University of North Florida Student SenateSenate Meeting Minutes – September 29th 2014 – 6:30 to 9:00 PM – Senate Chambers

I. Call to Order- Meeting is called to order at 6:38PM

II. Invocation- Senator Talley

III. Pledge of Allegiance- Senator Rader

IV. Roll Call – Senate President Pro-Tempore Shomari Gloster– sgaspt@unf.edu- Quorum is established with 28 voting members

V. Approval of Minutes – September 15th 2014 - Senator Gomez: I move to approve the minutes from September 15th, 2014. Second.

All in favor. Moved.

VI. Approval of Agenda- Chairman Kennedy: I move that we adopt the amended version of SB-14F-2799.

Second. Discussion. All in favor. Moved.- Senator Rader: I move to add JR-14F-2801 to the agenda on 2nd read. Second.

Discussion. All in favor. Moved.- Chairman Kennedy: I move to approve the agenda as amended. Second. All in favor.

Moved.

VII. Recognition of Students Seeking Appointment- none

VIII. Student Remarks (3 minutes per Student)- none

IX. Guest Speakersa. Linda Quirk, Founder of Runwell (5 minutes)

- I am the founder of the Runwell organization. It is headquartered here in Jacksonville. Our mission is to raise funds for individuals facing addiction. Through sport and any form of movement, and with nutritional advice we encourage people to live healthy lifestyles. I am here to explore a couple of opportunities with you. You can give me suggestions. We would like you to participate, to have a “think tank” either in October or November. This would be a platform of how to encourage the healthy lifestyle on campus, and how to reach out to students, how to engage others. To be honest with you in today’s world, we have a huge epidemic of prescription drugs. The timing is imperative, that we at least begin the discussions. We would like to make a campaign; a brief example is the red watch band. Its mission is to prevent and to promote. The red watch program is a student led program. We would like the students here to create one that involves the students here. The 2nd thing we have going is the 1st inaugural event on November 8th on the eco trail. This event will have a few healthy activities, followed by a concert by Christian Bush. We want UNF students to participate. The first 100 students will get a free ticket to the concert, hoping you would all be able to help with this “think tank”.

o Senator Brown: If you are looking to partner with UNF, possibly contact the women’s center. I know students who have worked with them with

emergency hotlines. I think this idea is really cool. o Senator Cepoi: In addition to the women’s center we have the counseling

center. You could contact them to find out about more students who need help.

b. Dr. Edythe Abdullah, Special Advisor to the President (5 minutes)- I am here to talk to you about something that is very important to you and the

community. Coming around to you is a survey about the campus climate. We are concerned about climate change from the point of view of how we work and play together. Back in 2013 when I first came here, one of my first assignments was to take a look at the climate in terms of diversity and inclusion. 43 percent responded to that survey. That is a pretty impressive response rate. I talked to different areas of the university. This is a survey about race and ethnicity. We need to make sure there is an overwhelming response. I am here to ask you to complete survey, and to promote this survey. This will come out to you in an email on October 6th, by email from institutional research and then 3 times after that. Take it right when it comes to you. We are interested in finding out about how comfortable you feel. Other things may be concerns to you. I would encourage you to take this survey, and to promote this to the students who voted for you.

o Senator Cepoi: Have we had any cases recently? - Well one of the things that I did was to go around and have meetings with student groups. And yes there are concerns, not just here, around the country. If you read articles you will see that diversity is a hot topic right now. This is to make sure you are prepared to work in an environment. Yes, there have been minor incidents and concerns.

o Senator Pino: It covers race and ethnicity or does it include LGBT? - Yes it does but only a few questions. There was a survey already on LGBT. While we did the survey from the staff, through the comments included gender and age. So I’m sure a lot of that will come forward.

o Senator Kishek: What sort of ideas do you have from the results you receive? - From the staff survey, one of the things we discovered, there are minorities they felt as if they were required to represent their identity. You might get invited to serve on a committee to speak on behalf of your group. That is something that needs to be addressed. Do more people like me need to be more visible in the institution? There were about 11 things that were discovered.

