[81] in UA Senate
Approved senate minutes from last week
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Liz A. Denys)
Wed Oct 14 00:06:38 2009
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:06:06 -0400
From: "Liz A. Denys" <lizdenys@MIT.EDU>
To: ua-senate@mit.edu
are available at http://web.mit.edu/ua/minutes/UAS41/sbs1_2009-10-05.pdf
The .tex source, for those who do not like .pdf is below.
-Liz Denys, UA Secretary General
\documentclass[senateminutes]{minutes}
\title{41 U.A.S. S.B.S. 1}
\date{October 5, 2009}
\author{
\submitter{Elizabeth A. Denys}{UA Secretary General}
}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{Call to Order}
\calltoorder{7:30 pm}
\section{Senate Guests}
We are having a discussion with Chancellor Phil Clay, Vice-Chancellor
and Dean for Graduate Education Steve Lerman, Dean for Undergraduate
Education Dan Hastings, and Dean for Student Life Chris Colombo about
the Institute-wide Planning Task Force
\subsection{Introduction}
Clay: We're holding a lot of events about the Institute-wide Planning
Task Force: this meeting, a graduate event on the 15th, Conversations
and Cookies on the 14th with literally random undergrads, Institute-wide
Planning Task Force forums.
Lerman: We won't have a balanced budget without having cuts. So we
wanted to engage as much of the community as possible to come up with
creative and community-inclusive ways to cut back the budget.
Opportunity for the entire community to be engaged, contribute, and get
involved. This is a bold experiment in things we do. As we've rolled out
this process, over 200 people were engaged in this process. It is
definitely a draft; we really don't know exactly what we're going to do.
It lends itself to this sort of meeting. We've been going out to faculty
groups, students to get community feedback. The community doesn't seem
as interested in procurement, but is very interested in things that
involve the environment. We will likely be talking about a lot of
student life issues. Your summaries were very impressive and touched 20
odd subjects, and we'll be interested in getting your feedback now.
Clay: Further study will occur in many areas. Right now we don't know
how much we'll cut this year, but we will know by the end of the month.
58 million out of a billion will be cut this year. We will be cutting
more as well in the future.
Hastings: Everything comes at a cost. It's important to realize that
lots of good things that we can do and have done, but most of them have
a cost associated with them. In the educational working group, we had to
cut about \$40K dollars a student. We looked at a cost model in the
education task force: the cost to educate a student is somewhere between
50 and 60 thousand a year, while tuition is 47 or 48 thousand a year.
There are tradeoffs associated with every choice we have to make. Some
are worth making, and others might be more less inclined.
Clay: There is a difference between pruning a tree than cutting a tree.
I'm a fan of pruning: the bush might come out better after pruning.
\subsection{What the UA is doing for feedback}
Mike Bennie: The deans have done a great job explaining what has
happened over the past year. The UA Executive Committee has been working
on it in lieu of Senate. The UA published recommendation summaries,
paragraphs explaining the ideas behind each recommendation written by
relevant committee chairs and Executive Committee members. We've been
collecting feedback through the summaries posted on the UA Website.
Going forward, we will take the feedback from the website
(http://ua.mit.edu/taskforce/) to create position pieces on the pieces
which most affect undergraduates. They will be $1/3$ where
undergraduates sit on a recommendation and $2/3$ on how the UA thinks
the recommendation should be implemented. Some statistics from the last
\emph{four} days:
\begin{itemize}
\item Summaries main page has 1,100 unique views
\item Average visitor read 9 recommendations
\item Over 19,000 total page views
\item Over 500 comments
\item Over 750 students voted on the recommendations
\item Big spread on voting from -262 (Add/Drop Date) to +202 (Summer
Classes)
\end{itemize}
We've outlined a timeline for continuing this process:
\begin{itemize}
\item 10/2: Determined the 14-18 of the summarized recommendations
warranted position pieces
\item 10/3: Assigned topics to chairs and forwarded comments
\item 10/10: Positions pieces due back to Exec
\item 10/11: Principal officers author an introduction to the report
\item 10/12 or 10/13: Report presented to Senate for approval
\end{itemize}
We will distribute our report to the following groups that week:
\begin{itemize}
\item Chancellor, Provost, EVP (because they are making the decisions or
charging them to committees)
\item Planning Task Force Coordination Committee (because they are
writing the final report)
\item Chairs of the Institute and Presidential Committees (because they
will be involved in implementation of the recommendations)
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Questions}
Adam Bockelie: How much will you consider what the community and
students say? \\
Lerman: We'll try to incorporate all of the feedback that we get,
especially if it's a reasonable argument. The task-force leaders will
balance task force and community when giving the feedback to Senior
Administrators. Senior administrators will be doing the deciding. \\
Clay: Feed back in the form of ``we would like to rather reduce X than
eliminate X" is the most helpful kind of feedback. For example, with the
PE requirement, there are positions between keeping it and getting rid
of it.
