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Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Agenda

 

  1. Call to Order
  1. Roll Call
    1. Absent:  Ngozi Nwaesei

 

  1. Accepting or Amending of the Agenda
    1. Motion to accept
      1. Passes.
  1. Accepting or Amending of the Minutes
    1. Motion to accept
      1. Passes.

 

  1. Officers Reports
    1. President’s Report
      1. President Mortenson will be writing an article for the docket: disappointed with lack of response to Secretary Holmes’ email regarding committee accomplishments and goals
        1. Need each committee to email me by end of tomorrow accomplishments from last semester and things they’d like to accomplish this semester
      2. Brief discussion of highlights from last semester-- “did a particularly good job on the following”:
        1. Fall Ball, Dean Chodosh open forum, student-faculty lunches, curriculum reform: added section of ERISA and Sports/Ent Law; budget reform; website; increased visibility and accessibility; Race For the Cure committee. 
          1. Failures/Dissappointments
            1. ATM – President Mortenson takes blame for not being able to adequately leverage student strength.  Will provide more detail in article.  Major University bureaucratic roadblocks, namely Art Roos.
            2. Parking – no one’s fault.  VP Choy worked tirelessly to find alternatives to parking shortage caused by Art museum remodel and Botanical unreasonableness.  Also, CIA continues to refuse to open its gates
              1. Asks B&G to look into this once more.
      3. Goals for this semester
        1. President’s goals:  Financial aid reform and Young Alumni committee.
          1. Financial aid survey to be deployed this week.
          2. Increased focus on development of theYoung Alumni Committee
        2. Requesting committees to be more proactive:
          1. Change in Student Life – required to publish location of bar reviews by Monday, with corresponding email to be sent to Patty Kim by Monday as well.
            1. More student-life sponsored events:  Fat Tuesday SBA sponsored student social.  philanthropy
          2. All committees charged with being proactive – discovering ways to improve our law student experience through their individual committees
            1. Reports each meeting on progress towards stated goals
        3. Praised Exec Board and Senate for their continued efforts.
    2. Vice-President’s Report
      1. Results of ABA's survey on the role of SBAs in various law schools throughout the nation: published in January’s newsletter, contains graphs and diagrams to illustrate responses to a multiple choice questionnaire.  Email Vice President Choy about information you would like to know about other SBAs.  Any suggestions, comments, questions welcome.  Your question should be in multiple choice format. 
    3. Secretary’s Report
      1. Set spring semester SBA meeting schedule:  Feb. 12 at 7pm, Feb. 23 at noon, March 2 at 7pm, March 21 at noon, April 2 at 7pm, and April 10 at noon.
      2. Motion to accept.
        1. Passes.
    4. Treasurer’s Report
      1. Last semester: students made good use of allocated resources; especially speaker fund money (10% of budget), although half of fund hasn’t been used thus far.  Bringing in speakers is positive for the school.  He encourages orgs to invite more speakers. 
      2. Mr. Zink and Ms. Levy have been helping revamp the treasurer position.  Treasurer McLaughlin feels that he is not in the position to be working on these issues.  His personal view is that there is not enough oversight of the treasurer, however.  There needs to be changes to the treasurer’s position. He requests anyone interested in working on this project to speak with him.  He would like to have the reforms finished before the next treasurer takes office.
    5. Senate Counsel’s Report
      1. Election Committee working on the new procedures for the upcoming elections, which will likely be held after spring break. 
  1. Committee Reports
    1. Student Life 
      1. Bar review at Panini’s this week.  Getting hooked up.
    2. Building and Grounds: Christopher Schmitt
      1. Before break, committee did a walk-through of the building to be proactive.  Created a list of about 40 items.  Mr. Schmitt sat down with Ms. Hunt and Dean Andelman said they would take care of most of the issues.  Ms. Hunt said she would take responsibility for most of the items on the list.  (please see attached report).
      2. The “wish” list has bigger suggestions that would improve the students’ law school experiences. 
      3. Moral of the story: don’t just sit around and bitch, but do something about it!  Students should approach a senator, officer, or Ms. Hunt with any concerns or suggestions. 
      4. Ms. Hunt says this is the first time in SBA’s history that someone from B&G committee has approached her about building and grounds issues. 
      5. Mr. Kringel points out the SBA clock is still not working and commends Mr. Schmitt and B&G on their work.
    3. CSO committee update:  working with Cindy at CSO to create a panel of 2Ls to present their 1L summer experiences to current 1Ls. 
    4. Financial Aid Committee: Senator Tsai
      1. Working on the refund check issue.  Created a survey for the student body.  Also will be surveying other law schools, for example, refund checks, advances for student refunds, and computer loans. 
      2. Mr. Cary asking about the approximate cost of the use of Survey Monkey.  Mr. Tsai answers that it’s $20/month. 
      3. Ms. Lefton points out that the delayed refund checks are supposedly a University policy.  Mr. Mortenson responds that they will also be surveying the other professional schools to confirm this.  Committee is trying to get evidence to support their case.