X. Office of Electionsa. Elections Commissioner – True Rains sgaelections@unf.edu (5 minutes)

- This Friday declarations of intent are due. I know a lot of you have been speaking and spreading the word, please don’t stop now. Heads up, we are about a month away from elections, October 28th and 29th. I have spoken with Senate President Ramirez about spring senators working the election booths with me. I need a lot of help; we will have three booths around campus. I will be sending out a signup sheet soon for that Tuesday and Wednesday.

XI. Judicial Branch Reporta. Associate Chief Justice – Ben Jaeger sgajc@unf.edu (5 minutes)

- We have a meeting October 6th at 9:00AM in the courtroom; one of our justices will be going over title 6. Being that this will be our first time going through the election cycle with the newly revised title 6, this is something some of you might want to attend. We have been using SG representations for our parking hearings. This is where Mr. Harris, Mr. Hennesy, or Mr. Waychoff meets with the student prior to their hearing to advise them and speak for them during their appeal hearing. This has proven to be very successful. 68% of the students who show up for their appeal hearing opt to use this service. When you factor in the 56% of student who don’t

show up to their hearings, this number goes down to 30%. This is to be expected. o Chairman Baker: If you get there early the service is available to you? -

Anyone who signs in can use this.o Senator Rader: Where do you sign in? - At the front desk.

XII. Executive Branch Reportsa. Osprey Productions – John Chwalisz opdir@unf.edu (3 minutes)

- As you all know I will be bringing a coordinator with me every senate. This week I brought along our sports and leisure events coordinator, Walter Pillows.

o Walter Pillows: I am the sports and leisure events coordinator. A lot of people ask me about what my position is, it is really to get students out and active. Thursday is capture the flag. The goal of this is not only to just play the game; it is also to make the students play on teams with not just their friends. This week we have “How to Train your Dragon 2”, there will be pizza. Rocky horror picture show is this Friday at 10:00PM; it is in the Lazarra Theater. “22 Jump Street” is the next Wednesday.

- There are a lot of opportunities for you all to meet the students. Make sure you come out tonight for thrilling dead practice. There is an event going on right now called Elevate. Lastly as I mentioned thrilling dead is October 31st at midnight. Lastly we are working on Homecoming which is February 22nd-28th. Following that we are working on our 2 day spring music festival which will be March 5th – 6th. Lastly, next week our whole staff is going to NACA which is a 3 day conference to meet with other Universities around campus.

o Senator Kontol: Can you repeat the homecoming dates? February 22nd -28th, 2015.

o Senator Gomez: What were the events in March? - March 5th -6th, the spring music festival.

o Senator Cepoi: Will Elevate happen on a weekly basis? - This will be a monthly basis at 5 on Mondays.

o Senator Galligan: Do you have any idea about what bands or artists will be playing at this spring music festival? - I do not, but when I do you all will be one of the first to find out.

b. Club Alliance – Justin Dato sgacluba@unf.edu (3 minutes)- I wanted to start off with club fest; it was a huge success despite the rain. We did

have 100 tables available for all clubs, all slots were filled. Due to the rain 9 clubs dropped, so 90% of clubs showed up. I just wanted to thank everyone who helped out. October 7th is the sports club fair, check them out. Our 2nd general body meeting on October 17th in the student union auditorium. We will try to keep our numbers high.

o Chairman Baker: When does the sports club meet? October 7th on the Green.o Senator Matejka: What is the time for the sports club fair? 10:00AM-3:00PM.

c. Attorney General – Matthew Harris sgaag@unf.edu (3 minutes)- This week I have receives requests for interpretations. I also issued three answers.

