comes to transparency, so that’s been on a lot of people’s minds, so if we don’t table this, I’m going to have to vote no, because we are constitutionally bound to vote no, and because there are so many changes, I would prefer for this to be tabled so that I can accurately vote on it. ● I actually study issues of accountability and transparency, and so one of my concerns, and one of the concerns that my Council had was that there are no mechanisms in place to talk about administrative oversight, and so, for my Council to let me pass this, they want to have something in place, that says that it’s going to make sure that it’s separate from the administration, so even if you just have one line of a whereas in there, I think that’s fine. ● Just want more clarification on the role of administration, since you said that they’re not making decisions. If they’re just funding the podcast, how are you going to make sure that the future and the integrity of the podcast is kept, and what exactly will the structure be, and how will administrators be involved? a. [No response] ● Our Council also voted to fail this piece of legislation just because of a lack of clarification, so I think it’d be best if we all just tabled it and had a few weeks to think about it. ● This is in response to something that you mentioned earlier when you said that you already have the people going into different colleges/schools recruiting for the podcast? So is that already happening? a. No it’s not. i. So will this be sent out to every student on campus? Since you said that you’ll be recruiting from different colleges, correct? 1. Yeah we already did send out a whole thing asking people, and we’ve gotten some responses. a. Was it through like a U-Wide email? i. It was through a listserv, but I’m not sure as I wasn’t the one in charge of that, but I will check. ● What kind of resources will this podcast require from Senate or GSA or any part of UT? a. Not a lot, as podcasts don’t require hardly anything, so again, if you have the spot with the equipment already there, which we do, then really it’s just the cost of using the space, so we’re going to take the money out of GSA’s budget. ● Have you all spoken to the Daily Texan and KVRX about what they already have in place right now? Because last GA, we were told that there wasn’t any communication with that, so I was just curious if you’ve consulted any organizations that are already on campus creating podcasts and other student media? a. In terms of asking for their assistance, working with them or? i. Seeing what they already have in place, assistance with equipment and other resources… I just feel like there’s been a lack of communication with the Moody student body, that’s at least how I see it, things that are already involved with the College. 1. Are you in Moody? a. Yes, we’re Communication Council ii. So I was just curious, since you haven’t come to us, if you‘ve come to the other student organizations that generally deal with student media. 1. No, I mean we haven’t. We haven’t had the opportunity to talk with many people outside of the Daily Texan. ● Just because I feel like we are going to table, I just wanted to get some things clarified before next time, so you said earlier to Architecture Council that you’re not necessarily spearheading, but in the legislation, it says “we are spearheading,” so if that could clarified a little better? a. If there are people in Senate who also want to spearhead, I’d be happy to change that, but for right now, we’re the ones doing the work. i. So by spearhead, do you mean we’re writing this legislation? 1. We’re actually doing the work, I mean if there are people here in Senate who also want to spearhead, then we’re happy to change the legislation to reflect that a. So if this were tabled, because obviously Comm Council and Graduate Communication Council aren’t currently involved, I think that’d be extremely helpful, instead of just GSA, because a lot of people are concerned that if just graduate students run this, then there’s a tendency for more graduate students to sign up. i. Well, I will say right now that we have a 50/50 split between graduate students and undergraduate students. ● First off, were the questions from last GA sent to you at all? a. I think I got like three or four. i. Okay, I definitely felt that there were more concerns brought up, but then I guess, a really good thing to do would be going to Communication Council and Graduate Communication Council’s meetings to specifically talk to their Council members about this piece would be a really good thing to do, and just in general, going to the Councils, because there are a lot of things being brought up, and there’s not a giant change to the legislation, and while a lot of questions are being answered here, there are still a lot of concerns being brought up. So I think it’d be really helpful, because at GA, we only have a limited amount of time, and I think it’d be really helpful, especially since the Council members are going to be the ones voting on this, and there’s only so much that we can relay to them, so I think that it’d be extremely beneficial if the authors could go to these Council meetings and answer those questions directly. ● Could you elaborate on the 50% of people that are undergraduate students? a. We have people from different colleges, predominantly undergrads, someone from the Canfield Business Honors Program, someone from athletics, and then in terms of graduate students, we have someone doing a [inaudible, Geosciences?] PhD and then someone in Engineering, and so, it’s a pretty wide distribution. ● And so, how did you go about recruiting them, you said something about listservs? a. We put it in our newsletter, and we had sent that out. i. To follow up on that, I just wanted to know which newsletter? 