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Agenda

Tuesday March 3^rd, 2009

6:30 p.m. Mills Library

I. Call to Order

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III. Special Business

• Off-campus housing process with Dean Wiltgen
• All current students should have received an e-mail. If you wish to live off-campus, you need to submit the application by Friday to Dean. There are a limited number of students who can live off-campus. Historically, there have been limitations depending on allotment. All special needs persons will be first and all the rest will be based upon lottery number. Wait list will be dealt with in order.
• If think you want to apply for off-campus and are really unsure of what you want to do, go ahead and apply. If you change your mind later and decide you would rather squat your room, you can always give up your off-campus privileges.
• If you miss the selection for apartments, whatever is available when you come back is what you’ll get.
• Holler at Dean if you have any further questions or suggestions.

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IV. Announcements and Constituent Concerns

• New service spot in the Couch/Martin circle?
• Glass recycling is no longer available at ���ϲ�����. Leadership fell through and housekeeping did not appreciate the glass lying around. Senate purchased the bins though…
• Why can’t we always have chocolate chip cookies? They are just so popular—first come first serve. Sorry!
• Why do we still have strawberry ice cream?
• Martin boys who complain about the outside lighting should think about investing in a curtain or some other window covering.
• There are about three computers that do not function in the DW lab.

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V. Departmental Liaison Reports

• The WAC forum (“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”) has been moved to this Thursday 12-1. Come with your complaints/praises about the WAC so we can see how to make it better.
• Loyd Ryan will be met with this week.

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VI. Committee Reports

• Elections Commission
• Filing opens after this meeting; ends Sunday that we come back from Spring break. Monday night there will be a meeting about the campaigning rules and etc. Speeches will be the next Monday.
• If you want to help with elections commission, holler at Mac.
• Sam Nichols and online voting—no way to design electronic instant run-off voting like we normally do on paper. ASGA offers a year service (a cost of over $1000) of an electronic instant run-off voting that would take pressure off of elections commission and could be used by any organization (not to mention—SAVE TREES!). This online voting would place computers in the Burrow for students to vote.
• Shirttails Serenade Committee with Ken Yang
• E-mail your hall council and tell them they need to start choosing their choreographers. March 17^th deadline.
• Week of April 12^th: choreographers will tape their dances
• Following week: committee will meet and approve/disapprove their dance��
• Environmental Concerns Committee with Wendell Cathcart and Katherine Roehm
• The Tuesday Burrow Cup event last week was great! Thanks for passing the bill to subsidize the new cups. There will be some ongoing money issues though.
• The week we get back from spring break—screen print on recycled cotton grocery bags!��
• Media Committee with Fraser Holmes
• Profile comes out tomorrow! Includes a really sweet interview with Dr. King
• Yearbook is meeting right now.
• If you have photos you want to the troubadour to consider, send them to troubadour@hendrix.edu.��
• Multicultural Development Committee with Ronni Laizure
• Black Voice was last Friday night. Amazing event. Set team was great. Several spectators from the Conway community.
• DAO (Diversity Acceptance Openness) Week March 23-27. Diversity related activities from many different campus organizations, Student Activities, and Res Life. Holler at Ronni if you’d like to help!
• Social Committee with Jake Eddington
• Ronnie Jordan, comedian, will be here tomorrow night at 8:30 pm in the Burrow!!!
• Trivia Night, theme TBD. March 26 at 6:30 pm in the Burrow.
• Volunteer Action Committee with Larnie Campbell
• Invisible Children was a huge success! Between 100-200 in attendance, including faculty and staff members. Thanks to everyone who came! $300 was raised in the jars around campus. Step team was awesome, and so were the Damn Bullets.
• Thursday and Friday this week—shirt selling in sun porch!
• Committee on Residence Life with Mac Barnes
• Meeting with Sam Nichols about improvement of wireless internet connection among residence places of living.
• Recommend Bernice McMillan to help with CRL. Approved!
• Campus Kitty with Alex Graddy-Reed
• Parent mail-outs went out Monday. Tell your parents to buy you an all-events pass!
• Extra items that will be sold: bottle opener key chains, koozies, SLAP BRACELETS, etc.
• The invisible children that were set out to publicize VAC’s Invisible Children event will be auctioned off!
• If you want to perform at Red Light Revue, e-mail Izzy Whittington.
• If you would like to place an ad in the program, e-mail Carolyn Harder!
• CK Week is in 4 weeks (April 3-11)! The concert is in 3 weeks!
• Academic Policy with Samantha Bode
• Meeting Thursday!
• Can you suggest teachers to have little or no tests, or at least take it easy, during CK week? Please??? Thanks Sam!
• Student and Academic Concerns Committee with Samantha Bode and Jayce Hafner
• Certificate of Recognition for outstanding service in helping the Arkansas Highway Transportation Department maintain the beauty of Arkansas’ roadways through participation in the Adopt a Highway Anti-litter Program. High five Senate!
• CRC meeting Thursday.
• Financial Committee with Alex Graddy-Reed
• If you need money, ask!
• Food policy: if food is crucial to your event, it is very eligible for funding. If food is used as a mere attraction for attendance—not as eligible.
• Communications Committee with Kristi Vo
• Congratulations to Mac, Ruanda, Reena, and Annie for correctly guessing this week’s senators correctly! They each received a huge senate cup and 5 Burrow Bucks.
• Met with Dawn in Dining Services today:
  -That veggie nugget and patty problem earlier was a manufacturing issue.
  -Burrow delivery service is probably a no-go.
  -High prices in the Burrow are set in such a way because they are. The burrow really makes no profit, and if an item is priced too high (i.e. Red Bull $4.25), it is probably due to inflation to cover other items like chicken strips or other items more frequently bought.
  -The pickles that are normally placed behind the peanut butter will be relocated so pickle juice won’t be in your peanut butter.
• Senate wall is fixed. Please be courteous and do not write on or tear items on the wall.
• Committee on Committees with Will Green
• Meeting Mills C Thursday, March 5 to discuss committee service opportunity—people will be asked to sign up if interested
• Executive Committee with BJ Fogleman
• Met with Dr. Cloyd yesterday about how economic crisis is affecting the college. You are highly encouraged to talk with Mark Bandre if this will affect your circumstances and family.����

