Yesterday, the Georgetown University Student Association met on Copley Lawn to welcome new senators from the recent by-election, to move forward on the Harbin Patio games program, and to institute harsher punishment for frequently absent senators.

Like lambs to the slaughter

On Saturday, the winners of GUSA senate election were announced: Sam Greco (SFS ’15) won the at large election with 304 votes in the third round; Andrew Markel (SFS ’15) won Harbin 2-5 with 45 votes, Galen Weber (SFS ’13) won Nevils with 33 votes, and Vetone Ivezaj (COL ’13) won Village A A-D with 39 votes. The seat for Village A E-H is remaining absent for the rest of the year because there was no serious candidate.

After they took the oath to defend GUSA against all enemies, the senate moved on.

I, (name), do hereby affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution and By-Laws of the Georgetown University Student Association against all enemies, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

It’s all fun and games until the space becomes actually useful

Senator Ben Weiss (COL ’15) is creating a rental program for “stationary games” on Harbin Patio. Weiss explained that the Harbin Patio is currently underutilized, and that he is in the process of creating a creating a rental program for games out of the Village C RHO.

However, the only games allowed on the patio by the university are “standing games,” like cornhole toss, according to Weiss. Because of an incident several years ago, the university doesn’t allow “ball-playing games” on the patio. Although there will need to be a follow-up meeting to find funding for the program, Weiss said that all the appropriate administrators are on board with the program.

If implemented, the program will be reviewed by the senate next spring, and they may consider expanding it to other RHOs and areas of campus.

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At yesterday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate, the most venerable senators approved the third member of the IRC Triumvirate Election Commission, the new chair of the Finance and Appropriations committee, and discussed the future of the GUSA Fund. And there were some long speeches read directly to Vox on unrelated topics, but we’ll save those for another time.

Three’s company

Election Commissioner Adam Giansiracusa (SFS ’12) presented his replacement, who was vetted by the executive and approved by the senate yesterday. Pavan Rajgopal (SFS ’15) was selected because of his basic competency as a person, according to Giansiracusa. Rajgopal was approved by the senate with the expectation (they even asked him about this) that he will serve until he graduates (or is removed by the senate for disqualifying a candidate for illegitimate reasons an hour before the election, as Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) reminded him).

In response to a question about punishing candidates for violations, Rajgopal said that he would be comfortable with it, and he would rather be proactive in preventing violations.

It was also mentioned that Rajgopal is a member of the IRC, like the other two current members of the EC and was outgoing chair AG. ”We’ll not draw too much attention to that now,” Talbot added.

Fynapp

Since two members, including the chair, of the Finance and Appropriations committee moved to the executive, the senate approved Shiela Walsh (COL ’14), the first female finapp member, as chair and then appointed Robert Shepard (COL ’15) and Laura Kresse (SFS ’12) to the committee.

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The majority of this week’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate was spent considering the arguments of Georgetown, Divest!, which is pushing the University to divest from companies that profit from human rights violations in Israel and Palestine. The Senate also spent some time debating the Academic Working Group’s diversity requirement recommendation, but did not vote on any legislation at the meeting. Here’s the wrap:

Georgetown, Divest!: Jackson Perry (COL ’12) presented the case Georgetown, Divest! is making to the Senate in the early part of the meeting. (Disclosure: Perry is an assistant photo editor for the Voice). Perry told the senators that his group has come to the conclusion that the University has exercised little oversight over the companies it has invested in, and has no process to ensure that the University was investing only in socially responsible companies which lived up to the University’s Jesuit principles.

Perry cited an article written by the Voice‘s Cole Stangler saying, “While divestment is non-negotiable to administrators, it appears that Georgetown’s Jesuit and Catholic identity is.” Perry said his group was focusing on pushing the University to institute a process that allows it to invest in a socially responsible way, and to specifically promise not to invest in eight companies selected by Georgetown, Divest! as particularly egregious in perpetuating human rights violations in Israel and Palestine. Several senators seemed to take issue with the group’s focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on eight companies in particular.

“There seems to be a political agenda here as well,” GUSA Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said.

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At this week’s Georgetown University Student Association Senate meeting, the Senate voted down the only legislation that came up for a vote—institutionalizing GU-SPAN—but not before they had debated the measure extensively. After rejecting the legislation, the Senate turned to voicing their opinions on recent area crimes and the suggestions of the diversity initiative, which they seem generally opposed to.

