SGA Minutes
10/12/16
Start Time: 7:01pm
Student Petitions
- Kara May petition
- SGA to take no stance until the reason for her dismissal is released
Reports
Robert: No Reports
Ishaya: “All Org Council is this Sunday, and everyone try to be there. There will be food, and the main goal is to form a relationship with organizations, so we really need your presence there. We are trying to get everything set for the event, so getting food ready, and we are going to have an alumni come and talk about leadership for about 15 minutes. Nick will talk about budget request, and Robert will talk about constitution building. We don’t want to waste people’s time, so we only want it to last an hour.”
Ishaya: “SGA flag football was cancelled, and we have no complaints yet, but we want to try and schedule something for campus day since we still have the funds available.”
Erica: “What time is the council?”
Ishaya: “5:00pm in Pioneer”
Cody: “Basketball tournament instead might be a possibility, after campus day.”
Erica: “Should you talk to intramurals about that?”
Pierce: “Would it be more fun to do something for all of campus? Not everyone wants to play basketball. Something more inclusive would be nice since campus day brings everyone together.”
Ishaya: “We can discuss this some other time so we can save some time.”
Nick: “We have a lot of budget requests. You all got the Wufoos and rationals. We also have a potential fiance code change to help our student groups on campus. We also have a capital improvement project update. We have the drinking water stations, the patios, we have signs going up on our old projects, clinton and detroit parking, digital poster system.”
Tristan:” Monday the 4th I emailed Kelley Bradder to explain what we were going to do, and she didn’t respond. This past Monday I went to see if she responded, and I still have no response. SOME response would be appreciated.”
Cody: “CC Simmons in it.”
Nick: “Cole and Robert and working on table charging stations, and hand sanitizer stands, Picken court yard, and the prairie will be planted this November.”
Robert: “Next Monday is when we meet with the City Council”
Pierce: “We weren’t able to meet last week because of homecoming. We will contact Simmons before we put the resolution in front of you guys, expect it by the end of the month.”
Lewis: “Office hours are going to be a thing 1-3 on Wednesdays, and that starts the 26th of the month. Kindness week October 30-Nov 4th, this is an opportunity for us to reach out to the student body. I met with PRSSA to see their ability to help us in writing PR releases, and bringing them on as a consultant type thing.”
Cody: “Food committee met today. Them serving us has had some changes. They are going to test out not doing it at dinner, to see if the food waste changes enough to say they don’t need to serve us. The cereals have been changed as well. Every other Wednesday’s at 1pm.”
End Reports
Old Business
None
New Business
Nick: “Move to allocate $1,555 to student veterans”
-seconded
Nick: “We have a lot of commuter students and some day students. We are trying to make Simpson more veteran friendly. They want to do an airdrop at a Simpson game, it’s unknown if it will happen yet, but it looks like it should go forward. Even if it doesn’t go forward, the funding for veterans is still good.”
Robert: “I would love to see the insurance waiver, what’s it going to take for the guy jumping out of the plane.”
Vote: Motion carries
Nick: $10,380 to Rotaract
Nick: “They are doing a lot of repeat events, it’s one of our largest member organizations, so we found their request to be good.”
Vote: Motion carries
Nick: $750 to CEO
-seconded
Nick: “They requested a lot more, so we made a big cut. They didn’t know how many people would be coming to their conference thing, so we would have had to guess food amount. We told them to come back once they have more RSVPs to the event. We told them that we would be doing $750 for promotional materials and a handout type thing.”
Vote: Motion Carries
Nick: Allocate $1,960 to dance marathon
Nick: “They were very successful last year, but they are doing a lot more this year. We had to cut some of the budget because they wanted us to pay for rent a puppy but we can’t fund events that occurred before the budget approval.”
Robert: “Did they have any idea how much their big event will cost?”
Nick: “No”
Erica: “I know we talked about them becoming self sufficient, how is that coming along?”
Nick: “It’s working because they have a separate account that they are saving money on, so they are building it up.”
Kelsey: “So all this money is for their events this semester?”
Nick: “Yes”
Vote: Motion carries
Nick: $3,735 to Exercise Science Club
Nick: “We thought this was for one bingo, but their actually doing two bingos, so it was more reasonable. They had everything laid out for what they wanted to buy, but they included tax in their money, but we lowered the amount because we don’t pay taxes being a non profit.”
Ishaya: “Did they do this before?”
Nick: “Yes, and it was successful so they want to do two.”
Lewis: “Is this through CAB?”
Nick: “It’s only Exercise Science”
Lewis: “Is that price reasonable?”
Nick: “An average bingo for CAB is $2,000, so this is reasonable.”
Vote: Motion carries
Nick: $350 to communist club, and I recognize Tyler.
Nick: “They are requesting buttons and food at the first meeting. We cut the food budget, and said they can do some candy handouts.”
Tyler: “This is not a political party, it’s an ideological group. It’s about following the teachings of Karl Marx, unless it’s inconvenient. So take it as you will. So this is the first request of many, I do have 40 signatures in case you wanted to question the validity of the organization. I have a two page constitution, and the end goal is to have t-shirts, but we have to make sure there is enough interest.”
Kelsey: “How do you become a member?”
Tyler: “You already are a member. To be considered a member you have to attend a meeting once a semester, be in a protest, and the third is to be warm blooded. We are the largest group on campus right now. If you don’t want to be in the club you can email me right now. So every student is apart of the Simpson Communists. I created this because I want a t-shirt, and because it shows a point about how crazy politics are right now. I also wanted the student government to say they gave money to a communist club, and I wanted to prove to my SC class that you can start a club for anything.”
Tyler: “Meeting October 25th”
Pierce: “Is there a FB page?”
