President – Akshay Kapoor

I just wanted to take a minute and say thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s election process. It is truly an outstanding achievement on the number of students that came out to vote and take part in this democratic process, and therefore express their opinions, passion, and voice. I only hope this is indicative of future elections to come. Garret and I are extremely excited that through your dedication we will have the honor of representing you in the upcoming year. We have already started collaborating and getting prepared for coming into office on April 2nd and look forward to making progress towards on our goals and promises. Once again thank you for your support and we look forward to working with you!

Akshay

Vice President – Garrett Gowen

It’s a fantastic opportunity and I’m truly honored to have the chance to shape the role of the vice president. Akshay and I will decide on our agenda for the coming weeks, and start building a productive and innovative cabinet team. It’s a great time for students and student voice!

Garrett

Student Trustee – Jen Healy

I would like to express my gratitude to all of the students who voted and are trusting me to represent them on the Board of Trustees. The opportunity to advocate for such a diverse and thriving student body is incredible. I hope now to increase and extend communication with the student body and student organizations so that the perception of student needs is clearer and more complete. In this way, we can be sure that , as elected representatives, we accurately convey the needs of and give a voice to the many students on the UMass Amherst campus.

Jen

The iTunes U project is seeking to make lectures available on iTunes, and the Committee is in the process of creating a large student survey to gauge interest.

The Committee is also overhauling the process of midterm evaluations so that more professors will receive feedback during the semester about their course. This way, students could suggest improvements for the class that would benefit them that semester. This project is still in the developmental stage. Senators have met with faculty and asked multiple professors to share their thoughts on the process. Senator Sacks and Special Assistant Elizabeth Adams met with Dean Sorcincelli to get her input and she was very receptive.

Let us know what you think about these projects!

Hi everyone, this is Tiff Tai with your Student Government and Campus Life update.

On Monday, Eddie Hull and Jean Kim spoke to Senate on the new solicitation policy, which was drafted in response to ACLU’s concerns on the policy’s constitutionality. Hull and Kim answered questions from Senate on the logistics of the new policy. After Hull and Kim left the meeting, Senate discussed the changes and agreed that while the new solicitation policy was a vast improvement from the former, Senate would have liked a better avenue for distributing flyers and for UMass student businesses to advertise.

Senate passed a motion that asks that changes to Res Life regarding student jobs be postponed until the university conducts extensive research on the first year experience at UMass, specifically. In the meetings for the Working Group for Student Success, Eddie Hull admitted that the decisions to eliminate the Peer Mentor and Apartment Living Advisors were made based on anecdotal evidence and not statistical evidence on the efficacy of Peer Mentors and Apartment Living Advisors.

Senate also passed a motion to task CEPA with conducting research on UMass housing, particularly the effect of the construction of the Commonwealth Honors College on non-honors students, the capacity of off-campus housing in the surrounding area, the number of students not likely to receive on-campus housing, off-campus affordability particularly for lower income students, and the impact of an increased off-campus population on relations with the Town of Amherst.

Matt Scot from the Resource Room presented on ideas for changing around RSO space in the Student Union, based on the suggestions given in the RSO forum survey. Some ideas currently on the table are to create multipurpose open meeting spaces that only need to be reserved on the same day, as well as creating a “cave space” for RSOs to informally meet. To give your input on how RSO space can be improved, log on to Campus Pulse and fill out the survey there.

Senator Nick Barton reported from the Master Plan committee: After spring break, construction for the new academic classroom building will extend to Hasbrouck and the Student Union. This means the pathway to the library near Skinner and Hasbrouck will no longer be available after spring break.

Senator Barton also noted that plans for the Commonwealth Honors College residential area do not include a new dining common. Those students are supposed to eat in Hampshire DC, and there will be a direct path from the Honors College dorms to Hampshire.

Tomorrow is the SGA Elections Debate, moderated by renowned Professor MJ Peterson from the UMass Political Science department! Come to the Student Union ballroom at 7 PM and learn more about the students running for President, Vice President, and Student Trustee.

Orchard Hill Area Government along with Orchard Hill Senators are hosting an open forum and discussion called Back to the People 2 tonight at 7 PM in the Field lounge. Come voice your opinions, concerns, and desires relating to life in Orchard Hill. Snacks and refreshments wil be provided.

Now on to Campus Events:

Tomorrow, the Cambodian Students Association is holding a cultural event called “Forgotten Faces”. Come hear the story of the Killing Field Survivors, including a history of the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide. Speakers include SGA President Yevin Roh, Samkhann Khoeun, Sopheap Theam, and Sayon Soeun. Light refreshments will be served. This event will happen tomorrow at 6 PM in Herter 231.

