04/30/04 SCM

Chair: Brenda Jenkins
Minutes: Tina Lee
All present except Celia Braxton

Meeting Called to order at 6:05 pm.

I. Approval of Agenda

II. Approval of Minutes

December ‘03 and March 26th ’04 Minutes considered. Approved pending minor
changes in style (capitalization, proofreading, spelling, punctuation).

III. New and Ongoing Business
A. Budget Matters (José)
1. Cultural Affairs Grants
a. An application from October from Hispanic and Luzo-Brazilian
languages is still outstanding (i.e. no receipts and money not given).
José and Carrie will follow up.
b. Chasing Freedom Film Screening (Occurring on Tuesday May
4th)—the event was not advertised 14 days in advance as stipulated
by the Constitution. However, it is an important event that there is
a lot of interest in. Therefore, José moved to have it considered by
the committee anyway. This motion was approved; however, the
discussion turned to the necessity of warning them that this is an
exception and that in the future the rules must be followed. José
will pass that information along.
2. Steering Committee Discretionary Fund.
a. 2,512.15 is remaining in our fund. José made several suggestions:
i. Flowers to Charlotte Frick approved.
ii. Flowers for the business office (who have been wonderful in
working with José this year) approved.
iii. Discussion about a gift for the security staff. Ideas suggested
included candy, cards, and food. Paul will find out how
many people we are talking about. Brenda suggested a big
sandwich and some drinks. $60 budget is decided on for this.
José agreed to take care of this.
iv. Love n’ Labor Party allocation tabled. Dominic Wetzel
might have another source of money.
v. Constitutional convention—Camille stated there is a
possibility of electronic voting on constitutional changes.
However, it was decided that the money to pay for mailings
of ballots and information will be set aside.
vi. Advocate Software upgrade. Camille explained that new
software is needed to facilitate easier editing (when
layouts/text and moved from word to Quark). José pointed
out that the advocate has generated money from ads (enough
for the upgrade) and that this money should be kept by the
advocate to fund things like this software upgrade (it was
noted that this money must come through the DSC (or maybe
not—there is ambiguity in the constitution) and the business
office). Getting to keep ad revenue will act as an incentive to
get ads. Paul brought up a request he has gotten to add a
position at the advocate that would be responsible for selling
ads. This would get around the problem of it being a shared
job and then no one does it assuming someone else will.
Carrie is unenthusiastic about the idea; she pointed out there
is already a commission system in place. Moira asked if the
commission system is well known. Paul and Camille
reported that they think it is. Moira went on to express a
worry that creating a new position might lead to making the
paper full of ads. Camille points out that a position could
easily be created more informally through the existing
commission system.
3. Next year’s Budget. José has made some minor changes in the proposed
budget for 2004-05. Mainly this consisted in streamlining categories. He
is still checking to see if liability insurance is necessary. The audit was
more than expected so this money will carry over to next year. The
Webmaster allocation has remained constant, but the amount given for
advocate vs. DSC work has shifted to give more to advocate work.
Camille suggested that the proportion should be altered to give less of an
increase to the advocate (the new software will make this job a bit easier
but it will still take more time than maintaining the DSC page). Office
expenses have decreased while the phone budget has been increased.
Testing subsidies will also be higher (lots of use of this benefit by
students—yeah!). The Wellness center budget is going down substantially.
Student affairs (in the impending crisis re: funding) got the message that
we cannot pay more, and so they are looking for alternative sources of
funds. José reduced the Wellness Center Budget by 40k and has outlined
the rationale for this (see the budget handout). Carrie then brought up the
issue of raising the stipends for the co-chairs and the steering committee.
She pointed out that this is politically awkward, but far less so since she
will not be the co-chair for student affairs next year. José figured out that
a modest increase will be possible and will not cost that much (for
example raising the steering committee stipend from $200/month to
$220/month). Paul pointed out that our increased visability this year
makes this a real possibility. Camille added that it will be a better
incentive to participation that can keep the momentum we have generated
this year going.
B. Party, May 7th: Paul has already finalized the DJ, but he still needs song
requests. He will also give them detailed security instructions to prevent a
repeat of the tension between the DJs and the staff at the Fall Party. The
food will be pizza, drinks, and snacks. Paul suggests ordering from Pronto
and reported on the prices and the discounts available. We then figured
out we can order a massive amount of pizza. So, several will be ordered
every hour. We will get cash for tips. José and Tina volunteered for
clean-up. Camille, Brenda and Sheryl for set-up. Brenda made the
suggestion of having a sign-in sheet to collect e-mails to help with DSC
publicity and involvement. She further suggested that the co-chairs greet
as many people as possible to let them know what we have been doing and
why we want their e-mail. Sheryl suggested a table at the entrance might
work better. Tina commented that this is a little less obtrusive. Moira also
suggested including a comments/issues box.
C. Annual Report (Carrie). According to the constitution we are supposed to
generate an annual report to be given to the GSUC president and to be
published in the Advocate. We’ve already missed the deadline for getting
this in the next Advocate. However, the Advocate folks are behind, so we
might still have time. Carrie asked all steering committee members to
give her a paragraph about their projects/accomplishments over the past
year. This should be done ASAP, but the party and the elections are more
pressing priorities.
D. Transition planning (Carrie). Each of us should think about or own sense
of recurring issues/questions/discussions and add this to a document in our
shared folder.
IV. Updates.
A. Elections: tallies are in (handwritten form) and more official word will
come on Monday. The student affairs office staff have done an excellent
job counting ballots (especially in Charlotte Frick’s absence), so Carrie
suggested sending them a thank-you (flowers? card?). The next step in the
elections is to contact the winners ASAP so they know about the 5/14
Plenary.
B. Health Center Survey (Sheryl). 690 students responded; most in the 20-29
year-old range. Most with health insurance covered by GHI, and they hate
it. Many horror stories reported. The survey made it clear that new health
insurance options are needed. Students reported being, in general,
satisfied with the health center. Another finding was the prevalence of
lots of out-of-pocket costs (mostly stemming from long-lapses in
insurance coverage). In general, GHI has provided bad care for students.
Carrie reported that the current word from the administration is that
mandatory health coverage is not coming up in the near future. The
wellness center will remain open, and a new committee on health care will
be created. This was all probably a response to the survey. This issue is
key to push next year.
C. Political Science EO situation is being worked on by Carrie and Political
Science Students.
D. Adjunct Activism (Paul). There will be a rally on May 24th at Baruch
from 3:30-5:30. Paul handed out flyers. The issues being raised are
healthcare (including dental coverage) and childcare.
E. Constitutional Convention (Camille). At the next plenary voting will take
place on 2 by-laws. The changed for by-law 2 are on the web, and by-law
3 changes are coming soon. José suggested adding a by-law stating that
the DSC must have a policy regarding departmental allocations that does
the following: 1) is equitable. 2) is related to the size of the department. 3)
makes up a certain percentage of the DSC income.
F. Website (Camille). The classified ads are being used (there are 4 ads now).
We are getting lots of hits (about 300/month). Lots of hits for the
chartered orgs too. Camille has access to excellent statistics (even broken
down by the operating system used to access the site). She can see periods
where there are no hits and the server problems are very apparent (the
problem is not with the page or the operating system of the computers
being used to reach they site). She has a meeting with IT next week to
find out what the problem is. She sees a pattern of server problems with
the server housing all kinds of student services pages. Discussion ensued
about the best ways to continue advertising the site (flyers at the party,
mouse pads, coffee mugs, stickers?).

Meeting adjourned at 8:10 pm.