The Brick PSGA Blog 2

<p>This week’s PSGA Senate meeting was called to order, though the attendance of the senators was quite sparse. Only enough senators required for the meeting to begin showed up. One or two stragglers arrived as the minutes for last week were being ratified.</p>
President Jon Stromberg started off executive reports by announcing that the Civic Action Committee, which he heads, will meet every Thursday at 1:30 p.m. in the PSGA conference room in CCN. The first major issue the committee intends to tackle is the installation of new security cameras around campus. Stromberg has stated in the past that security cameras are a big concern of his and that he hopes to come to a compromise with the school on the issue. He also plans to introduce a Public Arts Committee, which will be a subset of Civic Actions.
Antonio Commisso (CoS) briefed the senators on the progress of a number of happenings. He, along with Emily Farrell (COCOAS), are putting the finishing touches on a presentation for a proposed uniform Non-Discriminatory clause within SUNY student governments’ constitutions for the SUNY Student Assembly Fall Conference next week in Binghamton. The PSGA website is scheduled to be up in Beta form by Thanksgiving and fully operational by the beginning of next semester. Commisso is now accepting proposals for senator initiatives.
Farrell was next to give her report. Since last meeting the Dance Dance Revolution Club and the Italian Club have been declared official. The Service board, she said, has decided to once again resume their “quest” for media insurance. Last year there was a nearly-successful attempt to insure PTV and the other Purchase media services, until the insurer-to-be visited PTV’s website and found pictures of their interns giving the camera the middle finger. The insurer pulled out. Farrell has since decided that any insurer Purchase services would agree to work with must be open to freedom of expression and she intends to be very up-front about that. The task, she insists in her report, is “kind of arduous but I’m ready to start fighting the good fight.”
Caitlin Christian-Lamb, Coordinator of Finance, has lots of paperwork.
The Coordinator of General Programming, Neil Fridd, and Alaina Stamatis, Major Events Coordinator, go shopping together. When not sifting through racks of hand-me-downs at thrift stores, the two have been hard at work promoting their shows around campus. Fridd assembled an onslaught of shows in the Student Center and the Co-op over the week in anticipation of Stamatis’ Fall Fest on Friday, a fun and sweaty time. This Thursday Fridd will be showing Evil Dead at Theater X at 7 p.m. for his zombie themed movie night. So far his General Programming Committee meetings have been struggling with “lamesauce” turn-outs with only two senators showing up regularly. They are every other Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the PSGA conference room.
On the agenda for the meeting time had been set aside to discuss a motion sponsored by Steven Sabel (Outback) to draft a letter to the administration denouncing the new security cameras around campus. The next topic on the agenda was the presentation of nominees for the vacant Theater Arts and Film Senate seat, which was previously filled by Stromberg who was last week ratified as the new PSGA President. Sabel, though, made a motion to delay the discussion until the issue of the vacant Senate seat had been addressed and his request had been granted. Sabel later decided to first bring his proposal to the Civic Action Committee whose first order of business will be discussing the security cameras.
When the Theater Arts and Film (TAF) seat had been officially opened for nomination an email was sent out to all students in the relevant conservatories. One student responded and submitted a statement to the Senate: Sam Jaffe, former PSGA president-elect. “Hi guys, I’m Sam” he began, opting not to read from his statement. “You may have seen me in such Senate meetings as last week and the week before and the week before that… I was elected president but that didn’t really pan out.” In his statement he outlined his main concerns such as “student/campus security vs. our campus not becoming an episode of “Big Brother,” more access to the TAF buildings during the nights so music students can practice when they want, film students can edit, and actors can… rehearse?”
As for questions from the Senate it seemed there was only one concern: whether or not Jaffe’s status as a Persona-Non-Grata and a student in poor disciplinary standing conflicted with the policies of the administration. Stromberg was quick to point out that there was no explicit conflict with the PSGA constitution and Jaffe sitting on a non-executive PSGA seat. However, he said, that according to the constitution, with students who are “non-compliant with college policy,” there are grounds for removal from any PSGA position but that “college policy” is not specifically defined, and it is up to the Signatory Authority, not the Senate, to check the disciplinary status of Senators. There was talk of amending the constitution to omit that line but such a process would first go through the Steering Committee and then to the Senate for ratification. Unsure if the Signatory Authority has ever stepped in, many of the Senators discussed the possibility that it may happen this time with Jaffe back in the Senate. Jesse Mclaren (Alumni Village), among others, expressed uneasiness with the thought, considering, as he pointed out, a number of current Senators have been, in the past, on disciplinary probation. A sudden stepping-in of the administration could drastically affect many of the sitting Senators and the composition of the students’ elected PSGA representative body.
The Senate then agreed to deal with the issues if and when it comes up. For now though, they would appoint Jaffe, which was a unanimous decision, to the seat of TAF Senator.
Before the meeting wrapped up Gabriel Foreman (Commuter) expressed an interest in a fund-raiser for the Co-Op which had been recently broke into and robbed of about $100. He also pointed out that the security camera in the Co-Op doesn’t work. In a campus-wide email sent out on Monday, October 15, Foreman described how someone smashed in to the room and hacked out the safe with a buzz saw. Gabe went on to remind everyone that they “make approximately ZERO dollars off selling 25 cent coffee and snacks to the campus community. Our employees are volunteers and all the money is reinvested in more food.” The Co-Op hopes to collect enough donations from students to make future food orders.
Meeting adjourned.