Dearest Beloved Constituents,

I hope the end of the semester finds you in good spirits, well-prepared for finals.  As the semester draws to a close, I hope you take advantage of the beautiful weather and the beautifully-blooming campus.  As usual, I’ve taken great pleasure in serving you over the past month.

Prior to the first meeting in April, I was quite busy.  Along with my distinguished colleague, Senator Geckle, I worked on two resolutions.  The first one, in response to repeated state-level budget cuts, condemns the state budget cuts to Stony Brook, resolving that New York State must stop slashing Stony Brook University’s budget, properly fund our institution of higher learning, and reminds legislators that students, as voters, have the ability to vote against those who do not believe in funding the education of the next generation.  The second resolution, in response to the Administration’s decision to close down the campus at Southampton, condemns that action and the rapidity at which this decision was made.  It resolves that Southampton is important to the University community, that the state needs to adequately fund Stony Brook (and thus not force the University as a whole to absorb $34 million in cuts this year alone), and that the decision to curtail operations at Southampton must be rescinded.

For those of you who are wondering what these resolutions do practically, unfortunately, our resolutions are non-binding expressions of the will of the undergraduate student body, but they still make great press releases, and hopefully garner attention so that our opinions are taken into consideration.  One of the first duties assigned to the Undergraduate Student Government is to “provide leadership that will ensure the undergraduate student voice will be a powerful force in all decisions made at Stony Brook.”  One of the duties assigned specifically to the Senate is to write and pass resolutions “on issues of importance to the undergraduate student body in regards to academic policy, student rights, and student welfare” these two resolutions were just publicizing the feelings of the student body.

Additionally at the first meeting in April, the Senate was faced with tough decisions.  The 2010 Employment Act outlines the various offices in the Executive branch, the number of hours per Office per week, and made hiring and termination of employees much more streamlined.  The 2010 Due Compensation Act was intended to adjust payroll and clearly outline how much each official/employee was to be paid.  Of utmost importance at that meeting, the Senate voted unanimously to extend the deadline on the 2010-2011 Undergraduate Student Government Budget.  The Treasury was given until April 30^th to come back with a new, revised budget that took into account the displaced Stony Brook Southampton students.

The second meeting in April proved to be quite interesting and very informative.  After viewing a presentation by Dr. DiMonda on the Campus Recreation Center, the Senate took up the 2010 Establishment of Student Life Act.  After reviewing the bill at least twice before in committee, I was happy to see that all of the Legislative Review Committee’s hard work was fruitful.  Overall, I thought the bill was well put together, yet it still needed to be amended on the floor, just to insert a few clarifying lines.  Personally, I didn’t believe debate should have been cut off, but by allowing the Senate to vote via secret ballot, people were able to vote with their consciences.  In the end, the bill passed 16-4-0.  The final thing on our agenda that evening was Senator Geckle’s brainchild, the Senate Resolution Decrying the Scheduling of Classes during Campus Lifetime.  I motioned to approve it, as the nearly 20-year old tradition of Campus Lifetime is being encroached upon by classes that do not necessarily have to be scheduled during what should be the campus-wide break.

Prior to the final meeting in April, I was appointed to an ad-hoc committee to vet President Wilson’s nominee for one of the openings on the USG Supreme Court.  His confirmation passed by a vote of 14-2.  Also at this meeting, we voted again to extend the budget deadline to give Treasurer Khan and the Budget Committee time to meet with the clubs from Southampton and transition them onto the budget this weekend.  The Office of the Executive Vice President Act clarified the duties of the Office, and restated the constitutional duties of the Executive Vice President.   The final act on our agenda dealt with the issue of Southampton.  I believed it was defeatist to remove the structure governing Southampton now, when the buildings are being maintained.  The campus and its academic programs could reopen in the future, when there is a more positive economic outlook, in which case, the USG Code will need to be amended again.

As always, I’ve enjoyed serving you immensely.  Best of luck on finals!  Enjoy summer!

Warmest Regards,

Deborah Machalow

USG Senator

Dearest Beloved Constituents,

I hope your week leading up to Spring Break hasn’t been too terribly difficult.  I would first and foremost like to thank you for reelecting me to serve you faithfully for another year.  I look forward to the continued opportunity to represent you in the Undergraduate Student Government Senate.  As usual, I’d like to take this opportunity to report back to you on how I’ve served you over the past month.