 

  1. New Business
    1. Budget Requests
      1. SBA meetings: $150/meeting x 4 meetings = $600 total.  Remaining funds goes back to Treasurer McLaughlin.  Vice President Choy requests money to enhance the visibility/transparency of the SBA by 1) having a one page update in docket of committees successes and current duties, 2) encourage non-SBA member students to attend meetings by providing free food.  Draw people in to personally observe what the SBA is doing for the school.
        1. Will have to be careful not to make it look like we are simply buying ourselves lunch.
        2. Ms. Levy has mentioned that in the past they have wanted to encourage leaders of other orgs to attend. 
        3. Non-SBA members won’t have standing to actually speak at the meeting. Mr. Cary proposes that there a opinion form for students to fill out responses to the meetings.  Treasurer McLaughlin points out that Senators are already tasked to represent their constituents. 
        4. Mr. Ryan mentions that encouraging outside students to come to meetings has been unsuccessful in the past.
        5. Mr. Tsai points out there is a rule that no more than two orgs can have lunch meetings on the same day with SBA funding. 
        6. Mr. Herrick thinks open bar would be a good draw. 
        7. Mr. Zink suggests that SBA have an open forum before a meeting to deal with student concerns. 
        8. Mr. McLaughlin thinks the best way to handle student concerns is office hours. 
        9. Vice President Choy thinks open forum is a good idea, have lunch provided to attract more people.
        10. Mr. Kringel mentions that some meetings have been a bit unprofessional and asks whether we want to actively encourage people to witness these meetings.
        11. Mr. Arnold wants to be at the open forum and threatens to fight people that complain too much.
    2. By-Law and Constitutional Amendments offered by Andrew Samtoy
      1. Primarily grammatical corrections to the Constitution and by-laws
      2. Mr. Kringel motions to create a committee to make a recommendation for the whole SBA body, to be reported at the next meeting. 
      3. Motion to accept
        1. Passes 13-12, 3 absent ions. Committee with staffed by Mr. Chan from ABA,  Mr. Samtoy, Mr. Neely and Mr. Kringel. 
      4. Mr. Ryan doesn’t understand why an additional committee is needed to discuss this.  Senators can individually review the documents.  Mr. Kringel mentions that most people won’t be looking through all the documents. 
    3. LRAP Resolution Presentation (“Loan Repayment Assistance Program”)
      1. Chairman Neely:  ABA is trying to get SBA’s around the nation to support efforts to lobby law schools and government to aid the payment of loans for students entering the public sector.  Requesting Senators on the financial committees to make the appropriate alterations to the document to apply to Case Law. 
      2. Mr. McLaughlin concerned that the law school could raise tuition because the loan limits will be raised.  Mr. Chan wants all law schools to encourage students to go to the public sector by providing debt relief, howver.
  1. Announcements
    1. James Tsai office hours:  Tuesdays 9:30-10:30am and Wednesday 3-4pm.
    2. Dean’s Open Forum, February 1 in Room A59 (free food). 

 

  1. Cheers & Jeers
    1. Cheers
      1. Samtoy for the “get to know your SBA” article in Docket.
      2. Resolutions from Mr. Samtoy and Mr. Arnold.
      3. Building and grounds.
      4. CSU pub crawl was great.
    2. Jeers
      1. A lot of grades are still not posted…even though professors have turned them into Mr. Ruffner.
  1. Adjournment