Austin McRae: What about the possibility of things already being cut
being put back in? Like sports. \\
Clay: It's theoretically possible to reverse a cut that's already
occurred. However, we won't know at this time.
Alex Jordan: For the final draft, is there a plan to narrow down the
recommendations to a certain number? Will there be a more in depth
estimation as to how much money can be saved? \\
Lerman: The individual working group reports are not included in the
full report right now. Those reports are where all of the work is. As an
appendix, the groups will provide their reports. Some recommendations
clearly also need more work. Converting residence system to
undergraduate RA and professional staff was a possible idea, but it
wouldn't have saved any money, so my group ditched that idea early on.
The leadership will decide what to do.
Sammi Wyman: Will there be ideas being implemented that are not in the
report? \\
Clay: There will be some cuts unrelated to whats in the task force
report. Every part of MIT will sustain a budget reduction--the report is
heavy on some departments and light on others. Some will make reductions
based on report ideas and then others might have to make cuts that
weren't proposed because nothing touched on it.
Paul Youchak: The feedback is happening very quickly. Unclear if they
can fully engage their full response in this time. WIll there be
feedback after the final draft report? \\
Clay: This is for FY11. Nothing will go into effect until next July.
What happens between end of October and the school year. Each unit will
be given a budget target in the next four to five weeks. They'll know
how much of a reduction they'll be responsible for making. They will
need to meet it by December. Each budget committee will work on the
Institute budget. The units that relate to rents and tuition, we'll make
a recommendation for that. Sometime in March, we'll have a final budget
which will be presented to the Corporation.
Liz Denys: Will the final report contain appendices which pros and cons
from the relevant working group? \\
Lerman: Muriel and I met this morning about the student life working
group we chaired. A more prose-oriented version will be given back to
working group with pros and cons and it will go back to the working
group. This will be a great opportunity for feedback and input by
representatives. However, each group will be doing it a bit differently. \\
Hastings: Recommendations for the education working group were not put
forth by consensus; we only killed recommendations when everyone in the
group was opposed to those recommendations. There was not always
consensus, but we wanted to put everything out on the table for
completeness. Nuances will be added, but no one in my group wants to
withdraw information.
Paul Baranay: Between October and December, can we expect administrators
to consult with the UA to get additional UA input besides the position
pieces? \\
Hastings: Need to talk to faculty committees, which students serve on,
before many can be implemented, such as any possible PE requirement
changes: would need to talk with CUP, a committee with undergraduate
members. \\
Colombo: Committee on Student Life, Housing Strategy Committee, and
housemaster groups would need to be in agreement to implement changes to
housing. Student serve on these committees, as well. The UA also works
with these committees. Also, Mike, Maggie, and I meet every week. \\
Lerman: Similarly, I will work with the GSC and graduate students. \\
Clay: To achieve budget cuts on the order we're talking about, there
will have to be layoffs. There will be many staff laid off. It's a very
confidential conversation. We had about 100 layoffs across the Institute
in the past year. The consequences for how recommendations which will
affect personnel will not be discussed on an open level. \\
Colombo: PE is housed in DAPER and coaches give instruction. If PE
disappeared, we'd have to examine what we do with coaches teaching those
classes. There are a number of these items that have costs across these
units, like with metering dorms. \\
Clay: Some recommendatoins might cost money first in order to save money
later, such as metering the dorms.