Institutionalizing GU-SPAN: It’s unclear what motivated Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) to introduce the “Act to Amend the By-Laws to Institutionalize the Georgetown University Student Public Affairs Network.” The network, better know as GU-SPAN, live-streams meetings of the GUSA Senate, and has approximately 5 regular viewers. Talbot’s bill would have created an administrator for GU-SPAN in charge of live-streaming the GUSA meetings.

Talbot suggested that the position, which would take four to five hours a week, include a stipend of around $300. Senator Colton Malkerson (COL ’13) exhibiting the shrewdness that comes with serving on the Finance and Appropriations Committee, suggested accepting applications for the position without offering a stipend, and only offering the stipend if no one offered to volunteer. Ultimately, however, the Senate voted the bill down even after the Senate had amended the bill to simply make it the responsibility of the vice-speaker to make sure meetings were live-streamed.

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The agenda of this Sunday’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association was dominated by the vote on the budget passed out of the Financial Appropriations Committee for fiscal year 2011 on Thursday.

But Senators still found time to remark on the most recent controversy at Georgetown, the Plan A protest held over GAAP weekend, and dream about convening the GUSA Senate in the chamber of the US House of Representatives.

GUSA Budget FY ’11: The GUSA Senate voted to approve the fiscal year 2011 GUSA budget, which allocated $0 to both the Student Activities Commission and the Performing Arts Advisory Council. The budget will increase the level of funding received by Club Sports, Georgetown Program Board, the Center for Social Justice, and the GUSA Executive, while funding for the Media Board will remain unchanged.

Members of the Financial and Appropriations Committee who presented the budget said they had brought the budget without funding for either SAC or PAAC before the Senate because they didn’t want to delay funding for the other advisory boards. They are working to reach agreements with SAC and PAAC on compromises so the two groups could meet GUSA’s six suggested reforms and receive money from the student activities fee.

The senators said they were confident that both PAAC and SAC would receive student activities fee from supplemental funding after they had complied with the reforms. Senators have said that the agreement with PAAC is only awaiting a review by its members. Meanwhile, Senators will meet with SAC soon to try to negotiate an agreement.

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Last year’s woeful attendance at Georgetown University Student Association Senate meetings seems to be a thing of the past.

Following our look at the attendance records of GUSA Senators for the fall semester, which found that only one senator—cheerleader-cum-delegate Eric Cusimano (SFS ‘10)—had missed enough meetings to qualify for a review by the Ways and Means Committee, Vox did a followup that found, incidentally, the exact same thing for this semester so far.

Although many senators have missed three or more meetings or two consecutive meetings, only one senator’s attendance record includes enough unexcused absences to warrant review by the Ways and Means Committee. (Three or more missed meetings or two consecutive missed meetings qualify for review if they are unexcused.)

“[R]ight now, the other Senators have all provided excuses deemed valid by the Speaker to bring them below the limit,” GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) wrote in an e-mail. “We have never lacked quorum at a single Senate meeting and it is infrequent indeed that a Senator misses consecutive meetings.”

The senator whose record makes his continued service as a Senator questionable is, once again, Eric Cusimano, who has missed four meetings each semester. Talbot said his record has been referred to the Ways and Means Committee for review, and a tentative hearing about it has been scheduled for this Sunday. Vox was not able to get in touch with Cusimano. Earlier this semester, when he was chided for his repeated absences, he said that they were due to his commitments to cheerleading for the Georgetown Basketball team.

Last year’s Senate, by contrast, saw meetings where Senators were unable to make quorum without calling up absent members to ask them to resign (or lost quorum when a member stepped out to take a phone call), and six senators had such bad attendance that they were eligible for forcible removal from the Senate.

Here are the Senators with the most absences this semester. Most explained to Vox that all or most of their absences were excused.

• Shaalin Parekh (Copley) – 3 this semester, 3 total
• Kyle Pienaar (Village C East) – 3 this semester, 5 total
• Nolan Johnson (Village A E-H) – 3 this semester, 5 total
• Geraldine Miranda (Village C West) – 3 this semester, 4 total
• Ace Factor (At-Large) – 3 this semester, 4 total

Three Senators—Talbot, Nick Troiano (COL ’11), and Colton Malkerson (COL ’13)—have shown perfect attendance all year. (See trophy, above).

This week’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate included a heated contest to fill a vacant seat on the Finance and Appropriations committee, and a denouncement of Eric Cusimano’s extracurricular involvements. Here’s the wrap:

Finance and Appropriations Committee Post Filled

In perhaps the most contentious part of the meeting, Senator Ben Bold (COL’13) was selected by the full Senate to fill a vacancy on the Finance and Appropriations Committee. During his time for remarks, Bold said he had closely followed the work of the Finance and Appropriations Committee and had fully supported the funding board reform. Bold ran against Senator Matthew Ginsberg (COL’11), who said that he was suited for the job because he had an interest in financial allocations and had served as a director for the Corp.

