Student Federation Analysis Task Force March 15 Meeting Minutes
Student Federation Analysis Task Force
Thursday, March 15 at 10 CT/9 MT
Conference Call: 716-273-1030 Pin: 456 7286#
Members in attendance: Justin Logue (BHSU), Hunter Brindley (DSU), Annika van Oosbree (NSU), Aaron Campbell (SDSMT), Allyson Helms (SDSU), and Teagan McNary (USD)
Please mute your individual lines and like the Facebook group when you want to speak
Meeting began: 10:00 PM CT
History of Student Federation changes
SDSU – Executive team: previously three executive director prior to 2017 academic year, 2017 academic year there was only an executive director and assistant director. All positions had been paid up until this year.
SDSU – Payment: previously schools paid based on population, was changed to allow all schools to pay equal amounts for dues. Total dues were also drastically cut this past year to reflect not paying the chair and decreased travel stipends.
Things that went well this year
Silence.
SDSMT – this year did not go as well as people had hoped, maybe need to detail ED tasks. Bylaws are missing accountability for the ED.
USD – Agree. Consistency and communication need more work. Constitution could add additional responsibility for each school, what happens if ED isn’t doing what s/he supposed to. Impeachment language? Chain of command?
USD – lobbying training was beneficial, good to have experienced lobbyists, additional breakout practice sessions could have been beneficial
SDSMT – two executive team positions is beneficial
NSU – two person exec team works well
BHSU – agree
SDSU – two works well because one is overwhelming and lacks accountability while three is unnecessary
Areas of difficulty
Two paid positions, accountability
USD – two paid positions works well for accountability, getting paid adds accountability, Spencer and Paige may have lacked communication, Spencer was in a difficult place being unpaid, may have had a hard time taking on additional tasks since he wasn’t paid
SDSU – Maybe separate payment or add payment for chair? Would this increase our dues?
SDSMT – don’t need to pay the chair, not his job. Need to address ED responsibilities
NSU – agree with SDSMT. Need to properly delineate tasks, agrees that both positions should be paid
BHSU – agree with SDSMT. Would like to see ethics procedures in bylaws. Hard because not a lot of institutional knowledge in the Federation. Agree both positions should be paid. Adding more positions won’t help.
What accountability looks like?
USD – Consistency in meetings. Could have more consistent meetings once a month or more would aid communication. Can be phone conferences. Need a consistent channel for communication every month. Maybe there hasn’t been action to correct ED behavior because there isn’t frequent communication between schools? Hard to take action when this groups only meets every two months or so.
SDSU – deadline for agendas and minutes. 1 week before can aid worthwhile discussion during student federation meetings. It’s hard to discuss topics and adequately represent your students when you haven’t ever talked about the topic before.
NSU – strongly agree. Senate meeting time on Tuesday conflicted with student federation. Couldn’t discuss topics with full senate in advance. Didn’t always feel comfortable voicing opinion of senate if not previously discussed in body.
USD – time period for submissions to the agenda. Need to ask schools if they have anything to add to agenda, potentially 10 days before
SDSMT – agree.
BHSU – chair should set agenda, s/he runs the meeting and does internal communication, unbiased chair, should be the one who sets deadlines
NSU – “pretty much going to say the exact same thing”
Division of responsibilities, ED
SDSMT – constantly shifting the role of the position may lead to why we have difficulty filling positions. External works well, should interface with Regents and Legislature
BHSU – lobbying the SD legislature, needs to be better defined, should mean more than just going to SHED
SDSU – could look to add requirement of how many visits to Pierre, scheduled visits?
SDSMT – careful, that may add huge commitment, agree should define
USD – agree, add clause about pertinent legislation discussed requires lobbying
SDSU – could have weekly Student federation conference calls, Sunday night, to determine expectations for the upcoming week
BHSU – regents host weekly conference calls on Friday, BHSU currently listens in
NSU – ED REALLY REALLY needs to be in on the regents phone calls
SDSMT – setting expectations helps the individual in the position determine and learn more about what to do with lobbying
USD – whose responsibility would those conference calls be?
SDSU – I think it should be the ED who runs them. This would be more like an external personnel briefing, makes sense for ED to run. Also, currently the ED is getting paid $1000 to lobby, wouldn’t be asking too much
NSU – agree
BHSU – agree
Division of responsibilities, chair
NSU – SHED should be a dual responsibility in planning because it is so big of a deal
SDSU – chair should be responsible for sending out agendas in a timely manner, ED can take minutes
BHSU – if we are going to suggest monthly meetings, need to add it to the constitution/bylaws, chair responsible for running all regular meetings
SDSU – could set monthly meeting schedule in advance, like specifying every second Sunday of the month or something like that
SHED expectations
NSU – really like to know bills being discussed prior to meeting, need to set agenda earlier, ED should ask all schools what they feel like needs to be addressed, potentially set bills discussed 10 days prior
USD – need to fix how many legislatures come to dinner, embarrassing to have only 4 representatives come to dinner, especially with high student turnout. May be due to difficulty scheduling, need to increase communication. Dinner at 5 PM coming back from a 3-day weekend may not be best. Need to do a better job reaching out, send invitations and schedule early. Requirement for each school to reach out to county legislatures, adds pressure for them to show up
BHSU – needs to be a more formal process, BHSU did invite legislatures but they had already made plans because they didn’t know about SHED, early communication is key. Knowing what bills discussed is important, meeting weekly would help with discussion. Was frustrating at times in discussion when some schools had prior opinions and others didn’t. Hard to take a stance when half the schools don’t vote.