1. This was around two or three months ago, there was all this when we decided that we were going to a Joint Resolution. a. Do you have to subscribe to this newsletter? Is this something that people are automatically placed on? i. I have no idea, I’m not the Communications Director for GSA. ● So you were just talking about the students that you had recruited, but I’m kinda unsure about the consistency of your numbers, because at first it came across that you had a lot more students than you had recruited. a. I do. i. Well could you just give an estimate on how many people are interested? 1. I have around 8 or 9 people who have experience with media production and such. ● How does GSA make sure that those students are accurately represented, and can you expand maybe on what your formal recruitment plan is? Is that going to something that students do themselves? a. Well, students can reach out themselves, but the only problem is that you can’t have a gigantic organization with a podcast, as this is not a newspaper. That’s one of the limitations of this. ● Just in reference to your answer about the representation from undergraduate students. To be honest, props to Canfield BHP I guess, I don’t really think that they’re the most representative of the population on campus. And my worry is that when it’s sent out on a newsletter, who are the students that’ll get to this newsletter, get on this podcast, put it on their resume, as McCombs loves resumes, that they work at the Official Podcast of the University of Texas, because my worry is that, if it’s BHP, and those are views that are represented on the podcast, as the views in LAC and the views of my lovely friends in the Canfield Business Honors Program at McCombs could be quite different, I just wanted to make sure that that representation is an active part of how you’re planning on deciding who it is, because you have experience when you’re an undergraduate student, who gets to have experience before they even get to school? a. Sure, but this is only one Business student, so I understand, but they are still students. ● I just had a few concerns about how the selection process is happening. ● [Inaudible, people talking over each other] ● If you’re selecting 10 people with podcasting experience, prior to this existing, that’s not representational for the 50,000 students. My concern is that if we’re going to make this an Official UT Podcast that’s supposed to be representing all students, and we pick 10 students max who already have experience, that’s not even representative of all of the different schools on campus, so I’m just concerned that we could be limiting ourselves if we just have a panel of three people. a. We selected people based on the responses to the newsletter. i. Do you see why there could be some concern with this and how we are going to choosing topics when it’s going to be marked as official? 1. Yes, I do see it. iii. Discussion & Debate expires iv. Motion to extend Discussion & Debate by Three Questions, passed. ● Could you please elaborate on why a J.R. is necessary? I mean if you want to make a podcast, you could just make one, so I’m wondering why we need to legislate this? a. So I think that the J.R. came about because we had been told by some Student Government administrators that this might be the best way to go about it. I mean, yes, we could just do this, but we wanted to make it official and hear the voices of the students. ● I think that I can speak on the behalf of most of us, that having a podcast that’s strictly about academia and opening a dialogue with administrators is great, but in order for you to call it the Official Podcast of the University of Texas, there’s needs to be an ongoing effort for representation and diversity even in these early stages. If you wanted to have a podcast and call it something in regards to strictly academia, that would be great, but I think that most people have an issue with it being officially representative of the University, which I guess is why you needed a J.R. to do this, but I think before anyone’s going to want to pass it, it needs to have a very thorough effort for representation. a. So you’re asking for a thorough effort in representation before it passes? i. Not necessarily recruitment, but just an open dialogue with each Council, especially considering that we, the Communications School, has dealt with these things in the past, and would like at least an open dialogue about how you’d plan to recruit