SITSA

Meeting Minutes
February 26, 2010
IC 106
12:45pm to 1:45pm

SITSA Co-Presidents at Meeting:
-Deborah (Deb) Lake, new
-Tam Huynh
-Matthew (Matt) Abrams
-Jason Nusser
-Brittany Smith

SIT Administrators at Meeting:
-Tony Drapelick
-Barbara Carver

For corrections (or questions) to the minutes, email Brittany.Smith@mail.sit.edu.

Notes:

• Meeting started fifteen minutes later than usual; usual start time is 12:30pm.

• Introduced Deb to the basic setup of SITSA. Deb is replacing Sarah Wann for International Education.

• Tony will add Deb to the mailing list.

• Refreshed policies for voting procedure: discuss concerns, fist-to-five, discuss if there are still concerns, final vote with thumbs up or down.

• Noted that for requests to pass everyone had to vote “yes” today because we only had five members present (five members is needed to make quorum).

• Jason presented current budget information for the start of the meeting: $7,180. For more details, please email him at jason.nusser@mail.sit.edu. He presented tables and graphs showing the breakdown of the budget (due to formatting issues, they could not be posted here).

• Heard requests from students (four requests in total). There were student representatives present for each request. After each request, SITSA had a chance to ask questions, and then, voting took place after all representatives left.

---Catalina Nieto and Cara Miller completed a Request Form to purchase art supplies for the Art Break on March 9 at 1:30 (during all-campus time). They listed prices for each item at their full cost; however, they intend to reduce costs as they go along and will likely need less money than they are requesting. Request was for $252.16.
*Request passed at $250.
*SITSA recommended that the artwork created is displayed more permanently, such as in a classroom.
*SITSA supports the idea of more visual art represented on campus.

---Amanda Jordan completed a Request Form to bring the Beehive Collective to campus on March 9 at 6:30pm. They are an artist group that creates social change with their work. Request was for $275.
*Request passed at $275.
*Note: This art event nicely balances the Art Break held earlier in the day.

---Wanna Crevecoeur completed a Request Form to purchase food and drinks for her Haiti Benefit for FOHRSE/Haitian Foundation for Social Rehabilitation. The event will take place on March 19 and is in its planning stage. She intends to send SITSA more information by email about the organization. The request was for $200.
*Request passed for $200.

---Stephanie Wilks-Leite completed a Request Form to bring guest speaker, Omar Sierra, from the Venezuelan Consulate in Boston. The event will be held on March 10, at 6:30 and go until 8:30. They will show a movie and then have a discussion. The name of the movie is "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Request covered basic transportation, dinner, and hotel totaling $115.
*Request passed at $115.

• Total of $835 from proposal requests passed.

• SITSA decided on a new voting method for small requests. All proposals $200 and under may be submitted online and voted on via the SITSA mailing list.

---If the proposal is less than $100, two people must respond in favor of the proposal for it to pass.

---If the request is above $100 and no more than $200, three people must respond in favor of the proposal for it to pass.

---Responses must be made in a timely manner or else jurisdiction will be left up to Jason, the SITSA Treasurer.

---If anyone is highly against any given proposal, they can table the vote, such that it will become an agenda item at the next meeting.

• SITSA would like to offer a Co-President Position to a new January student if there is interest among them. Matt will get the email information necessary to send out a notice from Deb. We will ask January students to send their selected Representative (they are responsible for selecting their own person). SITSA believe that this will help with continuity and true representation of students’ interests.

• Matt requested fifteen minutes to discuss his event at the next meeting. This time will be towards the start of the next meeting. SITSA members would like further details sent to them ahead of time by email (e.g. names of speakers, dollar amounts, partnerships, names of students involved, etc.)

• It was noted that the Request Form was never handed in for the Halloween Dance as previously requested by SITSA members.

• SITSA has interest in supporting the MAT Dance. Decision regarding this will be made at the next meeting.

• Next meeting will be Friday at 12:30pm (room to be decided -- contact your department SITSA Representative for this information if needed). At this meeting, we anticipate voting on large requests that students on campus have mentioned one-on-one to individual SITSA members. Also, Co-Presidents for SITSA, if you cannot attend the meeting, but are currently on campus (i.e. not away because you are part of MAT), please remember to send out an all group notice via the mailing list as soon as possible.