University (non-)Relations

I would like to take this time to highlight the problems one student organization has been having with the Union Policy Board. This has extended into University Relations, as all of their records have apparently been transferred there.

Strategic Game Club has been denied an office in the latest office allocation, despite having filed all appropriate documents on time. In this, the latest round, the UPB held a meeting without notifying anyone who might be interested that it was taking place on May 7. The legality of such a move has yet to be determined, but the important part of that meeting, as far as this discussion is concerned, is that the club was removed from a previous allocation because of, among other things, "current and previous/continued lease-violations".

The idea of "current and previous/continued lease-violations" was news to the club, and London Burt, the Secretary, made a request for previous UPB meetings and any records of lease violations, so as to understand what things were being used against them. Here is the reply he received:

From: Amy R. Watson <awatson@uwm.edu>
Date: Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:42 PM
Subject: Re: Open Records Request
To: London Burt <malkavian999@gmail.com>


Hi London,

First, this message serves as receipt of your request for an audio copy of the meeting held on May 7th. I do not know if I am able to provide that to you in the next day or two, but I will certainly process your request as quickly as I can.

Second, I am still working on your first request, which I hope to complete soon. One clarification: you did ask for complaints, allegations, or investigations about lease violations about Strategic Gaming Club, but you did not provide the time frame of five years, so I will have to find out if there are any such documents that date back to 2003.

Also, one note. The reason this request takes some time is that in accordance with FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), I cannot release the personally identifiable information of students in conjunction with their activities in an organization. This means that the audio you are requesting as well as the copies of the UPB minutes will be heavily redacted, because personally identifiable information extends beyond just name. It includes other information that would make a student's identity easily traceable, and that includes a student's voice. So, the only portions of an audio recording of a UPB meeting that I can release are the voices of non-student employees who are members of the UPB or at a UPB meeting (for instance, Scott Gore or Tom Viel).
When I complete the request and provide the documents to you, I will provide a more detailed explanation as well as citation to the FERPA federal statute and regulations. I just want you to be prepared that the minutes and audio recording will have significant redactions.

Thanks, and I will be in touch as soon as I can.

Amy
--

Amy Watson
Communications Project Manager/
Public Records Custodian
Department of University Relations
UW-Milwaukee
(414) 229-5188
(414) 229-6261 fax

I understand that privacy issues regarding student organizations are to be respected. I would not want the records of random organizations thrown into the public record. However, the organization being considered here is the Union Policy Board, and the material being considered here is the audio record of the meetings at which they make policy for the UWM Union. A such, this is more of a government organization, as they have the power to vote on the Union budget and assign office space within the Union; and their membership, meetings, and activities are open to the public. Being willing only to publish non-students' comments (which make up 1/3 of the voting membership and 40% of overall membership) frustrates the idea of open meetings, especially since this is the committee in charge of a large portion of non-allocable student segregated fees. This unholy alliance of secrecy on the part of the University Relations department and the Union Policy Board in charge of large amounts of money (and half a floor of office space) is an open invitation to corruption.

No one claims responsibility for Union Policy Board

Last year, the University Student Court denied that it had jurisdiction over decisions made by the Union Policy Board. This year, it's the Administration. Here is the redacted text of a letter sent by the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Helen Mamarchev:

August 14, 2007

Dear [student organization representative]:

Following an extensive review of the Union Policy Board Constitution, I have determined that student organizations' rights to appeal are limited to the Union Policy Board, not the Director of the Student Union or the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs.

Therefore, any request for appeal by [your organization] must be submitted to the Union Policy Board for their consideration.

Sincerely,
Helen L. Mamarchev, Ph.D.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs

This places the Union Policy Board in the unique position of being its own oversight board. So if a decision is clearly wrong, you just appeal it -- to the Union Policy Board. And if they refuse to hear it, appeal that decision -- to the Union Policy Board. This is obviously an exercise in futility.

The Union Policy Board Constitution states that the Union Director may appeal policies within ten days, and he may choose to send this appeal to the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, but Dr. Mamarchev's interpretation of this is that student organizations may not ask for such an appeal, not even from the Union Director. This means that, if the Union Director is somehow unable to attend a Union Policy Board meeting at which a problematic policy is passed, and the record of the meeting does not allow him adequate time to file an appeal within ten days, a student organization representative can't inform him of the problem. Instead, this must be filed with the Union Policy Board itself, which meets every month -- far too late for any appeal.

Action needs to be taken now for there to be a legitimate oversight mechanism for the Union Policy Board.

Union Policy Board Meeting of May 7 to be redone

The Union Polilcy Board met on May 7 to finalize the office allocation map, or at least that was the intent. After some discussions about possible moves, a motion was made by SA President-elect Robert Grover to make no changes to the map. This motion was supported by three members (Grover, Stueber, Nelson) and opposed by three members (Scott, Givens, Dercks). The UPB chair then voted to break the tie and approve the map as final.

