ASM/UW Roundup – Wherein I miss the biggest ASM implosion in recent memory

Alright folks, it’s been awhile and I’ve been falling behind. So let’s get this started with the obvious bit of business:

-The Student Activity Center Governing Board, in an attempt to remain impartial, created a system that was potentially more biased than before. I’m still trying to figure out the myriad of issues at this meeting and for that reason have filed an open records request for the recordings. I’ll let you know what comes up. But the straight and narrow of this seems to be this: They picked questions they knew the answers to after a previous series of questions were thrown out because of a VPN violation. There are two main problems with doing it that way:

• 1) If you are picking questions based on answers you’ve already received, you can pick the questions based on which groups answered them best. Which, would violate VPN. Of course, Nancy Lynch is there, so that’s unlikely. Still a problem.
• 2) If all decisions are based on how well each group answered the three questions, it essentially comes down to subjective rankings, which, as Templeton mentioned, means your decisions can hide bias behind the questions. Considering the fact that members we apparently just motioning to move the rankings around with no apparent reasoning, that’s probably an awful idea.

For those who didn’t see it, this got a lot of play on twitter, courtesy of Chynna Haas and a few others. Hell, they even created a hashtag: #SACFail. Unfortunately, former SACGB Chair Lauren Vollrath took Kurt Gosselin and others to task for dragging this out into a public forum in such a messy way.  (i.e. Twitter).

Here’s the thing: We wouldn’t have even known about this situation if Tom Templeton hadn’t sent out a press release telling everyone that nothing is wrong and everything will go fairly. When you’re that cryptic and it comes out of nowhere, you force the campus press to investigate.

As for the issue itself — rankings seem inherently subjective, so that probably was not the best way to ensure VPN. But that means the system will get stricter. And more nuanced. And more frustrating for many groups. Have fun with First Amendment case law, kids. You’re going to have a BLAST!

Hopefully I’ll be able to reconstruct this meeting  later in the week when I have the recordings and know what actually happened there.

-The other ASM news should have been more important: Conference Committee worked out the rest of the Internal Budget. Big ticket changes:

• Tenant support services were cut down from 50,000 to 40,000. The arbitrary number was originally decided upon by Rep. Erik Paulson, who was trying to give enough financial room to roam when the time came to send out Requests for Proposals to contract out these services. With the money, the state wouldn’t let them get past point A. This doesn’t kill the project but might limit ASM in who they can contract out with.
  • On a related note, they determined that if a plan isn’t hammered out by early May, they won’t allocate funding there. Good idea. Now who’s going to come up with a plan?
• Campus Organizer (that no one seems to know what to do with) remains cut. No changes there.
• Shared Governance gets deputies to help the Shared Gov. chair do his or her duties. A very important move since Shared Gov. has been reduced to appointments with no effective  policy arm.
• No $500 bucks for textbook swap that Zinn threw into the air in the closing minutes of SC. That’s good, because it didn’t sound justified either.
• And Freshman Rep. Max Love is angry about the fact that most of these changes occurred here. Don’t worry, I’m sure SC or SSFC will alter things again and we’ll go around in circles…For what it’s worth, Love has sent in an op-ed to us tonight and we’ll likely be printing it. I may post an excerpt later today when I post the first of many questionnaire responses.

-Speaking of SC members responding to my questions, so far, the following people have answered me: Adam Johnson, Rachel Bartz, Jonah Zinn, Kurt Gosselin, Erik Paulson, Alexandra Harris, Matt Manes, Grant Smith and TJ Madsen. Templeton has made plans to talk. The rest…well, I haven’t heard from yet. I’ll keep you in the loop.

-Ticket prices went up as well. Officially. We’re now middle of the Big 10 for tickets to football games. So there you have that.

ASM Live Blog – Student Council Special Session

Here we go: They need to get the internal budget and smaller ASM budgets passed tonight. Well, they don’t have to, but it’d be nice if they finished tonight.

–

8:55 – meeting starts in 5 minutes. Manes just wondered aloud if they’re going to make quorum. Hopefully, right?

8:58 – Carl Fergus handed out a registration form for the UC conference at the beginning of March. Free meal, right? Well, not if you’re a member campus. Then you have to pay 30 bucks for registration. Take that half of UW System!

9:03 – Rep. Sam Peters is incredibly ginger. Moreso than in print.

9:04 – Junger, Olikara and Hanley show up. Now we can start.

9: 06 – Called to order.

9:09 – Open Forum – Matt Manes – extremely disappointed on the SJ – discussion was too long and then you charged people 3,000 on an opinion. Nobody asked a damn thing to figure why they would change the budget. The only reasoning SEC gave was that elections were low turnout so they need more money. We are TAKING this money from students, so we better get it right. We need to decide if this is reasonable. I checked how much time we’ve spent on non-allocable. We’ve spent 5 hours a week on those budgets we don’t have control over. We have spent a lot of time on allocable budgets. We’ve already hashed these budgets out, so don’t set what those numbers are. Fergus extends discussion. If you disagree, don’t figure out what the number is THERE, send it to conference committee, we can’t have that now when we have a long list of items to discuss.

9:13 – Beemsterboer: Advertising, wasn’t it? Didn’t we hear that was more effective?

Manes – Yeah, didn’t we ask that?

Ingram – If SJ Chief didn’t want us to spend this money, why didn’t he change it?

Manes – Because he didn’t care.

Ingram – So let me get this straight: SJ didn’t take any time to do this, you did more research, but you didn’t offer any opinion on letting know why and now you want to condemn us. Does that sum it up?

Manes – No, it didn’t. I didn’t bring it up because its not the place to do it. Chief Justice didn’t spend the time do that, that’s why SSFC takes the time do that. We didn’t spend that time to discuss this on SC: It’s not a policy discussion, it’s a budget discussion. SSFC spent days and days debating and researching.

Bemis -Since money is there, do you think they’ll be a constructive way to use it?

Manes – don’t think they’re going to use it, they never used it. And that’s taken from students because you didn’t investigate why SSFC cut it. We didn’t spend much money on the kickoff and got tons of students.

Hanley – Do you think this body is supposed to apply budgets to policy?

