Dear UMBC Professional Staff Members,

The Professional Staff Seante will be accepting nominations for 12 open senate seats beginning today through Friday, April 15, 2011. This is an excellent time to nominate yourself or a colleague to run for a senate seat.

To submit a nomination, log in to myumbc, open your blackboard account and look for "Professional Staff Senate" as one of your organizations. When you open the PSS link, you will see an announcement about the nominations and a link that will take you to the brief survey we are using to collect nominations.

If you have any questions, please contact me at 410-455-2632 or bruce@umbc.edu.

Have a great weekend!

Stanyell Bruce
Vice-President, Professional Staff Senate

An example of one of the bills for “OUT-OF-POCKET CAP” for retiree prescription drug benefit, calls for an increase from $700 to $4,500 for retiree only and from $700 to $9,100 for retiree and spouse.

A a summary of this proposed bill may be found at http://www.usmd.edu/usm/legislative_relations/Pension.pdf. Please review this page to read the impact of the bill and contact your representative. 

SGA Senate Meeting- March 14^th

This week’s senate meeting was very productive! With much debate and discussion, various topics were brought to the attention of the Senate this week. The first topic that was discussed was the upcoming budgets for SGA, SEB, and The Retriever Weekly. After finishing a run-through of the budget, President Yasmin Karimian introduced the alterations that are to be made for the upcoming year. The next senate meeting will involve all three organizations coming together to discuss and approve the revised budgets.

Moving onto the next topic, the Senate then discussed and revised legislation for the Retriever Learning Center. For those of you who may not know, the RLC will be a new 24/7 study area in the library for UMBC students to utilize throughout the year. With SGA supporting the RLC, student feedback will be considered while making the decision as to how the RLC will be furnished once it is up and running for some time. The Senate will be voting on exactly how SGA will be supporting the RLC monetarily by the next senate meeting.

Before the meeting came to a close, the senators discussed some of their current initiatives. The UMBC application was discussed, due to one of the senator’s initiative to alter the Common Application’s supplement. Another announcement was that the Senate is currently working to keep some of the Commons dining facilities open for more hours during the week, as well as specific places holding hours during the weekend. As for last week’s outreach hour discussion, there was a significant amount of positive responses. The proposed issues with registration seem to be dwindling and opinions on advising seem to be more positive. This week’s outreach hour discussion will be questions about Stress Free Zone. For one, do you know what Stress Free Zone is? If so, what plans would you like to see in action during Stress Free Zone? Come out and speak to the senators about your recommendations for this SGA event!

SGA Senate Meeting

March 7, 2011

This week’s meeting started off with an introduction to a new member of the SGA Senate, Chatura Nagaradona. Chatura’s position as a senate member was confirmed officially at today’s meeting. Following the introduction of Chatura, the Senate members voted for an increase allocation in the Student Organizations Fund. This will allow the Finance Board to maintain their position of providing funds for multiple Student Organizations’ events.

The next topic of discussion during this meeting was the funding by SGA for the Retriever Learning Center. For those of you who are not aware of what exactly this is, the Retriever Learning Center will be a new 24/7 study area in the library for UMBC students to utilize throughout the year. The Senate is currently working towards deciding the commitment SGA will make to support the Retriever Learning Center. Following the RLC discussion, an introduction and confirmation was made for the new Director and Assistant Director of Department of Service, Voluntarism and Awareness. Yasmin and Liz are currently working on an assortment of projects through this organization. They have many ideas and plans for the remainder of the semester.

Next, the Senate discussed this past week’s outreach hour topic. The topic of this past week was the idea of the removal of free hour. After much feedback from a variety of UMBC students, there was a general consensus that students opposed the idea of eliminating free hour. Students stated that free hour was the time for their organizations to meet collectively, for them to eat their lunch, and to meet up with friends. Commuters find that free hour is beneficial to their schedule, in order to get a break while being on campus all day. The next outreach hour, members of SGA plan to discuss registration and advising with students. Do you have any ideas on how to improve advising? Do you have any specific questions concerning registration?  Come out and talk with members of SGA during outreach hours to get your answers! Stay tuned for updates from next week’s senate meeting!