Tyler: “Yes, you can like us.”
Tyler: “Part of this request, $50, is so I can have a table in Kent and pass out candy.”
Vote: Motion carries
Teig – opposed
Nick – abstained
Nick: $1,400 to Latinos Unidos
Nick: “They requested more, but they wanted to do a Bingo with CAB, so we told them to talk to Kelsey and get back to us. Their budget request was very well laid out. They also have some good events planned”
Vote: Motion carries
Nick: $5,072 to Student Media
Nick: “They requested it separately for Simpsonian and ID magazine. We have the rule that we fund 6 students to go to conventions. You can bring as many people to the convention, and they can spread the money however, but we fund enough for six people. We decided ID Magazine and the Simp are one organization, so we can still only see them as one organization.”
Vote: Motion carries
Nick: Finance code revisions
Nick: “Add a line “iii. Activities closed to any member of the student body for reasons other than the safety of those involved or activities done by nationally affiliated academic honors-based organizations”.
Erica: “What’s the difference between honors and national ones?”
Nick: “All the honor’s ones on campus are nationally recognized. We haven’t funded them and they are dying.”
Pierce: “Point of clarification”
Robert: “We added the safety part because of best buddies needing training for safety in their organization.”
Tristan: “We want to make sure these organizations have the GPAs that match the college, so I think we should add onto that.”
Nick: “I think that’s something the committees can work on because we can refuse money based on things like that.”
Teig: “So the events we fund are all external, or will it be outside of students.”
Nick: “We’ve funded conferences, and some other groups have done events and they are open to all of campus.”
Rich: “In theory you could look at fraternities as academic sorts, so they could possibly fall under that criteria. This kind of opens up a tricky things with groups.”
Nick: “The financial advisory committee still checks on it. That’s why the committee is there”
Rich: “I think it can potentially open up a can of worms based on bias in the committee that might occur in years to come.”
Robert: “I don’t think anyone would have thought of that until you said it. The academic dean is in charge of it right?”
Rich: “I’m not sure.”
Robert: “Is anyone is charge of all of these?”
Rich: “I think it’s different departments.”
Britney: “Do they pay dues, and where do the dues go?”
Nick: “The fees are only the national fees.”
Erica: “Is this something we want to bring up later?”
Nick: “Some of them are looking to ask us for money.”
Emma: “According to the google, all our fraternities and sororities are all considered social not honors organizations.”
Lewis: “Friendly amendment to exclude social sororities and fraternities.”
Drew: “Wouldn’t that become redundant?”
Robert: “In the definitions at the end, we can establish the difference between social and honors.”
Geoff: “If there is an academic local organization, this wouldn’t cover them.”
Cort: “It still has to come through the committee first, so we could still give it funding. If we don’t add it, it could be similar as before.”
Nick: “The thing is, we were violating our code before.”
Rich: “I would avoid adding anything singling out greek organizations.”
Drew: “If they are all considered social, what is the issue now?”
Pierce: “Move to end discussion”
-seconded
Vote: Motion carries
General discussion
Robert: “We will have people at the board of trustees meeting from 8am to 3pm. Lots of candy eating and note passing, don’t leave me out this time. I will have a 5 minute time block to address the board in full, and I will use my normal speaking style which is quite engaging.”
Nick: “When did you become a stand up comedian?”
Robert: “What sorts of things would you guys like for me to bring up? So far we have tuition, and making sure we aren’t covering infrastructure improvements that the school needs to address.”
Pierce: -Recognizes Morgan
Morgan: “What is the point of the Board of Trustees?”
Robert: “This is where they address all the big stuff with everyone.”
Erica: “Lots of money stuff.”
Kelsey: “I won’t be there Friday, but communication is important with what they’re doing and what we’re doing. Having students included would be nice.”
Pierce: “The Simp talked about how we have low minority numbers, so it would be awesome to talk about increasing that number, and making sure minorities on campus are able to get positions and get their words heard.”
Pierce: “We can look at the final draft of the resolution.”
Britney: “Epic challenge is a challenge businesses are signing to keep themselves accountable when it comes to increasing employment of women, and diminishing the wage gap. The state is doing it, and Drake has adopted it.”
Pierce: “Some resolutions last year didn’t go the best, so we want to bring it to President Simmons first. We want to get it done and done right. Do we have any wording concerns?”
-none
Tristan: “I still have the hardest time getting my wifi to work.”
Erica: “Do you have an access point?”
Tristan: “I know the school spent a lot of money to make it better.”
Tre: “You should email Kelly Bradder.”
Tristan: “If you could get a response.”
Casey: “The first years have been complaining to me about cable for a month. Is there anyway we can make the cable minutes from last year available for the first years to read?”
Nick: “I recommend we send it just to the first years so we don’t restart.”
Lewis: “We have a first year FB page, and I will share it on there.”
Erica: “I will try and find the minutes, if we can’t we can do a belated PR release.”
Robert: “How did they find out?”
Casey: “Upperclassman complaining.”
Emma: “People don’t like the fact that they get the minutes each week. So we want to send a link in our email with the main points in the email.”
Lewis: “Changing the subject line could help too.”
Announcements
Kelsey: “Bingo on Friday”
Cody: “Midnight Breakfast tonight. There will be a cereal bar.”
Robert: “Rotaract will meet at 8:10-9:10. I will be there shocking enough. They are making t-shirts into no sew bags for the Iowa homeless.”
Ishaya: “All Org Council on Sunday.”
Cort: “Basketball season starts Sunday”
Cody: ‘Glowfest Friday – 8:00pm”
Tristan: “Motion to end meeting”
-seconded
Motion passes
Simpson College Student Government Association 