Vrajesh: Of the remaining 50 to 60 million to be cut, how much should we
expect to see coming out of the Task Force report? What are we hoping to
gain from studying some of the recommendations which we cannot implement
at this time? \\
Clay: I don't know the answer yet. Some have large numbers, some tiny,
some future. Most of the ideas will need future research, and almost all
require some time because they require a faculty vote or Institute
Committee approval. Prudence would call for delaying or making a partial
movement rather than doing the whole thing. Other things can almost have
an instant impact, like freezing salaries next year. We'd know how much
we'd save and know by July 1. \\
Lerman: We have a rough idea what the task force work will save: 10 to
20 million could be done in the next year out of the Task Force, the
rest is the future. We could redeploy savings in future years if we
implement the long term savings ideas. There are lots of good ideas out
there. If we can generate the funding for it. A new summer session
program, for instance, can't be up and running completely next summer. \\
Hastings: Recommendations were about saving money, but also about
getting better as an organization. The budget cuts provided impetus to
better how we operate.
Geoffrey Thomas: How much have you been working with groups already
implementing these and is there overlap between ideas that would have
been done anyway? With respect to de-customization of enterprise
systems: hasn't IS&T already been working on this? \\
Lerman: MIT has a lot of peculiar systems. A lot of student information
systems is home-grown. A few task force things are already underway.
There's already a project for this, and it has money and people invested
in it. We would have done a fair number of these things anyway. \\
Clay: If faculty vote to add a communication requirement, it required a
lot of programming. I don't know how it cost so much, but it cost about
a million dollars. \\
Hastings: It cost us \$2.6 million to add that requirement. All the
information in (Web)SIS is done by hand because it would have cost so
much. \\
Clay: To get up to date and state of the art, it would cost \$10 million
and take 5 years.
Alex Jordan: We will know what the department cut expectations are? Will
they be public? \\
Clay: The total is usually public, but not the individual office
numbers. There is an issue as to when it will be public. Also, rent and
tuition aren't set yet, so we won't know how much we will get. \\
Lerman: There will be a payout reduction and a budget cut, which will
both affect the departments. \\
Clay: Any budget number really does signal what we're cutting, what
we're adding to. It's not in any institution's interest to signal what
will happen before plans will be made in the spring. We want to come to
the position we want to be at. With tuition, for example, we don't want
to announce it incorrectly then need to fix it. Instead, we'll wait to
the last minute before the final number.
Catherine Olsson: Thanks for all the involvement demonstrated in this
process. Students really appreciate it. It's reassuring to know there
are working report groups that are coming out soon. If students cost us,
how does increasing students save us any money? \\
Hastings: Losing money on every student doesn't make it up on volume. If
we add one student on the margin, the difference between tuition and
cost is \$19K. Many other costs can stay the same with more students,
though, so keeping control over all other costs could make up the
difference on volume. \\
Lerman: We believe the partial derivative of net revenue with respect to
undergraduate enrollment is positive. \\
Clay: The marginal cost of adding 100 frosh will be the cost of adding
capacity where there is already a bottleneck: such as needing to create
another TEAL room. However, admitting a sophomore in department X might
work better because X might have the ability to have 100 students
instead of only having 72. Thus, adding a transfer student might be a
good thing. So we might lose less money if we add students in particular
ways at MIT.
Austin McRae: Where will these students live? \\
Colombo: We've had a number of conversations about that, and we're
looking at other alternatives. Many FSILGs have additional capacity, but
want to keep the privacy of those organizations in mind. \\
Clay: We probably have 100 beds unused scattered throughout FSILGs. \\
Colombo: There is a group of apartments owned by the Institute, but
they're above the cost of dorms right now. We don't want to be crowding
to triples. \\
Clay: We used to have 300 more undergrads then now 15 years ago--before
freshman on campus.
Spencer Williams: Will there be a shift to eliminate 4 year housing?
Would juniors and seniors be moving off campus? How will that effect
freshman and transfers? \\
Lerman: We could admit transfer students without guaranteed housing.