The Arab Students Club will hold a Candlelight Vigil for the Martyrs of Syria on Thursday from 7 to 9:30 PM in the Cape Cod Lounge of the Student Union. As the uprisings in Syria approach their 12th month, thousands have died and are still dying. Come commemorate and honor those lost in Syria. There will be an open mic session, a power point presentation, and a candlelight vigil outside the student union. Please bring signs!

Come to a “Know Your Rights” workshop on Thursday from 7 to 8:30 PM in the Theta Chi fraternity house on 496 North Pleasant St. There will be a lively and interactive Q&A session about what your rights are during police encounters, featuring Attorney Corey Carvalho of the Student Legal Services Office and Officer Mark Whelihan from UMPD.

The African Students Association is hosting a cultural event called “Coming to America” this Saturday at 8 PM in the Student Union ballroom. The event will be an opportunity for students to learn more about African culture. There will be an interactive event with several performances such as cultural dances, skits, poetry, and singing.That wraps up your Student Government and Campus Life update. I’m Tiff Tai. Now to Bennett with a look at Sports.

UMass Permaculture placed first in the White House’s Campus Champions of Change Challenge, winning a trip to the White House and the opportunity to host mtvU’s show “The Dean’s List”.  The Challenge was created by President Obama last fall in an attempt to highlight the efforts of students to win the future at colleges and universities around the country.  On February 21st, the leaders of Permaculture received a phone call from the White House informing them that they were one of the 15 finalists in the challenge.  The challenge was then opened up to a vote, where Permaculture went up against ideas like Moneythink from the University of Chicago or Full Circle Food Pantry from the University of Arkansas, with the top 5 ideas winning the trip to the White House.  In the next two and a half weeks, the Permaculture initiative received an astounding 59,844 votes from visitors to the White House’s website.  This was over 2,500 votes more than the second place idea, and around 39,000 more votes than the sixth place idea.  This margin of victory is a testament not only to the uniqueness and impact of the idea, but also to the amount of support that the Permaculture initiative has gained on campus since its inception.  Check out the exact vote tally and the other nominated ideas at https://campuschallenge.uservoice.com/forums/148562-campus-champions-of-change-challenge/filters/hot.

A book could probably be written about the history of UMass Permaculture, and I encourage you to watch their Youtube documentary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWHSzGDItBA) to get a full story of the initiative’s goals and history.  The documentary is extremely impressive and inspiring, and it highlights the amazing people who were responsible for getting the attention necessary to be nominated and eventually to win the Campus Champions of Change Challenge.  I first encountered some of these people when I attended the dedication ceremony for the garden at Franklin Dining Commons.  Listening to Ryan Harb, the Chief Sustainability Specialist for Auxiliary Services, speak about the challenges and successes that he faced as a part of the Permaculture Committee was truly inspiring and made me an instant fan of anything to do with permaculture.  I was also impressed with how hard the rest of the Permaculture Committee worked on organizing the event and on getting a world-renowned author, Francis Moore-Lappe, to speak there.  I was equally impressed with the work of the students who are a part of the newly formed RSO, Friends of UMass Permaculture (FOUMP), when I attended their first general body meeting a few weeks ago.  Their dedication and passion for Permaculture showed through as they planned what they would do to advertise their group at Earth Day, organized a trip to a local food swap, and brainstormed ideas for a permaculture cookbook of sorts.  These students, along with the students, faculty, and staff involved in the Permaculture Committee, make me proud to be a part of the UMass community.

When the garden was first being built outside Franklin Dining Commons, I’m sure that none of the students involved were thinking at all about winning an award for their work; they put in the time and effort because they were passionate about sustainable food and permaculture.  It just goes to show you that if you put enough work in, the way the students involved in permaculture certainly did, people will start to take notice.  There will always be negative media attention caused by a minority of students, but keep working in the classroom, the athletic field, or the RSO office, and you might be the next UMass student to get a call from the White House.

To kick off the festivities, there will be a community service opportunity in the form of a campus clean-up event on Sunday morning.  At 1 pm that day, there will be a concert to benefit student farms on the library lawn.  During the concert, there will be a fair to showcase the great work that student sustainability groups are doing on campus.  At 7 pm in the Campus Center Auditorium, there will be a showing of The Last Mountain, a movie about the struggle between a small town in West Virginia and a coal mining corporation.

