Associated Students of Boise State University

Executive Team Meeting

January 31th, 2022 3:00-5:00 pm

Zoom Link

1. Call to Order 3:06

2. Attendance

1. Kenneth Huston (President), Sarah Smith (Vice President), Graf Kirk (Associate Vice President Academic Affairs), Eric Kline ( Communication Officer), Samantha Mulvihill (Government Relations), Amaia Guerricabeitia (Administrative Director), Taite Griffin (Ethics Officer) Charlie Varland (Advisor), Grace Burgert (Associate Vice President of Inclusive Excellence), Kayla Magana (Associate Vice President of Student Organizational Affairs) Alex Luthy (Elections Manager)
2. Team check-in
3. Team Member of the week

3. Approval of Minutes

1. Minutes 01/10/2022
2. Sam Motions to fasttrack the minutes, seconded by Graf

1. Approve: 8 Deny: 0 Abstain: 0

3. Sam Motions to approve the minutes, seconded by Grace

1. Approve:  8 Deny:  0 Abstain: 0

4. Updates

1. Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs

1. Reverse Club Rush!!

1. Clubs and Organizations have some of the most involved students on campus. I would like to start organizing a way for us to spend 5 minutes (or more!) at clubs and organizations on campus to share what ASBSU is about and try to learn about these clubs/organizations and the students in them. There are a lot (Engage has 270 listed), but this may be one of the best ways to attract folks to ASBSU as Senators, Assembly Members, Funding Board Officers, and to run for Exec. We also are doing our part to connect with different groups on campus outside of our own circles. Even just spending a few minutes talking with them and seeing what’s on their agenda could go a long way in understanding more of our fellow students on campus. Hopefully this leads to better connection between ASBSU and students at large.

2. Golden Apples Committee

1. I will be working on getting a plan for these awards to you all soon. For background, this is a student-run awards ceremony that will honor teaching staff for their work. More to come soon.

3. Policy 4300: Course Evaluation Policy

1. Serving on a committee to help rewrite this policy, which serves to structure how course evaluations are run and how they influence the course and the teaching staff.
2. Thought provoking website that uses Rate My Professor ratings to illustrate gendered splits in evaluations.

4. Meeting with City of Boise’s Office of Community Engagement on Friday to discuss possible collaboration.
5. Questions/Discussions:

• Kayla wants to set up a meeting with Graf to discuss ideas for reaching out to clubs
• Kenny wants to know what originated the 4300 policy and what are people aiming to change

• Graf gave background on the course evaluation policy
• Let us know that the teaching staff dislike the way course evals are done currently
• They are anonymous and they don’t seem super useful, but are used in ways that affect faculties careers such as tenure
• How does everyone feel about course evals

• Grace found out there is no complaint process and she doesn’t like that course evals turn into a complaint form when there should be a separate form
• Maybe we should rethink how the form is laid out
• that the course evals go to chair and instructor and if there was an issue within one the idea is that they would catch it

• Graf shares the link for course eval gender splits and how that affects the professors

2. Associate Vice President of Student Organizational Affairs

1. Our three new funding board officers have been trained and attended their first hearing this last Friday
2. 2 addendums and 3 grants were heard

3. Administrative Director

1. No updates

4. Government Relations Officer

1. Student Lobbyist
2. Questions/Discussion:

• When are the student advocates going to send out their stuff?

• First round of emails will go out this week Wednesday or Thursday to legislators

• Get together with Amaia to work on purchases for day at the capitol

• This will include gifts and guru
• Gifts from members of ASBSU to legislators the gifts will be BSU bee team honey
• Looked at a tentative schedule

• What is happening with the student lobbyist?

• She is meeting with Senator Birch at the capitol today and asking him if he has anything that affects BSU students to please keep her in the loop

5. Associate Vice President of Inclusive Excellence

1. Amelia and Angel have been hired - plans to focus on community events and a gender-affirming closet
2. Tri-Delta Presentation tonight on microaggressions
3. Plans to address Title IX process
4. VPIE Slating Application starting soon
5. Questions/Discussion

• Plan to address Title IX?

• She found some issues with the current complaint process including the office being understaffed and wants to know what kind of support person and director they plan on hiring
• She goes over some of these issues
• Going to address some of these things with Believe Broncos committee and the Assembly

6. Communications Officer

1. Sending out form for new members for website and social media use
2. Eric can not be the communications liaison to the elections committee this person needs to be separate from the assembly officer to the committee
3. He was going to redo website and there is low engagement with this, so he wants input from us on what changes he wants to make
4. Questions/Discussion

• Don’t we just ask people if they would like to serve?

