CUNY Graduate Center Doctoral Students? Council Media Board
September 28, 2007 Present: Celia Braxton (CB), James Hoff (JH) (non-voting/Editor Advocate),
Denise Torres (DT) for Gregory Donovan, Chong Wojtkowski (CW)
Absent: Ericka Calton (EC), Amanjeev Sethi (AS) (non-voting/webmaster)
Meeting Secretary: Denise Torres
Quorum sufficient to conduct business Meeting commenced at 6:11pm
I. Approval of Agenda
RF motioned to change the order of the agenda items such that Item VI. Old Business (a) Status of Bylaw proposals be moved to item III. (b) under Approval of Old Minutes as receipt of minutes two days ago clarified the issue. CW seconded. Moved by unanimous consent.
Celia Braxton entered 6:14 pm
II. Confirmation of Chairperson and Designation of Meeting Secretary
DT nominated Co-Chair for Communications RF as Chairperson. CW seconded. Moved my unanimous consent. DT offered to serve as Meeting Secretary. CW seconded. Moved my unanimous consent.
III. Old Business
a) Approval of old minutes: RF noted May 18th minutes were received on September 26, 2007. As well, he is now in receipt of minutes from April 13th that are written in hand and appear never to have been ratified. RF agreed to type of these minutes and bring to a vote for next meeting. JH noted the minutes have never been posted and that this is problematic. RF
Chair: Rob Faunce (RF) agreed and stated that the EC is only now in receipt of and/or has access to a repository of documents. The EC and RF are working actively to make available all documents. CW motioned to approved May 18th minutes. DT seconded. Moved by unanimous consent.
b) Status of Bylaw proposals: The Media Bylaws language was ratified by the student body. In the plenary meeting of May 11, 2007, however, there is no language which states that this was done.
IV. Advocate Report:
a) Activities: JH submitted a formal report consisting of five (5) documents: 1) Advocate report; 2) September 2007 edition of The Advocate; 3) Statistics of web traffic;
4) 12 month cashflow; and 5) Upcoming film series (addended to minutes).
JH highlighted the following: 1) the Advocate has increased in size by 25%; 2) has added two special issues; 3) has expanded content; 4) has hired additional reviewers, bloggers and editors; 5) has significantly increased advertising allowing for this expansion; and 6) has over 2000 unique visitors per month.
The web site brings additional revenue dollars and is being well utilized with many hits on the day of issue. CB, RF and DT offered congratulatory statements. JH added that the Advocate is in the top 5 of google news search for 2-3 days, he has added a facebook page to draw readers to the website.
b) Proposals: 1) Stand: RF posed question about movement to all web-based paper.
JH stated he wants the website to support the paper but is committed to a physical edition. CB notes it is an important aspect of readership noting transportability of copy is critical. JH offers he would like to get a stand placed in the Dining Commons to increase access to the paper but Facilities has denied request for a stand. RF notes we can discuss with administration. DT notes it may be an issue of passage and recommends placing copies on wall space rather than floor space.
2) Financing:JHrequestsaccesstomorefundsstatingheneeded greater clarity regarding Section 1.6 and the ability to use advertising revenue to pay for newspaper expenses. RF states he should use funds. JH notes that he has different lines for different expenses and must get approval for each expense and a line-item budget is
DRAFT
constrictive. CB notes we may want to look at issue going forward as it is a means of safeguarding funds. DT suggests it should be a program budget. RF suggests to send to the plenary as a general budget and the particular allocations to lines could be discussed with JH, Brenda Vollman (Co-Chair for Business) and Abe. CB states there can be an addendum with BV reviewing as there is the question of overages. RF reiterates Section 1.6 allows for the Editor in Chief to use ad revenue for expenses. CB states other (under which such revenue falls) can be redistributed to lines. RF recommends further clarification and discussion with BV.
JH leaves at 6:45 pm
V. DSC Website Report: RF updated the MB around IT?s willingness to host the DSC website. Besides reducing current costs, this will allow for substantial technological support. The new website will be WIKI based and is in the process of being cleaned up. There will be two sets of passwords to get on—one for the Executive Committee and one for the Steering Committee—to allow for updating of content. RF noted because the content will be updated by the DSC an EC decision was made that a webmaster is now no longer necessary. The current webmaster was informed of the change and has been provided with notification that his services will end effective October after he assists with the transfer of content. This decision was made without the benefit of awareness of the bylaw changes (noted in III.b). RF noted that approximately $4600 was left to spend and the MB needed to think about ways to spend it. RF further offered that online elections process needs a lot of seed money given the need to vet and contract with third party vendors. CB suggested web elections would be a good use of money. CW asked if a new bylaw was needed. RF noted if this was done it would be as start up costs and a one time cost and that the line should remain open for consulting especially since we may require a consultant to assist with WIKI technology or for updating if it goes the way of the dodo. CW asked is there a currently active Constitution & Bylaws Committee. RF affirmed. RF noted the capacity to create a WIKI based site supported by IT came together through Gregory Donovan?s (Co-Chair for Student Affairs) connection on the tech fee committee and expressed that he wished he was here to take credit for his work. CB noted there would be substantial savings. RF stated that constitutionally the elections stipend for SC would remain and the initial costs would be substantial but moving forward there would be less costs. RF stated $1600 was already spent on the webmaster with remainder potentially available for use for Advocate web articles and related avenues. RF notes BV had asked the MB to step up regarding spending and oversight of the funds. RF offered potential to use for web-based elections. CW asked regarding line items for paper ballots. RF stated he wanted to preserve funds for future us though a one time allocation for start-up costs was possible. CB stated web balloting would be wonderful. CW stated paper ballots only resulted in 200 cast votes.
VI. New Business: There was no new business.
VII. Adjournment
Next meeting scheduled for November 9, 2007. CB motions to adjourn meeting. DT seconds. Moved by unanimous consent. Meeting adjourns at 7:04 pm.
Respectfully submitted by Denise Torres, LCSW, CASAC-T, CCJS, on September 29, 2007
Attachments (6) 1) Old minutes;
2) Advocate report; 3) September 2007 edition of The Advocate; 4) Statistics of web traffic; 5) 12 month cashflow; and 6) Upcoming film series (addended to minutes).