Session of September 3rd , 2020

Minutes Recorded by: McKenzie Craycraft, Secretary

Visitors: Tori Field, James Morrison, Sam Worrell, Kameron Crowder, Jonathan Edwards, Conner Yeatman, Joselyn Taylor, Hannah Wheatley, Nathan Moyes, Colton Shambaugh

Call to Order at 11:06 AM

Senator Willis prays

Roll Called

Minutes approved at 11:08 AM.

Officer Reports

None

Committee Reports

Senator Gowing: For constitution, our constitution is a mess; once my committee has more member, we will work on making it closer to 5,000 words.

Senator Anderson: Quick reminder, club budgets are due September 6. During open forum we will be discussing club budget prioritization.

Senator Willis: We have decided to table the microwave issue until we get more information because they were given a free microwave from 41.

Special Business

None

Old Business

None

New Business

None

Announcements

Senator Willis: Student senate ice cream will be this Friday at 4:30. I will put a GroupMe post for people to sign up to help with serving ice cream. Please come a little early to help clean up.

Senator Gowing: Would this be the appropriate time to ask Gabe a question? I have heard a few people ask about gluten and dairy-free options.

Senator Willis: There are dairy-free ice cream options; we gave popsicles as an option. I am relatively sure they do not have gluten. I don’t know what to do for the people who don’t eat sugar.

VP Murphy: I have contacted the manager and assistant manager of Bon Appetit, but I have not heard anything back. Once I know more, I will let you know. Please speak to them with gratitude and bringing your points of concern. Remember an attitude of gratitude.

Dean Steve: Can I speak in this time? I also had a meeting with Laura Cobb, Charity, is on maternity leave. Good for her having a baby. She was looking for Andrew Reid. What we have discovered, is that there is a lot of misunderstanding on how available the Hive is. You can use meal swipes between 10:45-2:00 from the grab and go. We have spoken to them, and airport food was a problem, but that goes back to some miscommunication. It has been fixed, though. The athletes are having trouble with dinner. They said they would meet about it. They can either come early and take food. We will look at a fridge for in Solheim for them to store food. I think everyone missed these issues. I am not sure how things got communicated that way.

Open Forum

Senator Anderson: I would like to bring the discussion of club budget prioritization to the floor. I would encourage people to voice their opinions. There are items to be used, equipment, and funding set aside for fundraising, especially for clubs that promote the university. With that said, I open this discussion up to everyone.

Citizen Morrison: I am representing IEEE & LUARC. IEEE is planning to do three monthly meetings. We will be integrating high schools to introduce them to LeTourneau and our branch of IEEE. We have become nationally recognized. This will allow us to compete and host a local competition. We are also looking into industry competitions that will represent LeTourneau. For IEEE extreme, we do not expect to need funds. We plan to have external sponsorship from Eastman. We do need some funding and communication on budget, and we have literal negative delta functions that I cannot find the reason for. On LUARC the armature radio club. We are planning on doing an installation. This will connect all of our radios to others. This will also us to interact with others. Neither of these clubs is asking for over the 500, but we wanted to be here to represent. Most of our budget is from external and saving for our capital to repair. Most of our equipment is very expensive. Our operating budget is about $150 at the moment.

Senator McClain: Traditionally, the budget for all clubs has been $10,000, is there any way we can increase that for the semester since there are less senate-based events?

Senator Anderson: That is point I suggest that we refer to FAC.

Approved

VP Murphy: This a good thing to look at, the goal should be for the spring semester since the deadline is in 3 days. This would be ideal but aim for the spring.

Senator Anderson: I hope to meet with Wanda Davis soon to have a better idea of what funding we have.

Senator Dittman: How many clubs have already submitted their forms, and how much are people asking for?

Senator Anderson: So far, we have five budgets submitted. I have not gone through them yet, but I will get back to you soon.

Citizen Shambaugh: I am representing BAJA team. We are asking for $1,000. It will cost us $2,500 to go to competitions and compete. It is roughly $2,000 to assemble this car. It will be $2,000 to create a new frame. This is a growing club. We are hosting all majors, and we are hoping to better connect with the rest of the university.

Citizen Field: Representing the sword club. We are requesting $1,000 to purchase long swords to obey the social distancing guidelines. We have eighteen members; this is three times the expected amount. We are attempting to do some fundraising through the track team. Since we will only be able to get $200 from senate.