Manes – we’re charged with making specific policies, we need to give it a thumbs up, not second guess what we do?

Hanely – if your main point is for SSFC is to effect budgets, student council is supposed to decide how it effects budgets. So shouldn’t council debate over how the budget is going to effect its policy.

Manes – It’d be great if you asked those questions instead of just voicing opinions. But I’m ending my time. We have important things to do.

9:20 – Max Love has the floor.

Love – We need to have some fruitful discussions.

Fergus has the floor – fill out your UC forms and come to these workshops! Lots of shared gov issues.

9:22 – Rep. Paulson has the floor.

I’m not going to address the SJ budget, but he’s missing the intent of SC. I want to talk about the tenant resources budgets that you cut, I’m not going to fight too hard for the money, I don’t expect to get it, but I’ll make an attempt anyway. There will be some specific comments that Williams and Fergus made, but they’re not too correct. Look at the blog posts, I sent out (one on Paulson’s site and one on Konkel’s)

9:24 – Heywood — What SSFC should be talking about is the end result, not the formula to reach this budget. Formulas will bind them in the formulas. Find whatever way they need, but know that any increase will be hard to reverse. If the changes do seem questionably high they should show us why based on a few factors rather than a formula. We don’t accept a formula as an explanation.

9:26 – Williams – explaining my way of discussing SSFC’s version of the internal budget. Got a little antagonistic, I understand the rationale for questioning up. But I’d like to open myself up to SSFC’s role, philosophy or use of stipend adjustments.

Gosselin – could you explain the rationale for the stipend formula?

Williams – The rationale behind it is making sure we’re not creating arbitrary standards. Try to figure out the chair workload, amount of time and the chances that they won’t have a second job and be able to do their job effectively. Here were going to set the certain opportunity costs…that all seems complicated – but basically, what does it take to be here and what are they losing by taking it.

Editors note about this discussion — this is such an small part of a budget that has a LOT to go through and this already has been fiercely debated. Paulson essentially says, why didn’t you do this before and send this up earlier? If the answer is we didn’t get to it… Here’s a question, why are we spending 30+minutes in open forum in a special meeting? You’ve got 2 and a half hours to pass SOMETHING. Move.

Paulson – SSFC’s role is advisory. We don’t pass it off for a rewrite, not to twiddle with policy. If you cut something, that’s changing policy!

Williams – You give us much more of an advisory role with almost all financial aspects of ASM…debate to have, but we’re 35 times out.

Fergus now pulls out his dick on SSFC issues and authority and Williams is admitting, yes, that’s what I was getting at…even though we DON’T have time and half the people don’t care. MOVE.

9:37 – Ingram – So, even if SC thinks there should be changes, SSFC shouldn’t abide?

Williams – there’s a role for SC to play, and SC has to establish a HIGH threshold to change it. We should be able to agree without a conference committee.

Beemsterboer – CLOSE Q and A – not germane.

Also, Koss is automatically removed.

Agenda is approved.

9:39 – reading and approval of minutes

Item on the agenda – SSFC budget.

Williams – Wanted to change on major changes – Chair, VC and SEC – increase salaries, decrease in advertising, no moving expenses. Also, the unallocated was changed because we had to take on expenses for paying for people working for GSSF groups. Any questions?

Beemsterboer – Total amount of tuition you expected and the salaries?

Williams - 9,330

Love - justification for the increase?

Williams – SSFC VC has to serve on SSFC and Bus Pass committee, bargaining for those contracts. Also does what Chair asks.

Love – how do you make the assertion that 4,000 is undercutting? Its left up to how you feel about how much they do the work? I don’t see how there’s a 75 percent increase in this. This position is now making 5000 dollars more in two years.

Williams – I think I have explained it.

Templeton – Advisor and Specialist both changed – why?

Williams - The specialist is paid based on their contracts, no role in that. The  SSFC advisor position is not actually seeing a raise due to state issues (really confusing??)

Gosselin – See if this is accurate. They used to hover around 3500, I moved to raise them to what was politically feasible, this is the fully formed idea that I wanted, but that’s what happened, right?

Williams – Loaded questions, but yes. I don’t want to arbitrarily set these again, only want to change these based on opportunity costs. So when you see an increase of VC salary by 75%, you see this as the full opportunity costs.

Paulson – does the role of VC change every three years with the Bus Pass contract? I assume that’s more work every three years?

Williams – the negotiation process is pretty lengthy, so there is more work.

Paulson – everyone know if the VC does MORE work than normal members?

Fergus – the SSFC VC has a big role in coming up with numbers, it depends on the VC, more of a personality thing.

VC Romenesko – Do you know how much this is if it was paid hourly?

Williams – I break down to 5.50 an hour, so VC is about the same.

Editor’s note – While I’ll go off on Zinn in a second for asking again about the fucking formula, but on a note to Gosselin and Romenesko, this whole “leading the witness” routine is so incredibly annoying. If you have something to say, you can bring it up during debate if its an issue, but…then again, that’s SC!

Zinn has asked for them to go through the formula again, and for some reason, we’re going through this again. It’s called opportunity costs, folks: What are you going to give up by doing this and how should you be compensated? If you really find this to be a Calculus problem and want to scrutinize that, you’re way off.

And listen — SSFC does TONS of work. If you want to question their ability to get this funding, I suggest you do it. Otherwise, debate whether these should be set at the tuition percentages we discussed, not the method for getting there. I don’t give a shit about how they got there, especially when I have had it explained to me 5 times.

OK. Let’s see if they’ve decided this yet.

9:58 – Love and Manes bitch over Robert’s Rules. Wonderful. Williams was asked what the actual duties are of the chair, vice chair and secretary.

Williams — I get a ton of emails all day, have to be here for coordinating council, have to defend SSFC in SJ, also hold 10 office hours, required in my job, actually comes out to about 20. Lots of other miscellaneous duties. VC is chaired with the GSSF calendar, Bus Pass Advisory board, handles negotiations, has to be at all meetings, also has meetings with admin in chair. Sec. deals with all files, goes to chancellor’s meeting, SSFC priorities in chancellors reports, other job titles.

Olikara asks a question that I missed (who, by the way, has a bit of Walter Chronkite style going on.)

