UC General Minutes 11/02/08

Sunday, November 2, 2008, 7:00pm Harvard Hall 104
Harvard University – Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Minutes

I. Officer Updates
a. President
i. Information Updates
1. Student Faculty updates will be posted on the blog
2. This week will be a massive information update campaign
b. Vice President
i. Mather special elections going on soon
ii. Rules will meet this week
c. Treasurer
i.
d. Secretary
i. we re-registered as a student organization
ii. hazing policy later
II. Committee updates
i. legislation from SAC
ii. event calendar: some movement in that direction
b. amnesty policy, ATM in the quad—we have people working on those issues
c. No SAC meeting in honor of election day
d. first CUE meeting on Wed.
e. mental health planning meeting
f. SAC had a fun happy hour on Thursday
g. Ficom
i. smaller grants pack
III. For the Good of the Council
a. Cable Proposal (Matt Sundquist)
i. a round of negotiations about cable proposals
ii. many proposals fell, new ones involving sling boxes from Buffalo, NY run through Harvard ethernet
iii. 55-60 dollars per month plus front end costs of the installation
iv. FAS IT, bastions of forward lookingness (sarcastic), decided that they would block it from coming in because they could block wherever they thought the cable would come in from
1. cite: undue traffic over the ethernet would clog access to the internet
2. FAS IT doesn’t want to be seen as not providing a service that has been available to most colleges since 1970s
v. Randall and Matt are only helping Nick Castein, this is not a UC-sponsored initiative
vi. had it gone forward, we might have gotten an interesting discussion
vii. up until this point we were just lending him support, but it’s always been nebulous and slow (SAC has been working on it for years)
1. Tamar has a question
a. very detailed, but who wrote it?
i. Matt: ongoing process many individuals involved. at this point, it’s dead in the water.
2. Papa: is there any way we can address their concerns (FAS IT)?
a. Randall: UIS and FAS IT are still discussing and we’re still waiting on responses. the reason people don’t want to hardwire all the hoses for cable are because of the coming house renovations.
b. Matt: a big part of the problem is that we have 1994 networks and they’re outdated.
3. Jack: what are we discussing?
a. Matt: we just wanted to bring people up to date on it because this is a hot-button issue
4. Tamar: FAS IT said no to the most recent proposal and the previous one?
a. Randall: they didn’t explicitly say that they would block it, but they implicitly suggested it.
5. Eric M: Is there anyway to update the wiring system?
a. Matt: renovations in 40 years, so no.
6. Zags: the yard won’t be covered by house renewal
a. Matt: the houses were never renovated, whereas the Yard has been renovated recently
b. Hazing policy
i. long discussion quoted from the agenda
c. Randall
i. attendance warning for George Hayward
ii. motion to vote to appoint Tamar and Michael Regalie to sit on the election commission
1. requires a 2/3 vote
2. unanimous consent
iii. rules for presidential election will out this week, and there will be a campuswide house posting
iv. Matt is a jerk to Papa for a moment
IV. Question Period
a. Papa: are minutes public?
i. yes
b. Lisa: What’s the order of the construction of the houses?
i. Matt: Neo-Gerogian houses, Dunster first. Then the modern ones.
ii. houses will be renovated by the earliest constructed house on to the most recent
V. Comment Period
a. Eric M: 2 days until the election
i. Matt makes snarky comment
VI. Legislation
a. House Renewal Subcommittee Appointments Act
i. self-explanatory
ii. speaker opposed? none
iii. call to question
iv. unanimous consent
b. FiCom Grants pack
i. Sundeep: any questions?
ii. Jack Pararas: Baptist Asian Student eventàwhy so much money?
1. Randall: open to all students
2. Jack Pararas: Committee on College Life should advocate for the “eradication” of the Asian Baptist Students association, (a crude, unfortunate and unfunny joke—to say the least about it)
iii. Tamar: what is training day?
1. Jack: Can the UC pay for Bibles?
2. Sundeep: yes, because it’s materials necessary for the event, open to all undergraduates
iv. Papa: the Voice? is that one issue being covered?
1. we’re giving them $1000 because we decided to fund two issues since they are a weekly publication. it’s a new precedent
v. Jack: are we encouraging to get other kind of funding?
1. FiCom members: of course
vi. Tamar: how are we doing money-wise?
1. Sundeep: many events are worthy of funding
2. Tony: money wise, we’ve spent 23% of our Grants Fund, which is right on par with what we spent last year at the same time. we’re seeing a lot of increase in upfront funding, so we see more funding. we shouldn’t be too concerned.
vii. Alyssa: can someone explain what the criteria for being a publication is?
1. Sundeep: student group can be its own publication, and can start its own publication. as long as they are a publication.
2. the Voice is different because they publish ten issues
viii. Jack: what was the exact amount allocated for dummies for training day?
1. cited from grants pack extended
ix. Tamar: what’s the process for larger grants?
1. Lisa: some groups (eleganza and project east sometimes get far less than they request and have specific policies) but most groups are interviewed twice
x. Speaker Opposed? No
xi. Call to Question
xii. Jack objects to unanimous question
xiii. Vote: 25-0-2 (Jack Pararas and Doug Lloyd abstain)
c. Closing
i. House Renewal Survey—DO IT!!!! It’s the most important survey ever
ii. Adjournment