The 1st one deals with campaign finance. The 2nd one deals with, the absence policy. And the 3rd one deals with sitting of senators seeking appointment. I appreciate the Associate Chief Justice talking about the parking advising, it has been going well.

d. Treasurer – Morgan Wolf sgasbt@unf.edu (3 minutes)- I don’t have too much to report. I have been working on the start of the annual

budget process. Today we sent out the questionnaire form to the indexes. The scholarship deadline was Friday. Thank you all for promoting these. The committee will be meeting within the next 3 weeks to make those decisions. My position entails sitting on 3 different university wide committees. These committees include: the student media advisory board, the distance learning committee, and the student fee and petition committee. I serve as a student representative, so if you have any questions about those please don’t hesitate to ask me.

e. Vice President – Anthony Stevens sgavpres@unf.edu (3 minutes) - Not present f. President – Joseph Turner sgapres@unf.edu (5 minutes)

- I would like to first congratulate Director Dato, despite the rain they had a great turnout. I spoke to a lot of clubs and they were very happy with the turnout. First off I would like to report on the Jags shuttle bus initiative. Over the summer we had requested about $6,000 to provide two shuttle buses for every home Jaguar game. We ran into some operational and legal concerns, and we were not to advertise it in time. As you know we sold 400 a game that first day, and then 600 the next sale date. Given the circumstances, we decided to discontinue the program and no longer seek it. I asked Treasurer Wolf to allow for that funding to be reallocated since we aren’t going to use it. Secondly, last week we heard from the SLAB about Tim Augustine. That request died. After I spent some time talking to James Flannigan, I determined that since of projected attendance that the average cost for each student is $25. I reflected on that cost and I decided that since we spend about $45 per student on a concert. So why not serve the students with their career in a different. I decided to use my executive program money to put on that event. That will be this Wednesday; it should be a great turnout. This is a great way to diversify. I wanted to thank you all about the survey we got 1,100 responses. I wanted to thank you very much. It has given us a real to do list. Thank you all for your help.

o Chairman Baker: What time is the Tim Augustine event ?- 6:00-7:30 this Wednesday

XIII. Legislative Cabinet Reportsa. Constitution and Statutes Committee – Chairman Shomari Gloster

sgaspt@unf.edu (3 minutes)- In my committee last week, we had 3 appeal hearings. They all passed with

unanimous consent. Coming up I will be sending a detailed absence policy. Your constitutions will be ready in the coming weeks.

b. Budget and Allocations Committee – Chairman Blake Kennedy sgabac@unf.edu (3 minutes)

- We had a pretty good meeting last week. I will start off by reporting on the account totals: Our special requests sit at $324,888; we are seeing a bill come across tonight that would come out of special requests which would put it at $316,701.40. The travel request budget is at $23,679. And the salary reserve is at $57,978. That will remain unchanged. We saw one special request from Director Simms. That is what you have in front of you right now; it passed 8-0-0. That request was for $8,186.60 from the construction fee fund for a new door in the spinnaker office. Lastly we had SB-14F-2798, I will be presenting. It passed 8-0-0. Myself and Treasurer Wolf will go over that in more detail later.

o Treasurer Wolf: Point of information- the SB is coming out of the student union fund balance, so the special request fund balance will remain the same.

c. Government Oversight Committee – Chairwoman Amanda Wollam (3 minutes)

- In our committee we had one person come through our committee, Hailey Guerra, as of tonight there is an opening for a general seat. In our committee we had a lot of great ideas about our appointee application we are continuing to improve that in our next meeting.

o Ramirez: point of information. d. University and Student Affairs Committee – Chairman Chase Baker

sgausac@unf.edu (3 minutes)- For our last committee we discussed new osprey voice questions. I made an Osprey

Voice proposal form. So you can think of new questions, with a direction. For our last Osprey Voice, we had the biggest turn out ever. So hopefully we hit that mark every time. *shows results from “Your Voice, Your Choice” survey*. Osprey voice is

2 weeks away so you have time to let me know if you can’t make it.o Senator Kontol: I heard a lot of feedback that the survey was too longo Senator Grantham: The survey about the geese, what was that about?