The March 2^nd meeting began with the old business that had carried over from the last meeting in February.  The 2010 Checks and Balances Act, the handiwork of my distinguished colleague Alex Dimitriyadi, ensures that presidential appointees are qualified, that there is a distinct separation of the different branches of government, and thus prevents an official from serving in two separate branches of the government.  I voted to allocate money to the Juggling Club, the Photography Club, and the SB Independent, my rationale for voting such has not changed since my last report.  I agreed with Senator Cushing that CIAO should receive the full $1500 so that its members could go to both Ellis Island and to see Tina and Tony’s Wedding.  Additionally, I presented the preliminary report for my ad-hoc committee.  We had spent a week reading through PHEEIA and deciphering it, so that the undergraduate student body would understand what it was about.  Later that evening, the Rules Committee took a stab at the Special Services Council Bylaws; big picture discussions were held, and the entire revisions were postponed.  The reason these bylaws are being reformed is to make it easier for new clubs to get funding.

The meeting of March 9^th was pleasantly short, sweet and to the point.  We allocated money to a few clubs; both in the form of budget and in the form of grant.  It was a very interesting meeting to see how people acted, as a political coup, which I’m sure you’re now all aware of, was underfoot.  Later that week, the Law Revision Council met for the first time.  All members received their assignments of recently-enacted laws that needed to be incorporated into the Code.

The next week proved to be quite entertaining.  On Sunday, March 14, 2010 the Ad-hoc Committee to Examine Potential Tuition Changes decided that Microsoft SharePoint was too much of a hassle, and that we were going to take advantage of Google Documents’ Survey Forms.  My Vice-Chair, Senator Craig McCarthy, was good enough to begin advertising our survey on Facebook and got the survey onto the Student Life Listserv.  I was named to the Commission on Constitutional Reform.  Prior to the Senate meeting on Tuesday, the Legislative Review Committee edited and approved the 2010 Establishment of Identity and the 2010 Clarity of Legislation Acts.  These two acts, which both were approved by the Senate, create a standardized and unified image for the USG so that it can better serve the students (through recognition) and required the legislation amending prior Acts had the to-be-amended Act attached, so that the Senate would clearly know what it was potentially changing, respectively.  My esteemed colleague, from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Senator Cushing’s resolution, jokingly referred to as “The Puddle Resolution” came up for a vote and was passed unanimously, hopefully there will be no more electronics drowned by the gigantic puddle behind the Engineering Quad.

The final week before Spring Break started off with a bang.  After my ad-hoc committee’s survey closed at 11:55pm on Saturday March 20^th, I drafted the final report, detailing the students’ responses.  On Sunday, the Committee went through said draft and finalized it.  It, in addition to some very pretty graphs and charts (which were created with much assistance from Senator McCarthy) were submitted and presented to the Senate on Tuesday.  Additionally, the USG Budget came up for a vote this past Tuesday.  It passed unanimously, after all the work and incredible hours clocked by the Budget Committee and Treasurer Khan.  Treasurer Khan took the liberty of drafting, and Senator Cushing the liberty of presenting, a resolution condemning the lack of internet on Tabler Quad last weekend, which thankfully passed unanimously, as we all acknowledge how difficult it is to go an entire weekend without access to the internet.  After the Senate meeting adjourned, the Rules Committee began looking over the Elections Board Bylaws, and discussing possible changes of such to improve the elections’ process for years to come.  The first meeting of the Commission on Constitutional Reform occurred this past Wednesday, and curiously enough, I was unanimously elected Vice-Chair.

I believe that covers my actions throughout the month of March.  I hope you all enjoy your vacations and that you come back ready to finish the semester off wonderfully!

Warmest Regards,

Deborah Machalow

USG Senator

Dearest Beloved Constituents,

I hope the semester has progressed pleasantly for all of you.  As usual, I’ve taken great pleasure at serving you and representing your interests in the Undergraduate Student Government Senate.  As usual, in this report, I would like to demonstrate how I’ve served you recently and update you on my various activities as your elected representative.