On Monday at 10 am, there will be a series of Ignite presentations in the Student Union Ballroom and the Cape Cod Lounge.  Ignite is a type of presentation where the presenter has 5 minutes and 20 power point slides to present an idea.  The presentations on Earth Day will cover environmental topics and will be given by students, faculty, staff, and alumni.  At 3 pm in Campus Center Room 164-75, there will be a panel of employers in green industries.  At 4 pm in the Campus Center Auditorium, there will be a forum to discuss the sustainability of new buildings on campus.  Also at 4 pm, in room 2601 of the Library, there will be a showing of Rivers and Tides, a movie about the artist Andy Goldsworthy, who specializes in making sculptures out of elements of nature.  To culminate the Earth Day celebration, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be speaking about the environment at the Mullins Center at 7 pm.  Kennedy is the son of the late Robert Kennedy, and is a renowned environmentalist.

So, mark your calendar and join us in celebrating Earth Day!

As the Chief of Staff it is my job to keep track of everything and anything the Cabinet is doing. As such I will be writing a weekly blog post giving a brief summary of what the cabinet has been up to in the past week. This is what we have been up to for the weeks of January 23^rd to February 13^th:

Akshay Kapoor The Secretary of Diversity and Greek Life

Akshay has helped put on one of the most fantastic events this year. On February 8^th as the men’s basketball team beat St. Bonaventure Akshay helped to put on a White Ribbon Campaign event. A critically important event this campaign has men taking a pledge to never commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women.  To read more about this event check out the article here (Daily Collegian). He is also putting on a diversity forum this Thursday!

 Yevin Roh   The President of Student Government Association

Since we have been back Yevin has continued with his dedicated work ethic to advocate for students. He has been meeting with CEPA to discuss various injustices facing students this semester as well as attending meetings on the new UHS changes. He has been interviewing with the collegian to get out name and our voice in the media as well as meeting with various cultural groups such as YKCC. He has been attending student success meetings and meeting with student leaders to keep our cabinet focused on the semester ahead. Finally he continues to contribute to the conversation on the new tobacco free policy as well as the ongoing conversation about the student health insurance plan.

Tiffany Tai The Secretary of Public Relations and Recruitment

Tiff has been continuing to do great social media for us. Tiff continues to do updates for RSO’s on WMUA radio so if you have any updates please let her know! In addition Tiff has been coordinating cabinet to attend a charity event in the upcoming month.  She has also been working with the Chancellor of Elections to coordinate for the upcoming election this spring.

Cameron Kackley The Secretary of Sustainability

Cam continues to work on our revolutionary Bikeshare program and is striving to make it better in any way we can. If you have not heard of it check it out here (Bike Share). If you used it this past semester you can be sure to look forward to a more streamlined and more efficient program this spring! He also has been making our SGA office more green and sustainable as well as working on Earth Day ideas.

Matt Rheault The Secretary of Web Management

Matt has done so much for our website and our online presence it is hard to keep up with him. Here are just a few of the things he has been working on; he transferred domain and hosting to SGA accounts to begin the process of owning our website,  he made bylaw changes to his position, he did web market analysis and strategy, he hired an undersecretary, he is working towards making an interactive online constitution in a wiki page, streamlining the elections system, building a resource list, and hiring a developer for the Bikeshare program, as well as other projects to be revealed soon! And as always he is running the UMass Textbook Swap.

Avae Thomas The Secretary of University Policy

So far this semester Avae has been busy. She has attended the 5 College Coordinating Board meeting, and did a lot of planning for the 5 College transfer event, as well as attending and helping out at the event which was a huge success. This event was the first of its kind and we hope to put it on again. She also met with Select-woman O’Keefe to discuss providing funding for Town programs that could possibly be sponsored by the 5 College Consortium.

Janam Anand The Secretary of the Registry

Our Secretary of Registry has done a lot this semester. She met with roughly 10 Prospective RSOs and went over RSO Application Process. She had the RSO application go live and it will be up until midnight, March 4^th and all final decisions will be sent out by March 7th. The New RSO Orientation will be the week before Spring Break, and the dates are TBA. She is also drawing up a two-part office space contract. The first part is physical appearance, furniture, condition of space, fines, etc. The second part is about code of conduct, acceptable office behavior, sharing the space with other groups, etc. She will also be sending out multiple reminders in the upcoming two weeks about office space and when requests are due by. After that, she will put up a request form for all groups who are interested in office space. Forms will be time-stamped, so it will be first-come, first-serve.