in the future. ● In the resolved, you mentioned a number of 8-12 episodes, so where are you getting the number 8-12 and have you decided the topics for those episodes, and if so, how did you decide those? a. 8-12 is just a feasible number to be done over the semester, just from practice and something I know we can do. In terms of topics, that’s something that’s open to discussion, and we’re hoping by committee that that would be decided. v. Motion to Table ● PASSES UNANIMOUSLY E. J.R. 19-06: A Joint Resolution in Support of Increasing Transparency Regarding University Policy on No-Contact Directives i. No updates to the piece. We took what was said at last General Assembly to the Title IX Coordinator, so that she could take a look at the language. We have not received a response yet, so we’re waiting on someone who reached out to her. I know that there were concerns brought up, but if this language is not approved by University administrators, there’s that barrier to passing this legislation, I honestly believe that the language in there will be [inaudible], but if you all have concerns, we can definitely table this legislation till next GA, until we get a concrete answer from the Title IX Coordinator. ii. Discussion & Debate ● Closed without debate iii. J.R. 19-06 PASSES BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT
IX. New Business A. S.B. 1905: Redefining the Academic Integrity Committee as the Equity & Inclusion Committee i. Basically, we wanted to start off by saying that in the past several years, the Academic Integrity Committee has done a lot of really great things and some really tangible initiatives. As we all know, they wrote the Honor Code, last year, they got permission to create an Academic Integrity Module for students to go through, and two years ago they also passed legislation where now if you take an assessment on Canvas, you have to agree to the Honor Code, all really great things that are really tangible and really easy for us to cite as the impact that Senate has done. However, we do believe that there is room for growth with the things that this committee can take on, so we want to have the possibility to expand the scope of this committee. ii. So when we came up with EIC, Kaimen and I were thinking about our goals as AIC for this semester, and we were thinking about how AIC in the past has really focused on how to stop kids from cheating, but we decided to delve into the systemic reasons why many students might cheat, and so, we decided that it might have been useful to add equity for students who maybe don’t have a lot of time to study [due to socioeconomic factors] or feeling like some needs aren’t being met by SSD. So we had a town hall, got a lot of feedback, and we’ve been having meetings with a lot of cultural groups on campus, specifically from the MEC[Multicultural Engagement Center], but we’re just kind of small right now, so we just need the foundation to start with. Frankly, this has been a long time coming and we hope to establish it soon. iii. Q&A ● Q: I do have one question about where you two as Chairs see the future of the committee. We’ve been talking about diversity a lot in Senate this year, and I’m a little curious as to what, in your conversations in Internal, have been about the possibility of a particular committee taking on the burden of the diversity of the entire organization, and also in the future in terms of applicants from At-Larges, have there been thoughts about what would happen if a lot of the minorities applying to this organization are applying to one committee? That’s kind of a worry, because that’s something that’s coming up in our own Council, because we’re creating our own diversity committee, what’s going to happen if all of them choose one committee, how are we going to spread them all out? Also in terms of recruitment, is recruitment at all going to be considered within the future of this? And also in choosing future LT[Leadership Team] positions, what’s going to be the future of this committee? a. A: When it comes to different groups being represented in our organization as a whole, I was talking to the President in LCA[Latinx Community Affairs], and she was talking about how no one’s going to be in your organization if you’re not going to show up to events for other organizations, so we’re hoping to expand our reach to other events on campus because he had told them, “we don’t really see you at our events,” and she said, “well we don’t really see you at ours,” and it’s true, we really haven’t been going to a lot of the events that certain cultural groups put on, and so, we’ve been talking about maybe keeping a points system, like diversity points, which Austin came up with. b. A: In terms of recruitment and the culture within the organization, those are all concepts that are obviously important and that I think require the work and collaboration of this whole organization in general. It’s not just one committee, especially with the conversations that we had at the beginning of the semester while establishing the Diversity Coordinator position, and the potential for creating an Executive Board position