Student Senate Minutes
November 29, 2009

I. General meeting of the Student Senate was called to order by Speaker Hogan at 6:00 PM.
	A. Absent from the meeting were members:
	B. Also attending the meeting was: Sarah Seberger, Index, Casey Milburg, and 	Jonathan Jones
II. Preliminary Items
	A. Roll Call
	B. Corrections/Approval of the minutes
	C. Gallery introductions/business
	D. Guests of Honor
	E. Membership Issues
	F. Appointments/Administration of the Oath
		A. Flanagan – Moves to appoint Sarah Seberger as Org Rep for SAAC. 
			- Seberger – Vice President of SAAC. Wants to get SAAC more 				involved on campus. Purple Fridays.
			- Approved.
		B. Flanagan – Moves to appoint Jonathan Jones as Senator at Large
			- Jones - Wants to make changes for students. Interested in 					technology and academic affairs. 
			- Approved. 
	G. Changes/Approval of the agenda
III. Executive Reports
	A. Secretary – No report
	B. Treasurer – No report
	C. President
	D. Vice President – No report
IV. Auxiliary Reports
	A. Faculty Advisor – Think about where you are going with Senate and life. 	Remember to eat and sleep during finals. December 12th at 6 PM is the annual 	Senate Holiday Party. Please come and be festive. Be prepared for the hat circle. 
	B. Staff Advisor – Glad that everyone survived break. Will be doing grade checks 	after finals. Friday from 3-5 in the HUB will be the first “Fire Side Friday.” 	Come for free snacks and live music.
	C. BOG
	D. Speaker – Will work on system for meetings after extended breaks so there is 	no question concerning location and time. Next semester will have stricter rules 	concerning when important items are emailed out before meetings.
V. Committee Reports
	A. Academic Affairs – Roundtable is probably not happening. 
	B. External Affairs – No report.
	C. Student Affairs – No report. 
		i. Campus Diversity – Working on Diversity Week. Immigration & 			Northeast MO presentation on Dec. 2 @ 4PM at the Telecommunications 			Community Resource Center.
		ii. Campus Environment – Saturday in VH 1000 @ is the Food Inc. 			documentary.
	D. Technology - 
	E. Other Reports
		i. Historian
		ii. Communications – Sign up for the Suggestion Box Dec. 1-3 in the 			SUB.
		iii. Webmaster – Link to Freshmen Week lipsync is on the website. 			Pictures will be up soon. 
		iv. Ethics Justice
		v. Recruitment
		vi. Legislative Director
		vii. Constitutional Review
		viii. Vision Document – Please be on the look-out for the final outline this 		week. Read over it and comment. Discussion next week. 
VI. Old Business
VII. Money Motions
VIII. First Readings
IX. Discussion Items	
	A. Robinson – Moves 10 minutes of discussion time for Honorary Degrees
		- Robinson – Faculty Senate changed recommendations for awarding 			honorary degrees. Isaac worked on the proposal that change the system. It 			is a hybrid of Truman’s system and other state schools. There is a set 			screening committee that reviews submitted names. The committee sends 			nominees to Faculty Senate and the Board of Governors for final approval. 		No more than one may be awarded per semester.
		- Esfeld – What does “abstentia” mean?
		- Robinson – They must be able to come to campus to receive the award. 
		- Esfeld – What is the justification behind “retired employees”?
		- Robinson – Faculty members can receive honorary degrees but it cannot 			be for something accomplished while working at Truman.
		- Esfeld – It seems silly that Faculty Senate gets to cast a vote. It seems 			that they would no matter what. 
		- Robinson – Appeasing them.
		- Esfeld – Dumb. 
		- Tomlinson – Cuts the list to five nominees. Seems it occurs so 				infrequently that the only way this would come about is if the committee 			wanted to remove someone from the list and nominates five other 				candidates.
		- Sumter – Only four have been awarded so far.
		- Robinson – Occurs because the nomination process is open to everyone 			including alumni.
		- Sumter – Glad we are attempting to review the process. Overall, thinks it 		is too complicated to be carried out. Confidentiality cannot be kept with 			names jumping from body to body.
		- Robinson – Waiting to hear back from Dr. Kemp at MO State to see how 		their nomination letters work. 
		- Alberts – This is specific on things that should remain vague and vague 			on the things that should be specific. Would like to see a set list of 				requirements/qualifications. Feels the faculty will demand the ability to 			recommend as part of the process. This is less faculty dominated than 			expected. 