Kyle Howard The Attorney General

Kyle has been advocating for students heavily last semester and continues to do so into this semester. He is assisting students with judicial sanctions as well as working to have student voice included in policies. Recently he engendered the ACLU of Western Massachusetts to write a letter to director of Residential Life Eddie Hull concerning the new solicitation policy. For more information about the letter check out the collegian article here (Daily Collegian)

Josh Hume  The Secretary of Veteran Affairs

Josh, as always, has been striving to improve the lives of Veterans on our campus. Recently he has coordinated successful charity events and has raised a great deal of money. He also has been working on providing an all Veterans floor on campus. To find out more about what Josh has been doing to improve life for Veterans on campus contact him here jdhume@student.umass.edu

Benjamin Johnson The Secretary of Finance

Ben continually is working to make the financial aspect of life for Registered Student Organizations and other groups and businesses on campus easier to deal with. He has been working with UPC to organize the Hungover Hearts Event. He also put in vast amounts of time and effort assisting groups at budget workshops which have been hugely helpful to groups. He continues to plan events and work to make life better for current and future UMass students.

I would also like to take this time to remind everyone that you can stop by the Student Government Office anytime we are located at 420 Student Union Building. If you are looking to meet with a particular cabinet member please feel free to visit our Office Hours page to see when that cabinet member will be in the office. If you have any general questions about Student Government or how to get involved feel free to contact me at sgacos@stuaf.umass.edu! Have a great day!

The capitalization of Thanksgiving started in 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving one week earlier than normal, believing that doing so would help bolster retail sales during one of the final years of the Great Depression. That led to much upheaval and protest, causing some to deride the holiday as Franksgiving–a name coined by then-Atlantic City mayor, Thomas Taggart.

Fast forward to sixty-six years later. In 2005, the day after Thanksgiving, for the first time in documented history, was announced as the biggest shopping holiday of the year. Though considered high up on the list in previous years, it was often out-shined (or, rather, out-shopped) by the Saturday before Christmas, and the week before Valentine’s Day. Each year, since 2005, retailers have upped the ante, making the day after Thanksgiving progressively more profitable than the previous year.

A carnival of capitalism, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, when retailers across the country dangle deep discounts to lure customers out of bed. Black Friday is also the official beginning of the holiday-buying frenzy. For stores, the Friday after Thanksgiving can provide the highest sales day of the year, and is a barometer for what they need to do the rest of the season. With a strong Black Friday, retailers can generally keep their prices up and assume that their holiday inventory will sell; a weak Friday means they have to start marking down holiday merchandise to get enough of it out the door by Christmas.

The name itself is a reference to profit, because retailers historically “moved into the black,” or became profitable for the year, on that day. In addition to discounts, several retailers offered layaway as a new option in 2011, allowing people to pay for purchases over time.

Major chains, eager to be the first to draw in customers, opened earlier than their competitors. Wal-Mart, for instance, opened at 10 PM on Thanksgiving Day, in an attempt to draw large crowds to purchase specially priced electronic gaming devices. However, judging from the negative reaction among dedicated Black Friday shoppers on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, the wave of early openings has crossed a line.

Part of the objection is inconvenience. To be at or near the front of the line, shoppers say they now have to leave home hours earlier — in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner for some. But the wider objections reflect sentiments like those of the Occupy Wall Street movement, including a growing attention to the rights of workers and a wariness of decisions by big business. Black Fridayrelies on a few simple retail strategies that, with tons of customer data and forecasting software, have become fairly precise. One method is to sell everything as cheaply as possible and magnify a tiny profit through volume. Other stores mark down only a few high-profile items — even selling them at a loss — in hopes that customers will also throw a few full-priced items in their shopping bags. Regardless, Black Friday is essentially a one-day economic-­stimulus plan and job-creation program. Retailers use TV commercials and deep discounts, rather than tax breaks and infrastructure spending, but the effect is the same: billions of dollars, which would otherwise never be spent, make their way into circulation.

In some years past, big sales on Black Friday have meant a good year for the retail sector, which makes up about a fifth of the United States economy. In 2010, more Americans went shopping over the Thanksgiving weekend than in recent memory, and online shopping accounted for the highest percentage of the weekend’s sales. An estimated 212 million people shopped, up from 195 million in 2009. The average amount spent per person from Thanksgiving through the end of the weekend was about $365, more than a 6 percent increase over 2009, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation.