Madsen – Stipends for SC members?

Williams – no.

Gosselin is doing his leading thing again about some nuanced trick to pass a bylaw. Heywood blocks him by saying his possible legislation might be impossible. Gosselin plays his tricks a bit further while Williams tries to explain, but says his move would effectively tell 17th session “Hey, we made your decision on budgets for you.”

10:05 – Debate

Beemsterboer: Meeting stipends must be included in these stipends, so we cut them a bit:  7864, 6,464 and 2,266 dollars, for Chair, VC and Sec.

Williams – If it were up to me, I’d set it at 100 percent of tuition. I think the workload is similar to the ASM chair and therefore its justified. Debate should be quick, should be back and forth on this matter.

Gosselin – I’m going to speak against this too. This salary is for out of meeting time, the stipends or for in meeting time. I’d argue that the SSFC chair on many occasions has to spend more time than the ASM chair on certain things, but we have to preserve the symbolism. Real nice Kurt.

Manes – I’m against this, but this is nitpicking. If it’s not reasonable, then don’t whip up numbers right now.

Paulson - I’m going to vote against this, I think SSFC’s numbers are reasonable enough and I’m not going to quibble with this.

Ingram - A lot of people get their work questioned, and you can’t take offense to people questioning the load of work. I don’t like the fact that I’m being asked to make a decision on a policy or on some bylaw changes right now…and I’m being told that I must set these costs for some bylaws that haven’t been set yet? Whether you agree with these numbers or not…I think these increases are too much. I have a hard time thinking that a 75 percent increase is justified. And as far as pinning it to tuition which goes up, that doesn’t work either, but people don’t get those sorts of increases. They get 3 percent increases. As far as I can see, this motion is still to be within the formula of the position, but any lowering would be good. If they think they need increases, it should be 3.5%

Moves to change salaries to 7038, 4140 and 2007. Hmm. OK.

Love – I’d agree. These stipend increase are being scooted through under bylaw guises.

Zinn makes some attempt to spread a point about other people who don’t get minimum wage. He’s told that’s untrue. Couldn’t hear him since he mumbles and is directly in front of me.

Manes – We’re doing the SAME THING again.

Whether to call the questions – goes.

Ingram’s motion – Fails.

Beemsterboer’s motion – Fails.

Back to the main motion. YAY!

10:22 — Call the question: Ingram motions for role call vote.

(checking to see if they need a majority or 2/3 vote) I’m not going to go over every vote.

17-3-0. SSFC passes.

Rep. Grant Smith seemed to have a sugar crash in the middle of the meeting. Chair Junger asks someone to get him a cupcake.

10:25 – SACGB budget. I’m not going to approach this the same way, I’ll update you if something happens.

10:37 – Just got back from downstairs, the hourly desk staff were asking if they were getting a raise. Ha.

Paulson – asked to add 2,000 for microphones in the meeting room. It might be a 30 dollar cable, I don’t know…if you don’t need 2000 dollars, great. But solve the problem so we can hear each other. I swear to god, the best gift I can give to my [edit] GRANDparents (Sorry!) are hearing aids – lets have hearing aids!

Gosselin – I think 2000 might be a bit much, but we should take care of it. Yes.

Beemsterboer — Dumb idea. If you can’t speak loud enough for people to hear, you have a cold or problem. Poor way of doing this. Let it be next year, but we should figure that out next year. Call the question.

Vote – all those in favor of adding 2,000 line item (Hell, even Love votes yes.)

Reaches 2/3 with Junger’s vote, so it’s good and in.

10:41 – Chair Zinn - These stipends are just too high. When students look at the amount of money they give themselves and added 15,000 for their own pockets it doesn’t look good and it isn’t necessary! Student volunteers don’t get paid to do what they do in ASM, so I think that you guys said it yourselves — its a guideline and so its still somewhat arbitrary. So SACGB to $5,486. Moved.

Manes - That’s exactly what I just said. You didn’t even ask her what her job description is and you make some other change. I don’t want to nitpick these budgets, SEND IT TO CONFERENCE COMMITTEE. I voted for the mics so that it gets solved in conference committee.

Williams – these kind of changes (Zinn and Paulson) shouldn’t be done here!

Tobelmann – I’m disappointed. We’re deciding if its reasonable, and I don’t think it is. But don’t use the logic of “you haven’t looked and discussed it that much.” We have the responsibility to do it.

Paulson – This is a big building, its been bigger than we’ve anticipated, its justified spending more on this position because you have to spend a LOT of time here, this one’s a harder job.

Ingram - I support Zinn’s amendment, I believe Congress has an increase in their pay automaticly every year, there’s always going to be debate, though. We’re taking money from students and paying ourselves. There are plenty of people who work on this campus that doesn’t get minimum wage, its set at a certain amount because that’s what it’s thought to be worth. To say that these are the only positions in this country or on this campus that are in this situation is not correct either. I support the 3.5 percent increase. We’ve given 1 percent increase to staff that they aren’t going to get…other people in the economy aren’t going to be getting any wage increase. But we can give increases to our stipends. Not the right time to do this.

Love – I can’t agree more.

Templeton – The reasoning for this is “Is the work worth the money?” I don’t do it for the money, some have to work for the money. I was going to tell a story, but I’ll share it later. I’ll yield.

Rep. Smith: Call the Question.

Vote on Zinn’s Amendment – fails.

Main motion – SACGB budget.

Manes – I don’t agree with 2,000 that was haphazardly put in there. Smith figured out it cost 600 bucks. Manes moves to move it to conference committee.

Ingram – what happens if we pass it with the increase?

Junger – goes to the chancellor.

Love – I seconded this to speak against it. Conference committee cannot be talking about this! Chair picks the people, conference committee should reserve when there is an absolute deadlock, I just can’t see why.

Paulson – what else are we going to talk about on this budget? Let’s just go!

This is all blurring together now. Getting woozy.  Manes is talking about Love being a hypocrite. Ugh. Move.

Gosselin calls the previous two questions.

Conference Committee fails.

SACGB budget passes.

Jesus. That isn’t done. SACGB is reconsidered to move to add a contractual amount of money to a custodial fee. Had to do it. Whoops. Jesus.