VII. Unfinished Business

• Southwestern Energy: Where do we go from here?
• Will not fully be under Senate to give flexibility, but they are asking for Senate support. A letter was presented and a constituent concern about the letter was read.
• We are part of the ���ϲ����� community and we should not deny the bigger community this opportunity. We don’t want them here [on our campus] overall though.
• It is not our role to interpret the statement of purpose? It is though.
• Further discussion/comments:
• Alex: As the Senate, our job is to represent the student body as a whole. It represents environmental concern and providing the community with more jobs. As such, we cannot support the moral of this letter for the entire student body.
• Jacob: We do have an obligation to uphold the students who do agree. We aren’t displacing the community’s needs by saying we don’t want it on ���ϲ����� property.
• Alex: But that view is not the majority of the students’ opinion.
• Jacob: You have to trust out judgment—that’s why we were elected.
• Chance: If the letter claims to represent the student body, that’s the senate. We should support it. This is a chance for the senate to champion an issue that most students are for. Does most of the student body feel the same way about this? The junior class is probably definitely all in (based on responses), but there is probably much apathy as well. Suggests a list of names of people who don’t want Southwestern here, but not necessarily support the letter.
• Jake: in a way he agrees with Chance because the Senate represents him, not just someone writing a letter. He came here to get an education—not to challenge administration. He really thinks they want to help us and do what is best for us.
• Becca: just opposed to the idea that the company is coming to our campus. These decisions were almost really not made by ���ϲ�����. It’s like the neighborhood across the street. And as for advocating making decisions—we vote here every day—we need to take into consideration all aspects. Something like this may be outside of our function (function of the Senate), so we need to be cautious. She has received constituent concerns encompassing: If we’re against oil/natural gas, we need to remove the Murphy House—can’t eat our cake and have it too/have our cake and eat it too?
• Mac: doesn’t want people to name drop. He had a personal conversation with Scott Schallhorn today. He made this decision as a businessman for the best interests of the college. Please don’t bash him for this decision. You may not agree with his decision, but that’s your opinion.
• Ronni: Although she does not want Southwester here either, she would not sign her name if she saw this letter being sent to them. What we are challenging is not wholly about Southwestern Energy. It is about transparency. Just maybe. If over 50% of students are not comfortable with this letter being submitted to Southwestern Energy, she is opposed to sending it. She applauds the energy and passion of the letter, but she just does not feel comfortable signing it.
• Larnie: check out Mac’s [neutral] article in the profile (coming out tomorrow) to perhaps answer some of your questions.
• Alex: If we are against Southwester Energy coming, we can shape them/“���ϲ�����cize” them. We can have them endorse sustainability projects and see that they are on our side.
• Wendell: in reference to Jake’s response—when does blind faith really affect anyone? The job of senate is to represent what your constituents have to say. There are many arguments underlying the issue. If these were laid out, then maybe people would feel differently.
• Jake: I do have faith in this institution. I trust them to make decisions for me. It is okay to question them, but you have to know that they know what is best for you.
• Chance: I believe in sending a letter that says “Attached is a list of ���ϲ����� students who oppose your presence.”
• Will: We need to be clear about our issues. If part of the issue is transparency, senate’s role, etc—these are all different and need to be addressed separately. There are contracts that have been signed, the decision has been made. If we are going to take an ideological stance, take a stance for the community—a strong stance. The letter needs major revision.
• Corey: not too many [Martin] people are pissed off about Southwestern, they just want better transparency. He will not support this letter. Why not pump it through e-mail to students and see who wants to sign it?
• Becca: Like Alex said, we’ve got all this energy—if we put it into making ���ϲ����� more sustainable instead of keep buying and buying renewable things—we should focus more on our campus instead of the corporate entity.
