SGA Minutes for 17 November 2008

6^th Meeting of the Fourth
Student Government Association
November 17, 2008
8:15 pm
Susquehanna Room

Roll Call- 17 out of the 25 (68%) good standing members were present at the meeting. Quorum is met.

Jessica Carson motioned to approve the Minutes from the October 20, 2008 SGA meeting. Chad Buckwalter seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.

Two weeks ago on November 3, 2008, SGA, along with the NAACP hosted a forum called Speak Up IUP! Altogether, there were 12 members from SGA in attendance, including the Executive Board. This is not acceptable. This was a mandatory meeting. If any member misses two consecutive meetings, or three meetings in the semester, they are to be suspended from SGA. Members need to come.

There was a Co-op meeting two weeks ago. Last year, 1% of the campus voted in the elections. The Co-op wants to create a board to help with elections, to take this task off of the SGA.

The Co-op has an Internal Review Board. The Co-op has to raise the Student Activity Fee, but they are not sure exactly how much to raise the fee. This depends on the change in the Consumer Price Index of each student.

The next Co-op Board meeting is on December 4^th. These meetings are open to the public.

Kierstin Bolton inquired as to the location of the meeting. The Co-op meeting is on Dec. 4^th in the Knowlton Room in the Hadley Union Building.

Mike Hutchison inquired as to whether or not people from the public are allowed to voice grievances. The meeting is open to the public, however, if anyone is to talk quite a bit and to bring up irrelevant matters, then the members might ask him/her to leave the meeting.

The Speak-Up IUP Forum lasted until about 10:30 pm on Monday November 3^rd. It was supposed to last until 10:00 pm, but Jessica and Josh decided to extend the time limit. Five to six topics were discussed. Topics included housing, racial inequalities, teacher-class ratio, co-op events after midnight, student activity fee, etc. We were made aware that a student had the ’N’ word written on his car. IUP did not denounce this behavior. If any form of discrimination occurs, SGA needs to make a public statement to denounce this behavior.

There are flyers in the SGA office about harassment and where to tell someone about harassment. Please pick some up.

SGA needs to foster encouragement and strength to its members to be active on campus. There are leadership conferences that SGA has looked into in New Orleans and Philadelphia. The one in Philadelphia is on April 4^th and we would be given state cars to drive. If you work for the university, you are able to go because of liability insurance.

LGBT is looking to get a resource center under way in order to provide a safe haven for the queer community. They want this to include a diversity education office to act as a voice for equality in the area. They are looking to write grants and proposals because PASSHE only gives out a maximum of $20,000. LGBT is looking to bring this issue to the SGA for support through petitioning/letter writing campaigns. This would be a great service to the students and center will care for the entire community.

Chad Buckwalter inquired whether or not PASSHE gave $20,000 to everyone in the system. It is handled that the biggest donations come at the beginning of the year and then smaller ones from then on. Dr. Luckey supports this initiative. LGBT would like to use SGA resources, such as online surveys.

Chad Buckwalter suggested that emails might be better throughteh Office of Graduate Studies. Email is free and more people will respond to an emailed survey than one that is placed on URSA. Dr. Davis Myers in the Dean of the Graduate School.

LGBT moved that the SGA should support LGBT in terms of using SGA’s names and resources (online surveys and petitions) to help them in the foundation for a safe haven resource center. Chad Buckwalter seconded the motion and the motion was approved unanimously.

There were a lot of people At Speak Up IUP! Thanks to the NAACP for helping the SGA put the forum together. Students had several topics that they were concerned about. SGA is planning on hosting one or two Speak Up IUP! forums in the spring. The transcript of the conversation is on the website at www.coop.iup.edu/SGA. This was also a mandatory meeting for SGA members and it was a shame that we didn’t have more people there.

Shyla Frederick was not under the assumption that we had to be at Speak UP IUP! It was not made clear to us when we had decided that we were not going to have an actual meeting.

Also, the Elections Committee Chair is still vacant. We need to fill this by the end of the semester. Please talk to Josh by the end of the semester if you are interested.

Laura Kale thinks that Michelle Fryling should be invited to the next forum. Jessica Carson agrees because she is kick-ass.

If you were absent two times in a row, you are suspended, and you will be receiving an email soon. If you miss three meetings, you will be expelled.

Ray will be meeting to approve constitutions on Tuesday in front of the big screen at the HUB at 8:45pm.

We need 12 members form SGA to act on the Senate Committee of Student Affairs. This body will be meeting on Tuesday, December 9^th at 3:30pm. Sam marked that Kierstin Bolton, Alyssa Stiles, Mike Stutzman, Josh Moss, and Sarah Hogue are interested in serving and asks others to email him if they are interested as well.

Alyssa is postponing the student organization forum where different leaders from different organizations would come together with SGA to talk about issues. At the last meeting, we did not have quorum, so we could not motion for a public speaker at this event.

Chad Buckwalter added that a few years ago a graduate student in the Student Affairs in Higher Education program created a similar forum and it had a great turn out. The forum was for students in different organizations to learn about leadership.

Kiersitn needs help with the website. She also wants to start putting advertisements in The Penn about SGA. She and Alyssa will be working closely. If you are interested please email her.

Amber is making little gift baskets with toothpaste, hair stuff, etc. for World Aids Week. She talked to Danielle Botelho and World AIDS week is Dec. 1-5. Email Amber if you are interested in representing SGA. Health Awareness is also having a concert on Wednesday in the Ohio Room.

There will be a Board of Trustees meeting on December 5^th at 1:30 pm in Gorell Recital Hall.

The applications for the position of Student Trustee for next year are due December 8^th. There will be an advertisement in The Penn for the position. Eligible candidates must be at least a first semester sophomore with an expected graduation date not less than two years from the start of their appointment and must be in good academic standing. Applications are available in 201 Sutton Hall.

The Living Learning Planning team met this past week. There were 1300 requests within 24 hours from students who wanted to keep their same room for next year. They closed it in order to save room for incoming freshman next fall. The Living Learning Planning team contains the director of ohrl, one undergraduate student, one graduate student, a representative from the Community Assistants, some mentor from the Crimson Connections program, professors and staff members. The Crimson Connections program is designed for students to get more acquainted with IUP. It is mostly designed for undecided majors and next year will be including UNDC-FA and UNDC-HH.

The Sutton Suites (where Wallace/Esch were) is going to be the Global awareness building that will house the international students. As a result, there will be a kitchen in these new suites due to the fact that many international students do not go home for the holidays.

Most international students will be able to afford the housing through the foreign exchange program. This program allows them to pay for housing costs that they would normally pay in their native country. Students who are not part of this program will have to pay IUP housing costs, but there are many grants that are available to these students.

Chad Buckwalter won his fantasy football game by .48. This, of course, was because of the Steelers.

We have 25 active members. We need two-thirds of the members to be present to have quorum.

Jessica Carson moved to adjourn, Ray Edwards seconded the motion, and it was passed unanimously at 9:35pm

This site is maintained by the Executive Board of the IUP SGA. If you have questions, comments, or concerns about this page, please contact Vice President Joshua Moss at J.J.MOSS@IUP.EDU or Public Relations Committee Chair Kierstin Bolton at K.L.BOLTON@IUP.EDU