SACGB – NOW it passes.

That was incredibly painful.

11:03 – GSSF Budgets.

Paulson doesn’t like the powerpoint and thinks this is pointless, calls the question. Fails.

Williams – GUTS recently had a position that was partially removed because they can’t pay grad school tuition remission. GUTS now feels its going to be understaffed, so now they want to add a third PA position. If you think that’s enough to send it to conference committee, let me know.

Junger - If you are violating VPN, I’ll stop it.

Ingram – Can we get to Q and A? What is the precedence for something like this? Was this not fully fleshed out in their budget?

Williams – What happened is that they’d get the tuition remission, we removed it in anticipation that it would be in violation of UW policy. Precedent? No clue.

Zinn – What’s the status of CWC?

Williams – there’s no stake for them in this. We can make the chancellor know that they might be added later, but there’s not need to add them here.

Zinn – Any precedent?

Williams – Yes, RCF had it approved afterward.

Paulson – So, do you actually WANT us to do this? Is there a mistake in this packet that needs to be addressed?

Williams – my concern is that this blindsided the group. I was going to bring this in front of SSFC, but the presentation was long and so, here I am. I just thought it was appropriate to bring up.

Junger – Debate, I’m first – Darrell Bazzell was supposed to talk to me about this, but never called me back. I would push this back a week so we can have this get sorted out.

Gosselin – I disagree with the interpretation of the PA rule. I’m going to be honest, this is incredibly nuanced and requires me to look at F50. I’ll post a follow up tomorrow. I’m supposed to also be writing an ed board statement to kick Rec Sports in the ass for a silly quote, so I might be out for a bit. It’s only 100 words.

11:18 – well, that was quick. They referred the GSSF budget to conference committee. Now we’re on Williams with his presentation of their changes to the Internal Budget.

Williams – Finance Chair Beemsterboer recommended that the travel grants and events grants be reduced to move more to operations grant. The marks with travel grants are underused. So there’s that. He’s also looking at ways to make travel grants more appropriate.

Next, creative works fund is set for a fund that hasn’t really been established. We decreased it to an appropriate level because we don’t know how many people will make use of it.

Student disabilities funding has been completely underutilized, so we cut that down.

Stipends – We’ve laid it out in this percentage based system. Based on the work we thought they were doing. In job duties, the VC has less responsibilities directly outlined, even if he does a bunch on his own. (That doesn’t really square with your SSFC stipend statements, but whatever. Logic is a funny thing.)

Cut the general travel to 7500.

The Textbook swap wants new equipment for labels, software and Zinn can speak to that and Madsen.

The Tenant (WHATEVER YOU WANT TO LABEL THIS, IT’S JUST NOT STRC OR STU, OKZ?) was zero funded, but there didn’t seem to be a clear plan for the money. If you look at the money we put in for the tenant ratings website, but it still hasn’t been used, and THAT was put together hastily (more on that later.)

Proposed budget is 1.5 % increase, but real budget decrease with financial adjustments that HAD to happen.

Zinn – why isn’t the Chief of Staff a stipend position rather than hourly?

Williams – well, it’s not elected, so they have to show up to get paid.

Bemis – Why wasn’t the sec stipend included in the tuition method?

Williams – Sec would have been nice to increase, but the committee felt it didn’t need an increase.

Manes – Even though the secretary stipend wasn’t changed it, do you still forsee bylaws coming forward to tie that to tuition?

*Campus Organizer Position Alert*

Manes – Why’d you skip that CO position alert.

Williams – I’ve never seen a group more committed to finding a correct answer on that position. I have the info collected on that position here. All members received this info, there’s about 50 pages here pertaining to the job duties, past considerations of whether it was necessary as well as convos about the intern project, memos from ODOS about it, everything about the position. The debate was long, but the result was to overwhelmingly to leave it out.

Love – What was the justification though?

Williams – there’s always consideration of “this is really not effecting students, but our organization.” Was this position absolutely necessary for this organization. The conclusion was absolutely not. The one abstention that spoke vocally said it should be left to student council.

Love – How long, in the meeting was this debated and why is your position more important than the committee founded to discuss this.

Well, 26 minutes left to pass this budget. And we’re not at debate.

Zinn – So, back to chief of staff. Can you show me the job description of that?

Williams – No.

Zinn – in terms of the disabilities fund, many students came in and said that was useful, can you explain why you thought those reasons weren’t sufficient?

Williams – there was no indication of more money being spent from that fund.

Manes explains what details are in the packet again. Lots of info from all interested parties. Have to get a copy.

Olikara – So, you argued we can’t have everything. But we’re trying to see things we NEED to have, I assume creative works is needed, other items, could you elaborate?

Williams – It was done in the interest in fiscal responsibility, essentially.

Johnson, Martenzie - (I can’t hear a damn thing.)

Zinn – Can you go over again why certain chair stipends were increased? Come on Zinn. We have 18 minutes here. Plus, we’ve been debating stipend fundings all night and agreed that we can’t agree on a damn thing. Either move forward or stop wasting time.

Ugh. I needed to bring three sodas.

Johnson – moves to end Q and A. Pass. Debate.

Paulson – amend the budget to restore creative works fund, restore original stipends and Tenant services. I think the creative works project budget needs to have at least 5,000 to see if its valid to have that much funding, the SSFC version is too small.

Creative works funds restore fails. OK. I think. Correct me?

Fergus tries to speak, can’t.

Paulson – Move them back so we don’t have to debate this issue right now! Send the numbers we looked at last semester. Restore.

Vote on stipends. Fails.

Paulson – Tenant services. This is important because housing is vitally important, need to assist students in housing. Stop saying there is no plan, there is a plan. We can’t do any of the RFPs, contracting, etc until we have a budget. Carl, stop spinning it. We’re writing a contract, we did this with RCC!

Williams – this is already available through TRC, its not closed to them!

6 Minutes!

Templeton – I’d like to see this happen.

Manes – this is EXACTLY what we should be doing. This HAS to be done this way. It’s worth it.

Vote: 12-6 with Junger in favor.

11:57 – Bookswap needs 500 bucks. Minutes left – 2.

11:59 – They’re debating whether they can…who knows. Williams speak. This thing isn’t gonna get done tonight. Thanks a lot kids.

