November 15, 2010

Roll Call

Senators Present: Mahaffey, Perry, Rodgers, Wheat, Beovich, Breland, Byrd, Gessner, Husain, James, Miller, Powell, Berglund, Jones, Ringsdorf, Tanner, Pernell, Johnston, Pearson, Hall, Norton, Sells, Youngblood, Pruett, Ramsey, Thomas, Calhoun, Hilliard, Swindle, Wilson, Wolf, Speller, Davis

Senators Absent: Woodward, Schneider, Carlson, Fishel

Approval of the Minutes

Sells-I move to approve the minutes from November 8th by acclimation.

MOTION PASSES

Officer Reports

President Proctor- We have police chief interviews this Wednesday and Friday. We brought 2 people here to interview. It’s vital that we have student participation in these interviews. The time and date are on each of the sign-up sheets. Today we had lunch with Pres. Moulton, Dr. Johnson and Keith Ayers. They asked of us our thoughts on why students leave South Alabama. We mentioned things with the orientation process that we were concerned about. Dr. Johnson is putting together a calendar review board. The calendar will be much like this year’s for next year. If you are interested on serving on the committee, let me know.

Vice President Al-Greene- Under NB, I would like you to discuss cancelling next week’s meeting. Our picture make up day is December 1st from 4-7 at AOII. December 6th is the SGA Christmas party at Ollie’s after the meeting. That will be our last meeting of the semester.

Treasurer Baldwin-We have a couple of senate projects to discuss tonight. Our operating budget balance is $22,555.10.

Attorney General Macon-Thank you for everyone that helped out with the duck race. We are now gearing up for Higher Ed Day.

Chief Justice Shephard- The JagTran Survey has been finalized. It has started going out by email.

Special Orders

Robin Jones- The interview days are Thursday and Friday. This is important because it will set the tone on how the police interact around campus. Also, it’s a way for SGA to make an impact on campus. It’s important to know how both would work.  

Committee Reports

Student at Large Pittman- This past week, the men’s basketball won. Tomorrow the women’s team plays at 7:05 versus Southern Miss. This Saturday from 7-10, there will be a fashion show for this little girl that’s from St. Jude’s that has cancer. She has designed all the clothes.

Pro Tempore Perry- no report

Jones- The student affairs committee will be meeting this Wednesday at 4:00 in the office.

Proctor- I have a meeting Wednesday morning at 9:00 with Dr. Smith about the resolution. Today, I met with Dr. Connors. The faculty is also presenting a resolution much like the one we wrote. They will present hopefully in January. I will meet with the faculty senate to see what they have. I will be working with Dr. Connors during the process.

Old Business

New Business

Ramsey- I move to open the floor for discussion of the Smart Board Project. I have a Senate Project that I would like to propose. Some of you have heard about Smart Boards. They merge the gap between white boards and computers.

Sells- I know that the College of Education has smart boards now because they are something that teachers are now learning how to use. They have portable smart boards, is that what this price is for?

Ramsey- These are for mountable, semi permanent boards.

Hall- I don’t think that making the smart boards available for student use is a good idea. These are expensive and could be damaged easily.

Youngblood- The only way that this would be beneficial is the teacher would be able to send things to students and it was be something cool to look at during class, but that’s it. I move to close the floor.

Proctor- object; I was speaking with Paige about the new building that engineering will have. He told us about how they looked into having very nice high quality equipment in this building. What happened is that the bids came in a lot lower than we wanted so the money that they have will be spent on that.

Gessner- I think it’s a great idea. They were so helpful. With the new building, I’m not sure it’s the time.

Sells- I move to open the floor for discussion of the Gumbo Chili Showdown.

Perry-I’ve been working with Senator Calhoun. It’s a great project for campus and the community. The money benefits students that we represent. I’m not sure what your needs are. I have quotes from last year. They are projected costs for this year. Administration is asking the bid out on the tents. Otherwise, it’s a great project. Yield my floor to the representative

Representative-You were a title sponsor. We would like to spend more money on permanent signage to promote more. We got a discount of the tents last year. Right now the tents are at $5,000. That might change with bidding. I’d like to get SGA on that as soon as possible.

Jones-Do you have solid quotes for tents?

Calhoun-When she says we got a discount from Blue Rents, she’s not kidding. They were originally $11,000 last year and we bid them down to $4900.

Representative-We are asking this year for $10,000 so that’s why we are coming to you now.

Perry-Have you considered having teams bring they own easy setup tents?

Representative-We would like the field to look uniform

Pearson-What do yall do for raising money for this?

Rep-We do have other expenses. Washing stations, portables, Last year we raised 22,000 for the scholarship

Hall-Do you all do other fundraisers? If there are other ways

Calhoun-It would be like fundraising for a fundraiser

Ramsey-That is a steep amount.

Rep-I feel like we are trying to get things that are more permanent and make it nicer.

Sells-What if we meet in the middle? How about $7,500? I think this is a great cause.

Proctor-What other projects do we have to hear about right now?

Gessner-I don’t see us coming up with many other projects before the end of the semester,

Powell-I’ve been working with Rachel for a bike rental project. I wasn’t going to present it until next week. There would be a kiosk-like area where you could rent a bike for a certain amount of time.

Proctor-The SGA at Ole Miss sponsors a project like that.

Youngblood-I don’t see the problem with doing more than one project, I think we should give money to both projects. No we wouldn’t be able to give all the money that you need for tents, but we could give some.

Hilliard-I think we could get more concrete details before we needed to make a decision.

Spellers-Have you tried contacting any churches for tents? I know that some have events where they use large tents. Or could you require each team to bring their own tent?

Representative-On the field, we had 20 tents. Requiring them to bring a tent would raise their costs. And we like the area to look uniform.

Jones-If we meet them halfway, they could make an appeal next semester to get more?

Perry-We usually don’t decide on these on first night. Keep that in mind. We usually talk about it the first night and then make a decision the next week, if we are ready.

Thomas-How much was the entrance fee last year?

Representative-$75 for students and $150 otherwise. We want SGA to be a bigger representation this year.

Sells-Do you have a rough estimate of how much your project would cost, Sen. Powell?

Powell-I told him our budget was 21,000. He said any less than that, then we probably couldn’t do it.

Calhoun-The earlier that SGA gets money, the earlier they can get on advertisement.

Hall- I have a connection for tents and tables, to get costs lower.

Perry-I move to close the floor.

Hilliard-I move to open the floor for cancelling next week’s meeting

Al-Greene- I didn’t know how many people were going to be going out of town for Thanksgiving. And I didn’t know if we have anything that we need to discuss next week.

Sells-Why would we need to cancel next week’s meeting?

Proctor-Traditionally, we cancel the meeting for Thanksgiving for people who wanted to go home early.

Al-Greene- I didn’t know if you all wanted to discuss these things further next week, or just cancel the meeting and wait until the next week.

Powell-If you all are worried about my project, it can wait to the next week.

Wolf-I move to close the floor. I move to cancel next week’s meeting.

MOTION PASSES

Student Forum

Announcements

Pittman-The men’s basketball team will play LSU on Sunday afternoon at the Mitchell Center.

Pernell-This Saturday the 20th at Battleship Park, the Boy Scouts of America are celebrating their 100th anniversary for those currently enrolled. We need volunteers, please speak with me if you are interested in working or if any of the organizations are interested in helping.

Jones-The Student Affairs committee is meeting on Wednesday at 4:00. An email will be sent out.

Perry-If you have a senate project let me or Colin know so that you can be helped. The Alpha Gam Spaghetti Dinner is tomorrow night.

James- Sigma Gamma Rho community service project

Adjourn-Sells 8:56