For 2011, retailers predicted a so-so year, with just a tiny growth in sales. However, their post-Thanksgiving date may be a bit iffy. On a spread sheet, broke people buying on deep discount look an awful lot like people who feel flush, but they are not the same thing. In the recent recession, solid Black Fridays have been followed by lousy sales once the special offers went away. It is another indication of how hard it is to understand the real state of our economy.

This year, to help shoppers get a jump on Black Friday and holiday deals, there was even a free iPhone app called TapBuy that, like dozens of other apps, aggregates deals — in this case from roughly 100 companies like The Gap, Target, eBay, Groupon and Wal-Mart. The app provides daily deals in categories like women, men, kids and electronics. As retailers battled to draw customers into their stores on Black Friday, online merchants were plotting a cunning ambush — offering an arsenal of mobile-only deals intended to pick off shoppers as they waited in line.

Aggressive promotions by Gilt, Amazon, HSN and other online companies created a frenzy among traditional retailers. A few even fought back. Best Buy, already acquainted with the sting of online price-comparison apps, declined to display standard bar codes on some products so they could not be easily scanned by smartphones. But online merchants have technology — and increasingly, consumer behavior — on their side. Almost 10 percent of e-commerce purchases made in October 2011 came through mobile devices, according toresearch from IBM Coremetrics, up from about 3 percent a year earlier.

Online results for Black Friday were strong in 2010, as retailers hoped to drive customers to the Web, with more specials than ever — door busters without the door — creating an online jump-start to the traditional Black Friday rush. Though companies traditionally began their online holiday sales push the Monday after Thanksgiving, in 2010 they emphasized promotions on Thanksgiving Day and the day after. The efforts seemed to work. About 33.6 percent of weekend shoppers bought online, which, according to the National Retail Federation’s study, was the highest percentage ever.

For retailers, the Black Friday deep-discount frenzy also presents a troublesome issue: public safety. In 2008, at a Wal-Mart on Long Island, an employee was trampled to death when a stampede of 2,000 shoppers burst through the doors before the store’s scheduled opening at 5 a.m. In March 2011, a judge upheld a $7,000 fine against Wal-Mart, concluding that unruly crowds the day after Thanksgiving were a recognized hazard and that there were feasible means to control that hazard. This year, a woman in line at a Los Angeles-area Wal-Mart, pepper-sprayed close to 20 other shoppers, including children, in an attempt to gain an advantage in purchasing a discount Xbox gaming console.

Shootings, beating, and trampling were commonplace at various retail locations across the nation, where crowd control was either minimal, or not effective. What all of this suggests is that the age old tradition of Thanksgiving weekend being a food-filled, fun-filled, family affair, is turning into another media-instigated, generically celebrated “holiday,” where the real meaning of the Thanksgiving tradition is tainted with a capitalistic screen, and marred by stories of the average American going to idiotic lengths for material goods. To answer my previously posed question, shoppers feel like cranberry sauce on Black Friday because once they have been bruised and battered by fellow shoppers, they then get squeezed by the cashier.

Hi everyone. This is Tiff Tai with your Student Government and Campus Life update.

This week, the Secretary of Finance Benjamin Johnson presented to the Senate the preliminary plans for a new Student Union. The Student Union was built in 1957 and has not received any major renovations since. To bring the building up to code and to provide more useful spaces for students, RSOs, and student businesses, the university is exploring options to build a new Student Union. Currently, the committee that Johnson sits on is exploring financing the project in a combination of bank financing, donations, and student fees, as the state does not fund the construction of nonacademic buildings. All talk of a new Student Union is completely preliminary, and no final decisions have been made.

The Senate started the UMass Amherst Day Committee that is charged with planning the first UMass Amherst Day. State legislators will be invited to visit the campus on this day and to learn more about the work that students are doing. This day will happen in the spring semester.

The SGA is also looking ahead to the next semester when the budget process for RSOs will begin. RSOs will need to attend a budget workshop, which will be held at the end of January. RSOs, then, should start thinking about their budget, as the process will begin earlier in the spring than it has in the past.

Now on to campus events.

On Friday, December 9^th, from 5 to 11 PM, the athletic fields near Boyden Gym will be transformed into a snowboard terrain park with over 150 tons of snow. Get excited for the 2^nd annual Metawampe Stompe Rail Jam, brought to you by breast cancer charity Ellen’s Heart and Soul, as well as UMass Amherst Motorsport Club, UMass Student Government Association, and the UMass Ski n Board Club. 120 riders will compete for over $500 worth of donated prizes and Colorado Ski Shop sponsorship. Donate $20 to ride or $5 for a customized Metawampe Stompe drink koozie AND unlimited hot cocoa. What better way to celebrate the end of classes than with snow, hot cocoa, and a great cause?