At the very start of the semester, I was Acting Chair of the Legislative Review Committee, but I opted to not accept the nomination to be the permanent Chair, as the Chair is unable to make motions and this inability would prevent me from serving you efficiently.  I have maintained my position as Vice-Chair, and will continue to improve the grammar and syntax of legislation passing through the committee.

Over the past month I have spent countless hours working on the revisions of P.A.S.S. (Providing Academic Support to Students) in both the Legislative Review Committee and in the Rules, Elections and Referendum Standards Committee.  These two committees have met, more times than I would like to recount, to discuss and improve the legislation correcting the P.A.S.S. Bylaws.  I’m confident to say that the ideas of Vice President Forbes and Senator Dimitriyadi have greatly improved the functioning of the agency.

Unfortunately the first three weeks of the semester were not the most productive for the Senate as a whole.  Our first meeting was cancelled as we couldn’t find a parliamentarian (and it is unconstitutional for the Senate to meet without one).  The second meeting was severely shortened so that members of USG could attend the Haiti Vigil.  The third meeting was cancelled in favor of a meeting with President Stanley and the much-anticipated USG Social.

On February 16^th I presented a resolution to establish an ad-hoc committee in the Senate to examine proposed tuition increases.  The case I made to the Senate explained that our constituents (including you) are quite concerned about the potentiality of their tuitions increasing; the cost of a college education is at the forefront of the undergraduate student body’s collective mind.  I further explained that it is not only our constitutional duty to “create ad hoc positions, task forces, and committees to take action on issues of importance to students,” that it is the duty of a Senator to “investigate and represent the concerns and opinions of the constituency he/she represents” and that gauging the feelings of the undergraduate student population was the RIGHT thing to do.  In the end, after some debate, my resolution passed.

On February 21^st, the Senate’s Ad-Hoc Committee to Examine Proposed Tuition Changes met for the first time.  At this meeting, I was elected Chair.  As a committee we discussed our impending report.  I finished (and submitted) the preliminary report to Executive Vice President Kriscenski earlier this evening.  The preliminary report will hopefully be presented at next week’s Senate meeting.  The committee will continue in its efforts to discern the feelings of the undergraduate student body through a survey in the coming weeks.

There are two occurrences from last night’s Senate meeting that I would like to discuss with you.  The easier of the two is the Commission on Constitutional Reform Act.  Written by my colleague Senator Dimitriyadi, this act established a Commission to “investigate the inconsistencies, irregularities, and impracticalities of the Constitution of the Undergraduate Student Government.”  It is well-known that the USG Constitution is riddled with errors, of both semantic and substantive natures.  This commission will be responsible for a report analyzing the findings, and hopefully this report will facilitate improvements to the Constitution, which will allow your elected representatives to serve you better and create a more respectable USG.

When the Special Services Council’s representative presented the Council’s recommendations for Line Item Budget Status quite a discussion was held on the Senate floor.  There seemed to be diverging opinions on what sort of clubs should be funded by USG.  It seems to me like certain Senators’ fiscally-responsible notions may be negatively impacting their Constitutional duties “to foster a spirit of community.”  Considering the fact that fostering a campus-wide community is in the second sentence of the Preamble of the Constitution, this is an incredibly important duty of the USG.  As this is an important responsibility, I believe that as long as a student group is law-abiding and productive (by its own standards) it is in the best interest of the campus-community to provide funding.  Any group of students creates a community and it is through these various communities that students connect to SBU and find their respective niches.  I firmly believe that the USG should fund clubs and organizations as they help promote an ethos of camaraderie and an environment of school spirit.

As I have written nearly two whole pages for your perusal, I think I shall draw this Senate report to a close.  I look forward to the next month of serving you and your interests faithfully.  If there is ever anything you need assistance with, please don’t hesitate to contact me at dmachalow@stonybrookusg.org.

Warmest Regards,

Deborah Machalow

USG Senator

I hope 2010 finds you all in good health, and is treating you nicely.  Hopefully you’ve enjoyed your vacations and have returned to Stony Brook University well-rested, relaxed, and ready to tackle a new semester’s worth of classes, learning and activities.

As I mentioned in my last report, I had been working on the Appropriate Office Behavior Enforcement Act.  After numerous revisions and the addition of the Miller Test (to provide a definition of obscenity) my bill was approved by the Legislative Review Committee, which sent it to the Senate floor.  At the December 3^rd Senate meeting, I presented this bill, and guided it to final passage.  It received 18 votes in its favor.