12:00 – Motions carries. Adjourned as stands.

Well. That was…confusing for a lot of you, I’m sure. I’ll try to provide a layman’s version tomorrow. Sorry if you read this, because my wrists died for your entertainment.

MIU proposals – A quick spreadsheet for your viewing pleasure

Well, it appears the Herald article got the numbers of some of the budgets wrong: What appeared in the article were the “submitted” budgets, but this spreadsheet lays out edits and proposed amended budgets. Take a look, it’s certainly interesting. When I have a spare moment to post an update going over it all, I’ll let you know.

Just a few quick notes:

• The advising proposal seem to be getting the treatment Templeton had mentioned before — cull all the advising proposals, make it comprehensive and give it a $1.5 million price tag. Good job.
• Almost all the proposals have had a good amount hacked off the cost and funding to try and include more programs. Again, still over the budget of the first round…
• Journalism School Proposal? ranked 78. But Information Studies and a Digital curriculum is fairly high. So we’re moving toward convergence, eh?
• Despite the advising proposal round up, one looks like it got through — some specific advising program and services for big social sciences programs. Hmm.

Also, this pdf only displays the top 31…I’ll get the rankings of the others up after class, hopefully.

ASM/UW Wednesday round-up

Well, I know there’s been a lack of really significant updates to this site, so I’m going to start trying a weekly breakdown of ASM and UW links and updates in hopes of generating some extra conversation. There’s actually a lot going on  this week, so let’s get right to it.

• Most important: MIU Proposals were submitted to Biddy…but they only knocked down 114 to 31. Furthermore, it seems that they edited some of the proposals to try and accommodate a wider range of interests. Unfortunately, Martin accepted all the proposals, we’d go over budget this round. So back to the drawing table, I guess.
  • The Cardinal deserves a mention here, because they highlight the biggest chunk of these proposals: An E-Learning Center. Here’s the actual proposal, if you’re interested. Just for clarification, the proposal, if approved, would not eat up all the MIU money set aside for this round, since the over $6 mil price tag is over the course of a few years, but it would eat up around half, it seems. But it’s quite hard to separate the money for different segments of funding in some of these cases.
• WARF has appointed a new CFO/COO. He’s the old CFO of American appliances and served on a bunch of non-profit boards. Is it just me, or does this guy seem a little under-qualified to be managing the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation? The old CFO had a lot of experience in federal contract industry and dealt with much larger financial matters than a regional electronics and appliance retailer. Meh. Maybe I’m just paranoid. He sounds a little nervous, though.
• Special session of ASM tonight to try and take one more crack at the internal budget. They only have three hours tonight, so let’s hope they at least knock out some of this stuff significantly. I’ll be there live blogging, so bring your popcorn (if you’re as boring as I am.)
• The Union Council are being children about the naming contest. I mean, it certainly isn’t a big deal in my mind who actually sets up the committee that chooses the final names, but the Union Council’s post here also indicates they find themselves completely independent of ASM in all decisions (which is why that building project went forward as soon as they announced their intentions, right?) and only granted them seats on Union Council because they’re such nice guys. Gag me with a spoon. Gosselin is pretty annoyed by it all. And rightfully so.
• I’ve started sending out questionnaires to ASM members that asks some pretty basic, reflective questions on what they think of themselves. I’ll post the first one later today. So far about 9 or so members out of the 28 or so members that have no resigned or been sworn in at the last meeting have gotten back to me.
• An updated attendance list, courtesy of Kurt Gosselin. Stitgen and Koss are gone — Stitgen resigned after the last meeting of the semester, apparently. Koss just got kicked off for missing too many meetings. Hoyt is on the bubble.
• This story came up last week and we did an awful follow up on it, but I wanted to point out something here:

With the spring Text Book Swap in the past, the Associated Students of Madison’s Academic Affairs is working to increase its efficiency through increases in security and new technology.

According to Academic Affairs Chair Jonah Zinn, 400 students participated in the spring Text Book Swap — approximately 1 percent of the University of Wisconsin student population.

Because students pay with cash, Zinn said it is dangerous to have so much money lying around during the swap.

In the past Text Book Swaps, a police officer has escorted ASM Text Book Swap volunteers with the cash box back after leaving, but there has never been security at the Text Book Swap.

“What we’d like ideally is a cop. We just really want someone with a presence,” Zinn said, who estimates hiring security for the Text Book Swap would be costly.

There have not been issues with security in the past, save a few books that have been unaccounted for.

• • So, you have a police escort to and from, but you want security that will be costly for situations that have never arisen. Yeah, I suppose its always better to be safe, but whats a security guard going to do that a few volunteers from ASM couldn’t?

The Madness of Campus Women’s Center

I’ve written a few times about Campus Women’s Center in editorials or strongly worded e-mails between friends. I have no issue with the organization itself — I’m sure it can probably justify its funding next time around and put together a list of great services for students on campus.

However, as has been laid out many times in our news articles, they lost their case. They came up short in requirements for funding. They admitted to having exactly 50 percent of direct services when they needed 51 percent. And they may not have even had that by some member’s calculations. Every estimate they brought to SSFC was based on random fractions and guesses as to total time spent on certain duties. It was a haphazard presentation and SSFC humoured it a lot longer than they were obliged to. But in the end, Campus Women’s Center were denied funding through GSSF funds.

Now, while I side with SSFC on this one, I recognize that this is an issue of strict adherence to the rules. There’s no wholesale confusion over what their services are or whether what they do constitutes a direct services like CFACT. They just fell short. And for that reason, I feel some sympathy for them.

Or felt, rather. When they got to Student Judiciary, their arguments crossed the line from impassioned pleas into asinine, made-up justifications to get what they rightfully lost.

I thought I’d remain silent on this issue since there’s no need to beat a dead horse. Unfortunately, they started doing that before I could and the vast amount of time and column inches they’ve wasted force me to elaborate how completely incompetent  and insulting their continued push for funding is.

