1. Resolution 15-0204-01: Adam Sheka is creating a shared governance committee in order to discuss the Wisconsin Experience. The committee will help facilitate the drafting for the process that will be followed to directly communicate the idea of the Wisconsin Idea to students. Right now, it’s primarily used as a tool for academic staff and faculty to talk about the integration of academics with co-curricular and extra-curricular experiences. The hopes are to encourage students to think about and strive to apply their in-classroom experiences to out of classroom experiences and 2) to provide vocabulary to students so that they are better able to articulate their experiences and talk about this with employers, graduate schools, etc.
2) Resolution 15-0204-02: The Rape Crisis Center and Bus Pass Program are switching to a different funding stream constructed to better deal with auxiliary functions such as these. This isn’t too controversial.
3) Resolution 15-0204-03: This resolution would create an official ASM stance on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009. I’m not so naive to think that Congress will care about ASM’s position on this, but the United States Students Association and many PIRG chapters are asking their student governments to officially endorse the legislation. The resolution details many of the provisions which would be beneficial to higher education.
4: Resolution 15-0204-04: This one will be controversial, especially to many in the blog world that like to critique our Press Office. This resolution would add one more paid position to the press office, upping the number of staff from 3 to 4. Last semester the Office wasn’t as effective as it could be, for several reasons. First, there’s a huge learning curve to ASM. Second, we established the press office then didn’t communicate ideas to the press office to get out to the public. I take a lot of the blame for this. It was so easy for myself and other people to get wrapped up with other issues, and once we created the press office (for the second time, since the first time it was done shabbily and without job descriptions) we got all excited that we finally had a press office but didn’t communicate with them well enough. The press office is now fully functional, and has been doing much better this semester. Their efficiency and effectiveness is pretty good. However, after seeing how hours were allocated last semester it became clear that a slightly different set up would enable them to act faster and increase effectiveness. Not including the webmaster, there are two people charged with doing all of the press work for ASM. The assistant director is only budgeted for 8 hours a week, but had a hard time last semester at that level. We want an office that will work VERY quickly, but with students’ schedules and other commitments that people have, it’s not always possible for one out of two people to get something done in a matter of hours. An intern that worked with the press office last semester did a lot of work in order to help the office be the most effective, and this resolution would create a fourth position in the office. The amount of time needed for research and communicating with people is quite a bit, and both this position and the assistant director still work more hours than they are paid for (they only get paid for 8). Some of this money comes from the webmaster’s salary that wasn’t used in the fall, and some would come from staff salaries that are being unused.
5. Resolution 15-0204-05: This resolution approves a stipend for the current chair of the Student Activity Center Governing Board. She does as much (if not more) work as every other committee chair, but because her position was created somewhat recently it was unpaid. This board is one that will continue to exist in ASM, and it is appropriate that the Chair receive a stipend for the work that they do (which works out to be far less than minimum wage if they were to be paid hourly). This money is coming from other places in our budget; we have a full-time staff position that is currently vacant that would more than cover the $1000.00 needed for a stipend for the rest of the year.
6. Resolution 15-0204-06: ASM has been working with staff this entire year in an effort to re-shape the mentality that has driven the organization for the past few years. One such example is the way that students work with staff. In November, some members felt that they did not want the vacant position hired until we were able to review the job descriptions in an effort to ensure that the position was appropriate for the organization. As I’ve mentioned before, we currently are our one campus organizer, and our other organizer is leaving in early March. In order to have the best transition possible to a new government (or if the Constitution didn’t pass, for ASM to continue into the summer and fall) we need to fill our staff. This resolution would authorize the hiring of the campus organizer, and make the resolution passed in November null and void.
Please forgive my run-on sentences and poor grammar in this post! I wrote it quickly so I could finish up a letter to UW System Legal. If you have any comments before tomorrow night’s meeting, please send me an e-mail at brittany.wiegand@gmail.com.