related to diversity and inclusion. It needs to be at all levels and all spaces of the organization. I feel like redefining this committee is one step in our process that we are working towards, and we know that it needs to be a process, but we want Senate to be able to participate in these initiatives on campus. ● Q: Doesn’t this change the purview of your entire organization? I’m just curious, why not just create another committee? Why take a committee that’s already doing something about academic integrity and try to change it into something entirely different? That seems strange. a. A: When we were discussing it at the beginning of the year, we saw Academic Integrity as a smaller piece be a part of a larger whole, that being equity. So we thought that if one committee should be taking on the burden of equity and inclusivity, it should be the Academic Integrity Committee. i. Q: I’m not sure if I agree with you on that. Academic Integrity is one specific thing, and we need a separate committee that Academic Integrity is part of. 1. A: Something else that is part of this decision to do it this way is that every year, consistently the Academic Integrity Committee is faced with some struggles in with where the direction of the committee and where to go and affects the outlook of the committee and the experience of the people within the committee. They’ve accomplished a lot of really tangible things in the past, but at this point, there’s just this problem of implementation, so there’s also this question amark of what else we can do, and so that’s why we’re seeing this as kind of a broadening scope. ● Q: As someone who really devoted most of my college career to student conduct and academic integrity, I’ve worked with the Student Conduct Board, I feel like trying to work purely to stop this problem of academic integrity is trying to treat the symptom instead of treating the root problem. And I feel like if we broaden our scope to equity, I feel like if we can try to stop the problem from coming up instead of trying to react to new problems, because I feel like there’s always going to be new problems, if we can fix the underlying issue, then we can prevent problems from coming up, and save a lot of people a lot of time to do better things for the university, so Yash do you agree with this? a. A: Yes, Richard. ● Q: Am I accurate in saying that all you’re doing is broadening the scope of what it is your doing? My other question would be, do you think that you had a lot to do with a smaller scope, and then with a larger scope you’re going to be in trouble? a. A: We almost felt like there was not enough stuff to even work on, so we felt that there was so much more that we could add to our plate, and so, that’s why we’re broadening the scope. ● Q: I agree with broadening the scope, I had a clarifying question talking about the phrasing, the way that some of the phrasing is, it sounds a little bit like underrepresented students are more likely to cheat? I’m sure that that’s not what you guys meant, but I just wanted to clarify on that. a. A: Every time we have these conversations, that’s something we’re conscious of, and I don’t it was ever meant to imply that, and if there’s anything in the legislation that you feel implies something like that, please come talk to us about it so we can change it, because we don’t want anything like that in the legislation. ● Q: Under this restructuring, would your committee still be doing issues of academic integrity? a. A: Yes. ● Q: I think that it would be beneficial for you all in your progress to try and establish this committee, and also for your At-Larges, to reach out to Councils that have diversity and inclusion committees about how they’re integrated into Councils and their role in Senate, is that something that you all are considering? a. A: That was kind of the intention when we met with you all. i. Q: Well, I’m just the Senate Representative, so it’d be beneficial if you could have conversations with them as well. 1. A: Yes, I completely agree. ● Q: Referring back to Praveena’s question about the scope of the committee, would you guys be focusing on Equity & Inclusion on campus, in Senate, or in both? a. A: Both. ● Q: Where did you all initially get the idea of expanding Academic Integrity? a. A: Well, me and Kaimen had a really really long talk at the beginning of the year, in May, when we were first appointed as AIC Chairs, we felt like the scope of the committee was repetitive like “stop cheating, stop cheating” or the Honor Code. We felt like we were just coming up with maybe one more thing, just to have something to do. So we tried to approach it from the other side, and see maybe what are some of the reasons that people feel like they need to cheat, so that’s where equity came into play. And we wanted to perhaps make academics more equitable for all students on campus, and when you think of it what way, you want to be representative of all students on campus, so that’s where inclusivity came in. b. A: This conversation also started as like “oh, ethics, or student ethics” just kind of throwing words around, but especially in regards to