On Thursday, the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity will be holding Pedal for Push, a 12-hour stationary bike-a-thon to raise awareness for people disabilities and Push America. Come cheer on the fraternity brothers as they bike for 12 hours, while also hearing about Push America and disabilities issues today. Donations to Push America will also be accepted. The fundraiser will be held on the Campus Center concourse across from the University Store from 10 AM to 10 PM.

UPC will be holding auditions for UMass Best Dance Crew tomorrow from 5 to 11 PM in the Student Union Ballroom.

To observe World AIDS Day, there will be a fundraiser for the Keep A Child Alive Foundation on Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 PM in the Cape Cod Lounge. Money raised will help provide AIDS medical care, orphan care, food, and support to children and families affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India. This fundraiser is brought to you by a cultural collaboration between the National Society of Black Engineers and the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Other sponsors include the African Students Association, the Black Student Union, the Public Health Club and more!

Also in observance of World AIDS Day, the Stonewall Center and Tapestry Health will be offering free and anonymous rapid HIV testing tomorrow from noon to 3:30 PM in the Campus Center room 101.

On Friday, Latinos Unidos and the Haitian American Student Association present HASA/CASA: A Paradise Unseen. This is a night of dancing from 6:30 PM to 2 AM. There will be performances, a Latino/Haitian style dinner, and an after party.

Also on Friday, the Kappa Phi Lambda sorority is holding its Clothing the World cultural fashion show from 7 to 9 PM in the Cape Cod Lounge.

The improve troop IWA will introduce their new members in their Noob Show on Friday from 8 to 9 PM in Herter 231.

The a capella group Vocal Suspects is having their “Host the Olympics” concert this Saturday from 7 to 8:30 PM in Isenberg 137.

Finally, the first ever collaboration between two of the largest cultural RSOs on campus is coming to you next Friday at 7:30 PM. The Asian American Students Association and the Black Student Union are hosting this year’s Winter Ball in the Student Union Ballroom. There will be a banquet dinner, entertainment, and a dance party. Entertainment will be provided by the DBJ Dance Crew, the Cape Verdean Student Association, Insanely Prestigious Step Team, and more. Tickets are currently on sale in the Resource Room room 314 of the Student Union.

Dear President Caret,

Attached to this letter you will find a motion passed yesterday, December 5^th, 2011, by the UMass Amherst Student Government Association in regards to the recent decision by Mr. Eddie Hull, the Executive Director of Housing and Residence Life, and Ms. Tara Loomis, the Director of Residence Education, to drastically change the way Housing operates and cut multiple student jobs. Mr. Hull and Ms. Loomis were both given well over an hour to address the SGA Senate last night and take questions, after which time the Senate heard from the public and decided to pass this motion. We are writing to give you notice into this matter.

It is important to understand the background of this situation before reading the motion itself. On Wednesday, November 30^th, the Peer Mentors, a live-in student job on campus that helps first-year students with their academics, personal issues, and academic and social transitions to college, were told via email that their position was going to be eliminated next academic year. After no other information was provided to the Peer Mentors, the community quickly began to hear other changes – the Apartment Living Advisors (undergraduates) were being cut, the Assistant Resident Directors (graduates) were being cut and, entire operation was now going to be centralized and the student staff were no longer going to be able to have any preference in their living location.

On Thursday, December 1^st, the SGA and other student groups helped plan a protest to address these actions at the Faculty Senate meeting, in which many administrators would be in attendance. In just a few hours, over 130 students packed a small room in Herter Hall and silently and respectfully held signs stating their opposition to these changes.

Yesterday morning, Student Trustee Tina Kennedy and SGA President Yevin Roh met with Mr. Hull to discuss these changes. They repeatedly asked him for minutes or notes of any meetings that had decided these changes or any type of documentation detailing the changes and why they had been made. To both requests they were told that these notes simply did not exist and that all agreements, decisions, conversations, and approval had been verbal in nature.

The important point to remember about these changes is not whether or not they were good changes but rather how they happened. These changes were made without even the slightest form of consultation with any student who was going to be directly affected by these changes. Not only is this form of decision making wrong and indecent, it is also directly in violation of both the spirit and the letter of Trustee document T73-098, which says that the University will operate on a shared governance structure, something our University very rarely if ever functionally operates on.

