Check out this misleading editorial from the daily: http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/forum/editorial-asg-must-fill-agenda-with-substantive-items-1.2453647
Did anyone from “The Daily” take the time to find out whether there were substantive items that could have been discussed?
Hmm, apparently there was an exchange and debate on an email thread of the ASG exec board that on the issue. Apparently they had discussed the Senate agenda the Sunday before the Senate that takes place on Wednesdays.
Is ASG once again deteriorating into a spineless, lazy, and underachieving collection of passive people pleasers who aren’t worth their salt?
Read the words and tell me how you really feel.
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Tyris Jones <tyris.jones@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey guys,
Tonights Senate is very much so a stretch. Rules doesn’t really have quorum and outside of exec reports, priorities, and the unveiling of the email template it’s going to be maybe 20 minutes. I’m not sure if I want to bring everyone out for this. Thoughts asap?
Tyris R. Jones
Northwestern University
FMO ASG Senator ‘09-‘10
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
c.2603481718
TyrisJones2012@u.northwestern.edu
From: Elizabeth Broder <elizabethdbroder@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: ASG-EXECBOARD <ASG-EXECBOARD@LISTSERV.IT.NORTHWESTERN.EDU>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:23:35 -0600
To: <ASG-EXECBOARD@LISTSERV.IT.NORTHWESTERN.EDU>
ReplyTo: Elizabeth Broder <elizabethdbroder@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: To senate or not
While it definitely is not good to just not have senate, I also don’t think it makes total sense to have senate just for the sake of having senate…
On Jan 12, 2011, at 12:37 PM, Pei Chen <peichen2007@U.NORTHWESTERN.EDU> wrote:
Hear hear. Nothing seems pressing tonight; it’s not something we can’t wait till next week to bring up.
On Jan 12, 2011, at 1:05 PM, Claire Lew <clew23@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
What about the Dorm election reform legislation I wrote? Remember how Wilson was cool with me passing it through Exec as emergency since Rules doesn’t have quorum? And if Gabby has something to bring up, so that too.
But beyond that I think we need to step back and look at the situation for what it is. We are faced with the problem of not having enough on the agenda. However, instead of resorting to canceling the meeting itself, we should first try to solve the problem itself: why is it that we don’t have more on the agenda? What can we do to put important topics on the agenda? How can we motivate senators to engage in senate and write legislation?
In other words, senate not having enough to do reflects the root problem that Senate is not doing it’s job. For instance, imagine if we decided we didn’t have a lot of stuff to go over in Exec - that would clearly signal to me that we are not doing enough and we could be doing our jobs better. We would never contemplate cancelling Exec the second week of winter quarter. Same thing with any committee. The same thing with senate. Canceling senate should never be an option.
So what I challenge you guys to do moving forward is reflect on how the role of our leadership in making sure we are giving senate things to do and ensuring we are fully serving NU. Last week I came up with the focus group format; this week I wrote legislation. We need to shift our attitude about how to greater empower Senate - afterall, the senators WANT to be there. They want to participate, and feel they are making a valuable contribution. And we as leaders need to enable that.
We will briefly talk more about it tonight. I’ll forward everyone the legislation.
Sent from my iPhone
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Tyris Jones <tyris.jones@gmail.com> wrote:
I understand your point and I am working to come up with more topics for Senators to write legislation on and to discuss, but Senators themselves need to be motivated to bring forth topic of importance. One piece of emergency legislation, which isn’t all that pressing, is not enough to bring together the full body. Although I do agree that we, mainly myself, need to come up with more things for Senators to do. Whether it’s committees submitting legislation or bringing forth problems that need to be solved, something needs to happen. I am not comfortable with having Senate tonight given the circumstances.
Tyris R. Jones
Northwestern University
FMO ASG Senator ‘09-‘10
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
c.2603481718
TyrisJones2012@u.northwestern.edu
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 2:02 PM, Wilson Funkhouser <wilsonfunkhouser2012@u.northwestern.edu>wrote:
as claire pointed out- I am fine having senate tonight, but if you ask my opinion I feel like maybe it wouldn’t be productive. I’m more than happy to have senate, since I’m into that kind of thing.
Although I don’t necessarily agree that senate should never not meet, but in this instance I don’t think we have enough time to come up with enough stuff. Then again I have class until 530 so I’m stuffed
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Tyris Jones <tyris.jones@gmail.com> wrote:
Hey guys,
We can talk about this more in exec but I am moving forward with canceling senate. I will give you all time to add anything you want to your exec board reports if need be and I’ll send that out later tonight, but there will be no Senate tonight.
Tyris R. Jones
Northwestern University
FMO ASG Senator ‘09-‘10
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
c.2603481718
TyrisJones2012@u.northwestern.edu
On Jan 12, 2011, at 2:40 PM, Claire Lew wrote:
Tyris - I completely disagree. Senate should absolutely happen tonight. We have more than enough material to have a productive Senate:
2. Special Order: ASG Top Priorities - outline the top projects we are all working on, and then ask Senate for their input. Is this what they want ASG to accomplish by the end of Winter Quarter? We can show the ppt I presented to Exec on Sunday.
