Session of September 8, 2022
September 8, 2022
Minutes Recorded by: Sean Koay, Senate Secretary
Visitor(s): Dr. Conn, Jesse Khalifa
Call to Order at 11:07 AM
Senator prays
Roll Called
Minutes Approved at 11:10AM
Committee Reports:
Chairman Byrne: Club funding deadline was last night, and it should be finalized by Saturday. If you are interested to come help meet with the clubs, I will be sending an RSVP later. It is going to be held at LH 141.
Chairman Ko: I cleaned up the website and will be going through the roles later this week.
Special Business:
VP Crowder: Couple of things on the agendas today. We are going to be swearing in some new senators today.
Senators sworn in at 11:12
VP Crowder: Welcome to Senate, the citizens that are interested to join back there, I will talk with you later.
PPT Gonzalez: I would like to appoint Langlee Brown and Nicholas Berceir to Governmental Processes Committee.
Chairman Fuentes: I want to inform that I am stepping down as Chairman of the Student Life Committee.
PPT Gonzalez: I would like to appoint Senator Hoekstra to Student Life Committee.
VP Crowder: Welcome to being a chairman.
Announcements:
Chairman Drebot: We have decided on the elections format for this semester and year. We will be doing what is called the 10th Amendment style election, each floor will decide how they will choose the 2 senators, and the RA will email VP Crowder the name of the two senators.
Chairman Hoekstra: Because of lake day this week, there will be no senate ice cream
VP Crowder: We won’t be having it this week, but it will be there next week.
Open Forum:
Chairman Drebot: I have a freshman wanting to talk about how involve people with sports in LETU, He is talking about the aspect of broadcasting games to improve athletic relations.
Citizen Jesse: Coming from two high school, I know that it is hard to get accustomed to sports here, but broadcasting worked well back home. I was there to help start both broadcasting and when I was talking to Nathan a senior here, I think that we can start with a website and an email list specifically for sports game. Later, if able I would love to have access to livestream, but before that I would love to have the senate’s support
Senator Rubingh: LeTourneau already have its on own website for sports, so you should talk to them.
Chairman Byrne: I know at least one sports have livestream already, the women softball.
VP Crowder: My suggestion would be to look at the websites that are already up and try to get them promoted with the approval of student life.
President Strong: Thank you for the initiative.
Chairman Drebot: The second thing I want to talk about is the student feed being renamed and no longer allowing student to post or comment. A lot of people are very upset about it, and I think that everyone except one floor is unhappy about it. I think that silencing student voices is not a good thing.
VP Crowder: The main reason that it was change, was because of the constant posts against Davis Hall and the chapel. The purpose of the change was to remove the negativity, and not to silence students. Buzz app was not meant to be a student voice, it was meant for announcement.
Senator Rubingh: You are wrong, they did add a channel for memes.
VP Crowder: All the meme and memes type post had been posted in the feed. The change was to help motivate the student to move toward the meme feed
PPT Gonzalez: I am a dinosaur, but when I was a freshman, and the student feed was just a feed. The only rules were when the meme channel was made, it states that the memes need to be memes according to handbook. I get why it was done, but is there freshman in here? Did you get a rulebook on what can be posted in buzz app? The last revision of the student handbook is the same for the last three years. It is not just that the student feed got removed, but the problem is that there is a break of communications between the Buzz app admins and students.
Senator Berceir: Is the rules still available in the buzz or is it only on the handbook?
Chairman Drebot: I can’t find on handbook
Chairman Byrne: I think my roommate was poking the buzz app admin, but there are no rules standing for the buzz app in the handbook, The only rule is what Ms Eisen sent that said you can’t insight negativity.
PPT Gonzalez: Speaking of campus rules and regulations, it has been said that UPD has been ticket happy in Thomas turnaround, student centre parking lot, and Glaske. There is no signage posted anywhere that states the time where people can or cannot park. Additionally, there is no statement on where certain halls can park.
Chairman Drebot: A very smart man once recommend putting up signs that says do not park.
Chairman Ko: After extensive digging, the terms and conditions do in fact have policies about what kind of content isn't allowed.
PPT Gonzalez: There is also a term of use in the top right.
Chairman Ko: I think to sum this up, a lot of us a frustrated about the student feed, so maybe we as senate can ask student life to post an explanation.
Dean Conn: By far the feedback we had received about the buzz had been negative, People say that they are not proud of how it represents LeTourneau, and new Davis students would be discouraged to come. It is supposed to be a tool for university communication, and it was not meant to be a spicy meme compilation site. There is still a meme page for those that or want to see dank meme, or pat mays in chapel. All that change was the landing page, we are trying to make its channel real clear for its own purpose. Removing comments were just because comments were not being a healthy means of discourse. We are not restricting students of having their own thoughts, but this app is for official university purposes. I think it is a good move, and I think most people will like it better.
Senator Rubingh: Go join the discord, where you can have discussions.
Chairman Drebot: Talking about discouraging news for new students, the maintenance in ELH has been bad this year, and there has been a couple of maintenance problems this year, it looks like a trend. What are the school doing about it?
Dean Conn: It depends by what you mean by this trend, do you mean that the AC is old? I do not know, we probably must ask facility
Chairman Drebot: I have heard from three different freshman that the prices that we are paying for these conditions are ridiculous. I have someone leave LeTourneau to move off campus because of this too.
Senator Hofer: There is a seaming pattern of maintenance not being done, Tyler has a lot of AC problems too. There is a lot of work order that are needing to be filled.
Dean Conn: I am going to share some realities that you don’t have to be happy about. Facility is running at about 30% capacity and that is significant. We have not made cuts, but it is just a labor force problem. There were raises that were given but it is costing a lot to give department a large raise. In addition, people will start asking why facility is getting paid more than they are. The brains are working on it but there is no solution. I know that some of LETU accommodations are pretty historic, and not all halls are created equal, but this is the same at other colleges too. Our rooms and board prices are not that high when comparing to other schools.
Citizen Farmer (Proxy): Could any facilities position be filled by students?
Dean Conn: Trades will need professional people, but there are stuff life painting and cutting grass that students could probably fill, but I am not hearing that many complaints about grass, but whether problems about the AC which require professional people.
Senator McNeil: I would like to volunteer for the TFO Position.
VP Crowder: You can get Senate’s approval
Senator McNeil to be next TFO
Chairman Drebot: Do anybody here live in the trinities, if you have students that use laundry, please clean that place, and take your clothes out when they are done, there are clothes that have been there for 10 days now.
President Strong: Chairman Drebot, do you have whiteboards like South and Thomas?
Chairman Drebot: We do, but it is not used for that purpose.
Senator Hofer: Motion to Recess
Recessed at 11:50