Dean Steve: My only recommendation is that we be a bit gracious with deadlines because everything has been so different. Even things that are the same have been confusing, I have had many people ask many questions; everyone is confused by what is happening right now. I know sometimes we have been very firm on an early deadline. This a semester for grace.

VP Murphy: I recommend FAC to announce the deadline as September 6th, this way, people have time to go through all the things. It takes about two weeks to file everything, and by the time the clubs are actually able to get the money it has been almost 2 months. We want the clubs to be able to get their money early in September.

Dean Steve: I agree, also if people come in, we still have money. I do not want to be problematic for them.

VP Murphy: They can speak to someone and create a bill. We can give them money if they request

Senator Dittman: Do we know anything about STING? They usually come and share a bill.

Senator McClain: We have a meeting today so that I will remind Jeff.

Senator Anderson: I am going to say, I haven’t not heard from STING yet but it sounds like we will soon.

VP Murphy: STING does their presentation because they are sponsored by senate. They took a 5th of our allotted money. We created them as a sponsorship. The deal with the sponsorship is they have to show our label.

Citizen Morrison: Do we submit a budget every semester? Is it not yearly?

VP Murphy: It is by semester

PPT LaQuey: This explains why we allocate funds. We wanted to have people here today so people can understand the rationale behind this. If you have an issue with how we are allocating funds, please speak up. Otherwise, I like how senator Anderson is allocating funds.

Senator Willis: Question for Dean Steve, any updates on the microwaves for Penn Hall? Does Student Life check to see if every floor has a microwave?

Dean Steve: I remember the discussion on microwaves; I don’t remember there being anything I needed to do for Penn Hall.

Senator Gonzalez: Is the school responsible for microwaves and refrigerators?

Dean Steve: I believe the microwaves are from senate during the previous years. I can ask about that. I will work on finding that out.

Senator Avent: I believe it was Res Life, I think we keep having questions because people are confused on whether people are in isolation have microwaves or not.

Dean Steve: We did give people in isolation microwaves. People in Penn Hall are not in isolation. I understand why that was confusing. We are trying to make things safer. What I am hearing is, we want to see if Res Life will provide microwaves.

PPT LaQuey: The situation with the microwaves is Penn Hall is asking for microwaves, we got one from 41 for them. We are now asking are there microwaves for students in isolation, and the answer is yes.

Senator Gowing: There are three floors on Penn Hall. I do not think one microwave is enough. We might want to see about helping with that.

Senator Gowing: I do believe the first floor is full, the second has like five and the next is empty.

VP Murphy: Isolation students are taken care of by Res Life. If there is a need for more microwaves, Sente can get called in to help with microwaves. We have the freedom to get as many microwaves as necessary as long as Ryan Hawkins is okay with it.

Senator Gowing: Even if Penn hall isn’t fully occupied, we could still get microwaves and avoid complaints in the future.

Senator Gonzalez: I have a question for Dean Steve, people from Tyler, are they going to move back to Tyler, or is the university looking at having both buildings filled?

Dean Steve: Our intent was Penn Hall was going to be offline because it is the next one for renovations. We would want a full Tyler hall. If things go as I would want, we would close Penn and some of Maybe and fill Tyler Hall and hire another RD. We were expecting a drop-in enrollment, but we got more students. That is my plan.

Senator Anderson: It was Tyler Hall East, and they were spread out between other buildings. I would like to pose the question, is there any other questions, otherwise I will motion to move this discussion back to my committee.

Senator Dittman: Due to regulations of the CDC and the school having hand sanitizer, can this be included in their budgets? Is the proper PPE available if food is handed out, or we need to allot money for hand sanitizer, gloves, and other PPEE that is needed?

Senator Avent: Instead of giving clubs hand sanitizer, we should have them stick their hands in the microwaves.

VP Murphy: No.

Citizen Taylor: I am a multicultural ambassador; this is our first our semester, we appreciate the extra funds as we start our club. Is less than $500. We are new and wanting to bring in a lot of people because we are having important conversations on campus.

Senator Dittman: Maybe my memory is fuzzy, I do not think there is any legislation to say that we need to stay with a $10,000 budget. I do not believe there is a legal contract on giving $10,000.

Senator Gowing: Point of information, I think the only thing is it is the standard. Any deviation has to have a bill. It can be done really quick.

Senator Anderson: Motion to refer the matter on budgets to FAC.

Approved

Senator Gowing motions to adjourn.

Senator Dittman seconds.

Meeting Adjourned at 11:50 AM