Skip to content
Fee Transparency Project
Companion to the official sfac.ucsc.edu (opens in new tab) · About this site

October 23rd, 2020

AgendaMinutes

Present: May Alvarez, Lisa Bishop, Brynna Downey, Isaac Karth, Lydia Jenkins-Sleczkowski, Chloe Mietzel, Vivian Pham, Venkatesh Nagubandi

  1. Welcome and Introductions
    1. Chloe shares that SCOC appointed several positions today.
    2. Group shares introductions. Check in ice breaker: name a category, and favorite item in that category
  2. Approval of Agenda and 10/16/20 Minutes
    1. Venkatesh motions to approve the agenda, Isaac seconds. Motion passes.
    2. May motions to approve the minutes, Isaac seconds. Motion passes.
  3. Announcements & Updates
    1. ACPA Conference in March. Deadline to email Lucy is Friday.
      1. ACPA virtual conference will be in March, covers student affairs and higher education topics over two weeks. Please email Lucy if you’re interested.
    2. Other announcements
      1. No other announcements.
  4. Funding Call Preparation
    1. Brynna shares that SFAC leadership team wants to reevaluate the metrics of funding proposals. It could be possible to revisit those ways of evaluating funding proposals, and what exactly to prioritize funding for. This will be a continuation of last week’s discussion. Help to be deliberate for what, who, and why we’re funding, and how it will improve campus.
    2. Summary of data from self-reflection surveys
      1. Breakout rooms
        1. Group #1 Instructions
        2. Group #2 Instructions
      2. Lydia assigns group members to breakout rooms with Brynna and Venkatesh as facilitators. Goal is to dive more deeply into priorities and what programs can help improve student experience on campus.
      3. Venkatesh mentions that we have flexibility to be creative with how we fund things. For example, Brynna says that we can think of opening up our reimbursement model to fund expenses spent this year, during COVID.
      4. Lydia asks for a brief overview of the breakout rooms. Brynna says that her group focused on resources on campus, such as mental health resources, tutoring programs, and community bonds. Students empowering other students, and funding communities. Venkatesh’s group: Isaac says that community and collaboration were big reasons and strengths of UCSC. A lot of students stay at UCSC for the community, that’s why students like it. For services, CARE, CAPS, and other services that look at needs outside of academics. Finding community for incoming students, and investing in programming or advertising to help students know that these types of services and places exist.
    3. Next week: Funding Call Metric
      1. Brynna tells the group to turn this conversation about values and improvement into questions for proposals, for how groups are promoting those values. We can be creative, and change the metric that we used last year. This can be a way to elicit proposals to highlight the values of campus.
    4. Funding Proposal Timeline
      1. Finalize Call by Nov 6?
        1. Brynna shares that she’d like to get the funding call out by mid-November.
        2. Brynna says that curtailment is earlier this year, and staff would have less time to write these proposals. This could be difficult for staff to finish proposals in time. The best solution could be to have the funding call due in the beginning of winter quarter.
  5. Other Business
    1. Pandemic Unit Reports
      1. Any guests we’d like to invite?
      2. The beginning of this quarter will be spent finalizing the funding call. Brynna says that she’d like to invite units in to discuss their operations, funding, and information during the COVID-19 situation.
      3. Lisa would like to present her budget overview and fee carryforwards and budgets from last year. This is a high-level, but in-depth presentation. She can do this presentation within the next few weeks, and it could help inform guests to identify.
      4. May would like to invite back previous offices, specifically CAPS, CARE, and the COVE. She would like to hear about mental health services during this time.
      5. Isaac says that having different groups visit us last year was very helpful.
      6. Venkatesh asks about the method of spreading this information? Not all information necessarily makes it back to student spaces.
        1. Brynna mentions that there were previous discussions about using a campus-wide email, she thinks this would be a well received email.
        2. Chloe offers her help with outreach.
        3. Venkatesh says that the SUA Instagram has been viewed a lot recently. A small presentation or infographic could reach many students, or hosting a live session during a regular meeting, like a teach-out.
        4. Brynna says that summaries can be posted on the SFAC website.
        5. May says that students don’t always have the time for full sessions, so quick information can be shared.
        6. Brynna asks what information should be put on the infographic? May suggests defining campus fees themselves, and going into detail about what offices are supported by campus fees, and the services those offices provide.
        7. Venkatesh suggests forming a subcommittee to work on infographics.
  6. Adjournment
    1. May motions to adjourn, Isaac seconds.

Upcoming Guests/Topics:

  • Lucy Van Doorn for MCFAC participation (November 13)
  • Interim Vice Chancellor Baszile (November 20)
  • Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students Naiman (December 4)