President Turner: We were asked about the upper level admin, they were playing around with ideas about removing the geese in a humane way. They were considering it. Prior to doing that was student concern about removing them, so we added this to the survey.

o Senator Cepoi: Which ones do we pick? President Turner: I and my branch are going to use these results to

prioritize the projects, one project we won’t be doing is the Ozzie statue. There a lot of things that are big ticket items. Top 3. Academic services, 24 hour library, and additional eco adventure checkout. You will see a SR to get a study done on the renovations.

o Senator Gomez: For the surveys on the iPad, do we take the survey for them or do we give them the iPad to take the survey? - Take the survey for them, don’t give them the iPad.

o Chairman Kennedy: Do you have any stats on where we are the most effective? - I wanted to try the green again.

o Senator Gomez: Will there be free food? - No. e. Senate President Kaitlin Ramirez sgasp@unf.edu (5 minutes)

- I have appointed Senator Rader as our sergeant of arms. Last week I went around to the committees to talk about the scholarship forms. As you’ll notice there is SR-14F-2800 with the corrections that I mentioned. This will be reflecting the vote and the change. If you don’t have your form please come and pick them up. There are orange and green papers in the back, if you have anyone to nominate. The orange is the graduate and the green is for undergraduate. Please spread the word for them. There are a lot of Osprey Productions and Club Alliance events coming up. And your elections commissioner needs help with the elections. Please email the appropriate

XIV. New Businessa. Legislation considered for 1st Readingb. Senate and Joint Resolutions on 1st Readingc. Legislation considered for 2nd Reading

i. SB-14F-2798 The Interests and Services Act – Senator Kennedy: This passed through the Budget and Allocations committee, we penciled through it thoroughly. This reformation helps the average student understand Title 8.

- Treasurer Wolf: I am going to use this as a chance to understand title 8 better. The main objective is so that it is more in line with the constitution and statutes, which is putting power in the hands of the students instead of the professional staff. These changes are taking away from the business manager and giving it to the students. The 1st change is changing SG treasurer to student body treasurer and changing B&A chair to budget and allocations chair. We have a fund balance that is divided into 3 reserves; cash flow operation reserve, scholarship reserve, and general reserve. Our cash flow operating reserve right now is at $300,000. This is money that is set aside for us that we can’t touch, it is for us to continue to operate, and we wanted to change it down to $200,000. We believe that lowering this reserve. That is freeing up more money for the exec branch or other departments to use. For the scholarship reserve we would like to change that from $700,000 to $400,000. Currently we have a fund balance of $1.5 million. We are earning interest on that 1.5 million dollars. We are still able to earn interest on that. Since we have such a strong fund balance. It is just lowering our reserve. Currently it states that the B&A chair needs to do a workshop prior to August 1st for all the directors. All of our directors have been with us for a while and really didn’t need to go to another workshop, and we decided to change the wording to 2 workshops held to the B&A chairman’s discretion. If he sees it necessary he can call for a workshop. The B&A

office will help if there needs to be a workshop done. In section 815.8 it states that the accountants shall provide fiscal training. We changed this to shall provide additional training; this was recommendation from the business manager. They don’t need to be told by us to provide that training. 813.8 states that the B&A chair should be notified of any negative fund balances, to add the student body treasurer. We are changing wording of 815.8 for additional training, as they see fit. The annual budget process, which begins now, this is when the indexes come before the B&A committee, forms be turned in by the deadline made by the B&A chair and treasurer. With consultation of the business manager. Since the treasurer is proposing the budget, they should be involved. There was a process not set up clearly. Under budget amendments, that was changed. The budget director shall have sole authority to request for striking line item transfers, within a category of his or her index. We added 824.4; these are transfers that create new budgetary line items. You should remember when Becky Purser came before senate. We saw that there was nothing in the finance code about this. This is stating that the creation of a new line item, should it pass that should be the final say. If it dies it goes before senate. Four places in title 8 we changed, whenever a funded department creates anything printed, they must include “Funded by SG”, we added that the student body treasurer has the final say. In section 831.7, the beginning of the fiscal year Knipe was hired I had to state how much was used for her search position. It stated within 30 days, we are changing this to the next scheduled meeting. The Special Request that is coming to you tonight, it is not coming from the Special Request index, it is coming from the Student Union fund balance. Funding can be from general reserve or construction fee. It should be taken from the construction fee fund. Audits can be done by student body treasurer. We are striking the authority of the business manager to freeze funds. If there is a deficit in the line or category they can be placed on probation by treasurer or 2/3rds vote by the senate. This is just giving the student body treasurer power.

