At their seventh general meeting of the semester, the 53rd student senate received a visit from a City Year student representative and went over their goals list.
During his report, Student Association (SA) President Terrell Coakley said he wanted to make it the duty of the next SA president to hold mandatory forums with the Executive Board and president cabinet so “students can have a better rapport with the administration.”
He said he’s working on a proposal to receive a $10,000 grant from SUNY central so that students at SUNY New Paltz can have several forums, like the “Can We Talk About it?” forum last semester.
Coakley, in his report, mentioned President of Resident Hall Student Association (RHSA) Ranysha Ware and how she felt students should be informed of on-going events that concern student safety on campus. Ware mentioned desensitization to email alerts.
Coakley also talked about the water fountain incident that occurred last semester in his report.
“The reason why the cops haven’t made an official statement is because the cops pretty much know who did it,” Coakley said. “But all the evidence is circumstantial, they can’t really prove it.”
He said the cops have been trying to handle this the best way they can. He also said because the evidence is circumstantial, the courts won’t pick it up.
SA Executive Vice President Eve Stern prefaced her report by urging members of the student senate to help increase diversity by stepping outside of their comfort zone and attend programs that they normally wouldn’t attend.
“Programs on our campus are extremely separated,” said Stern. “It’s never the group that should be educated [at programs].”
In her report, Stern said she and Vice President of Programming Laneesha Bacchus will be meeting with Steven Deutsch, the Executive Director of Campus Auxiliary Services, to go through a “long list of concerns” regarding the food services.
She also mentioned that meeting with University Police Chief David Dugatkin and they have decided that working on the relationship between officers and students is tricky. She thinks it’s important for students to be educated about how to protect themselves and how the process works.
She said she is thinking about hosting an event in collaboration with the Black Studies
Department which would involve a roundtable discussion between students and police officers on campus.
Vice President of Finance Youssouf Kouyo gave a report regarding the general programing balance, which was around $4,000. The legislative body motioned to move $15,364 into the general programming account. Kouyo said that the $15,364 came from a few areas. About $6,000 of that money came from a research grant that Vice President of Academic Affairs and Programming Ayanna Thomas said will not be used this semester. Kouyo said $1,364 of that money was sitting in Budget and Finance Committee’s (BFC) unapproriated funds account and wasn’t going to be used and $8,000 was available after the resignation of a radio employee.
Second-year sociology major Deborah Walnicki visited senate to tell them about City Year, a government funded organization that offers young adults between the ages of 17 to 24 a full-time job opportunity to work in inner-city schools as tutors and mentors. She said she is also trying to make SUNY New Paltz the first give-a-year program where the school will help pay students loans if they participate in this program.
They also talked about placing printers in every residence hall which is spearheaded by Sen. Ramelle Liverpool. She said according to Vice President of Student Affairs Linda Eaton, installing printers in the residence halls is in the works for this summer.
The next senate meeting will take place Tuesday, March 27, at 8:45 p.m., SU 418.