Senate Meeting Minutes
Minutes
Sonoma State University
AS Senate Meeting
Associated Students
12:00pm- Monday, October 2, 2023
Sonoma Valley Room – 2nd Floor Student Center
MINUTES
I. Call to Order & reading of the Land acknowledgement- The meeting was called to order at: 12:05 pm
II. Roll Call- Cassandra Garcia, Vanessa Sanchez, Greta Fast, Taylor Frickman, Angelina Lopez, Brenda Hernandez, Ellie Orona, Emily Louis, India Garcia, Erik Dickson, Gerald Jones, Salvador Garcia Vigil, Jocelyn McMillan, are present. VPF Trent is absent but it is excused;
III. Public Comment – pursuant to California Education Code 89306, the AS Senate provides this time for any member of the public to address the AS Senate on any item affecting higher education. Pursuant to California Education Code 89306(b), each speaker will be allowed no more than three (3) minutes to address the AS Senate.
IV. Reports
a. University President’s designee-
Designee Jones: ultimate frisbee courts is now open; awaiting for paperwork and ribbon cutting coming soon; located in between Stevenson and the Arts Building; Athletics reporting Student Affairs, Bakersfield will be visiting SSU in Nov; 4 key parts; academic support, student wellbeing, evaluation;
b. Academic Senate Representative- reported; Academic Advising; sent back to Senate, hoping students see their advisors more often this semester; what students need more important for advising and putting it in the policy; issues of students coming in office hours/advising and being passed around so it is confusing; resume + professional development, trying to make effort on making it cohesive; 2 day training of Gray; 40 people were in, discussing student demand, future careers after students graduating;
c. AS President- President Garcia reported: last week, met with Chief Nader and help with JUMP’s food
and toy drive; Black and Brown Event, president leadership council, highlight: strategic enrollment, fall headcount, etc; attended CSU foundation meeting; had Personnel Committee, Sonoma Enterprise meeting; housing;
d. Executive Vice President- EVP reported: asked to Provost, appointments still coming out, ARC started; Execs wanted to do the Insta Takeover first and then Senators;
e. Vice President of Finance-
f. Senator of Diversity- Rep Sanchez reported: Student Bill of Rights Committee, looking like it will be Thursdays 5-6 pm; Open Forum Flyer available and tabling each Tuesdays; contact Senator Fast if any questions; 1 person came to Office Hours; ARC and Personnel met; SDS task force, this friday meeting;
g. Senator of Student Resources
h. Senator of Government Affairs- Senator Frickman reported: had committee meetings last week; for Outreach, senators have decided to do tabling on Seawolf Plaza from 10-12 pm on Tuesdays; discussing on getting people to come to the Open Forums, etc; Last week, Senator Frickman and Senator Fast tabled last week and talked to a lot of people about the forums; met with
the City Council of Rohnert Park, discussing on improving the City Council and their strategic priorities for Rohnert
Park; That included the progress of downtown Rohnert Park, implementing a Climate Change plan, working with police community relations, housing for all and creating more community experiences; her and Senator Fast attend Student Affairs meeting last week and topic that were discussed: Priority Registration for Transfer students , and talked about the one that are coming in to help with enrollment, but concern is that there is already a huge amount of people who already get priority registration; discussing on how that would look and getting feedback from the committees and students; met with the Alumni Foundation, hired two members: one of them is an fellow SSU alum, Christina Gamboa, who also worked in the Business Office; Alumni Foundation is working on new student Alumni programs ideas such as: student alumni sponsored dinner, and it will be by major to network with current students; met with SSU Foundation, discussed about their Annual Audit, which was all good; President Lee came in and gave a lengthy discussion of what the priorities are, similar to the speech at Senate last week; Another topic that is in the frontline is enrollment; discussing about endowments and money, along with new strategies and events to give more efforts such as Giving Day and incorporate more students as well; also had Personnel Committee as Senator Sanchez covered; Jeff keating, the EVP of Government Resolutions and Strategic Communications will be at Senate on the 23rd, so if you have any questions, just relay them to me and will be speaking with him again and just email; he wants the student perspective because he is new here and wants to know the culture; the Budget and Planning Forum tomorrow in the Student Center in Ballroom A;
i. JUMP Representative
j. Basic Needs Representative- Representative Hernandez reported: this week is Hunger and Homelessness Week, where BNI will be tabling with community partners and Mo and Student Involvement during the Sustainability Fair; LOBOs Pantry, Redwood Empire Food Bank and a variety of donors will be there as well. There is also a hygiene drive as well and attending tabling events; BNI will be taking over AS for Instagram, got report from Anna and Stephanie that there was a lot of interaction with BNI’s takeover last time and this time, same thing and also promoting H&H week; We also have a TV in the pantry as well and it is a good way to promote resources and other opportunities for students as well; One of the assistants are creating recipe bags for students; Upcoming Food Delivery on Oct 5th, next one is the 19th and the next one after that is Nov.2nd; We get food deliveries the 1st and 3nd week of every month; no reports for CALFRESH because Alyssa has been sick and out of the office; Number of Visits at Pantry from August to September: 1115; total amount of food items have been purchased by students are 5,485; total hygiene items: 1510; for September, food items were 3,434 items and hygiene items were 147; total # of students