There are, however, two major problems with this maneuver. One has to do with the map itself. If you take a look at the map, which is found in front of the Student Activities office and in the Student Organization wing near the mailboxes (and has a revision date of 4/30/07), you will see that the UWM Post (currently in EG80) has no listing, not even in the "Not on Map" section, and that their current location is listed as being assigned to Student Association. Furthermore, the SA's current location (EG79) and the Studio Arts and Crafts Center (currently EG77) are both listed as empty.

But there is also a parliamentary problem with this maneuver as well. I reported that there were three votes in favor and three against, with the chair breaking the tie. However, the chair of the UPB is Robert Stueber, who had already voted on the matter. Robert's Rules of Order, the parliamentary authority of the UPB, explicitly forbids a chair from both voting as a member of the board, then again as the presiding officer. This matter has been forwarded to Scott Gore, the Union Director, who is using his authority per the UPB constitution to bring it back before the board.

Helping the Union Policy Board do its job...

With the Union Policy Board scheduled to take its last kick at the office allocation can in just two weeks (April 11, 3:30 p.m. to be exact), I would like to take this opportunity to encourage the members to become knowledgeable in the process. To that end, here are some questions that members should familiarize themselves with. In addition, being able to cite written, verifiable sources of the policies involved is a very good thing.

1. Which documents provide relevant information on the office allocation process?

2. What are the criteria under which the UPB may assign office space?

3. Does filing an application for office space guarantee that one will be allocated to the applying organization?

3a. If so, what should an organization who knows that an applying organization is ineligible for an office do?

3b. If not, under which conditions would an organization not receive an office, and what procedures are in place for checking for these conditions?

4. If the UPB is unsure of the capacity or usage of an office, what options do the members have to gain this information?

5. If, after this meeting, an organization believes there are procedural errors which unduly damaged the members, what is that organization's next productive course of action?

I know of at least two members of the UPB who read this. I would ask any members who do read this to forward these questions to those who do not.

When I can get to it: The election madness

SA Senate Meeting November 12: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It is good to see the Student Association Senate functioning in the expected manner again . . . or is it?

Six vacant Senate seats were filled, which is a good sign. Most of them, as expected, are people invested in the status quo, so the chances of radical change taking place are slim. In this case, however, the process as outlined appears to be working, so I am treating this as a net plus.

The proposed Student Court nominee was not taken up, as she was unable to attend. However, a new Shared Governance Director was appointed and confirmed: Brandon Decker. His confirmation places him in the list of people for whom the separation of powers, were it to be enforced, would be definitively forced to choose either his Senate seat or his new directorship.

Executive Order
This is an amazing loophole so large you can drive a herd of mastadons through it. The Order "ordered" Ms. Prahl to "use any and all private funds" to obtain legal counsel. By framing it as an executive action, it was packaged as a Special Order. The Senate Bylaws, Article II, Section 3d states that Private Account Expenditures are normally done by automatic consent, unless a senator objects, in which case it is pulled and moved to New Business. But it was framed as an Executive Order, which filed it under an executive action, not a Private Account Expenditure automatic consent item. This supposedly triggered Article II, Section 3g:

All executive actions to be included in Special Orders shall follow a specified procedure. The President shall report on the executive actions and upon the completion of the President's report, all items shall be included in t a consent item and approved at that time, unless a senator objects to an item. The Senate may overturn an executive action by a 2/3 majority vote.

By doing it this way, Article V, Section 3b of the Executive Bylaws, which states that "This $2000 [minimum amount in the account] shall be used only for emergency purposes, with approval of 2/3 of the Senate" was bypassed. So now, instead of it taking a 2/3 vote to approve the expenditure, it took a 2/3 vote to prevent the expenditure.

This creates a new potential avenue for exploitation: Fiat by executive action. The President could, if she were unscrupulous, simply decree her will by executive action, and dare the Senate to come up with the 2/3 necessary to overturn it. This would require a more independent Senate than what I have witnessed to date.

Separation of Powers at stalemate
Antwan Jones' Separation of Powers act failed, but the passages in the Senate Bylaws that prohibit senators from serving on the Cabinet are still there, with the dilatory motion to strike them tabled. The idea was that a compromise position was to be drafted, but we will see what compromise can be made.

Senate Finance Committee bylaws approved
The Senate Finance Committee Bylaws were approved. One of the more interesting elements of this process is that it became clear that the senators who sit on SFC don't get to draft them. Rather, they are created by another body who forwards them to University Legal to insure that state laws are being followed, and then they are sent to the full Senate for approval by a 2/3 vote. The problem is that there are 13 members of SFC, including the Vice President, so it is possible for every member of SFC to vote against the bylaws but still have them approved, forcing the people who voted against the bylaws to operate under them.

