I.
II.
III.
Call to Order
a. Roll Call
i. Everyone is here!
b. Approval of Minutes
i. Motion- Victoria Bohush
ii. Second- Peter Scheinman
iii. Unanimous
c. Approval of Agenda
i. Motion- Ana Vincenti
ii. Second- Ben Field
iii. Unanimous
d. Address Guests
Old Business
Committee Reports
a. University Affairs Committee
i. Mitchell Rosenberg: started working on better incorporating student
organizations into orientation, especially with a focus on spring
orientation; looking to expand health, fitness, and wellness services on
campus
ii. Victoria Bohush: working on a Dodge/COPA mixer; met with Monica
Furman and seeking potential collaboration with the CDC; Victoria is
anticipating that the event will take place right before winter break
iii. Joseph DeCasperis: contacted Dean Bassett about staffing the front desk
on Dodge; spoke with two students who currently work on the third floor
reception desk and received insight.
b. Academic Affairs Committee
i. Michelle Zhou: Communicated with Dr Schwartz via email regarding lab
TAs, however no time has been set for them to meet. Also looking into the
possibility of making a weekly mixer between Crean, Schmid, and
Pharmacy “Coffee with the senators.” Where students can bring up issues
that they have to bring directly to senators. Can possibly serve as office
hours, can be reimbursed because it’s under $50. If any other college
senators are interested, contact her.
ii. Yasi Sanandaj: Meeting with Dean Hill Friday about Crean newsletter.
Questions about it being student-run, unsure about students interested in
running. Newsletter could be monthly, bimonthly. Students are unaware of
what is going on within their school.
iii. Judy Weng: Study space issue. Classrooms that are not occupied at
specific hours can be opened to students as study spaces. Will contact
public safety regarding booking issues.
iv. Sarah Tabsh: Still working on text-swap option, going to work on survey
to get some student feedback.
c. Diversity Affairs Committee
IV.
i. Daryl Zhao: ​Has a meeting next week to discuss further the design of the
cross cultural center.​ ​The planned theme of the center is to highlight,
expose, and educate. I think that despite our advisory board, our school
has not really asked the student body what they would like in the center. I
want to see if I can get more input from the student body rather than the
administration assuming what the students want.
ii. Juliane Corpus: Buttons with preferred pronouns project; Old Senator
project that I’m trying to bring back. The project is to have people wear
buttons with their preferred pronouns on buttons and shouldn’t cost more
than $200 and is hoping to partner with QSA on campus.
d. Student Outreach Committee
i. Elliot Gardner: Make Petco a possible selling point on invitation; Voting
on using Petco/local pet store; Voting on mailing letters; Have Mady write
letter and design them. How many to put on mailing list? Need to compile
mailing list; Posters to advertise to students; Facebook event.
ii. Nicolette Burtis: Mail the invitation; puts ball in their court, Petco could
sponsor: Contact them.; Sodexo for refreshments; Petco may not do school
events; Reaching out to local pet store; Reaching out to humane society;
Musco or memorial lawn; Dog photo booth/backdrop and photographer;
Need to get the letters out ASAP and contact Sodexo ASAP; Free bandana
to first (number) that arrive
iii. Ben Field: Personalize letters/ informal, handwritten have full senate sign
them. Impersonal distribution: Not excessive snacks, but lemonade and
cookies; Need dog treats; Where on campus?
iv. Vi Luong: Booth/Carnival; Dog events, such as obstacle courses. Raffle,
Theme? Beach.
e. Allocations and Internal Affairs Committee
i. Seven total funding requests: four were funded in full, one was partially
funded, and two were brought to full senate for voting.
ii. Peter Scheinman: Gym is a mess, too small for the number of people that
use it. Thinking about putting cardio room above the gym because you
can’t have drop weights on the second floor
iii. Ana Vincenti: Would like to get printing privileges for clubs, will contact
Mia B.
iv. Megan Taban: SPCS improvements, trying to contact emma about the
work she did last year
v. Kunal Sharma: No changes can be made for the next two years for laundry
in dorms, he plans to work with Peter on his advocacy. Wants to survey
the new freshmen to ask them about problems they have noticed so far
f. Outside Committees
i. Academic Integrity Committee: It is illegal in California to sell notes
according to the California State law. This could be used as a basis to start
making changes here on campus.