for Sept. were 741; huge increase of students utilizing the pantry; having a conversation with Erik, and see which students have meal plans and no meal plans; we got in contact with the Kitchens and Housing to see what number of students have no meal plans and got that information; Micheala has been showing and trying to separate which students do and do not have a meal plan; They are not official numbers but estimated; 257 out of 600 students who use the pantry have full meal plans but looking on the frequency of the students that use the pantry and find a way to support students who do not have meal plans because numbers have significantly increased a lot;
k. ASP Representative
l. Children's School Representative- no report;
m. Student Government Representative
n. Executive Director- Executive Director reported that: Budget and Planning Forum at 9am tomorrow in person and on streaming on Zoom, discussing of allocations ; AS End of Year report is up; The audit statements have arrived and received by Audit and Rules and should be on the next Senate agenda; Seawolf Saturday was canceled but Preview Day on Oct 21st is happening, it is like a visit and shopping day for people considering applying to SSU; Thank you to the BNI team and how they are handling the CALFRESH appointment issues the county is experiencing; Outreach form is out and in the inbox; Orientation for Spring Admits on November 3rd; Conflict of the Interest Training;
V. Business
a. Senate Format (Discussion)
i. Discussion- Senator Fast and Frickman have been discussing and there are a few topics that they want to highlight regarding that such as: the process on how we vote, pass resolutions and new meeting format and how our Board of Directors will look like; for Resolutions, beside proposing ideas, discussing about it, all resolutions should be 2 readings, since government only does two, and corporate does one; The other senators agree that the idea is good and in a good direction because it gives the Board and Senators more time to actually read the resolutions that are coming in and get everyone’s input and feedback to revise and bring back the resolution; Senator Sanchez and Executive Director was asking if they want to change the Senate code or making it your responsibility; President Garcia and Senator Fast are thinking it will be their
responsibility because maybe the next team coming in is the different schedule; Next one is; meetings
where it should be business instead of the reports; Senator Sanchez agreed that could be a good idea to separate business items and reports; Executive Director Dickson was asking if you could just put the business items first? Senator Sanchez is a bit concerned about the current format. President Garcia thinks that the business items first idea will be a good idea too; SG, ASP, and BNI also like the current format; Senator Fast is asking if we do change the format, is that okay for everyone? President Garcia said she will also send a email on the format style; Senator Fast also brought up to discuss further down the line since years before, AS has had a lot of Senators, but the number is low the recent past years and how other CSU AS have also a lot of senators as well; SG Rep Porter was also pointing out that SG and AS are different at other schools; Executive Director also pointed out that since COVID, it was not as busy and other topics such as a different way to do Student Govt, filling seats, elections being also a big issue throughout the years; if theoretically, there would be more senators, that is more money to cover, along with the existing Student Government program as well; back in the day, there were senator for each school, depending on the size of the dept;
b. Board of Directors Updated Goals (Discussion)
i. Discussion- President Garcia discussed what the BOD is feeling this semester and resolutions; The BOD wants to do 5, including recognition resolutions such as Gianna Bommarito; EVP Lopez agrees that we should the recognition resolutions, but also wants to keep her goals for the semester; Senator Frickman wants to focus more Government Affairs centered things; Senator Sanchez said it was with Student Bill of Rights, and with the HUB & DEI office; Senator Fast getting associated with the library; President Garcia is focused on the resolutions going forward;
c. Conflict of Interest (Training) - Executive Director gave a conflict of interest training through the Senate;
XI. Items for the Good of the Order
XII. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at: 2:02 pm;
Posted in accordance with the Gloria Romero Open Meeting Law of 2000 by: President Cassandra Garcia
The Associated Students of Sonoma State University acknowledges Indigenous Peoples as the traditional stewards of the land. Let it be acknowledged that the Associated Students and Sonoma State University is located within the traditional homelands of the indigenous peoples collectively known as Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo.