Cabinet Meeting Minutes

Thursday, 30 January 2014

Meeting Start: 12:33

 

Attendance: Kevin Crooks, Larry Hailsham, Autumn Vogel, Grace Flowers, Skyler Ray, Kushtrim Miftari, Austin Cosgrove, Sloane Prince (late), Katie Beck, Garrett Devenney, Jake Ballinger

Missing: Brogan McGowan, Sarah Naughton

Constituents: Nathan Malachowski

 

Kevin Crooks

We're taking a lot of this meeting to talk about what happened on Thursday, and the concerns brought up.

 

Austin Cosgrove

I want to say that we're not actually banned from

 

Grace Flowers

In terms of the audit, the whole college is audited every year. It's not anything we did; it's just part of our standard practice.

 

Skylar Ray

We set the budgets as a committee at the end of the year, along with the current president and existing president.

 

Kevin Crooks

Every club has an advisor, but the students needs to come in and request the money.

 

Kushtrim Miftari

Where did these comments come from?

 

Nathan Malachowski

I think it's explained in that top paragraph there.

 

Kushtrim Miftari

So these are things you've noticed?

 

Nathan Malachowski

It's things I've heard people talk about, and I called myself out in the fact that these may not be accurate.

 

Larry Hailsham

It is important to go through each of these and address each one

For example, the example about voter turnout; people just don't turn out to vote

However, we shouldn't be doing these things as a response for this, but things we should be doing in general.

The voting is the overall apathy of the campus; people feel that ASG is not important, and I feel that publicity is part of it; improving what we're doing is another way of making sure people think about what they're doing.

 

Kevin Crooks

At the beginning of this year, we had a lot of freshmen run

This year, we've been a lot more proactive in that election, and we can be do in

 

Nathan Malachowski

The reason I brought these forward is because these are things constituents are talking about

Regardless of whether there is a right or a wrong answer, these are things that should be addressed

 

Autumn Vogel

I appreciate your presence, but I don't think that productive thing to do right now is to address each point.

 

Katie Beck

Just as an idea for Tuesday, if we could create a space for people to come and voice their concerns about the contents of this document, and also about the Board of Trustees.

We could shape this to create a communication tool

It's like a few representatives coming to the meeting and bringing concerns from the larger student body.

 

Autumn Vogel

Kevin, I know you mentioned a video address, but I think we should take action steps on these.

 

Kevin Crooks

I just don't want people to think that you've brought these things up and we're just sweeping it under the carpet.

 

Autumn Vogel

I do not just want to put up a video and

 

Grace Flowers

In terms of voting, we can bring our computers to Brooks and McKins and try to get people to vote, but we need to be reasonable in where our goals are.

It's hard to bring people together to care about something that they already don't care much about.

We should be reasonable with our expectations.

 

Nathan Malachowski

I think that people would be more willing to vote for ASG if concerns like these weren't the subtext of interactions with ASG.

 

Skyler Ray

But if people really care about concerns like this,

 

Nathan Malachowski

People are afraid of repercussions. Regardless of whether this is true or not

 

Jake Ballinger

Comment Box

Email senators in those groups

 

Autumn Vogel

I don't think it's appropriate to shift the blame to senators right now

Kevin Crooks

But that

 

Grace Flowers

 

Kevin Crooks

I thought that an action set this semester was holding these meetings with administrators

 

Katie Beck

Students care about clubs that they're in, so I think that a better approach would be classes partnering up with different clubs and doing events with them

That way, clubs can come to us

 

Kevin Crooks

Some of the classes did that last semester: the Class of 2015 held events with Active Minds because they both fundraise for CHAPS.

 

Larry Hailsham

With the group that just went through, for me to partner with these people would be broadening my perspective and viewpoint

One of the most important things are to partner with groups we don't have

 

Kevin Crooks

More often than not, there's usually one senator that's connected to some group in some way

 

Katie Beck

But I also think the conversations and open forums bring more people

Philanthropy events are great, but I also think that

 

Kevin Crooks

We're trying to get people who aren't involved in anything to come

 

Katie Beck

No, we're literally reaching out to certain groups.

 

Kevin Crooks

That's a good idea.

 

Katie Beck

But how can we turn that into a constructive activity?

 

Jake Ballinger

We can tell each of the classes to reach out to some of these target groups

 

Kevin Crooks

Larry Hailsham

So we just wouldn't respond

We'll set out a 3-week time period in which we address these time periods in this manner

 

Gretchen Symons

I think another thing to stress to the classes is to come to the meeting and just listen

Part of leadership is just listening

 

Autumn Vogel

That's very apparent by our body language

 

Grace Flowers

What if they're direct questions?

 

Gretchen Symons

I think that part of that is being in the space

 

Katie Beck

There's nothing wrong with Austin responding to a direction question about

 

Sloane Prince

I'm coming into this late, but I don't know if they'll follow up

I think it's good that someone is taking the initiative to voice their concern and hopefully there'll be a good reception to

 

Nathan Malachowski

So you said that event with AEC was supposed

 

Kevin Crooks

They were presenting what they do, but afterwards we just had a conversation - we talked about lack of attendance at basketball games, for example. Someone

 

Nathan Malachowski

My concern is that constituents aren't comfortable talking about things like this in front of administrators.

 

Kushtrim Miftari

Then who should they be talking to?

 

Autumn Vogel

I know that the people who were tabling for the ASG/AEC event weren't really pumped for it and didn't quite know what it was about.

Part of this is about a culture change; this is about

 

Jake Ballinger

What doesn't make sense to me

 

Kevin Crooks

What Katie said about being relatable

 

Larry Hailsham

I think that we need to be thinking that we're doing things and making steps, and we need to be more willing to make more steps and be willing to open up and take more steps

 

Katie Beck

Jake Ballinger

But senators were uncomfortable of the backlash of what would happen if they didn't pass the

 

Autumn Vogel

I think a lot of people were there because we made a concerted effort to get them there

But once they got there

The declinement of that meeting itself was very polarized

 

Austin Cosgrove

Going back to Larry's comment - we have a lot of steps to take to be much more involved on campus

Quite frankly, I've been on ASG for 3 years, and this year is the most involved we've ever been on campus

 

Larry Hailsham

Whether or not people make the decision to come is their decision, but the amount of advertising and PR we've been doing is really improved

 

Kevin Crooks

So we can PR the meeting on Tuesday as more of a conversation

 

Austin Cosgrove

Please sign up to volunteer for Tegan and Sara!

Also, tabling.

 

Sloane Prince

Everybody needs to send me a blurb for the Newsletter, and we need to vote for Senator of the Month