Public Comment:

Clean Energy Committee:

Adam (Coordinator) brought their last student member for approval. Chelsea motioned to approve candidate. Josh seconds the motion. Motion Passed.

Occupy Movement:

Josie Jarvis is a student who is actively involved with the Occupy Olympia Movement. She came to the GSU to propose that the GSU provides support for students while they are getting involved politically. Students have fear of their school not supporting them so some won’t take action. Josie proposed that the GSU issues a solidarity statement with student empowerment and support on the issues involved with the Occupy Movement. The GSU agreed to create a statement and Nate agreed to write it. Nate read the statement and motioned to approve it. Motion passed.

The statement is as following:

“The GSU at The Evergreen State College supports the involvement of Evergreen students, staff, and faculty members in the Occupy Olympia movement.
Specifically, we stand in solidarity with Scott Olsen, the Iraq War veteran injured in Oakland,
in support of loan relief for college graduates
in support of increased accessed to public colleges
in support of a more progressive tax structure, and in support of civil disobedience to achieve these ends.”

WA Students:

Mike Bogatay is a current student and came to the GSU because his organization needs to educate and create allies for higher education funds. He is currently involved in the Washington Student Association and wants the Evergreen community to get involved with what is going on around them. On November 28 is the first session for budget cuts and they need to start statewide campaigns to educate students.

Moving ATM’s:

Toru Dodo came to the GSU to re-present the issue from last year to move the ATM’s. He educated the GSU on statistics about the two banks and their roles in society.  Eli motioned that we support moving the Bank of America to where the WESCU ATM is currently. Andrew seconds the motion. Motion Passed.

(End Public Comment)

Code of Conduct Revision:

The Code of Conduct was revised last week and the GSU still feels like there is one major adjustment that needs to be made. Nate believes there needs to be a higher standard of proof and that the GSU needs to issue another statement. GSU all agreed and Andrew wrote a new statement. Kent Motioned to pass the new statement. Eli seconds the motion. Motion Passed. 

The new statement is as following: “The Geoduck Student Union supports the right of students to the education they have already paid for. The current draft of the code allows the college to revoke a degree with a ‘more likely than not’ standard of proof. This is unacceptable. The GSU takes the issue of academic integrity seriously but the possibility of a degree being revoked under that standard is too great. If we as an institution are willing to revoke a graduate’s degree, we should be absolutely certain that we are in the right to do so.
In Art Costantino’s email to all students on October 26 he stated “the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ criterion is appropriate in cases where a person might be deprived of a fundamental freedom.” Since degree revocation applies retroactively to an education in which students have invested years of their life and huge sums of money, we believe that revoking that investment is depriving students of a fundamental freedom. Standard courts, which use the beyond a reasonable doubt standard, often make decisions far less important than whether years of a student’s life will be negated. When Evergreen is deciding issues of no real import, a more likely than not standard is acceptable, but not in this instance.”

Meeting Times:

Nate suggested the GSU meets 15 minutes later than usual. This would be helpful for students who have class till 1.  Members agreed and stated that the GSU can have emergency meetings if necessary. Nate motioned to change the meeting time to 1:15-3:00. Chelsea seconds the motion. Motion Passed.

Survey:

Chelsea and Willy created questions together and Chelsea had a draft of them all. The GSU made corrections and added things they believed would be important. the GSU will talk to John Mclain about human subjects. The suggestion was made that the more questions the GSU brings to John Mclain, the more the GSU would have to work with. Kent is going to talk with John Mclain.

Ballot Items:

There will not be any ballot items for the fall but the GSU are going to keep their ideas for spring elections.

Faculty Liason:

The GSU feels that having a Liason would be helpful for meetings that GSU would benefit from being involved in. Eli and Chelsea are both interested but not sure what the schedule requires.

Present: Andrew Nepstad, Kent Reister, Willy Pina, Mary Lou Boles, Nate Schuur, Josh Barresi, Chelsea Brous, and Eli West

Absent: Kelsey Melton (Excused)