3. Emergency Legislation as Old Business: Dorm Senator Election Reform - It is an important piece of legislation, and the earlier that people consider it and implement it, the more time that can be put into implementing the things the reform calls for (transition packet, greater communication with RHA + RCB). The only reason this is “emergency” is because Rules didn’t have quorum. And so, imagine if this had gone through Rules and would be Old Business, we would never contemplate pushing it and then not holding Senate.
4. Caucus - If you wanted, you could even break into caucuses, outline the purpose of caucus, get each caucus to reschedule their meeting times, and spend like 10 min. brainstorming legislation.
There’s clearly enough valuable stuff to do. Does the preparation feel slightly rushed? Sure - but that should never be an excuse to not hold senate, since it’s our fault for the lack of preparation. Will it be a shorter than typical Senate? Perhaps - but again, it would be lazy for us to cancel senate for this reason.
We can’t take the easy way out and adopt a “let’s push it to next week” attitude. If we do, we are settling for something less. We are failing the people who elected us. We are essentially saying “there’s nothing important to talk about in Senate” aka “there’s nothing going on in ASG” aka “ASG doesn’t do anything” - which obviously is not true.
Maybe historically this time of Senate is always thin, but the great thing about ASG is that we choose to improve year-to-year. We want this year to be ASG’s best year yet. I know each of you who got elected/appointed are in this position because you told other people you would work to improve Senate and ASG in serving NU. And if we can’t even manage to hold the meetings to get that done, we are failing at our jobs miserably.
We have things to get done, and we should do them. Let’s get this show on the road.
From: Tyris Jones <tyris.jones@gmail.com>
Date: January 12, 2011 3:20:47 PM CST
To: Claire Lew <clew23@gmail.com>
Cc: ASG-EXECBOARD@listserv.it.northwestern.edu
Subject: Re: To senate or not
The material that we have for the tonight is fairly last minute and not enough to bring all the Senators together especially when they have other things that they could potentially be doing with the extra time. We are essentially having Senate for the sake of having Senate, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we are improving upon past years and it has the potential to turn Senators off from future meetings.
If we look at the current climate amongst the Senators, the exec board reports and special order would take at max 10 minutes. Historically this group has not had a lot of questions after reports. Throwing in another 10 minute discussion about caucus doesn’t make it worthwhile either. We would essentially be spending a third to almost half our time in Senate doing attendance and announcements.
If we were to move forward with passing the piece of legislation as emergency that would defeat the purpose because it would be placed on the agenda as old business and have to be voted on today. That leaves little to no room for discussion or time for the Senators, mainly RHA and RCB, to take it back to their constituents.
We are not failing by canceling Senate, but we are realizing that Senators time is precious and if we can refrain from wasting it then we should do so. We are not failing, but we do need to do a better job with motivating them to bring more issues forward and committees should bring forward legislation or topics of discussion as well. They will understand that as elected representatives we are representing their interests and that includes time.
I do understand your position but there will not be a meeting of the Senate tonight.
On Jan 12, 2011, at 5:27 PM, Claire Lew wrote:
I know Senate is cancelled tonight. But just to clarify a few points:
How is the material “fairly last minute” when we discussed what would be happening in Senate on Sunday? Then, I clearly said I would write legislation (which I did) and present the top priorities (which is ready to be presented). Didn’t we agree those were substantial enough items on Sunday?
We are not “having Senate for the sake of having Senate.” These are clearly valuable items that should be addressed sooner rather than later. Senate needs to know the top priorities we’re working on asap. Senate needs to approve the improvement of the Dorm Election Process so the implementation can begin as soon as possible. Why push them back a week when we are ready to present? How are going over these important items now “wasting Senator’s time”? (Also, as a side note, it was a typo when I wrote that the legislation would be “old business” - I intended to pass it through Exec as New Business to give people time to consult their constituents).
And just because we surmise that Senate may be shorter than usual- but how is that a sufficient justification for canceling Senate all together? As I said before, we are selling ourselves short by using that as an excuse - it’s lazy of us to do so, knowing of course it’s easier to just not have Senate altogether, then genuinely try and dig deep to produce meaningful dialogue that Northwestern can benefit from. We saw the beneficial results from last week in choosing the latter, and yet we are choosing the former.
Lastly, not having Senate tonight is indeed hurting us. This is our responsibility - to hold a forum, once a week, that represents all of NU’s interests - and we are failing to do that. It’s very clear we’re not doing our job.
As I stated before, we have things to get done. And doing something is better than doing nothing. Action is better than inaction. And it’s clear that the action would be productive and valuable.
Also, even though we don’t have Senate tonight, I’ll be hanging out in the Northwestern room at the same time and invite anyone to show up, if they wanted just to talk about whatever issues are on their minds.
See everyone at Exec tonight.
1 year ago