Executive Meeting Minutes – October 21, 2020

Logo: ASWSU Global.

Executive Meeting Minutes

Date: October 21, 2020
Time: 4:30 p.m. PST
Location: Zoom
Note: These meeting minutes were reviewed and approved on November 4.

Attendees

  • President: Gina Vasquez
  • Vice President: Heather Leasure
  • Director of Academic Affairs: Nigeria Tyler-Williams
  • Director of Communications and Compliance: Altessia Endencia
  • Director of Finance: Laud Williams
  • Director of Legislative Affairs: Samantha Fakharzadeh
  • Director of Diversity: Vacant
  • Director of Resources: Vacant
  • Director of Student Events & Programming: Chelsea Rollins
  • Advisor: Andria Donneworth

Agenda

Called to order at 4:37 PM.

  • Call to Order (Heather)
  • Roll Call and Introduction (Heather)
  • President’s Report (Gina)
  • Vice President’s Report (Heather)
  • Director of Legislative Affairs Report (Sam)
  • Director of Finance Report (Laud)
  • Director of Student Events and Programming Report (Chelsea)
  • Director of Communication and Compliance Report (Tessa)

Items Discussed

Meeting Minutes — 9/16 & 10/7

Motion to approve previous meetings minutes by Chelsea Rollins. Seconded by Samantha Fakharzadeh. Motion passes unanimously.

NSLS Reinstatement

Proposing removal of the induction requirement, as these inductions can take a long time (sometimes up to two years). In addition, adding other societies to the reimbursement fund — including Alpha Epilson, Alpha Phi Signa, Psi Chi, etc.

Motion to reinstate the NSLS reimbursement by Tessa for induction acceptance fee.

Seconded by Gina.

Move to vote. Seconded by Tessa and Sam. Motion passes.

Motion to remove induction requirements by Samantha. Seconded by Gina.

Move to vote by Nigeria. Seconded by Chelsea. Motion passes.

Motion to add five additional societies to the reimbursement by Gina. Seconded by Nigeria. Notes: funds weren’t used up last year, adding more societies to mitigate.

Motion to vote by Tessa. Seconded by Chelsea. Motion passes.

More info on CC and OPMA Info

OPMA: Open Public Meetings Act. States that because we are an organization that was funded under public funding, we need to follow guidelines. Technically, we do not need to upload our meetings to the website.

Meeting video can be requested. Meetings do not need to be recording. Meeting minutes and agenda need to be posted.

Discussion: Recorded meetings help keep us accountable, and we are already recording. Most importantly, we are demanding accountability from administration, and we need to lead by example.

$3,700 meeting for closed captioning for recorded meetings. Live captioning is cheaper (~$2,700).

Majority of executive board on board to keep recordings and add closed caption.

Resource Allocation — Increase Stipend

Motion to increase stipend by Heather, seconded by Tessa.

Paid as 1099 contractors.

Motion to vote by Chelsea, seconded by Samantha.

Motion passes.

Social Media — Study Tip Series

The general idea was to do a study tip series to focus on academic side on social media. Need study tips from team, which will come week after Thanksgiving. Think: mental health, posture, etc. Goal to increase engagement.

Student Resource GPA Removal Proposal

A lot of resources are GPA tied, which is a barrier to entry. Funding is meant to be accessible to all global students, which ends up being a cycle.

Motion to remove GPA barrier by Chelsea, seconded by Samantha.

Move to vote by Chelsea. Seconded by Tessa. Motion passes.

Reports

President’s Report

Resource Allocation and Accountability committee is up and running. A recent update is that one person from the committee has resigned, and we need to find someone else to replace that person. This will be passed to the Chair and Vice Chair.

Heather and Gina have been reviewing applications for Director of Resources position.

Attended SGC meetings about pay structure and decision to cancel spring break.

Been working with Heather and Laud on food voucher program.

Vice President’s Report

Working on reimbursements and streamlining process. People taking advantage of child care, technology, child care, and grocery reimbursements. Will be doing on the 15th and 30th to stay on top of, and for easy handover to Director of Resources.

Getting honors society reimbursement on the website.

Spoke with Evans about collaboration.

Director of Legislative Affairs Report

Currently working on encouraging voting. Started doing lobbying efforts in the form of pre-meetings. Washington college grant and testified in support of expansion of funding, representing WSA. Also represented WSA talking with senator in support of child care. Guest on podcast to talk about voting history. Attended SGC committee meeting and appointed Vice Chair. SGC is working on holding administration accountable for lack of transparency.

Director of Academic Affairs Report

Working on getting mini town hall with Chelsea to see where students need help. Adding surveys to reimbursement applications just to see where students are at. GPA requirements removed, as it is a barrier to resources that they might need help with.

Cougar Pledge for Washington State University — a one time allotment for students that they can use for housing, phone, necessities, etc.

Director of Finance Report

Researching one event for diversity that will make a lot of headway. Met with Dave Cillay for resources on what we can push. Working with advisors to have more contact with students than what is currently there — taking a more proactive approach to have constant contact with students to make sure that they’re doing okay. Working with Leslie on pushing funds through and getting visibility on where funds are in the process.

Director of Student Events and Programming Report

We did Trivia Night and Yoga Night — the latter of which was recorded and will be put in the vault. Instructor helped explain poses and making it easy for students to follow.

Had committee meetings, goal is to increase engagement.

Upcoming for October: pet dress up contest for social media. Moving cooking night from November to December. Town Hall for November and/or Meet and Greet.

Director of Diversity Report

Vacant.

Director of Communication and Compliance Report

Reviewed email and web traffic data. Focus will be on increasing engagement. From a marketing perspective, we’ve thrown in a lot of energy towards the awareness part of the user journey, hoping to start focusing on people later in the funnel as well.

Meeting adjourned at 5:52 PM.