SDSU – is there preference in dinner compared to breakfast?
SDSMT – all depends on scheduling, coming off 3 day weekend was hard, both are doable, just a matter of preparation
BHSU – if going to do a dinner, needs to be later at 6 or 7 so legislatures can get back. Students don’t always like a breakfast, but breakfast seemed to be better attended
SDSU – how did the day at the capital go?
BHSU – was personally invited to committee hearings of reps, so didn’t attend meetings. BHSU ran own SHED prep for BHSU. In past, ED ran session of who was each schools reps and that was helpful for students who might have less experience in Pierre
USD – Board of directors needs to meet in advance to determine talking points for sessions, not great when no one has questions. Especially when meeting with governor, need to utilize time. Uncomfortable when just silence, don’t want to waste their time.
SDSU – setting a SHED prep timeline might be beneficial
USD – that would be helpful, have done that in the past but it has been all unofficial. Specifically met with Paige. Formalized timeline may be nice, distribute to everyone for accountability. Would be more than willing to lead the charge on this.
SDSMT – more than willing to help out, just had less SHED experience
NSU and DSU are agreeing, nothing new
Should chair come from within the board?
BHSU – some schools have had issues with paying chair if it comes from within the board, BHSU doesn’t have an issue with paying the chair if it comes from within the board. Did we have an appointment for the chair this past year?
SDSU – didn’t have appointment this year because only Spencer applied
SDSMT – may be lacking strict rules for electing individuals
SDSU – are there ways to increase the qualified candidate pool?
USD – not a fan of mandating all schools to submit a candidate, may not be able to write something into the constitution, requires more of a change in behavior, great to advocate for someone from your university but more important to have the best candidate, regardless of school origin. In the past, there has been a divide when choosing candidate, divide between small and big schools – problematic. These are issues, but more of a change in practice than a change in the constitution.
SDSMT – agree
Discussion Points with respective Senates
Delineate tasks
How should responsibilities be split between ED and chair?
Does external and internal work well?
Brainstorm a list of responsibilities for each position
ED – external, runs weekly legislative update conference calls for Student Federation on Sunday nights of session, attends Regent conference calls on Friday of session, reports to Board of Regents, takes general meeting minutes and distributes within one week
Chair – internal, runs monthly Student Federation meetings either in person or via conference call, sends out agenda and asks for additions in advance, could take minutes of legislative update conference calls?
Both ED and Chair plan SHED together
Pay chair
Should the chair also be a paid position or should we only pay the ED?
If paying the chair, should we split the current $1000 stipend between the ED and chair or raise dues to cover new stipend for chair?
Any concerns paying the chair if that position is elected from within the Student Federation body?
Clarify chair election language
Add more meetings
Should the 12 person Board of Directors, ED, and Chair meet monthly?
Can be either in person during BoR meeting or via conference call if there is not a BoR meeting that month
What language/schedule for more frequent meetings works best?
Second Sunday every month?
Different language for summer or when school not in session?
Deadlines
How far in advance should the chair distribute the agenda?
One week? Two week?
How far in advance, of either the meeting or of the agenda being distributed, should the chair ask for additional topics for the agenda?
One week?
How soon after the meeting ended should minutes be distributed?
Lobbying
What are the lobbying expectations for the ED during the legislative session?
Attend a certain frequency, i.e. once a week?
Attend as needed? How is “as needed” determined?
Should we add weekly conference calls during session?
Who runs these conference calls?
What information is discussed?
How do we determine what the ED needs to do that week?
Attend committee hearings? Send letter of support or opposition on behalf of the body to bill sponsors?
Should the ED be required to attend the Regents weekly legislative update conference calls on Friday?
Should members of other schools be required to attend Regent conference call updates?
Set SHED planning instructions
Should the Board create a SHED planning timeline that the ED and chair are required to follow?
If so, what should be included in this document?
How far in advance should SHED date be set?
When should invitations go out?
This document could be sent to all schools for added accountability
Should the ED create a SHED prep PowerPoint/guidance including who are the SD legislative representatives for each school county?
What other preparation or guiding documents should be created to help allow for better SHED preparation and a more effective weekend?
Future meeting schedule
NSU, BHSU, USD – prefers Wednesday
DSU – prefers Thursday because meetings run until 8
NEXT MEETING – Thursday, March 22 at 10 pm CT
Following meeting – Sunday, March 25 at 10 pm CT
Meeting ended: 11:08 PM CT
Senate meetings:
BHSU – Wednesday 4:15 PM MT SDSMT – Wednesday 5 PM MT
DSU – Wednesday 8 PM CT SDSU – Monday 7 PM CT
NSU – Tuesday 9 PM CT USD – Tuesday 6:30 PM CT