First, for those who don’t know the history, let’s quickly recap:

• CWC applied for funding.
• SSFC told them their numbers were too vague to judge (They essentially broke it down by saying “this member spends about half his time on this, half his time on this…” etc. No definite hours.)
• They came back with different numbers (Still used fractions, but more specific ones: “This member spends at least 1/3 of their time on this, this member spends at least 1/4 their time on this, etc.”) saying their first numbers were wrong and they met the criteria.
• They were  told the fractions they provided included two programs that weren’t direct services. (Kids Night Out
• They came back asking SSFC members to reconsider their decision. Since no members who voted no wanted to change their mind, this failed.
• CWC appealed the decision to SSFC. SSFC brushed them aside.
• CWC files suit in Student Judiciary against SSFC. Says they didn’t follow the appeals process. SSFC says they don’t have a real “appeals” process. SJ finds in favor of CWC.
• CWC ACTUALLY appeals to SSFC. SSFC rejects their appeal again.
• CWC files suit again with SJ, claiming SSFC broke viewpoint neutrality in their case, along with three other claims. These claims are what we’re still dealing with.
• SJ dismisses the case summarily, saying CWC has no merit to their claim.
• SJ meets after CWC files suit again, this time alleging SJ had no right to summarily dismiss their case.
  • CWC is right. ASM Bylaws say that if its a VPN case, they HAVE to hear it. SJ rules for another hearing.
• CWC presents before SJ with their claims

So that’s where we are. Now that we’ve wasted a semester on this, let’s see what CWC is actually arguing and how ridiculous it is.

Claim 1: “The CWC appeal hearing before the SSFC was neither fair nor viewpoint neutral.”

Reminder: This single claim is the ONLY reason SJ is hearing this case. They are forced to hear it, regardless of the evidence they have to support it.

CWC claims this wasn’t VPN. Their evidence?

“After the initial finding of ineligibility, the SSFC began treating the appellatory process like a dead issue before the CWC had a chance to be heard. Rep. Manes, in the ASM office, stated that the CWC would not be receiving eligibility this year, and this if anything happened that would give us eligibility, he would “fight it.”…Rep. Manes clearly demonstrated his frustration with the CWC in a series of emails. Before the CWC’s first appeal, he responded to a lobby request within the hour, but for the second appeal he refused to meet, and only agreed to a meeting after several more emails from the CWC. In accordance with CFACT v. Stone, et. al 2005 ASM SJ 14, “it may be a viewpoint neutrality violation if a funding committee member demonstrates a significant shift in his or her course of behavior towards one organization.”

The case they’re quoting (which, by the way, good luck finding it: The actual decision on all of CFACTS claims seems to be missing while rejoinders and appeals are there. Strange.) dealt with a case in which CFACT was minimally funded. A representative had ties to WISPIRG and pushed along a minimal funding decision when extremely little discussion on the budget actually took place. Here’s the point where that quote comes into play. Two other members, the chair and another rep, were found guilty of non-willful VPN violation because, as this old Herald story quotes:

In addition to Sanders’ conviction, SSFC Chair Jennifer Knox and representative Lorenzo Edwards were convicted of non-malicious viewpoint neutrality violations for breaking a trend the two had from being “fiscally liberal” to “fiscally conservative.”

“The evidence does lead to the inference of a change in behavior,” the report said. “Because we cannot say that such a change was willful, however, we find only a non-malicious violation for each.”

So essentially: If you seemed to change your behavior with regard to funding one group over the other, such that you usually seem to fund all other groups along these lines, you could have violated VPN.

Aside from being an incredible leap of faith in most cases, there’s no smoking gun to indicate Manes actually violated VPN. This “fight it” comment could certainly be interpreted as having a vendetta against CWC, but its not clear he talking about CWC itself or CWCs attempt to subvert SSFC regulations by constantly submitting new numbers and estimates during eligibility hearings (then claiming they didn’t get a fair shake). They didn’t meet the criteria and then claimed they were unfairly treated because they didn’t understand the process and requirements completely. Listen, VPN goes both ways — if SSFC would bend over backwards to give you funding because you made a few mistakes, how would that be interpreted if everyone else is given strict standards?

Furthermore, this assertion by Cale Plamann that the fight it comment shows he’s biased. If you don’t like the group and you state it, you’re in violation. Hey, remember this comment? Szarzynski pretty much stated that CFACT was worthless and voted to deny them funding. But SJ said it wasn’t a VPN violation. The reason is because he followed procedure correctly, justified his vote based on some very clearly missed criteria and made his comments outside of the meeting.

So a claim made that Manes said he’d “fight it” alleged by CWC and this appearance of being seemingly unwilling to reconsider the case constitutes viewpoint neutrality violations. But nothing during the actual eligibility hearing or decision alleges Manes had VPN issues. So he just decided he hated them after he ruled the case on its merits? Come on.

I talked to Manes earlier this year during the CWC thing. And you what seemed to piss him off the most? That the numbers CWC provided gave no real insight into whether they fulfilled direct services. He showed me the series of CWC estimates for direct services then compared it to what MCSC gave him — a clearly outlined, color-coded chart of all their positions, how many hours they spend doing direct services and the overall percentage spent on those direct service hours. If anything Manes was pissed off that such a complex request was treated so unseriously. His beef is with a group trying to get around the rules, not CWC’s mission, services or values. Unless I see a quote saying he won’t fund “women shit” or belongs to a white supremacist group, I’m not buying it.

This claim is pretty absurd. But there’s certainly a rationale for debate, if only to explain why this makes no sense.

The other claims, however, are grasping for straws:

2. “SSFC failed to allow motions to reconsider from those who abstained in the initial eligibility hearing.”

Because there were an equal number of abstentions and no votes, there is no clear majority. CWC interprets this as “there are two majorities!” However, since Robert’s Rules, as CWC points out, defines this as “a member of the prevailing side” it seems this argument is moot. A majority is what it is, and there wasn’t any. So if you want to get really technical, you could argue that no one would be allowed to reconsider. But since this tie seems to be explained by Robert’s Rules, it seems silly to make this argument. And even sillier to hear it since SJ was required to hear this case on grounds that it was a VPN claim.

3. “The CWC was not informed of the rules regarding motions to reconsider before the relevant SSFC meeting.”