diversity, equity, and inclusions specifically, we’ve tried to people that we know in here and people in the MEC and their agencies, because we’re joining in on something, we’re not trying to step in and say “now this is our mission,” like we’re joining in to initiatives that they’re already doing. iv. Q&A expires v. Motion to Extend by One Question, passed. ● Q: In terms of the structure of the types of tasks that this committee would actually be performing, do you guys think that it’d be mainly event-focused or legislation? What would the actual daily output of the committee actually look like? a. A: Legislation as well as events and research, as you need research for legislation, for example, recently we held our first equity town hall, and we did just before writing this legislation because we wanted to get a feel for everything and we wanted to interact with people interested in equity and inclusion. And with that, we got a lot of our changes with the name and description change vi. Motion to Fast-track ● Passed unanimously vii. Discussion & Debate ● Closed without debate viii. S.B. 1905 PASSES BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT B. S.R. 1904: A Resolution in Support of the People for PMA Movement and PMA-Related Inclusion Initiatives i. This started two years ago, so for those who don’t know, Robert Lee Moore, the man who RLM is named after. He was an excellent math teacher who was also extremely racist and refused to teach black students and didn’t acknowledge his black students who had come after him in his academic lineage. And we in the community thought that we shouldn’t have our building named after this man, as with physics, math, and astronomy, and the sciences in general, there’s serious problems with underrepresented minorities, so we held a town hall, there’s tons of support within the building, we had a petition that gathered over 500 signatures. We ended up having a few meetings with the Chief of Staff of President Fenves, and they kind of shut us down. And for those who don’t remember, recently before this, in 2017, the Confederate statues had been taken down on campus, and the President’s Office was reeling from that. They took a lot of blowback; there were lawsuits and a lot of money lost, so the President’s Office is a little afraid of doing this kind of thing. So we couldn’t get on the Board of Regents’ agenda, which is what we wanted to do if we couldn’t go through the President’s Office, so we decided to rename it ourselves and within the building people call it PMA for Physics, Math, and Astronomy, and that was the original name of the building. Faculty call it PMA, the Chair of the Physics Department calls it PMA, the Dean of CNS uses the name, and CNS broadly is starting to call it PMA. And so, we will accept that it stands as RLM as an indicator of the politics of the University, but we as a student body reject it. So that’s kind of the gist of the legislation. ii. I’m here to represent the BSA[Board for Student Advocacy]. BSA started last semester, Spring 2019, and they were basically a group of students who organized themselves based on a few issues that they had regarding the culture in PMA and they wanted to organize to create a better culture and cohesiveness with a sense of community within PMA, so they’ve taken up a few different issues, so one of them is peer advising, and so in PMA, they want to create a peer advisor program; the second is that they want to create a collaborative space for PMA majors, since there’s no existing space for math majors specifically and a collaborative space being all PMA majors collectively; and the third thing they’re working on is gender equity when hiring LAs[Learning Assistants]. In the Physics Department, I think, women perform better on average than their male counterparts, but still comprise of a very small minority of LAs, and they’re targeting these types of issues within PMA, as well as other spaces. iii. A big part of this legislation aligns with again, supporting the official renaming of the building and calling for everyone to start referring to the building as PMA, and also, calling for the reinstatement and greater prominence of the Campus Contextualization Committee. In the past year or two years, after the Confederate statues were removed, President Fenves called for the creation of a contextualization committee, to sort of contextualize the historical background of our physical space on campus, not necessarily changing it right away, but looking at the complex history behind them, and so, there haven’t been a whole lot of meetings, and those meetings that I have heard haven’t included undergraduate voices, so part of this legislation includes language for that committee to be reinstated with the inclusion of undergraduate students. And so, a big reason that we’re pushing this as well, is because in Oregon State University which is also a public university, took the big stance of renaming three buildings all at once, and creating a naming committee in which they sort of lay out specific guidelines in about whether or not the content of an individual’s life becomes inconsistent with