o Senator Gloster: $100,000 is being cut, where will the money be moved to? – It isn’t being cut. We are freeing up 400,000 to be used. Nothing is being cut or transferred.

o Senator Pino: I know we had talked about some projects, did we do that with that in mind?- We want to use the funds to meet the students’ needs

o Senator Grantham: Is that the same for the scholarships? Correct, it is not changing the interest it is being incurred by the entire fund balance.

o Senator Pino: Just a friendly for 810.6, B&A committee was not changed to budget and allocations committee.

Treasurer Wolf: I ask that someone make a motion, that you change that.

o Senator Gloster: In 833.12, it says that the decision may be overridden by the treasurer; could you tell me the reasoning behind that? - The intent of the entire reform is to put more power in the hands of the students. It is something that even President Fassi spoke with me about; it is something President Turner and I thought needed to be changed.

o Senator Cepoi: Motion to change B&A to Budget and Allocations in section 810.6. Second. No discussion. Senator Pino: motion for unanimous consent. Second. All in favor. Moved.

o Senator Brown: Motion to approve SB-14F-2798 as amended. Second. Discussion. Senator Baker: Motion for unanimous consent. Second. All in favor. Moved.

ii. SB-14F-2799 Student Union Request for Installation of Glass Door at Spinnaker Media – Senator Culberson: I was able to meet with director Simms, he oversees the SU. This addresses safety concerns. It also will enhance the spinnaker.

- Director John Simms: I am here to present a request for a door for the spinnaker

office. This deals with construction. The space in particular was never really intended for an office space, it was intended to be a lobby. Our office manager sits in the lobby, and because of that we want a more professional and safe environment for the office manager. Total is $8,160. *shows breakdown of pricing on screen*. The reason I am making this request, is because it is a facility request. One of my roles is the facility manager; I just wanted to clarify that.

o Senator Cepoi: Have you looked into terms of evacuating the place? - This facility has an emergency response plan. We do annual trainings. This door would operate like any other door.

o Senator Alwan: For this door, did you explore other quotes? - There is a $10,000 threshold. If we do find an alternate route we can go with it.

o Senator Kontol: Will it have an automatic button to open it?- noo Senator Talley: This won’t violate any fire code?- No, and just to clarify it

goes through the fire codes and goes through the facilityo Senator Matejka: Have you looked into making it automatic? - It almost

doubles the cost. o Senator Matejka: Will it be a cohesive design? - Yes. o Senator Pino: Do you know for sure that this will double cost? - That is a

decision made far down the line. It goes to the ADA compliance.o Senator Rader: Was spinnaker unable to meet that to pay for themselves? -

Because it deals with the actual facility, we are perusing that balance. o Senator Pino: Is it possible to make this door automatic in the future? Yes o Senator Cepoi: Can you estimate the timeline if you were to add the

automatic button? - It would be a separate project.o Senator Matejka: Would they have to put in an entirely new door? – I don’t

know exactly, I think they can come in after the fact. o Senator Gomez: Is there anybody working in the Spinnaker now that

requires this access?- Not sureo Senator Kontol: Point of information-I don’t think ADA requires this button. o Chairman Baker: If we didn’t fund you would the spinnaker pay for this? -

No, this would come out of the student union fund. Senator Talley: Motion to approve SB-14F-2799. Second. Discussion (I

believe it is a great addition). Senator Kontol: Motion for unanimous consent. Second. All in favor. Motion passes.

d. Senate and Joint Resolutions on 2nd Readingi. SR-14F-2800 Amending Senator Scholarships in Senate P&Ps –

Senator Ramirez:- Senate President Ramirez: this was the wording approved in the last simple

resolution. The scholarship committee moved to remove this. You may now apply for either semester. Two scholarships for $750.