This is the only one I can see having merit. If what they allege is true (Carl Fergus informs a former CWC member who tells the rest of them about it and they scramble to submit lobby), then it might be short notice or insufficient notice. But the complaint doesn’t exactly elaborate on the details of who was informed, if this person had been with CWC on most of their cases, etc. So this depends on what evidence there is to support this.

4. “If only those who voted No in the initial eligibility hearing could motion to reconsider, the SSFC appeal hearing did not reach quorum.”

This is the real stupid one, folks.

Essentially, only two members who voted No were present at the hearing out of the total four who could motion to reconsider. To CWC that means “Well, there wasn’t quorum then!” Hey. Someone has to motion. Not vote. Furthermore, that doesn’t make sense. If four members voted no and two had resigned by the next meeting, wouldn’t, by this logic, it be impossible to actually reconsider at that point?

It just doesn’t make sense.

What’s more, CWC wants Student Council, which is a political body with no VPN training or knowledge (aside from Brandon Williams) to vote on funding? (Update: Paulson makes it clear quite a few members have VPN training. Still, you’re going to have to train a good chunk, if not half or more of ASM on VPN.)

These series of events are just insulting to the system. We often make a lot of hubbub about ASM wasting time and doing nothing. But when other groups come in and waste more of their time, especially for something based on such narrow and unproven complaints, it’s just unfortunate.

I would probably have more sympathy with CWC if it wasn’t hovering so closely to the 51% threshold. When between 49 and 40 percent of your services are not direct services offered to the whole campus and you still want funding for that and the rest, its hard to argue that you seriously deserve this level of funding when you also failed to prove that you even reach 51%.

Oh well. Them’s the breaks, I guess. Hopefully SJ will end this charade next week.

Records Dump – Legislative Affairs

Well, it’s been awhile. As promised, I’m going to be updating you all with minutes I’ve gathered as a result of my records requests and such. So, let’s press on.

First off? Legislative Affairs Committee.

Sep. 1, 2009

Sep. 15, 2009

Sep. 22, 2009

Sep. 29, 2009

Oct. 6, 2009

Oct. 13, 2009

Oct. 20, 2009

Oct. 27, 2009

Nov 10, 2009

Dec. 1, 2009

Dec. 7, 2009

Jan 25, 2010

Feb. 8, 2010

Q: Who wants to be on ALRC? A: Randos.

Somewhere along the line, we forgot all about the fact that there are two students on one of this city’s most powerful committees: The Alcohol License Review Committee. According to ASM Vice Chair Tom Templeton, the Leg Affairs subcommittee involved in reviewing the proposals may have already made their final recommendations, which need to be approved by Chair Tyler Junger. Junger says he already has a favorite of the four, but wants the person vetted first through an interview, just to make sure.

Leg Affairs Chair Adam Johnson said most of his recommendations were based mostly on interviews and how well they articulated the secondary effects of alcohol policy: safety, increase/decrease in house parties, business issues, etc. So the finalists below must have been the ones to back up their apps with some actual meat. Who got it? If I find out before Tuesday, I’ll post an update.

So who applied?

First, the finalists:

Patrick Fuchs: An M.P.A. candidate for the La Follette School of Public Affairs. Doesn’t say much (and his resume doesn’t show up in the requested materials) except that he gets the two principles of what students need out of this: a vibrant downtown with an emphasis toward safety. (probably more along the lines of house parties and such.) Again, Johnson said he was picked because of his understanding of these secondary effects. The name jumped out to me at first. Couldn’t quite put my finger on it, until I saw this pop-up. He’s quoted in the story…only problem, he never spoke to our reporter. One of his friends spoke to us and used his friend’s name. Classy.

Emma Gibbens (1,2): A member of College Democrats who says she was encouraged to run for the position by Alder Bryon Eagon. I’m sure they probably knew each other from the Obama campaign. In any case, her facebook indicates she ran for chair of the College Dems of Wisconsin Women’s Issue Chair (not clear whether she got it?) The bullet pointed qualifications read like a poorly written resume for some entry-level job and not much is said about the actual committee. But if she does, as she says, have “social skills” then it must have come across in the interview. We shall see about this.

Austin Beurosse:Former Herald city writer who claims his knowledge of city events will carry him through the committee and bring a knowledge others probably can’t. More importantly, he seems to have gotten really riled up about the Tavern League’s assault on our maturity as students and seems ready to advocate on their behalf. Seems like a fighter. But then again, he apparently quit the city desk, according to one former editor, because he said reporting wasn’t for him. Well, it’s not for everybody, so I can’t fault him on that.

Anthony Padovano: OK, first off, you get props for watching the meetings on public access. Few do. Hell, I don’t. Second, he seems to have a good knowledge of city affairs, as he references Ald. Judge and seems to know what’s going on in general. College Dem, says he worked for the Cardinal…or had allegiances with the Cardinal. Or something. I can’t really find him having written anything. Who knows.

The Others

Amy Harriman (1, 2, 3, 4, 5): Daughter of a former alcoholic, friend died as a result of a drunken driver and other friend likes home brewing. Also has an interesting in “American government,” is actually originally from Madison and worked in a law firm. Oh, but wait: She’s only going to be in school for a few more months. Whoops!

Daniel Schachte (1, 2): Worked for Tony Evers opponent in the DPI Superintendent race, Rose Fernandez. Admits he’s not the most “qualified” of candidates, but wants to serve students. OK, whatever.

Brent Arkawa: MBA candidate and former sales analyst. OK, but what does that have to do with the position? Says it will, but what does he know.

Ben Schwab: PhD student in Ag and Applied Econ. Says that he has policy knowledge learned in Washington D.C. and Madison (son of a municipal manager and grandson of a chief librarian…don’t know how to take the last one) he can contribute a lot to ALRC. OK.

Tim Beissinger: PhD student in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics. Applied because he thinks banning four-packs (or single cans) doesn’t really help the homeless community. Plus, having been both a grad and undergrad, he can summarize both groups’ positions.

Stephanie Lentz: Business School  MBA candidate who also has some education in public policy and urban development. That’s apparently why she finds herself qualified for this position. She also has significant experience in the real estate business. Oh, and she speaks French. You’d think someone with that sort of resume would have a longer cover letter.