The only other notable piece of legislation that came up at our December 3^rd meeting was the Campus Media Outreach Act.  After helping to proofread it and get it through the Legislative Review Committee, it was interesting (and frankly a tad bit embarrassing) to learn that there already was a system in place to handle this sort of situation.  During our Senate meeting there was an informal vote in favor of the character of the bill (17-0-2), which did not act in the place of a formal vote.  When the formal vote was held, the bill failed.

The December 3^rd meeting was supposed to be our only meeting for the month, but the resignation of Matthew Anderson prompted a called meeting to confirm President Wilson’s nominee for the Treasurer’s office.  On December 10^th the Senate voted overwhelmingly to confirm Moiz Khan as Treasurer.  Because of his subsequent resignation from the Senate and the stipulation in the Senate Bylaws that “Each committee, except the budget committee, shall be composed only of voting members of the Senate” (Article Vii, Section B, Line 1) I’ve been acting Chair of the Legislative Review Committee until a new chair can be elected.

Best of luck in the new semester!  I look forward to writing my next report, so that you can be an informed constituency.

Warm Regards,

Deborah Machalow

USG Senator

Dearest Beloved Constituents,

Since joining the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate, I have tried my very best to cater to the interests of the students.  In this report, I shall outline and explain important policy decisions I’ve made on your behalf since taking office.

After being elected and completing the requisite parliamentary training on October 29, I attended my first Senate meeting as your representative.  I was appointed to the Legislative Review and the Rules, Elections and Referendum Standards Committees.  At this meeting, I felt it was necessary to abstain on Appropriations Act # 03, because of viewpoint neutrality (as Vice President of Stony Brook Pre-Law, one of the nine clubs the Special Service Council (SSC) was dealing with at the time, I felt it would be ethically questionable if I voted to appropriate funds to SSC, which I hoped/expected would go to another organization that I’m a part of).

The first week of November proved to be quite interesting.  I was elected Vice-Chair of the Legislative Review Committee.  At this same meeting of the committee, we voted to send the “Office of Student Life, Programming and Activities Act” to the Senate floor.  During the Senate meeting, the most important legislation was the aforementioned Act.  The debate was intense; VP of Student Life Tilley defended his bill, and persuaded the Senate to reject the amendments proposed by Senator Graber and to pass his bill.  I supported the original bill, as I felt it was necessary to provide the VP of Student Life an office, so that he could ensure events (such as Homecoming, Roth Pond Regatta and BrookFest) are managed properly.

The next week, I attended my first Rules, Elections and Referendum Standards Committee meeting, in which we perfected two amendments to the SSC Budgeting Bylaws (regarding the Inter-Fraternity and Sorority Council), before recommending them to the Senate as a whole.  The most important item on November 12’s agenda was the Fall Budget Revisions.  While reading through the lines, I thought the disparity between some similar clubs was quite marked.  When I asked Treasurer Anderson about it, he seemed to explain that clubs received funding based not only on request and stated mission, but also on their previous responsibility with money.  In the end, I decided to vote for the budget, as I felt it was important to provide the student organizations with the money that they require.

The meeting on November 19 had a few interesting items on its agenda.  The long-awaited NYPIRG contract came before the Senate.  Riddled with grammatical, spelling, structural and formatting errors, I voted against its passage as I felt it was not a fitting representation of the agreement Stony Brook had hoped to strike with NYPIRG.  Appropriations Act #4, which provided funds for the Office of Communications to get Stony Brook on the universitytickets.com webpage, allowing ticket purchases online, was passed unanimously.  The last legislative item I’ll discuss with you is Appropriations Act #5.  This Act would have appropriated funds to purchase uniform shirts for USG.   I abstained on this vote, because I thought it may be seen as a viewpoint neutrality violation.  We would be voting to spend USG funds on shirts for us.

As I jot this letter, I am currently working on a piece of legislation that would ensure appropriate office behavior in the USG Suite, so that if you were to ever come visit me during my weekly office hours, you would find an entirely appropriate office environment.

I have taken great pleasure at being your representative, and I hope I can continue to faithfully serve you in the future.

Warm Regards,

Deborah Machalow

USG Senator