There is another alternative, a ``3+2" degree program: three years of
liberal arts, followed by a two year engineering or science degree. This
would bring people in when they'd be a senior. In their fourth year,
they might want to live off-campus because they won't bond with a campus
dorm. We could also treat them like graduate students: no guarantee for
housing. There are lots of ways to implement this without eliminating
the guarantee to most students. The next layer of sculpting away ideas
to get the more feasible in-betweens is what we're looking for.
Cecily Koppuzha: MIT is pretty strict in accepting transfer credit. Will
the restrictions on accepting transfer credits be loosened? \\
Hastings: If they can't get transfer credit, they'll have to take them.
We're looking at this right now. \\
Clay: We now accept 15 transfer students, we have accepted as many as
80. We imagine there are students out there who could pass ASEs as
transfer students.
Paul Baranay: People might be uncomfortable with transfers in some
departments but not others. Also, are there hidden admissions office
costs? \\
Hastings: All transfers are admitted through admissions offices. Given
what we know about capacity, we can figure this out as to who would be
admitted where. \\
Clay: We have an issue because the world believes we don't take
transfers, so we would need to tell the world we're open for transfers.
\section{Roll Call}
\late \nolate
\absent \senator{Juan Valdez}{IFC}
\proxies \noproxies
Introductions happened.
\section{About Senate}
One responsibility of a Senator is to serve on a committee or work on an
impromptu project over the semester. Talk to committee chairs and read
through the UA website to see what you might be interested. Send an
email to ua-speaker@mit.edu and committee chairs if you have any
questions about committees.
Senators will get a folder with copies of the governing documents,
nametags, etc. next week.
\subsection{Retreat}
The retreat is being organized by Paul and Tim. It will be Saturday,
October 24 around 10 am through Sunday, October 25 around 4 to 6 pm and
on Cape Cod. We will discuss UA history and current events, work on
leadership, and have a lot of fun. Attendance is highly recommended.
\subsection{What is Senate?}
The UA is an overarching undergraduate advocacy group. We don't govern
living groups, but we do represent students in conversations with
administrators to make MIT a better place for students. Senators are
conveniently scattered around campus. When Senate speaks passing a
resolution, it means the undergraduates are behind it, such as the
Dining Proposal Committee's creation. Senate sets policies and finances.
This meeting is focusing on finances. Senate also has a discretionary
fund to be used for funding things such as those which benefit the
student population at large and can't get funding through other sources.
Senate can task committees as well. We'll go over the details of how
this works soon. We try to be to the point and follow procedure, and the
easiest way to understand Senate's process is through observation.
Common practice of snapping in agreement with students. Minutes will be
an overview of what has happened, not a transcript, mostly to make
minutes and happenings more accessible.
We have a Senate, an Exec, and a Judicial Board, Judboard. Judboard
enforces the constitution and runs elections through the Election
Commission. Exec tasks goals to specific committees so that things get
done after Senators task them. Exec meets 7 pm on Wednesday. Exec does
the work outside of Senate. Senate handles higher level issues and
tasking, and Exec does things during the week to report back next
Monday. Exec and Senate mingle a lot.
\subsection{Scheduling}
Next week's meeting. Monday is Columbus Day weekend, so we will vote
between Monday and Tuesday. The meeting will be on October 13 at 7:30 pm.
\subsection{Senate Positions}
Parliamentarian and Sergeant at Arms need to be appointed. Email
ua-speaker@mit.edu if you are interested.
\subsection{Mailing Lists}
ua-senate@mit.edu goes to Senate members and listeners, which is anyone
who is interested in hearing Senate's proceedings.
ua-senate-members@mit.edu goes to only Senate members. You shouldn't use
this frequently, and if you do, you need to explain why the email was
not public and sent to ua-senate@mit.edu.
\section{Special Budgetary Session (SBS)}
This is the Special Budgetary Meeting. It's to discuss the budget, which
will be voted on next meeting.
\subsection{Discussion}
The budget and budget defense were emailed out. Operating, Senate, Exec
form the UA core. The rest is Committees \& Auxilliaries. We get \$266K
per year, along with money from Kaplan and Princeton Review earnings
from room reservations, totaling to \$144,630 this year. What is this
advertising? Princeton Review gets none, and Kaplan gets one email a
term and we've scaled it down to emailing about the free test provided.