• Up to chair about how to select people to serve on elections committee

• Could he do the changes and then show us and then upload them

• He says he will probably do one portion at a time and come back for input from us before making the changes live

• What program is being used?

• Boise State uses one main program for their website
• He is trying to streamline the website and make it more user friendly

7. Ethics Officer

1. Executive code is out of date in particular committees

1. These already passed legislations on feb 3rd 2021
2. Chaired by sarah and graf on random campus initiatives
3. One chaired by graf on academic initiative
4. Need to discuss removing committees and figure this out
5. Thinking about switching to google doc instead of website
6. Could do a code change to fix these committee issues

8. Vice President

1. Assembly had its training last week that was very successful! Excited for this week’s meeting.
2. Bronco Giving Day is March 3rd and 4th! You will all be receiving emails to become a VIP and help spread the word about BGD and help raise funds for places across campus that you care about. Please sign up!
3. The Dining RFP evaluation team has finished evaluating and a letter of intent went out last week. Once we are through the appeal process the contract formation will begin and I will be able to let you all know the final decision. In the coming weeks we will be visiting other campuses and finding new ideas to bring back to Boise State to help elevate the dining experience.
4. The winning dining services provider is ChartWells and contracts are under way
5. Questions/Discussion:

• Changing assembly structure?

• Committees will be on joint days if there is no legislation to hear

9. President

1. Feb. 7th the VPSAEM application will go live for accepting applications for the search
2. SAFAB has concluded its business for the annual process. I will be providing the recommendation of the board to the Executive Tuition and Fee Committee February 22nd.

1. SAFAB has voted to allocate $3.2 million for FY23 (up from $2.8 million allocated in FY22) in student fee dollars to departments across campus, including a new $250,000 line item to the Office of the Dean of Students which will support student basic needs. Included, is funding for 4 positions in long term funding and a $40,000 base funding for the Campus Food Pantry
2. SAFAB is recommending an increase to the student activity fee by $1.39 per student, from $99.61 bringing the new total to $101, to elongate the onset of a negative balance in the reserve to FY29.
3. SAFAB stands in support of the requests from the Student Union, Health Services, and the Campus Recreation Center which are auxiliary units. SAFAB does not have purview over these departments.
4. SAFAB has voted to abstain from position on the proposed Athletics request. Athletics is also an auxiliary unit.
5. ASBSU will not be pursuing a fee increase this fiscal year.

3. Tuition and Fees, pending the approval of the President and the State Board of Education, will be holistically raised by 8% effective Fall 2022. This is an estimated $300 per semester impact on students.
4. Elections Manager

1. Elections packets will be opening up on February 14th and the due date has been extended till March 2nd at 5 pm. Also next week the full list of dates for the elections including introductory meetings, debates, and result announcements will be released.

5. Questions/Discussion:

• He is meeting with Jenn more updates next week

5. New Business

1. Legislative Branch future

1. I would like to ask to reserve time in the next Exec. meeting to discuss the way forward with the Legislative branch after this term. The Senate will soon be completing its 2nd year, so this is a natural place to pause and reflect. I want to bring this to attention early so that we may allow time to pursue action if needed. I imagine that this conversation could lead to a range of actions, from writing recommendations down for training to calling a Constitutional Convention.
2. Discussed the senate elections process and how this could be done in the future along with the vision for ASBSU

1. Came up with main themes and how we perceive each side of these and how they affect ASBSU
2. Will host a more structured meeting on this topic in the future

2. Voter Eligibility Decision

1. Is everyone okay with the previous decision that you must be full fee paying

1. Yes the team confirms the previous decision

3. Committee structure

1. There are concerns that there are too many committees and it is hard to get effective work done when the representatives are spread so thin
2. Thoughts on which committees can be consolidated

1. Maybe switch to project by project committee style and dissolve committees altogether
2. Maybe announce project ideas and if a committee is slow that week or month they can help on other ones
3. There will be further discussion about committee style excluding the standing committees

6. Old Business

1. Wrap up of Nick Tovar’s confirmation

1. Nick Tovar was approved by a 6-0-1 vote to the Student Funding Board via vote by proxy held by the Executive Council.

7. Open Floor / Announcements

1. Next meeting will be hybrid and at 3pm MST on February 7th.

8. Meeting Adjourned 4:18