New Business
a. Funding Request: Chapman Italian Club
i. Total Requested: $1,262.40
ii. We would be providing the ticket and transportation for the event.
iii. Sarah Tabsh- I think that carpooling would be better because it would be a
lot cheaper than $30 per person for a train ticket.
iv. Ana Vincenti- In Chapman’s Mission Statement says we should be more
active in the world and this event definitely reflects that.
v. The meal tickets come with the admission to the museum itself.
vi. Megan Taban- I think the best thing to do would fund the tickets and have
them find another mode of transportation.
vii. Motion to approve $800- Peter Scheinman
1. Second- Yasi Sanandaj
2. Approve-14 Opposed-0 Abstained-2
b. Funding Request: Chapman Hillel
i. Total Requested: $2,418.04
ii. Megan Taban- I definitely support this event and it is very important to the
Jewish students to have kosher meals and in this community it is hard to
find those meals.
iii. Ana Vincenti- It was a good time when I went last year and this is a great
way for Jewish people to get to know outside members as well.
iv. Motion to fund in full- Victoria Bohush
1. Second- Yasi Sanandaj
2. Approved-14 Opposed-0 Abstained-2
c. Proposed Constitutional Amendment
i. Proposed Changes:
1. Decrease the amount of senators from 29 to 22 total senators.
2. Colleges will no longer have 2 senators for each, only one.
3. Student Org Senators will be expanded into specific categories
a. Academic/Honors, Civic Engagement, Diversity/Cultural,
Greek, Leisure/Recreational, and Religious/Spiritual.
4. Also will separate Internal affairs from Allocations committee.
ii. Sarah Tabsh- I really appreciate the grammatical changes but the problem
I have with it is dropping the ratio of students to one senator. It is a lot of
ground to cover.
iii. Ana Vincenti- I appreciate the separation of the Student Org senators
because our position covers everything and having separation would help
having specific advocacies and I am in favor of these changes.
iv. Daryl Zhao- I am also in favor of these changes because it will help the
constituencies be represented better.
v. Joe DeCasperis- I think it is very important to have 2 senators for each
college because then there is opportunity to work with each other and it
allows each senator to reach out to different groups in their own college. I
don’t think the increase in stipend should be a good persuasive tactic
because none of us should be here for the money. Even though Pepperdine
and LMU have less senators that’s fine, but here at Chapman the number
of senators shouldn’t matter because then there is more voices heard. The
more SGA promotes us and our image the more people would want to run
and the more seats will be needed in the future.
vi. Daryl Zhao- I think the students should know that we do get paid to be
here to be more transparent but it should not be a persuasive tactic to
approve this. I don’t think more senators is better because being smaller is
actually more efficient.
vii. Victoria Bohush- I think that referencing other colleges to relate back to us
does not always reflect chapman because we have very different needs and
viii.
ix.
x.
xi.
xii.
xiii.
xiv.
V.
VI.
very different students are being represented here than at other colleges. I
don’t think this document is ready to be voted on because these new
positions aren’t clear. What will the senator of leisure/recreation do?
Athlete senators have had issues in the past with coming to meeting so that
can happen again. Also with the spirituality senator, how are we to define
who fits that role? Do we have one year a Christian, then Catholic, or
Buddhist? How are we supposed to represent it properly? This just doesn’t
make any sense to me.
Mitchell Rosenberg- My opinion should not sway your decision at all but I
have a few things to say. We are having an election soon and the new
senators will come in and find out about these changes and learn that their
position doesn’t exist anymore as of next year. It doesn’t allow them to
have their vote. I’m here to make change, I am not here for the stipend and
that should not be the motive.
Ana Vincenti- I do think it would be valuable to wait for the new senators
to arrive and have their opinion to say. Our legislation would not be
well-known for students to vote for on the ballot. A lot of people just
check the box and move on without knowing what we are voting for.
Joe DeCasperis- In the previous years we haven’t had many contested
seats but now that we have a great Director of PR then maybe in the
following year we would have contested seats because more people will
know about us.
Ana Vincenti Regardless of your major, your job as an Academic Senator
is to reach out to all of the majors, so I don’t think reducing the number of
Academic seats would be a problem. It is very plausible to have one
senator to do all the work for one college.
Mitchell Rosenberg- We have our new committees to make things more
specific but we haven’t even given them a chance yet. The committees
aren’t in full force either because the new senators haven’t come in. Most
students also don’t read the constitution amendments and they’ll just vote
without knowing what they’re doing.
Ana Vincenti- we should put this back on the agenda when the new
senators are here, we don’t have to wait another semester to bring this
topic back.
Motion to table- Nicolette Burtis
1. Second- Michelle Zhou
2. Approved-9 Opposed-4 Abstained-1
Open Forum
a. Public Safety Body Slams Skateboarder
i. Sarah Tabsh- Skateboards are allowed on campus and I don’t know why
this should be a problem.
ii. Mitchell Rosenberg- From what Public Safety said, the skateboarders were
filming something at around 2am and the Public Safety officers asked
them to stop and they didn’t. One of the people were going towards the
Psafe vehicle and so the officer had to brace himself and body slam him.
Announcements
a. Elections are next week!
b. Inauguration on the 30th (Mandatory), Training from 10-12pm and Picnic prior to
Inauguration.
VII.
Adjournment
a. Motion- Victoria Bohush
b. Second- Nicolette Burtis
c. Unanimous