September 24th Senate Meeting Recap

STUDENT CENTER – MPR. Student Government’s fourth Senate meeting of the Fall semester was uncharacteristically short, lasting just over forty-five minutes. The meeting began with Vice President Jasmin Lutawan adding to the agenda a period of ‘Open Forum’, in order to allow candidates who had not yet announced their candidacy to do so (the deadline for doing so had been last Thursday, September 17th).

There were no announcements or guest speakers during the meeting.

Reports

During the meeting’s reports, President Noa Lolona Haro stated that an initiative started last semester – Swipe It Forward – was being continued this year, and encouraged donations. Swipe It Forward allows students with a meal plan to donate unused guest swipes, allowing other students to use these swipes on a case-by-case basis. President Lolona Haro went on to announce that a town hall would be hosted sometime in the future to gather ideas surrounding Wildcat Media’s future. He concluded his report with a mention of his efforts to push faculty to use open education textbooks, at a lower cost to students.

Vice President Lutawan described herself as “conducting vice president operations as normal,” mentioning that she was working diligently with the Wildcat Events Board as she serves as their acting president. Echoing the President’s report, Vice President Lutawan stated that following the Wildcat Media town hall, the Executive Board would review all information from the town hall to create a bill addressing Wildcat Media for the Senate’s review.

All other executive and director roles are vacant, and so no reports were given. The advisors both declined to give reports.

Election Committee, currently the only active committee, announced in their report that the candidacy period (the time in which students can declare candidacy) would end at the conclusion of the meeting. Election Committee Chair Maximus Azzarello also stated that voting for the Senate election would open at 4pm that afternoon, while voting for the special election would open at a later date.

Wildcat Media, which currently has no officers, did not give a report. The Wildcat Events Board, represented by WEB Treasurer Cheyenne Foley, spoke on WEB’s Conspiracy Night happening later that evening. WEB Treasurer Foley also mentioned that Wildcat Events Board would be sending out a campus announcement soliciting hiring for Event Coordinator and Marketing Coordinator positions. The Club Advisory Board declined to give a report. Wildcat Esports reported that their teams had already begun competing, and that planning for the semesterly FragFest event had started.

Legislation

The resolution vetoed by President Lolona Haro, which sought to establish a committee to explore Wildcat Media’s future, was first up for debate. Senator Matthew Rose, who had originally spoken and voted in favor of the resolution, stated that “[c]onsidering that we’re going to do the town hall thing [sic], I don’t think we need to do the committee as well.” An audience member asked why the resolution as it appeared on the meeting’s agenda did not reflect any amendments which had been made before its passage; President Lolona Haro replied that “[it] may have been a mistake..I could double-check to make sure [the changes] are reflected.” Ultimately, the President’s veto was upheld: all three Senators voted against the resolution that they had collectively passed two weeks earlier.

The next bill on the table would create contracts within Student Government’s Policies and Procedures for two new public relations positions: Creative Design Coordinator and Social Media Coordinator. These positions were removed from Student Government in 2024, but references to them still exist in Student Government’s Constitution. The only discussion had on this bill was a brief explanation of the bill’s purpose, provided by President Lolona Haro: “..our advisors reached out to me and said that our Constitution says we’re supposed to have these two roles. So, we’re adding these two roles and it’s about as simple as it gets.” No vote was had on this bill, as it was the first week it had been read (bills require two readings before they are allowed to be voted on).

The other new bill on the table, sponsored by Club Advisory Board President Azzarello, would make minor grammatical fixes to the Club Advisory Board’s governing documents. Brief discussion was had on this bill, covering the various fixes – which amounted to updating the Club Advisory Board’s policies to reflect several title changes from last spring semester. President Lolona Haro elected to mark the bill for ‘immediate attention’, allowing it to be voted on despite it being the first week it had been read. The bill passed unanimously.

The final piece of legislation was a resolution seeking to transfer funds from the Student Government Special Projects funding line into the new Social Media Coordinator’s stipend. Extended discussion was had on whether or not this would violate Student Government’s Financial Policy, which forbids changes to stipends (with narrow exceptions) after approval of the budget. A five minute recess was had to allow the Senate to refer back to these policies and deliberate internally. The resolution was passed with Senator Adem Kapo and Senator Jackson Beckmann voting in favor. Senator Rose abstained, giving an abstention reason of ‘lack of information’, stating “..this is all very confusing with the policies.”

Open Forum

SUNY Poly’s graduate delegate to the SUNY Student Association, Greyson Weddle, announced that an election had taken place for two SUNY SA Doctoral Granting Institute Group Caucus representatives. These two representatives serve on the SUNY Student Association’s executive committee. Greyson stated that the elected representatives were Jeremey Zheng from SUNY Binghamton and another student from SUNY Downstate. (When followed up with, Greyson shared that the representative from SUNY Downstate was Moyouri Bhattacharjee.)

The next Senate meeting will take place Thursday, October 1st, at 12:30pm. The agenda for that meeting along with the minutes from this past meeting are expected to be uploaded to Campus Groups, under Student Government at Utica’s Documents, by noon on Wednesday, September 30th.