Fresh Fund goes to funding new groups or new events allocated by Senate,
likely to be allocated by ASA soon. Finboard over-allocates some
percentage each semester, we will tentatively be over-allocating by 10
percent this term.
This summer, we have been working on negotiating the Student Life Fee
increase. The Student Life Fee was created 5 years ago to increase
services for DAPER and Mental Health more directly. It has increased
over the past few years and new parts have worked into the budget. 2.72
million dollars comes from this, and a clear pie chart of how it is
spent will be released shortly by DSL in consultation with the UA and
GSC. This budget may change in the next week if we get additional money.
This additional money will usually go towards groups. We lowered
overallocation because SAO is concerned more groups will spend higher
percentages of their allocations because of the recession.
What happens with budgets for committees that just had chairs appointed?
Working with Alex, UA Treasurer, and Exec Discretionary.
Why is Senate discretionary is smaller this year? This more accurately
represents how much has been allocated.
Fresh Fund is for new groups and new initiatives of old groups. The
former is emphasized more.
How much do you think new committees or committees without budgets will
request from discretionary? Alumni Relations will likely request \$1000.
Space Planning will also likely be sub-\$1000.
Money that isn't spent will roll over into the UA Reserve.
If we exhaust the Senate Discretionary, what else can we use? You can
propose to allocate from the Invested Reserve. What is the benefit of
putting roll-over money into the reserve? Alex has been thinking about
moving a fraction of the reserve into another account that is more
accessible. To create a balanced budget, money allocated from
Discretionary will likely not end up going to student groups, so we
lowered Discretionary allocation.
Copying and printing has been moved to Operating because of the way we
are charged for copying, it is easier to charge the UA as a whole
instead of individual committees.
Much of the Operating expenses last year were capital investments to
make the office more usable.
The retreat used to be fully subsidized by a leadership fund, we're
working on what SAO will provide for us. The retreat costs will likely
go down by at least \$2000. All food is included.
The pre-Senate dinners didn't happen last year, but happened in 2007.
The idea is that UA members can talk with administrators before they
come before Senate in a more relaxed and private setting.
Senate constituency fund is in the Bylaws and historically is used for
Senators to reach out and communicate with their constituencies. It has
historically under-utilized. We'd love creative ideas, and the funds are
dispersed on a case by case basis. Talk to the Speaker (Paul) and
Treasurer (Alex) before spending.
Admin dinners in Exec is for the same kind of formal conversations
before Senate, but with Exec. This builds a lot of informal ties with
administrators.
Exec Discretionary is added because they go through a great bit of
effort to collect money from Kaplan and Princeton Review, so they are
being given some leeway to use this to accomplish their goals. ExecComm
takes two to three hours a week to handle their room reservations. We
are handling line items more tightly this year, but still want to have
the flexibility to get things done. We have already collected about
\$11K, and we are giving some of this to student groups, especially
since it affects rooms they can observe. The discretionary funding will
be allocated by a majority vote of the four executive officers, Mike,
Maggie, Liz, and Alex. It is used for overlooked budget items for large
events. Special projects might have a new, large project. If things are
timely, ie. cannot wait until the next Senate meeting, the discretionary
is useful. Exec discretionary is easier to get access from because it is
a vote of four instead of Senate.
Program in Leadership and Undergraduate Success is a large part of the
budget. It is to create and foster mentorship and leadership
opportunities for freshman, and we are looking to get it funded
elsewhere for next year. There will likely be 40 freshman in the
program. Folders are for networking materials.
Why is Go Cross Campus on the budget 0? It is free, but an initiative.
Events is fully funded by SAO.
We can amend this budget, so feel free to suggest them.
Motion to keep PLUS's individual line items, but have a maximum of total
spending on PLUS be half, leaving CSL to decide how to spend their
funding. Second.
\begin{itemize}
\item Why? It reaches a very narrow portion of campus. Maybe it should
be getting funding from corporations or the students paying a fee.
\begin{itemize}
\item However, we have made changes to pass this program off to the
administration, and we need to keep it as a very important program to
achieve this goal.
\item The budget has already been cut a lot from last year.