		- Williams – What is an honorary degree? Why do we do it if we don’t 			have a process?
		- Alberts – They are given out by schools to show support of awesome 			deeds. They give publicity to the school and the person. They bring cool 			speakers to campus. It is a way to award commencement speakers. As 			we’ve become a “snootier” school, we do things that other schools are 			doing. 
		- Tomlinson – Allow them to vote only on the list, not individual 				candidates.
		- Sumter – Did faculty senate choose to talk to any other parties involved 			before coming up with this?
		- Flanagan – Did not vote on it at the last meeting because they didn’t 			want to mandate anything to the board. That is why it is a proposal.
		- Sumter – Feels all members involved should have been included in the 			wording.
		- Tomlinson – Include what the honorary degree signifies for its recipients. 		Leads into qualifications. 
	B. Sumter – Moves no more than fifteen minutes to discuss the perimeter access 	system.
		- Troop – The forum had fifty people attend. 
		- Sumter – The system is not a full system. We do not have the money to 			roll it out as intended. Now the question is what is the purpose of the 			system and where is the line between convenience and safety. This is just 			a discussion of what should be in it as opposed to a first reading. The 			yellow doors should be entrances between 10:30 and midnight. Reslife 			said the only reason for people to go through the front desk is to catch  			“drunks.” 
		- Hogan – Last points are the compromise we decided on.
		- Troop – The yellow doors would only be accessed by those who live in 			the dorms.
		- Sumter – Students should have a say about which doors are open.
		- Heagney – Should remove the portion about “drunks.” Would remove 			portion about finding additional funding.
		- Tomlinson – Feels line about additional funding should be kept. Think 			about ability to use yellow door is a privilege you can easily lose by being 		a safety hazard. People could be easily regulated to use the green doors 			only.
		- Hogan – Feels the “drunk” line should be kept in because it was the 			reasoning given during their meeting with John Gardner. Doesn’t think it 			will upset administration.
		- Graham – Feels the door coding system is confusing. Desk workers 			won’t turn you in unless you are so intoxicated they are worried about you 		dying. Should include something about building lock down system.
		- Williams – What is the lock down system?
		- Sumter – In a “cataclysmic event,” they can make all doors red with the 			push of a button and no one can get in without a key.
		- Alberts – You should include things that you want. 
		- Troop – Night monitors catch one extremely intoxicated person per 			week.
		- Sato – Agrees that system will increase security. Main problem is 			people’s attitude to the program. One of his friends is a C-Hall monitor. 			People come through who aren’t students or don’t have ID cards. Friends 			can swipe them in and they can bypass the system. As long as students 			don’t follow the program, unauthorized people can always enter the 			buildings.
		- Flanagan – Stress line 54.
		- Heagney – In line 38, you should also include checking in guests. Feels 			like including “drinking” line is irrelevant because it is a state law. 
		- Tomlinson – Would like to keep line 49. How far away do the card 			sensors work? (7 inches)
		- Troop – When speaking of night monitors, they think they are still good 			ideas but thinks it is redundant to swipe at the door and swipe at the desk.
		- Heagney – The swipe at the desk is for checking in guests. Not a big deal 		to swipe twice.
		- Sumter – John Gardner said the point of night monitors is to catch 			intoxicated students and down plays the role of checking in guests. Why is 		10:30 the arbitrary time for checking in students?
		- Tomlinson – If you want to make line 40 better, have them tell you how 			many people they catch before midnight.
		- Williams – For the yellow doors, are you allowed to use your card to 			enter after 10:30? (Not currently. Asking for permission in this resolution). 
		- Graham – Can we divide this question into a safety issue and the Reslife 			policy concerning wasted people?
		- Hogan – It is possible but it is not the focus of this resolution.
		- Troop – Guests are allowed in the buildings all day every day and 			doesn’t understand why you have to check people in after 10:30. At 			UMKC they must be checked in 24/7.
		- Tomlinson – While guests are allowed in all day, night monitors get a 			sense of who lives in the building. Does not think it is unreasonable 			because it supplies a plausible catch for someone coming in who should 			not. 
		- Sato – Only allow students into the building. Examine what people are 			coming inside buildings not just intoxicated people. 
X. Other New Business
XI. Announcements
	A. Vagina Monologues auditions this week.
	B. Unwritten Letters Project is being published into a book. Check it out. It was 	created by a student, Alex Boles.
	C. Andrew McCall was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship 

Respectfully submitted by Secretary Piel on