• Jacob: Displacing Southwestern Energy to another place—we don’t want it at ���ϲ����� because it causes unique problems to our community that it may not cause to another location. The letter is saying, with your company’s goals, it conflicts with ���ϲ�����’s goals. We’re not passing it off for it to be someone else’s problem. Some goals that are conflicting: sending interns into this company when the company has done specifically bad things in the past, etc.
• Chance: It’s in our mission statement to meet the ecological needs of our time—this company creates cognitive dissonance. At ���ϲ�����, we have the opportunity to stop this.
• BJ: Transparency problem is no longer an issue. We don’t have all the information. We are not in the position to judge the kinds of investments our college makes. The board wouldn’t come and say we shouldn’t give money to ECC since the burrow cups are not the direction we want to go. We don’t have a feasible alternative solution right now. I don’t like it, a lot of students don’t like it—but at the end of the day—is this the fight we should be having? Should we be demanding ���ϲ�����cization of them instead? He’s afraid this letter is going to fail and that we may possibly be taking the wrong mode of action.
• Ronni: It is difficult to separate the ideology—something that needs to be considered is the way it will affect you as a ���ϲ����� student, or the community at large, etc. We need to know exactly what we are fighting for.
• Jayce: in response to Will—we are responding to the bigger community by doing this. It is a symbolic action to not welcome them on our campus. Since I am a student, it is not necessarily my place to question the administration. However, this is our community, this is real.
• Dan GR—he agrees somewhat on not sending the letter although he helped form it in ways. He believes that senate should not support until the majority of students agree. We asked the company to not come here but go somewhere else—if we are going to claim to have moral and ethical support, we can’t brush it off as someone else’s problem. The environment is everyone’s responsibility.
• Ruanda: her constituents are pretty much evenly split—half don’t want, half don’t care. Part of the reason she doesn’t believe students should have a say against the decision is because many are ignorant (as in, not having all of the information).
• Hey! A FAQ site will be up soon about Southwestern Energy. Where are we getting out information from that makes us so against this company? Real evidence—always need to back up our arguments.
• Fraser: we have a lot of organizations that do a lot of good. If you agree with Lilly—there is a fundamental disrespect since that company took over pharmaceutical drugs. It would be short-sided of us to ignore the benefits that may reap since we disagree ideologically.
• Lydia: This decision is not only affecting me—it’s affecting Conway.
• Is the contract done? There are a lot of details being worked out. Sorry, we don’t know the answer for sure.
• Becca: educationally it comes back to us—eventually the money will always come back to us (i.e. getting that Asian professor they wanted a few years ago, etc). If this really is an ideological stance, why not write to Log Cabin Democrat Gazette?
• Will: if we are going to send a letter, it is in the best interests of this body and the relationships we have with the administration—we need to remove “student body” and it cannot be sent on behalf of the student body. There are many of students on this campus who are opposed to a letter like this. If we put this same energy into influencing Southwestern Energy (like Alex was talking about), we do have it in our power.
• Mac: makes a motion to deny putting Senate’s name on the letter.
• Senate will not put its name on this letter.

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VIII. New Business

• Chance: “Give the ring to Gondor!” If you think you can influence this company, keep in mind that this is the company you oppose. Based on our discussion, senate is not ready to handle this. It will be dealt with outside of senate.
• Karla: there are nights in senate when you are brilliant. Even though you may not agree, but Jim and Karla are proud of us for having these conversations. Friday and Saturday night’s basketball game also exemplified the energy of ���ϲ����� students. The ���ϲ����� spirit is really great.
• Karla has 4 tickets to Conway’s Chamber of Commerce dinner that will happen Thursday night. Starts at 7, ���ϲ����� will have a table. Let Karla know if you are interested in going!
• Mac: he asked Scott what is happening to Harkrider. There is going to be a median, a few more roundabouts, and an underpass. Just FYI.
• Please don’t walk along the construction.

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VIX. Adjournment until March 17^th, 2009

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Clean up: Martin, Hardin, Couch

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