I. Call to Order Ben (9:05)
II. Roll Call/Prayer Ben prayed for the meeting
Present: Benjamin Bergey, Brent Beachy, Giles Eanes, Will Morris, Karissa Sauder, Peyton Erb, Brendon Derstine, Drew Kirk, Gabe Brunk, Katie Landis, Sara Derstine, Heidi Bauman, Darian Harnish, Larisa Zehr, Sarah Beck, Janelle Freed, Amy Springer, Vi Dutcher, Ken L. Nafziger
Absent: Hans Weaver
III. Approval of Minutes Sarah
Motion 20091014-1 (Katie): Motion to approve the minutes
Second (Peyton)
Motion passed unanimously
IV. Announcements
a. Shirts! Ben shared that our new shirts are in. Nice job Katie for designing the logo!
b. Put Luke back in office Ben reminded everyone to remember to put Luke back into the office after your office hours. We don’t want him to be stolen!
V. Committee Reporting
a. Heidi—Campus Ministries Heidi shared that the committee talked a lot about the possible switch of chapel time to 11:00 but it seemed that there was mixed enthusiasm about the idea. SGA was asked by Brian Martin Burkholder to put out a student survey to see about what the students think about switching chapel times. Since many students don’t respond to e-mail surveys, they suggested thinking about other ways of surveying the students. Possible options would be to hand out surveys in classes many students have to take like Transitions, Life Wellness, Speech, or possibly have the CA’s distribute them to the students on their halls and having them fill them out. With both options, we would have to let the CA’s and/or faculty members know ahead of time what we’re doing to make sure it’s okay with them to do this for us. Heidi also checked to make sure that it’s ok to have SGA back up a survey that she and Brian wrote. We want to make sure we get an adequate representation of the entire student body, although we do not have to be nit-picky about getting every single student.
Motion 20091014-2 (Drew): Motion to put forth a survey to all the GVC classes to find out student input on possibly changing the chapel time.
Second (Larisa)
Motion passed unanimously
VI. Old Business
a. Chapel discussion This was pretty much discussed above with Heidi’s committee reporting.
VII. New Business
a. Spirit Week reflection Katie shared that people don’t really do it and didn’t really know why. She shared that perhaps the days were a little too vague. Sarah shared that many people thought it was a very high school thing and people only participated for a few days. Perhaps we should just have a Royal Pride day since Spirit Week might be something that people just don’t want to participate in. Sara Derstine suggested trying one more time with a lot of advertising and if it still doesn’t work, maybe we should re-think whether we should have Spirit Week. Katie shared that this week for Take Back the Night there were huge banners around campus and sidewalk chalk that they used for advertising that got the word out more. Keep thinking about ways to generate more participation for future years.
b. SLW request for faculty consideration Ben shared that there are some students getting in trouble for showing up to class late because they stayed for all of chapel. Karissa shared that during her office hours, two people from Campus Ministries came in and asked if SGA could put forth a statement requesting that students not be penalized during Spiritual Life Week for being late to class because they went to chapel. Spiritual Life Week chapels tend to go a little over, so this may be an important note in upcoming weeks. Amy shared that we consult with Vernon Jantzi so the statement could also come from the dean’s office which would put even more weight behind this motion. Vi and Ken shared that the request is stronger when backed by SGA than when only backed by campus ministers.
Motion 20091014-3 (Larisa): Motion to consult with Vernon Jantzi and to put forth a statement to the faculty that SGA requests leniency for students who may be late to class immediately following chapel during Spiritual Life Week.
Second (Will)
Motion passed unanimously
c. Student fees/Common Grounds Ben shared that there is ongoing discussion about whether or not to raise the student activities fee, which is currently $50 per semester per student, in order to put extra money towards Common Grounds and other organizations that are in need of money. Will shared that this is important in order to keep Common Grounds afloat. Janelle stated that since this will be added to an already large tuition, students would probably not mind paying just a little more. Larisa shared that it’s important to let students know that the raise is for Common Grounds. We believe students will be much more willing to do this if it means Common Grounds will stay open because it’s an integral part of campus. There was also discussion on having this money already go to Common Grounds, and then you can use that money to buy items at Common Grounds. It was also discussed that perhaps Common Grounds could be set up more like the Den and you already have that credit on your account to buy items from Common Grounds. Giles shared that another suggestion could be to include faculty in this as well because Common Grounds is used by many people, although we don’t have jurisdiction over that. Possibly having the departments pay for renting out Common Grounds rather than just letting them rent for free. Janelle added that if we ask students to all pay $35 per semester, it would total $31,000 a semester. Then $10 of that money could be put into an account at Common Grounds and the other $25 could be given directly to Common Grounds. Darian shared that it doesn’t seem right to keep dumping money into Common Grounds; they should be fairly sustainable on their own. Perhaps we should ask them to find ways they can cut back costs on their own, such as have fewer staff members, cut back the amount of free things given to staff and that staff give their friends.
Janelle brought up that we also need to think about how to help Common Grounds out for next semester because they will be out of money then. Also, student fees help cover the Shen and other organizations that need money. If we want to request the student fees be raised for next year, we must get the vote in by November. For this year, we still need suggestions on how to keep Common Grounds afloat next semester. It was suggested that we invite Doug Wandersee or the Common Grounds managers to come in and talk to them about possible suggestions. Brainstorm creative ideas about how to possibly save Common Grounds money. Giles will talk to Doug about coming in to our meeting next week and Janelle will talk to Jason Godshall, the student manager, about coming in as well.
VIII. Open Floor
a- Will shared that SGA is going to try to co-sponsor events with multicultural services. Next week they are sponsoring Dialogue on Race and Diversity and have asked SGA to co-sponsor it. There was a slight mix-up in communication and multicultural services already printed flyers with SGA co-sponsoring. Just a reminder that when communicating with committees, you need to bring any sponsoring ideas to the senate to vote on it. Karissa brought up that this overlaps when we are having Tim Jost come in to speak on health care but it shouldn’t be a problem.
Motion 20091014-4 (Will): Motion to retroactively approve co-sponsoring D.O.R.D. with Multicultural services.
Second (Giles)
Motion passed unanimously.
b- Karissa shared that Tim Jost is coming in to speak on health care at 8:00 on Wednesday the 11th. Karissa suggested perhaps giving Tim an honorarium from Res Judicata even though it’s not required. She will update us about this later. This means our meeting time will be pushed back to 9:30 on November 11th.
c- Gabe brought up that last year we had talked about a possible parking fee for students as a way to generate more money and was wondering if that was a possible option. We decided that this is probably not a popular choice and not something we want to pursue at this point. If this would be brought up, it would likely need to come in the form of a request from the Physical Plant.
d- Larisa shared about the campus garden and that there is going to be an event when Food Inc. is showed as the on-campus movie. The CJP is going to have a big co-op with this event. She is exploring incorporating the EMU campus garden with the co-op so they may provide some of the labor and help administer the food. At this point, they are not ready to implement this, but it’s an option for the future. They are also going to help us look for a part-time person to work in the garden.
e- Brendon expressed his concern as to whether or not the expansion to the caf is something we really want to pursue at this point since we are already lacking in many funding areas with other projects on campus. Could the money potentially come from the caf as a separate business entity? Ken stated that this is one possible way to approach it because the caf is a self-sustaining business that generates money on its own.
IX. Adjournment
Motion 20091014-5 (Will): Motion to adjourn
Second (Sara)
Motion passed unanimously (10:22)
Sarah Beck 10-14-09
SGA secretary