[1285] in UA Senate
Re: Laptops
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Geoffrey Thomas)
Sun Apr 24 12:27:08 2011
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:27:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Geoffrey Thomas <geofft@MIT.EDU>
To: Jonte D Craighead <jontec@mit.edu>
cc: ua-senate@mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <1303639312.2262.20.camel@Mortimor>
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What does "off the record" mean? As a constituennt, can I ask my senator=20
what happened and expect them to be able to reply in good conscience?
I have bad memories of Blue Ribbon insisting its meetings were off the=20
record, and preventng me as a Dormcon member from having any idea of what=
=20
was going on (until the leaks and 40 UAS 6.4 and all that fun stuff).=20
MIT-Online is certainly more preliminary than BRDC was at that stage, but=
=20
also way more important. Is there some summary of the discussion they're=20
willing to approve? Can senators take persnal notes not on laptops?
This is what affects a body's ability to be representative. Whether you=20
punt on your computers past the Speaker's bedtime is just a question of=20
time management competence and respect, not representation.
--=20
Geoffrey Thomas
geofft@mit.edu
On Sun, 24 Apr 2011, William Steadman wrote:
> If every representative were to make motions to: close discussion,
> postpone, etc whenever they felt it was appropriate then you don't have
> a meeting, you have 30 arguing about procedure.
>
> I don't walk into Senate trying to gauge the progress of a discussion
> because that is not my job. My job as Chairman of Space Planning is to
> provide appropriate info in that area. Gauging the progress of a
> discussion is in fact the Speaker's job.
>
> I recommend the Speaker move to end discussion or even better call for a
> motion from the assembly whenever he thinks discussion is not useful.
> There is a reason he controls the length of debate time. Yet despite the
> length of all of our meetings it has only been invoked once this year.
>
> On Sun, 2011-04-24 at 04:16 -0400, Jont=C3=A9 Craighead (UA Speaker) wrot=
e:
>> Hi, guys:
>>
>> This is meant to be a notice for Monday's meeting.
>>
>> tl;dr: No laptops during the guest speaker and no laptops after
>> 11:00pm.
>>
>> The MIT-Online Faculty Study Group has asked that the entire session
>> at Monday's meeting take place off the record. Because of this, and
>> the fact that this group will be our guest, laptops must not be open.
>>
>> Furthermore, I am going to request that laptops also be closed during
>> any business that takes place after 11:00pm. If you have noticed
>> anything this year, it's that, usually, fewer than half of you are
>> paying attention to the discussion at once past about this time. If
>> the discussion on the floor is not interesting or useful, you should
>> do something about it (i.e. move to close discussion, postpone, etc.).
>> This is your Senate, you should own it. Otherwise, we run into
>> situations where a small number of participants are the only ones
>> driving the discussions (and effectively acting as the only student
>> representatives).
>>
>> Instituting this rule is not fun, but I feel it's necessary to keep
>> people engaged, or at the very least, ensure that our last three
>> meetings aren't also our longest.
>>
>> I would be happy to answer any questions here, but if you have
>> comments or want to start a discussion, please move this e-mail to
>> ua-senate@.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Jont=C3=A9 Craighead
>>
>> Speaker of the Senate
>> MIT Undergraduate Association
>> Course 1C: Class of 2013
>
>
>
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