their current values, so they really set aside true transparency in the context of reevaluating building names and the sort. So we really want to make sure that that conversation keeps going and that it includes undergraduate voices as well. iv. Q&A ● Q: So I understand the point of the legislation to reiterate that commitment, and I understand that there are other aspects of it as well, if we were to theoretically pass this piece of legislation, would there be any changes with how likely faculty, administration, and whoever would need to support this, how likely would that change the naming of the building if we pass this? a. A: As was explained, we’ve met with administrators and the Chief of Staff at the President’s Office a fews years back about changing the name, and we’ve hit a lot of barriers, and the purpose of the legislation was to take the People for PMA Movement out of CNS and make sure that it is known university-wide that there is a grassroots movement led by students to change the climate of Physics, Math, and Astronomy, and also to support the renaming. So that’s the hope of this piece of legislation, that once more people outside of CNS know of this grassroots movement, that there’ll be pushback towards administrators and that will hopefully shift the University’s view. ● Q: Is there a reason now why they’re refusing to do it still, as it’s been kind of quiet on campus? a. A: We don’t talk to them anymore. If we were a little bit empowered by this grassroots movement and we put out a strong statement, imagine if all the students called it PMA, and technically the sign is still there and the administration still calls it its old name, but even CNS is trying to change the website to have a contextualized history of the building, so that’s really not our focus anymore. But if others want to try again, go ahead. b. A: To add on, this has been brought up to Fenves’s Office again, and they said “we’re just not renaming buildings.” So things have not been changing. c. A: With the administrators that we’ve talked to, we’ve talked to CNS administrators, they all endorse referring to the building as PMA, they said “you will never hear the words RLM out of the Dean’s mouth” for example, and they also sent out emails to ask faculty to refer to it as PMA, so within CNS, there’s already been a huge movement with administrators and faculty. d. A: Might I also add that if you go to the building itself, every mention of Robert Lee Moore is actually covered with a poster of a minority with a background in science, so that’s shows some grassroots movements within administrators in PMA. e. A: A lot of the newer websites and webpages that staff and faculty are making within the College of Natural Sciences, a lot of them have PMA in parentheses and a lot of them are already referring to them on newer webpages, so we’re also helping to make that standardized on all webpages to get that also on official documents of the University as well. f. A: One more quick note: in terms of official renaming, I know that’s been pushed down on the priority list for the moment, and I also know that the building is up for renovation within the next few years, so with that, they’re kind of hoping that someone will step in as a donor to slap their name on the building. g. A: Also there are other buildings on this campus that are named for problematic people, so let it be known that you can rename it by yourselves, so this is a good thing, and we’ve kind of already done it within CNS, so if other departments want to follow suit with their buildings, go for it. ● Q: Just a little confused about the objective, knowing that Fenves has said no to renaming this formally, is this piece mainly to increase awareness? Is that the main objective? a. A: Yes, just to summarize everything that has been said, we recognize that this issue has been legislated before, it was passed as a Joint Resolution and within GSA. However, the reason why we chose to do it again was to make it a formal request to the other College Councils and increase awareness for the People for PMA Movement and other grassroots movements that are happening within PMA, and to make it known campus-wide that all students, whether they’re in CNS or not should refer to the building as PMA. In addition, the Campus Contextualization Committee requires some foresight from administrators and Fenves’s Office is in charge of putting together the CCC, so that’s why this needed to be legislated. ● Q: You’ve mentioned that you’ve named people that have backed renaming it to PMA, have they also backed reinstating the Campus Contextualization Committee as well? a. A: So the CCC convened a few years ago after the whole Confederate statues thing happened on campus, and when we met with the Chair, they said that they still do meet regularly, but they don’t really have a purpose for the meeting, so the purpose of this legislation is to refocus the fact that the CCC is supposed to be reviewing the future of the names of buildings on campus. And the purpose of this legislation is to prevent things like this from happening. i. Q: Could you send a list of the names of the people, so that they can see that there’s a bunch of student support behind it? 1. A: Yes, we can definitely send the signatures and petitions. Also at the bottom in the Appendix, there’s a link to the People for PMA website, and so you can see the petition there. v. Motion to end Q&A ● Passed vi. Motion to Fast-track ● Passed unanimously vii. Discussion & Debate ● Closed without debate viii. S.R. 1904 PASSES BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT
X. Intermission
XI. Council Legislation Update
XII. Agency Reports
XIII. Council Announcements A. Association for Nurses in Graduate School: Favour Duku ([email protected]) B. Communication Council: Catherine Mouer ([email protected]) i. Communication Council’s Magazine Committee is hosting a Moody Mag release party!!!! ● Who: you, your friends, Comm. Council, all of Moody ● What: MOODY MAG RELEASE PARTY!!! Enjoy a cover unveiling, photo spot, decorations, and music! Come feast and relax before finals and celebrate Moody Mag! ● When: Wednesday, December 4 from 3:30-5:30/6 PM ● Where: Belo Courtyard and Lobby C. Dell Medical School Student Senate: Anish Patel ([email protected]), Oliver Ha ([email protected]), Jonathan Lopez ([email protected]) D. Education Council: Brianna Villarreal ([email protected]) E. Fine Arts Council: Austin Townsend ([email protected]) F. Graduate Business Council: Leili Doerr ([email protected]) G. Graduate Communication Council: Nathan Rossi ([email protected]) H. Graduate Engineering Council: Vineeth Dharmapalan ([email protected]) I. Graduate Public Affairs Council: Juany Torres ([email protected]) J. Liberal Arts Council: Praveena Javvadi ([email protected]) i. We won broomball!!!! ii. Happy Birthday LOSEmaan ● Jk congratz on 22 iii. Race, Indigeneity, and Migration has passed in Faculty Council. If RIM is approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Asian American Studies will not be on the next course catalog (2022-2024). If RIM is not approved by THECB, then Asian American Studies will continue to remain on the catalog; however, because it will be on review by administration within like two years, they think that that is going to fail review and they’re going to get rid of it. So the best course of action as to what the Deans of COLA want to do right now is to have RIM pass and then direct students who want to major in AAS to RIM and focus on Asian American Studies, because RIM would allow you to have a focus on a specific ethnic studies, but have a more general major. The worst-case scenario is that RIM fails and Asian American Studies also gets rejected, so in three years, there’d be no Asian American Studies or anything like it on campus other than the Center. The Center will continue to fund lecturers, but because it’s no longer tied to a major, there is the chance that it will no longer be funded, and that’s coming through the College of Liberal Arts, so that’s something that we’re trying to work on. I asked them about restructuring, about adding new majors, and basically, the answer was there’s not any interest. I’m trying to figure out what to do about that, I don’t think it should go away regardless of what’s going on with RIM. There’s diaspora majors for other groups, so it seems a bit targeted in my opinion, so if you want to work with me on that, there’s a lot of university politics related to that, all the way up to the Texas Legislature, stating that AADS[African and African Diaspora Studies] and MALS[Mexican American and Latinx Studies] will never be taken away from campus, so the future of this could be lobbying the Texas Legislature to do the same thing for AAS. It’s especially important for Texas as it has one of the highest Asian American populations in the country. ● Q: Is RIM supposed to be an ethnic studies major? a. A: Yes, so RIM will allow you to take a couple of general courses before focusing your interest. The purpose is to promote intersectionality, so right now if you were in AADS and you wanted to focus on specifically Black LGBTQ populations, you don’t get credit from WGS[Women’s and Gender Studies] in AADS unless it’s specifically crosslisted. What RIM would do is that, you might take a separate WGS class that’s not necessarily crosslisted, but have that count towards your major requirements, if what your general focus is on that specific intersectional group. But the problem is with RIM is that none of the other Ethnic Studies departments are going to be taken away when RIM is here; the only one that’s going to be taken away is Asian American Studies. K. Masters in Professional Accounting Council: Richard Liu ([email protected]) L. Natural Sciences Council: Alcess Nonot ([email protected]) M. Pharmacy Council: Haben Tesfamariam ([email protected]) N. Social Work Council: Kay Edwards ([email protected]) O. Student Association for the School of Information: Beth Pattie ([email protected]) P. Student Bar Association: John Zappia ([email protected]) Q. Student Engineering Council: Samraz Badruddin ([email protected]) R. Undergraduate Architecture Student Council: Nick Dalquest ([email protected]) S. Undergraduate Business Council: Mishan Kara ([email protected]) T. Undergraduate Geological Society: Christian Roumelis ([email protected]) U. Undergraduate Studies Council: Wesley Brewer ([email protected]) V. University of Texas Nursing Students’ Association: Catherine Borel ([email protected])