Ban on breastfeeding in Union offices?
When the "Registered Student Organization Rights Act of 2006" came up for a vote, one of its authors, Senator Dan Bahr, lobbied for it by saying he had passed by one of the University offices and saw a topless woman breastfeeding her child there. This, plus other unspecified inapporpriate activity, was the reason that he wanted the Senate to recommend that the Union Policy Board change its policy on student organization membership and adda clarifying passage that Union offices are intended to be used for administrative purposes only. I will not comment on what Mr. Bahr thought he was doing by peering into Union offices not his own. Instead, I will focus on more salient points. Why even bring this up before the Senate? The other author of this legislation was Robert Stueber, the current chair of the Union Policy Board, and Senator Russel Scott is the UPB vice-chair. Are they so impotent within their board that they could not have brought this matter to the UPB themselves? The document that is being recommended for change is the Student Organization Manual, which is a publication of the Student Activities Office, not the UPB, and does not derive its material from the UPB, so how do the authors and sponsors intend to affect anything by asking the UPB to do anything? In addition, the University Student Court has ruled that the UPB is not a part of Student Association, so what benefit is gained by having the Student Association Senate express their opinion? And while Mr. Bahr in the Q&A session expressed that it was not the intention of the legislation to ban advisors, checking of e-mail or Facebook, other standard uses of the office, enforcement of this policy would not fall to him, but to the UPB, of which he is not a member. This matter passed the Senate and we will see if the UPB chooses to do anything about it.

Conclusion
Overall, procedures were followed (maybe not the correct ones in all cases, but at least they were documented), and the usual pile of legislation got through. But the fact that a new loophole has been created and exploited is ugly, and needs to be dealt with.

A few questions for the Union Policy Board...

The Union Policy Board is now on record claiming that, despite making several adjustments to the office allocations made last spring, there were no violations of process. USC 06-001 granted the Union Policy Board the "right to unbridled discursion", meaning they can say whatever they want. I call upon them now to use this right to answer these questions:

1. Why is failure to adhere to the meeting schedule provided as part of the application for Union office space not a process violation?
2. Why, when the schedule for office allocations provided for an initial allocation in March followed by two allocations in April to handle appeals was the process not complete after the allocation meetings of April 7 and April 28?
3. Why was the matter of Peer Health Advocates brought up on May 5, when it was already decided on April 28 and no new paperwork was filed about it?
4. Why was Chess Club brought into the Peer Health Advocates matter when they had filed no appeal and were happy with their office assignment?
5. Why was Strategic Game Club brought into the Peer Health Advocates matter, even though their appeal had nothing to do with Union 360/398 (Peer Health Advocates' office assignment at the April 28 meeting) or Union 379 (PHA's assignment after the meeting) but rather their status in Union 372 or a larger office?
6. Where on the audio of the May 5 meeting where all three of these are supposedly combined into a single issue (available from Scott Gore's assistant) is a motion made one way or another regarding Strategic Game Club's appeal?
7. If, as my review of the tape indicates, Strategic Game Club's appeal has not yet been addressed, why was it not up for discussion in either the May 18 meeting or the November 3 meeting?
8. Why are none of these actions and inactions violations of process?

I look forward to having these questions brought up and hearing the Union Policy Board's timely and relevant response.

Articles From University Standard newspaper

At the request of the University Standard newspaper on campus, I posted a history (warning, it's long) of events of the last few months.

Also, Drew Baryenbruch has added his commentaries:
Democracy Now an Illusion at UWM
Let's See What Happens

Trying again

For more on the state of the UWM campus, visit Well Armed Sheep.

The Union Policy Board is going to try once again to meet, but this time they are going for a time when college students are likely to be awake. So mark your calendars for November 3 at 2:00 p.m.

As there have been a number of office issues, the first meeting (whenever it happens) is likely to be a fun-filled event with many tempers flaring over seemingly inconsequential issues. But even if it doesn't, I will be sure to post what happens.

Come out, ye scurvy dogs!

For more information about the UWM campus community see the rest of Well Armed Sheep.

In My last entry, I promised you that I would post a full report about what happened at the Union Policy Board meeting at 9:00 a.m. on October 6. Here it is:

We sat around until 9:21, at which point the roll was taken, and only two members were present: Jesse Dercks (Sandburg Halls Administrative Council president) and Michele Nelson. The three members chosen from administration were excused, but the other three listed members from the student side were conspicuously absent. It's amazing that the absent students (Russ Rueden, Robert Stueber and Robert Grover) were all three student members who were part of last year's UPB.

With lack of quorum, the meeting never took place. This is an infectious disease that used to be limited to the Senate and the Court; now it has migrated to entities such as UPB.

There is more to this situation than meets the eye. When I find out, I will post it here.

Union Policy Board -- now at 9:00 a.m. for your convenience...

This is just one of many comments about the happenings at UWM available at Well Armed Sheep. Please use this link to see the rest.

For those organizations with office troubles that have been waiting to be heard by the Union Policy Board, the good news is that you will have your chance soon. The bad news is that this chance will occur Friday, October 6 at 9:00 a.m. in the UWM Union.

When it comes to scheduling, early Friday morning is usually defined by either sleeping off the night before, studying for the Monday after, or getting all that stuff done you don't have any other time for. If I were scheduling to have the lowest student input, Friday at 9:00 would be one of my top choices.

I will post a full report about what happens at that meeting here.