Senator Rader: I move to approve SR-14F-2800. Second. Discussion. Senator Kontol: Motion for unanimous consent. Second. All in favor. Motion passes.

ii. JR-14F-2801 Parking Improvement Fall 2014 Resolution – Senator Rader: This JR is exactly what our students wanted. For the university to adopt a new policy. This is a way for students to feel like they are more satisfied.

- President Turner: This resolution that I authored, is to help encourage the university to adopt a policy. Our current situation is, last week I requested the permits sold, I got some troubling news. I have been getting a lot of complaints. I looked into it. The university sold 457 more passes (blue), than they should have. They should have been selling at a 2.3 ratio, the university ignored that. An individual made a mistake, to take grey out of the inventory. The remaining was a result of to not withhold passes. We are at a point that that there are about 460

extra passes than spots. We can allow folks to exchange their blue passes for a grey pass to receive a refund for the about $65. This will make it easier. This problem will be eliminated when a new garage is opened up. A similar resolution was proposed in the parking advisory and has been forwarded to Vice President Shuman.

o Senator Kontol: Will this effect grey parking? – No, it shouldn’t. o Senator Melquist: How will this be determined, will the individuals have to

come exchange them? - Anyone who is unsatisfied, they can get their money back.

o Senator Galligan: Are the daily passes actored in?- Students aren’t allowed to purchase these. What we did, we raised the pass from $5 to $3.

o Senator Brahmbhatt: What was blue recently called?- Premium o Senator Brown: When you were talking about this ratio, how is that

calculated? - We were selling them at a 2.5, we lowered that and it didn’t affect the cost of the permit. No one is going to be here 100% of the time. If we only sold 1 per space that would be $400, there is a cost and usage factor.

o Senator Matkeja: Have you had students they are willing to exchange? - We are putting it through on good faith, but we have heard lots of complaints.

o Chairman Kennedy: What budget would this be funded out of ?- Parking o Senator Cepoi: Do you know what floors will be for housing in the new

garage? - 1st and 2nd floors for Housing A, and the 3 and 4th will be for Blue. Chairman Kennedy: I move to approve JR-14F-2801. Second.

Discussion. Senator Brown: Motion for unanimous consent. Second. All in favor. Motion passes.

XV. Legislative Appointmenta. Hailey Guerra (Originally this was for an Arts and Science seat, as of the last 4

hours there has been a general seat opened up) - I am a junior. I am double majoring in Political science and Criminal Justice, and

minoring in French. I have been involved in Student Government since freshman year. Starting with the judicial branch under Alex Goetz. And then I served under Fassi as the Director of Government Affairs. I served as the Attorney General for a short period of time after Paige Lehman left. I still want to be involved with Student Government.

o Senator Galligan: What committee are you interested in? - Government Oversight Committee.

o Chairman Kennedy: If you would just run in the fall elections instead of going up for appointment you would only miss two senate meetings, what is your reasoning behind that? - Currently there is an open seat; I think we should be filling every seat.

o Senator Cepoi: Based on my experience, I think it will be very interesting. I want to address new challenges.

Senator Kontol: Motion to approve Hailey Guerra for general senate seat. Second. Discussion. Roll call vote: 26-0-2. Approved.

*Associate Chief Justice Jaeger swears in Hailey Guerra as general senate seat*

XVI. Announcements- Senator Rader needs to be confirmed as sergeant of arms and go through the GO

committee. - 5:ooPM Wednesday is the deadline for the Deputy Chief of Staff position

XVII. Final Roll Call - Senate President Pro-Tempore Shomari Gloster- Quorum is reestablished with 29 voting members

XVIII. Adjournment- Meeting is adjourned at 8:38PM

Minutes prepared by: Leah Tolisano, Senate Secretary.