During the debate over the confirmation, some Senators appeared to argue that Senator Bold was competent and self-motivated, and therefore should be opposed. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) warned against a “leadership accretion” on the FinApp Committee, while FinApp Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said, “Our committee has enough ambition and self-motivated people … We have to distribute this energy to all the committees.” Ultimately, however, Bold’s attributes were deemed more of a good thing than a bad thing, and he was approved by a 10-8 vote.

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After last week’s high-stakes and controversial Georgetown University Student Association meeting, where they passed comprehensive funding reform legislation, this week’s meeting hewed closer to classic GUSA style: longer than necessary, peppered with perfunctory legislation, and largely innocuous.

The 2010 GUSA Presidential Debate

The meeting began with a discussion about the much-anticipated GUSA Presidential Debate. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) said it will be “99 percent sure taking place on Wednesday, 89 percent sure taking place in Sellinger Lounge,” with the doubt over the location due to the fact that they have not yet reserved the Lounge. GUSA Parliamentarian Sam Ungar (COL ’12) said that the debate would include all four presidential candidates, and feature questions from representatives of the major campus media organizations.

Public Comment Legislation

The first bill passed by the GUSA Senate changed the GUSA bylaws to require the Finance and Appropriations Committee to convene a public hearing within seven days of drafting of a budget so that representatives of advisory boards can voice concerns they may have over the budget. The bill also requires the speaker to allow for a period of public comment during the general senate meeting at which the budget will be voted on.

The bill faced essentially no opposition, mostly because it wasn’t changing the current practices. As Speaker Talbot said when he voiced his support for the bill, “The seven day waiting period is already sort of institutionalized… and I think it was sort of connoted in the wording that that time was there for individual chairs of the advisory boards to come and voice their concerns.” The bill was approved unanimously.

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GUSA’s coveted attendance trophy

Well, duh, you might say upon seeing that headline. But recall that at one point last school year, attendance at Georgetown University Student Association meetings had gotten so low that senators found themselves unable to make quorum and identified six senators with attendance so bad, they could be forcibly expelled from the Senate.

So how are they doing this year?

Much better. Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12) said that attendance at most meetings has been over 85 percent, and that only one senator, cheerleader-cum-delegate Eric Cusimano (SFS ’10) has missed enough meetings to qualify for a review by the Ways and Means Committee.

“According to my reading of the bylaws, attendance becomes a question when a Senator misses more than two consecutive meetings or more than three meetings in a given Semester,” Talbot wrote in an e-mail. “At that point I believe it’s up to the Ways and Means Committee to review whether to take action on the matter.” (Talbot confirmed his reading of the bylaws with GUSA’s parliamentarian).

Vox reviewed GUSA’s attendance sheet and found that a number of other senators do have two or three absences, but these have been excused, Talbot said. (What constitutes an “excused absence” is at the discretion of the speaker.)

With Yasmin Serrato explaining in an e-mail that one of her three recorded absences was actually a tardy, Susie Movitz is the only senator to have missed three meetings. She did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo from Flickr user photofriendly

The planned GUSA Fund would make it rain

Leaders from all six advisory boards voted against creating the GUSA Fund at a Funding Board meeting today, but the Finance and Appropriations Committee will still be able to pass the GUSA Fund through the Funding Board without their approval.

At the meeting, advisory board leaders voiced concerns that GUSA would not have the knowledge to run the GUSA Fund. They asked what kind of experience the GUSA Fund members would have, how GUSA would know if events were duplicities of events that already existed, and how the GUSA Fund would handle clubs that went over budget.

GUSA senators also learned at the meeting that the Funding Board has $51,412 in reserve, unlike $69,687 like they had previously believed. The GUSA Fund plans to draw $30,000 from that reserve, meaning the GUSA Fund will now require more than half.

GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ’12—LXR) said the GUSA executive will be looking for GUSA fund members who can bring both funding experience and club management experience. In regards to event duplicities, Finance and Appropriations Chair Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A, A-D) replied that because of access to benefits, advisory boards would still need to approve official club-sponsored events before the GUSA Fund could allocate funds.

Advisory board members suggested this would make an already tedious process even more bureaucratic.

“Clubs are looking for funds, and they’re willing to jump through hoops to get it,” GUSA Chief of Staff Tim Swenson replied. “While we’re trying to make it as streamlined as possible …. this is our way of addressing that temporarily.” [Edited at 10:21 p.m.]

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