The Geoduck Student Union

GSU Meeting Minutes

Wednesday October 19, 2011 – CAB Conference Room – 1:00pm

Public Comment:

Justin McMahon proposed New Approach Washington. New Approach Washington is a non profit organization that is trying to legalize marijuana in Washington state. Marijuana would be treated like liquor, someone needs to be the age of 21 to buy and it would be taxed. Marijuana would still be illegal on a federal level but legal on a state level. GSU members asked questions about how it would be controlled, taxed and distributed. Justin wants the GSU to take initiative on the petition to have Evergreen students participate in the petition. GSU members were unsure if they are allowed to take initiative on petitions, GSU will contact Justin when notified.

Attendance Issues:

            Danielle Beagle and Jordan Conway still have not been to a GSU meeting. Kent emailed and called them both and no answer. GSU is preparing for recommendation for removal.

Introductions:

            Benton and Kay were introduced as the new election commissioners. Next week they are going to be possibly trained. Kent is going to contact Anne about training new election commissioners. Melissa Thowson was also introduced as the new GSU office manager.

Committee Appointment Updates:

          There have been 2 appointed candidates for the CLUC and Dean DTF. Because of the many openings for committees the GSU members are going to try to advertise more to get more students involved.  The CEC are coming in next meeting for the GSU to approve the student members they have appointed.

Motion:

            Wilbert made a motion to amend article 5 of the GSU constitution. Article 5 states “The 21 candidates receiving the most votes will be on the Geoduck Union Representatives. One representative seat is reserved for a student from the Tacoma campus and one seat is reserved for a student from the reservation-based campuses”. Wilbert wants to add 2 more reserved seats to the Tacoma campus. This would be included in the 21, not making 23 members. Members expressed to Wilbert that if there were 3 spaces reserved for the Tacoma students, it could result in fewer members on the union if less than three people from the Tacoma campus run.  Tacoma students also can run and have the equal opportunity that an Olympia student has, there is only 1 space reserved for the Tacoma students but 5 Tacoma students could be on the GSU. In the past there have not been enough students running from Tacoma to make members believe there is a need to reserve 2 more spaces. In the future if there is a need to add more reserved spaces members agreed that would be good idea. The motion was tabled until after elections.

Code of Conduct:

            The members don’t know if anything has been modified on the code of conduct. Willy is going to contact admin and see if anything has changed.

Present: Wilbert Pina, , Kent Reister, Nate Schuur, Chelsea Brous, Andrew Nepstad, and Joseph Barresi

Absent: Mary Lou Boles (excused), Kelsey Melton (excused), Eli West (excused)

GSU Meeting Minutes

Wednesday October 12^th , 2011 – CAB conference room – 1:00pm

Student Conduct Code:

Art Costantino, Student member on DTF  – Ray, Grievance Officer Andrea Seabert-Olsen, and Wendy Endress came in to discuss the Student Conduct Code.  They have been working on it for 2-3 years and are trying to approve it for affect in January.  Members of the GSU voiced their concerns about how the section about degree revocation should be more specific and the standard of proof for degree revocation should be higher.  Concerns were received and they will discuss where to go from here.

Office Manager:

There were 10 applicants at this point.  Interviews will take place over the weekend so the decision can be made before next meeting.

Josh, Kelsy, Chelsea and Marylou will conduct the interviews.

Election Commissioners:

Many people applying to office manager were applying to both.  The interviews will take place at once and then we will decide accordingly.

Kent motions that the subcommittee of people interviewing can make the preliminary decision for office manager and election commissioner and bring candidates to next meeting for GSU to approve.

Eli seconds.  Motion Passes.

Grow update:

Kelsy and Wilbert attended.  Kelsy felt that it was not a very effective conference for her because she did not completely agree with all of the strategies and had some slight problems with some of the facilitator’s attitudes who didn’t want to hear opinions.  It seemed pretty effective for other people.  Some good connections were made.

S & A interviews:

Marylou and Andrew attended.  They hired 3 very qualified candidates.

Absence Committee:

Joseph, Kent, and Chelsea will contact the people that have not shown up to meeting thus far to see why they have not attended and if they are still on the GSU.

Committee appointments:

One person has applied for each the CLUC and Dean DTF.  Chelsea, Eli, and Kelsy will conduct the interviews.

Kent motions that the interview committee for committee appointments can make the final decision.

Nathan seconds. Motion Passes.

Nathan wrote a statement from the GSU saying that we do not approve the Student Conduct Code the way it is currently written.

Kent motions to approve statement.

Mahmoud seconds. Motion passes.

Present: Nathan, Chelsea, Kent, Eli, Marylou, Joseph, Mahmoud, Kelsy, Josh

Absent: Wilbert (excused), Andrew (excused)

GSU Meeting Minutes

Wednesday October 5^th , 2011 – CAB conference room – 1:00pm

Public Comment:

Michael Sledge – Brought us the newly revised Student Conduct Code from the student conduct code DTF.  It has been in the revision process for 2 years.  They want our input, as well as the input from other students by next week.  There are two forums for comment Monday Oct. 10^th and Wednesday Oct. 14^th.

Office Manager:

We will put the job offering up on CODA in the next couple days.

The deadline for applications will be Monday 10/17.

Nathan motions to raise the pay rate to $10/hr.  Kent seconds.  Motion Passes.

Kelsy, Josh, and Mahmoud will publicize.

Election commissioners:

We have enough in our budget to hire 2 people to facilitate the election fall quarter.  The job offering will be put onto CODA in the next couple days.  The deadline will also be Monday 10/17.  Kelsy, Josh and Mahmoud will also publicize this.

Committee appointments:

CLUC (Campus Land Use Committee) wants 2 people by their first meeting on 10/27.  The Dean search committee wants one person as soon as possible.  Kelsy sent out a tesccrier email to advertise those.  The deadline will be Tuesday 10/11.  We will publicize for all the other committees soon and appoint those as soon as we can.

S & A Board Hiring:

Andrew and Marylou will attend the interviews.

GROW training:

This weekend, there is a grassroots youth leadership training in Bellevue.  Kelsy and Wilbert will attend.  It will be $100 per person.

Kent motions to use some of our travel funds to pay for them to attend.  Mahmoud seconds.  Motion passes.

Survey:

We should make a survey for the student body asking their opinions on the GSU and issues that we are working on.  Andrew and Chelsea and anyone else who wishes to help will work on making questions.

Student Conduct Code:

Many GSU members believe there is at least one issue with the code that students and GSU has been speaking with the administration about for two years and it is still not changed.  That issue is that the standard of proof to revoke a degree is 51% like everything else.    This needs to be higher and they need to add  something saying what exactly they would use that power for (ex. plagiarism).  The rest of the GSU will take the week to read over the Student Conduct Code and form opinions about anything that needs changing.

Nathan motions to send out a tesccrier email inviting people to the next meeting to share their thoughts about the Student Conduct Code with Michael Sledge and Art Constantino.  Andrew seconds.  Motion Passes.

Events:

The idea was brought up to host events to advertise for the GSU and what we do to get more student input.  Marylou, Kelsy, Eli, Andrew, and Zach will brainstorm ideas.

Present: Wilbert Piña, Marylou Boles, Eli West, Kent Reister, Mahmoud Hammad, Nathan Schuur, Kelsy Melton, Chelsea Brous, Andrew Nepstad, Sean Logan, Joseph Barresi, Josh

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