If this was Mr. Hull’s first time of ignoring the student body, I believe that a motion such as this would not have been necessary. However, Mr. Hull has repeatedly shown, in a very unprofessional manner, a blatant disregard for students and open hostility to contradictory arguments.

This motion calls for very simple yet powerful action: involvement of the students into the decisions that so intimately affect their lives. At the Senate meeting, Mr. Hull repeatedly said that it was inappropriate for students to be involved in these decisions. Given that students sit right now on the Chancellor’s Search Committee and the Board of Trustees, the idea that this level of decision making was inappropriate for students is nothing short of insulting and very illuminating into the mind set currently in control of Residence Life. We ask simply that Mr. Hull work with students now and in the future in good faith on these issues and any that come forward in the future. However, if Mr. Hull chooses not to work with students in the future, the Student Government Association will have lost all confidence in his ability to carry out his duties and ask that Vice Chancellor Jean Kim take appropriate action.

Yours Sincerely,

Jarred P. Rose

Speaker of the Senate

2011-F24

Whereas, the department of Residential Life has announced unprecedented changes to its student staff structure, and;

Whereas, this includes the laying off of all Peer Mentors at the end of this year and the removal of the position, and;

Whereas, Peer Mentors are an invaluable resource to first year students on this campus, and;

Whereas, this includes the laying off of all Apartment Living Advisors at the end of this year and the removal of the position, and;

Whereas, Residential Life expects there to be no policy enforcement in North Apartments and there is only to be community enforcement, and;

Whereas, the position of Assistant Resident Director is being significantly reduced, and;

Whereas, the position of Residential Learning Graduate is being ended, and;

Whereas, these are positions for graduate students, and;

Whereas, in this climate of economic hardship for students, eliminating students’ jobs is against the best wisdom of higher education, and;

Whereas, we understand that there are going to be no cuts to Residential Life budget, and in fact the department will be hiring 7 additional high level administrators, and;

Whereas, the transition of Orchard Hill to an all-freshman area effectively destroys the Orchard Hill Area Government, an issue that intimately affects the SGA, and;

Whereas, these decisions were made without the consultation of the Student Government Association, including the Senate, Executive, and the Residence Hall Association, the elected representatives of all undergraduate students, the Graduate Student Senate, the elected representatives of all graduate students, or the RA council, and;

Whereas, this is not the first time that the Department of Residential Life has shown an apparent disdain towards involving students, the constituency body that the Department should be primarily serving, including but not limited to the changes in the Solicitation Policy and the attempt at a unilateral absorption of the House Councils and the Residence Hall Association, and;

Whereas, during Director of Residential Life Eddie Hull’s tenure at Duke University there were similar accusations made in the Duke Chronicle regarding his lack of communication with the students and also accusations that he did not seem to respect the students wants and needs, and;

Whereas, the Student Government Association has primary responsibility according to the Wellman Document in student affairs, and;

Whereas, changes to Residential Life clearly fall under this aspect of Wellman, and;

Whereas, there has been a clear and substantial amount of opposition shown to these changes from both Student Staff and students in general, therefore;

Be it enacted, that the Student Government Association requests the Department of Residential Life to provide the Speaker of the Senate and the President with written copies of the changes to ResLife policy and structure, and information about any other changes being considered for the near future, by the end of this semester, and;

Be it further enacted, that if the Department of Residential Life has not finalized these changes, that they not proceed with them until they have been properly reviewed and advised upon by relevant student representative groups on campus, including but not limited to the full bodies of the SGA, GSS, and RA Council, so that the policy changes can be in agreement with student opinion and;

Be it further enacted, that should these changes already be finalized, that the Student Government Association forcefully requests that the Department allow for a system of changes to be made to the policy which are motivated by student opinion and involve the full bodies of the SGA, GSS, and RA Council, and

Be it further enacted, that should Residential Director Eddie Hull refuse to work both with students and his own student staff on this issue, and in good faith actually respond to student concerns, the UMass Amherst Student Government Association will have officially lost confidence in Mr. Hull as Residential Life Director and the SGA asks Vice Chancellor Jean Kim to take immediate action to respond to student concerns with the changing to ResLife policy and the leadership of the Residential Life Department.

Be it further enacted, that copies of this motion will be sent by the Speaker to the Chancellor, the University President, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, the Chair of the Chancellor’s Search Committee, the Governor of Massachusetts, and the Boston Globe.