Spencer Shubert:UW Freshman who worked against binge drinking at his high school in California. This article seems to indicate it’s nothing more than a sort of half-assed D.A.R.E. (not that D.A.R.E. isn’t half-assed already) and he seemed enthusiastic, but my guess is people in ASM wouldn’t be so keen to have an anti-alcohol crusader in that seat.

Nick Holland: Law student who dealt with Pittsburgh’s alcohol policies. Just interested in getting involved.

Jacob Strauss (1,2,3,4,5): President of Sig Ep, avid waterskier. My favorite part is where he claims he cannot go into establishments because he’s not of age, but has many friends who do. Well, I suppose if this stuff is on the record, you don’t want to state openly that you drink underage at bars so you provide that perspective. Also serves as VP of Public Relations for IFC. Wonder what that interview was like. He says he knows what sort of different types of licenses can be granted.

James Hynek III: Worked for a distributor of alcohol, so he says he can represent the business side pretty well. I don’t know how much more of a voice the Tavern League needs. I mean, we forget that although we want someone who knows student concerns on this board, we also want someone who’s going to evaluate situations from a holistic perspective.

Katheryn Rose Hefner: Johnson said there were people like this: Those that really wanted to serve, but only because it helped their research endeavors. Well, this is one of those. Clinical Psychology focusing on alcohol and drug use. But she also says much of her work focuses on OWI issues, which, in the downtown area at least, doesn’t apply as much. Plus, they already have an anti-alcohol academic in the person of Pam Bean on the committee. So. I guess that’s a no?

The Open/Closed meeting post: Why I’m annoyed (not with ASM, though)

Well, as you might have read in the Herald: One of our reporters got kicked out of a meeting of the Madison Initiative Oversight Committee because it was considered a closed meeting.

Quite a few reasons to be annoyed:

• The committee, as far as our reporter could tell, didn’t convene in open meeting and go to closed meeting. They merely informed the reporter, when she arrived, that the meeting was closed. (after much deliberation during a break of the committee, mind you) Even if UW is exempt from public notice requirements for closed meetings, that wasn’t the best way to announce it, nor was it clear whether it was ever formally voted on.
• The initial reason for closed meeting: These are personnel issues. Not in the sense you think. From the DOJ explanation:
  • “The language of the exemption refers to a “public employee” rather than to positions of employment in general. The apparent purpose of the exemption is to protect individual employees from having their actions and abilities discussed in public and to protect governmental bodies “from potential lawsuits resulting from open discussion of sensitive information.” Oshkosh Northwestern Co. v. Oshkosh Library Bd., 125 Wis. 2d 480, 486, 373 N.W.2d 459 (Ct. App. 1985). It is not the purpose of the exemption to protect a governmental body when it discusses general policies that do not involve identifying specific employees. See 80 Op. Att’y Gen. 176, 177-78 (1992); see also Buswell, 2007 WI 71, ¶ 37 (noting that Wis. Stat. § 19.85(1)(c) “provides for closed sessions for considering matters related to individual employees”).”
• Since this board is by and large discussing faculty lines and new positions and NOT specific hires for positions, that seems like a pretty poor rationale.
• After leaving, the provost’s office sent a semi-formal explanation of why we’d be kicked out. No mention of personnel, because I assume they didn’t discuss any that would have merited a closed session. However, they say that because it’s an advisory committee it is NOT a governmental body and thus not subject to open records law. The page they cite states….”In order to determine whether a university committee is a governmental body, one must look at the origin of that committee. If the committee was created by state statute or university rule or order, it is governed by the Open Meetings Law. On the other hand, if the committee is not formally constituted by an official act and was created to assist with an administrative function, it is likely not a governmental body and is not required to comply with the Open Meetings Law.”
  • Now, a DOJ opinion from 1989 makes it clear that an advisory body can still be a governmental body if it is created by a statute, rule or order from the parent organization. So that argument in and of itself is not sufficient to dismiss it. But Aaron Brower and UW administration seem to say that the committee was created informally after MIU was created.
  • Just one problem there: Board of Regents Resolution 9608, which approved the MIU, third paragraph:
    • “The proposed differential tuition will be evaluated on an annual basis by the Madison Initiative Oversight Board, which will be comprised of students, faculty, and staff.” Even if the board was put together by a loosely formed shared governance process that can be seen as “informal” the official passage of the MIU by the Board of Regents didn’t simply mention the board in their minutes, it was included in the resolution to approve MIU as part of the process for how MIU is to be regulated. It can certainly be argued that that resolution didn’t necessarily mandate the creation of the board, but if the board approved MIU under those terms and conditions, I would assume its mandate to be implicit. How else could you read it? It’s part of the approved MIU purpose and process.
• What really gets me about the whole thing is this: When our reporter asked to talk to someone other than the student reps on the board about what happened at the meeting, she was told that they’ll release their recommendations in two weeks and they can know what they were discussing at that time. Kind of defeats the purpose if we’re to ascertain the basis on which you’re holding MIU accountable. How do we know what your recommendations were based on if you cannot discuss them open and freely? And how is the presence of campus media going to stop you from asserting a certain proposal doesn’t meet the mark? Isn’t that going to be known eventually anyway?

I know that in many circumstances that these sort of discussions would not be help as open meetings. But this is an advisory body which looks to have been formally created (or at least mandated) by the Board of Regents. If that was part of the MIU package they approved, then we deserve to validate their process with our own eyes, not their mere existence.

A note about MIU and an upcoming post

Just a heads up: Apparently the MIU Oversight Board (the shared governance version rather than the student form, if that’s what Tom Templeton meant in his tweet) met this past weekend to edit: continuebegin ranking on their end. They also provide recommendations to Chancellor Martin on what should receive funding, but have far more sway with the faculty lines. So, needless to say, this is far more important than what I posted the other day. I’ll try and get data from that as to how everything is ranked and compare that with how students looked at the proposals. If indeed that’s what happened: Templeton seems to use the MI board terms interchangeably, so I never know.

Also: I officially have all meeting minutes from Leg Affairs, Finance Committee, SSFC and Student Council and will be putting them up today, hopefully. There’s a TON of SC documents, however, so that might come later.

I’ll try to let you know what’s going on as soon as information becomes available.