\end{itemize}
\item What are the gift certificates? To incentivize mentor/mentee
meetings between PLUS events. The mentor/mentee relationship is key to
the PLUS program.
\item It does cost money for the workshops.
\item Tim, as a member of PLUS last year, sees how necessary they are.
\item We are discussing line items, and should be evaluating line
items, not cutting the budget by half.
\item Motion to vote. Second. Now voting. Motion does not pass.
\end{itemize}
Motion to cut folders spending. Second.
\begin{itemize}
\item This can be disseminated as a .pdf.
\item Motion to vote. Second. Now voting. Motion does not pass.
\end{itemize}
Do we need workshop dinners? Shouldn't there already be incentive
through the workshop itself?
\begin{itemize}
\item Usually needs to be scheduled during meals. We also are trying to
get more people involved in this program.
\item We have food on Senate or Exec. However, anyone can attend Senate
or Exec, and these meetings serve to help the entire undergraduate
student body.
\item Workshops have activities and speakers.
\item We are talking right now with specific people about taking
control of PLUS now.
\end{itemize}
Will there be dining surveys? Yes, but we will not need money for them
this term, but Adam might have new ideas for this.
Motion to add a line item for dining surveys for \$250. Second.
\begin{itemize}
\item This could go towards prizes.
\item Motion to vote. Second. Now voting. Motion passes.
\end{itemize}
It should say Athletics Weekend for the first line item for Athletics.
Athletics got less sponsoring than previous years due to recession, and
has asked for more money, but proposed a smaller budget than previous
years. This event has already happened. Superfan shirts will be for
supporting fans and indirectly PR. Why so many t-shirts? To hit a wide
variety of sports events.
Faculty dinners will be run twice a year. The DB development is for
thanking the developer handling student-faculty dinners interfaces. The
UA won't be spending any money on student-faculty dinners, and it has
been funded by Deans in the past.
Special projects is getting a discretionary for seed funds for other
projects not yet determined at this time. Each project can only have
money spent on it if Maggie or Bennie approve it. Many projects are
capital projects for a one-time expenditure. Vrajesh would like to
request more money because we will likely have more projects and the
power cord will be done tomorrow, so they'll have more time. Vrajesh has
concerns that this committee will draw all of the Senate Discretionary.
Current reserve balance is about \$65K. Most of the reserve has not come
from unspent Student Life Fee money; we aren't just hiding undergraduate
money away. Afraid other initiatives that would get Senate discretionary
money won't get funded or come forth for funding. This committee is
budgeting with the expectation of getting more money. We could also
increase the Senate discretionary amount.
Motion to add 2 projects for \$500 each. Second.
Amend to state that when projects are approved by the P or VP, Senate
and Exec will need to be notified and published on the UA Website. Friendly.
Point of information: Student Life Fee increase information might
change your points of view here.
Spending all of Exec Discretionary on this committee is not a good idea
in case a timely matter comes up.
Motion to vote. Second. Now voting. Motion passes.
History committee wants a dinner with a bunch of alumni to build
institutional memory.
Dorm Storm is an annual event in the Fall for outreach. Community
Conversations is for meetings with administrators in casual settings.
Office hours is still being formulated. We want a nice poster for the
infinite.
IT discretionary will be approved by Mike and Maggie.
Elections server is housed securely in W92, and we have to pay for that
so that students can't change the outcomes.
Some ASA events benefit undergrads much more than grad students, so the
UA funds ASA more. ASA wants to develop a new database for student group
information. ASA's budget is for the year.
FYSM is First Year Summer Mailing, replaced the CDs with activities that
went out in previous ways.
What is electricity for? Midways are in Johnson, and it's in a hockey
rink, so MIT electrical runs extensions around the room and we pay for
using these cords. We might also pay some for the extreme amount of
power we draw that day.
Already spent line items have been reviewed by the treasurer and some of
ExecComm.
\subsection{Voting}
We will be voting on the budget during the next meeting. Propose any
more motions to amend the budget over email.
\section{Adjournment}
\adjourn{10:55 pm}
\submitted
\end{document}
--
Elizabeth A. Denys
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Class of 2011
Department of Electrical Engineering
Department of Mathematics
630.730.1136 | lizdenys@mit.edu
