The Student Senate meeting two weeks ago began with an opening report that President Shirley Ann Jackson agreed with students that there has been a breakdown in communication between faculty and students. The discussions from the Town Meeting were also mentioned, followed by an announcement that the Cabinet was interested in having pizza with the Senate.
Chief of Staff and Vice President for Policy and Planning Laban Coblentz and Vice President for Student Life Eddie Ade Knowles were also in the process of setting up a meeting to deal with information regarding resident assistants. Grand Marshal Kara Chesal ’09 followed that announcement in the next Senate meeting, stating that there are currently at least 12 empty RA positions and that Residence Life has not announced how this will affect the RAs that do have positions. One solution mentioned was creating modified resident director positions that will take on some of the responsibility of an RA.
Senate Executive Board Liason Brian Zaik ’09 announced that the spring semester of 2010 will not begin until January 25. He announced that this will be effecting the Rensselaer Union budget so they will be preparing for that in the fall semester.
Senator Lee Sharma ’12 held a student forum on Parking and Transportation. Discussion included decreasing the parking meter charges from 25 cents for 15 minutes to 25 cents for 30 minutes. The FFA also announced that the Voorhees Computing Center is again open 24 hours a day.
The Web Technologies Group also announced that the Union website is about a week and half away. They also announced that the new document website, Flagship, is doing very well, averaging about 200 hits per day.
The Rules and Elections Committee reported that the new scantron machine for elections was approved by the Union Executive Board. The rest of the Senate Committees are working on wrapping up their agendas for the year.
Chesal convened the Senate meeting this past Monday by announcing that the Board of Trustees is in the process of changing its organization. It is looking to pattern its reconstruction after the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which rotates from department to department to interact with faculty and students on various levels. One of the many goals of this reorganization is to increase communication and collaboration between students, faculty, and the administration. The Board of Trustees intends to keep the Senate updated on these changes.
Chesal also reminded everyone that GM Week starts this weekend and all nominations are due on Saturday.
There was no official agenda for the Senate meeting this past week. Instead, Chesal decided to discuss the positives and negatives of the Senate this past year and how it was run, including comments and concerns as well as advice for the Senate in coming years.
The current senators advised having more detailed outlines defining Senate committees, increasing efforts to include more students and non-senators in Senate committees, and outsourcing ideas and responsibilities to subcommittees. They would also like future Senates to utilize Flagship, Concerto, and the Union and Senate websites more.
Other suggestions given were “turning negatives into actions” to confront issues while still remaining respectful and professional. Senators also expressed a desire to look for more graduate participation and better introductions to parliamentary procedures for incoming senators.
The Senate meeting ended with the Community Relations Committee reporting on the open house last weekend. Senator Andrew Neidhardt ’11 announced that Troy Night Out will be happening again this month with shuttles running between downtown Troy and campus.
