The University of Massachusetts Student Government Association (SGA) held its weekly senate meeting on Oct. 23, 2024 in the Cape Cod Lounge of the Student Union. The 1,921st meeting lasted almost four hours.
The meeting opened with a presentation by Chancellor Javier Reyes and was followed by a Q&A between the general body and Reyes.
During announcements, Chancellor Javier Reyes gave a presentation on the current state of UMass Amherst. He highlighted new faculty and administration and discussed enrollment numbers. Reyes spoke of his hopes to increase UMass Amherst’s 91% retention rate.
“When it comes to our rankings, when it comes to our enrollment, when it comes to our stability financially, when it comes to our achievements, you will see that we continue to be very strong,” Reyes said. “And in relative terms to other universities, that’s not the case.”
After his presentation, Reyes opened the room for a Q&A from the general body.
Senator Ella Prabhakar questioned Reyes on his plans to respond to the SGA’s motion to support divestment. On Oct. 8th, the SGA reaffirmed S.64 resolution in favor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s divestment from defense contractors and manufacturers.
“I know that it’s not something that has made it to my desk or anything and it’s not in my purvey to move on that at the moment,” Reyes responded.
Prabhakar then followed up, asking the Chancellor if he is “willing to work on more opportunities for conversation with the board of trustees with students on this issue that has been shown to be important to a good portion of the student body.”
“What I know is that we provided that opportunity with the board of trustees, and now I think you want to look for another alternative is what I heard,” Reyes stated.
Reyes alluded to the concern of academic freedom in the case of divestment. Prabhakar asked Reyes to expand on this.
“When people are asking us that faculty cannot do research with specific companies or students cannot go study abroad at specific universities or that we cannot do [work with] or receive funds with the department of defense, I can’t tell the faculty member ‘don’t do research there,’ or I cannot tell a student ‘you cannot go to that university; you cannot go to that country to study abroad,’” Reyes said. “It’s an overreach of academic freedom when you’re asking us to tell faculty or students to not engage with a specific company or organizations that they’re interested in participating with or working with.”
The general body brought forward questions on endowment and the future of adjunct instructors.
Reyes was questioned by the general body about the increased enrollment this year at UMass, and how it effects the lack of housing for students on campus.
“These numbers have well aligned with the residents and housing we can offer,” Reyes stated.
“My first year I was a transfer student, and I came from a community college, I was one of 125 lucky people who got kicked off campus to live in the EconoLodge even though I didn’t have a car and campus was three miles away,” one senator said. “So that year, even with all the triple rooms and all of the common rooms being converted into quads there was still 125 students that had to be relocated off campus and then last year I go to move off campus again against my will and that year I heard the number rose to 1000.”
Reyes explained that he was not aware of those numbers. “We are the third largest residential campus in the United States, some campus’ provide residency and housing for freshman and sophomores, some for seniors, some for juniors, so giving the enrollment that we have here and the 1,200 transfer students that we get, I didn’t see any numbers in the past two, three years that have been out of line,” he said.
Reyes stated that they are “launching a study on housing,” explaining that this is a “two-decade problem.” He pointed out that the acceptance and housing process is not an exact science.
“We’re not here for 20 years, we’re here for four years, and the housing crisis is affecting us now,” Senator Jacob Nevins replied.
Student Trustee Felicity Oliveira began officer reports by sharing updates about SGA Mass Grant funding. Oliveira met with Chancellor Reyes and Lauren Lamica, director of Financial Aid at UMass Amherst to discuss the delays. She shared concerns about the SGA losing money through this process and mentioned the possibility of UMass President Marty Meehan communicating with the state on this issue.
Vice President Dale Leone introduced four working groups. Leone encouraged senators interested in student code of conduct reform, RSO process, SATF adjustments or a long term strategic planning committee to reach out.
Speaker Michael Flanagan reminded senators to attend for viewpoint neutrality training.
President Colin Humphries recently attended a meeting with the Academic Affairs Student Advisory Board (SAB). They are working on expanding the Open Educational Resources initiative (OER) at UMass Amherst. Humphries is continuing to appointment representatives to the DEI taskforce.
Secretary of Finance Dylan Bellerive, Chair of the Ways & Means Committee Maia Shteyman and Margaret Curtis from SACL finance support presented on the balance of the Student Affairs Trust Fund (SATF). They are currently expecting this year’s student activity fund to end with a $400,000 deficit. Shteyman introduced methods to help mitigate this loss, such as establishing an RSO supply closet and transferring partial management of the Club Sports finances to the Recreation and Wellbeing department.
Motion S.34 to fund the UMass Finance Society for the purpose of emergency funding at 7,716.33 was introduced. Junior finance majors Aidan McEachern, Andres Thomas Cruz, Guilherme Eloy and Anthony White presented on behalf of the Finance Society. Members of the senate questioned whether this request qualified as emergency funding due to the Finance Society’s request of almost exactly the same amount in the fall budget process. The motion was rejected.
Motion S.30 and S.31 to amend the by-laws of the rules and ethics committee and the administrative affairs committee passed. Motion S.35 to amend the by-laws of the secretary of external affairs to advocate for the unique challenges and concerns faced by international students passed.
The meeting adjourned at 10:15 p.m.
Charlotte Ribe can be reached at [email protected]
This article has been edited to correct the date the meeting took place