XIV. Executive Board Reports A. President: Elena Ivanova ([email protected]) B. Vice President: Katie Lee ([email protected]) i. Upcoming Policy Ad Hoc Meetings ● Discussion on the Newly-Created Coordinator Positions a. December 2nd, 7-8pm, GSA Conference Room (3rd floor in the WCP) ● Discussions on Giving Senate Internal a Vote in Elections a. November 25th, 4-5pm, TBD b. December 9th, 7-8pm, TBD c. Will also be discussed during December 5th GA ii. External Policy Challenge ● Brainstorm Session a. November 25th, 5-6pm, TBD C. Financial Director: D. Internal Director: Sarah Hyden ([email protected]) i. Volleyball in the Spring: Let me know if you want to do it! E. Policy Director: Hussain Alkhafaji ([email protected]) F. Communications Director: Ryan Chandler ([email protected]) i. For Internal, I dropped a link a few days ago asking you to put any pictures from any events that you had. For External, I’ll send that out with the newsletter this weekend, but please put out any pictures that you have that are related to Senate/Council events that’ll go on the gallery in the website and through social pushes at the end of the semester. Other than that, the committee is still working on that video that they’re going to make in the first week of December, so watch out for that. G. Administrative Director: Adebayo Gbakinro ([email protected]) i. First shoutout to Student Bar Association and Association for Nurses in Graduate School for making it out today, I know you all got my email. Also, in terms of attendance, we are enforcing that rule that’s listed in the Senate Spending Rules, I’ll send those out with the next Minutes email, but we will be enforcing those rules where if you have 5 or more unexcused absences at GA for the entire year, you will lose the ability to receive a Senate allocation for the next fiscal year, and you will also have your funding temporarily suspended for the rest of the year until you have a meeting with me and Veronica Cantu, the Financial Advisor for LSOs. So I know in past years, that rule has been kind of lax with prior Administrative Directors, and I know that the prior Financial Director for this year did not enforce this rule, and so, from now on, we will be enforcing this rule with Veronica, and any Council that has five unexcused absences already, your funding is temporarily suspended. So for future reference, moving forward, we will be enforcing that rule, so if you have any questions, please let me know either after GA or through email. H. Membership Director: Vinit Shah ([email protected])
XV. Coordinator Reports A. Diversity Coordinator: Veda Yagnik ([email protected]) B. Outreach Coordinator: Colby Holloman ([email protected]) C. Policy Drafting Coordinator: Camilla Arguedas ([email protected])
XVI. Internal Committee Reports A. Academic Enrichment: Austin Montgomery & Katherine Birch ([email protected]), ([email protected]) B. Academic Policy: Isaac James & Steven Ding ([email protected]), ([email protected]) C. Communications: Deepanshi Sharma & Soren Ettinger DeCou ([email protected]), ([email protected]) D. Equity & Inclusion: Kaimen Goudy & Yash Purohit ([email protected]), ([email protected]) E. Faculty Affairs: Kevin Kim & Vivek Pokkula ([email protected]), ([email protected]) i. Please vote for your favorite professor and TA that greatly impacted your academic career! ● LINK: www.tinyurl.com/SemesterAwards2019 ● Winners get to meet Greg Fenves F. Fundraising: Nathan Huang & Kershin Zhuang ([email protected]), ([email protected]) G. Recruitment & Retention: Grace Farley & Apoorva Kakkilaya ([email protected]), ([email protected]) H. Undergraduate Research: Apoorva Chintala & Yukta Sunkara ([email protected]), ([email protected])
XVII. Ad Hoc Committee Reports A. Campus Wage Reform Ad Hoc Committee: Griffen Goss ([email protected]) B. Financial Aid Policy and Procedures Ad Hoc Committee: Andrew Dareing ([email protected]) C. Multi-Degree/Major Advising Ad Hoc Committee: Adebayo Gbakinro ([email protected]) D. Policy Ad Hoc Committee: Katie Lee ([email protected]) E. UT Senate Archive Ad Hoc Committee: Soren Ettinger DeCou ([email protected])
XVIII. General Member Reports
XIX. At-Large Representative Reports
XX. University-Wide Appointments
XXI. Open Mic A. Sameeha - At-Large in Senate, also part of the Women’s Resource Agency - applications are going to be open soon - Amplify - crowdsourced production of experiences of self-identifying women on UT’s campus, looking for submissions from self-identifying women. The kind of submissions that we’re looking for are monologues, poems, any written expression, song, dance, visual art, and the applications will open on December 2, so please share that with your Councils. And this event is truly powerful and empowering, so we would like to see more Senate representation. i. Link to application: http://bit.ly/utamplify-2020 B. Jean Holloway Award
XXII. Adjourn