Sponsored by Chairman Barton, President Roh, Secretary Kapoor, Secretary Rheault, Secretary Tai, Chairman Baldarelli, Chairman Gowen, Chairman O’Connor, Chairman Stratford, Senator Broughton, Senator Ghosh, Senator Lamb, and Senator McGrail

AY2012-13 Changes: Residence Education

Residential Life leadership has spent the past year critically examining Department resources and how well they align with our current and future priorities. As part of our comprehensive organization structure review, we asked ourselves “Where are we going, and are we organized in ways that will best help us achieve our goals?” Our determination has been that we are doing many things well that don’t need to be reconsidered. We have also identified areas that need significant rethinking.

Several organization changes have already been implemented, including transferring Cluster Office operations from Residence Education to Student Services, and retooling our Human Resources unit to better serve the entire Department. Changes ahead will include adding an Assessment function and beefing up our communications and marketing efforts. Facilities Operations will be modified to take on additional responsibilities related to residence hall access systems and to enhance our planning and management of capital projects. Residence Education, however, will experience the most significant transformation.

Residence Education takes the lead role in visioning and delivering a residential experience that is an extension of the University’s academic mission. In addition to supporting the personal development of students, our charge is to position the residence halls as communities in which learning is celebrated and the University’s values are more than inspirational objectives. Meeting these expectations requires new thinking, and new approaches. Constructs that have been in place for decades simply don’t cut it any longer and we must have the courage to approach the residential experience differently.

Several major changes will be implemented for the 2012-13 academic year. These include:

1. Moving from a largely geographical model of residence hall administration to a functional management model. For example, one person will have lead responsibility for all First Year (FY) residences, regardless of their location. Similarly, one person will have lead responsibility for all upper-class student residences, regardless of their location.
2. Re-designating residence halls that will house FY students and support their transition to university life in communities that are smaller and easier to navigate. For example, the towers in Southwest will no longer house FY students. This change will result in more FY residence halls, with resident and resident to staff ratios that are more equitable across the residential system, and which will better promote the building of community and a sense of belonging.
3. Additional professional positions will be added to better serve our students and more effectively manage responsibilities that currently have staff stretched too thin and for which students ultimately suffer. A consequence of this is a reduction of the number of graduate assistantships we will offer, going from 40 to 23. Even with this reduction, students will be served more effectively and we will still provide meaningful professional development opportunities for graduate students interested in future careers in student affairs.
4. We will be creating a student conduct unit to more efficiently manage a significant case load that has prevented Residence Directors and Assistant Residence Directors from focusing their energies on building the positive communities we embrace and help establish more meaningful connections to the academic mission of the institution.

Student Leadership roles have also been examined and there will be some changes while retaining the Resident Assistant as the core of our leadership program.

1. The Resident Assistant (RA) role will remain essentially unchanged. This role is intended to be the primary facilitator of building strong, positive communities in our residence halls. This need continues, as will the RA role.  Changes in FY residence hall designations will, in fact, add 23 RA positions for the 2012-13 academic year.
2. The Apartment Living Assistant (ALA) role is being eliminated for the coming academic year. These 19 positions have provided RA-like support for the North Apartments. The program for the North Apartments will be adjusted next year to serve as a transition between living in traditional residence halls and living off campus. North will be intended for the mature upper-class student who is seeking a more independent, self directed residential experience, while still having Residential Life supports available when necessary. Four live-in Graduate Assistant positions (Assistant Residence Directors) will be created to provide these supports for what is reasonably argued is a community that does not need to be treated in the same way as FY students.
3. The Peer Mentor position, with its genesis around 2004, has provided basic academic supports to First-Year students, including time management skills, support in connecting with academic advisors and departments, and other worthwhile supports. These remain important and will be provided by First Year Experience Specialists, Graduate Learning Specialists, Residence Directors, and RAs going forward (responsibilities that are definable within current position descriptions). Peer Mentors in good standing will be given priority consideration in the selection of RAs for next year.
4. Tutors (working title) will be established to further enhance the academic success of FY students. This has been a missing link in the FY residential experience is academic tutoring in the residence halls. Our intention is to work with campus resources to introduce tutoring, test preparation, and related direct academic performance supports to FY students where they live as a supplement to similar campus services. FY residences will be our focus as a first phase of this effort. Similar supports for upper-class halls will follow.

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Questions can be directed to:

Tara Loomis

Director of Residence Education

209 Berkshire House

545-6923

tloomis@gw.housing.umass.edu

Eddie Hull

Executive Director of Residential Life

208 Berkshire House

545-1964

ehull@gw.housing.umass.edu