Student Senate Vice Speaker

Hi Mario,

First, congratulations! It’s been so wonderful to watch your tireless work this year, and I know that you are so capable of this role. You worked really hard for it, and you should take a moment to be proud of yourself and all you’ve accomplished. This position is gonna ask a lot of you, and I know you’re up for it.

Second, I want to congratulate you on your team this year! I know that Anastasia, Nat, and whomever is hired for the clerk are gonna be a great team. I hope you guys get to spend time together outside of Senate because in my opinion that makes ASUW way more fun. 

Third, I’ll pass on some advice that Mustapha gave me last year that really helped me: there’s a French saying that I think is crucial for keeping senate moving – “Mise en Place” or “Everything in it’s place”. The best advice I can give, is to make sure the house is clean and everything is as ready as you can make it as early as you can. When you have everything in it’s place, it means you’re going to be able to adapt and respond that much faster to any emerging crisis because you’re able to minimize what’s on your plate. I don’t know what your year will look like, but I hope that it is at least a little calmer than the past two year have been with pandemics, and hybrid transitions, and ASUW vacancies. 

Fourth, this one is a bit more tech-oriented, but you’re going to want to use chrome or some form of browser that allows for multiple ‘profiles’. The best tech advice I can give is to make yourself at least one distinct profile for senate apart from your personal/school one, where you conduct all senate business, all googling, bookmarks, emails, log ins, etc. By keeping things partitioned like this, it means you protect yourself just in case (knock on wood) someone submits a FOIA (freedom of information act) request for any files, chat logs, etc. you may have on a given topic, you’re able to give that over freely without worrying about any personal information being read by a stranger. I always log into my ASUW account on incognito because otherwise my browser has a melt down over the different profiles lol. 

Fifth, and this is probably the most important, take care of yourself. You are a person first, above all else; and then you’re a student. Family, your health, emergencies, those come first. Then comes ASUW. This job asks a lot, and some weeks you’re going to be twiddling your thumbs looking for work to do, and others you’re not gonna know what to do first you’re so overwhelmed. Be kind to yourself, be patient, and above all be kind. Send thank you cards, send follow up emails, make friends with IT people and secretaries, try to keep all the plates spinning, and remember that you have to help yourself before you help others, so if you ever find yourself struggling, always always feel free to ask and let someone know you’re not waving, you’re drowning.

I know you can do this, and I wish you the best in all your future endeavors. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can always text  or message me, my number is below.

Cheers,

Sarah

sem34@uw.edu

(661)520-2051

Email/MyUW: username: asuwssvc@uw.edu Password: fucksecrets16 

This was the password since 2016 and it’s been for a while, and to be honest I just kept it because it was easy to remember and I never felt like changing it. It’s distinctive, and the less personalization you can do, the better. Remember that you’re typically in the role for only a year, so making your passwords for your work account the same as your personal is going to get awkward when you pass them off a year later and your successor can’t change them.

Prezi: asuwssvc@uw.edu password: asuwsenate

This has not been used much this year, however has some good materials from previous years.

(For In Person Work or Meetings)

Board Room Code changes based on who has the room reserved but there is a main code that should unlock the room when available. If you book the Board room for Steering (which you should do as early as possible, it’s a great room for hybrid meetings and very popular), the code will be in the reservation confirmation. If not, the President or OComm director will have it. 

Logging into the office computer is done by using your ASUW username and the password will be reset by the ASUW IT person’s whims. If you have any trouble logging in let OCOMM know and they will reset it again for you. This password will be reset with the new school year, though, so make it a personal one if you want just don’t forget it. Make friends with the IT people and they will almost always be more forgiving. That being said, mine didn’t work all year and no one ever fixed it, so who’s to say. 

Senate gets two laptops from ASUW, one for the Speaker and one for the membership coordinator or clerk, whoever needs it. Neither needed it this year so I used it because it was really helpful to have two laptops when running a hybrid meeting (I’ll give more info that later). Check with the office and see if they’re ok with you using it for the meetings, OComm should reset the password and let you know but mine was ASUWRocks, so you can try that if they don’t get back to you quick enough. 

• If you’re using incognito and are logged into your ASUW email, you should be logged into the admin side of the Senate website automatically, but if not you can use the log in button on the homepage. 
• You can access the admin controls here: https://senate.asuw.org/senate-admin/home/
• The main two functions of the admin page that I used as Vice Speaker were Manage Votes and Manage Legislation 
• Manage Votes: This page is where you create, open, and close general votes (which are votes that aren’t tied to a specific piece of legislation. Most of the information will fill in automatically, but if you need to create a vote for a more obscure motion there is the “Other” option; just make sure you set the vote threshold for that one since the system won’t know how to do it automatically! There’s a place for notes in the short summary section if need be
• Manage Legislation: This page is where you create votes for motions tied to a specific piece of legislation. Click on the legislation in the database, scroll to the bottom, and click on the votes tab. From there the interface is pretty much the same as the general vote one. The website automatically lists the legislation the vote is in reference to when it goes out to senators so you don’t need to include it in the summary section. Doing votes this way makes it much easier to go back and look at a legislation’s vote history which is super helpful for when you take bills to Board! 
• Shortcodes: You may know way more about coding than I do (because I know almost nothing) but these are like little snippets of code that you can copy and paste into WordPress if you want to edit the website. I did not use them because WordPress scares me and I avoid it at all costs, but if you’re interested I can try to do a little tutorial during our transition meeting.  
• Live voting results (this is what you put up on the screen during Senate meetings so senators can see the progress of the current vote): https://senate.asuw.org/voting/live-results/ 
• Live voting (this is just the regular voting link, but from the admin side you can cast votes for any senator in case their tech isn’t working and they need leadership to enter their vote): https://senate.asuw.org/voting/active-vote/
• There’s a starred email in your inbox from Chris (the web designer) that has these links in it for easy access. I recommend having them handy during meetings 

Weekly To Do’s vary. These depend on the quarter, and you can add additional tasks if your week is light. Also, while you do have your own tasks, Senate Leadership works very much as a team, so there will be some weeks where you work on group projects, and others where you work more alone. This past year we didn’t do a lot of group projects, mostly collabs between a couple members of leadership rather than the whole team, but I think it’s a great idea to have stuff the whole office works on to make everyone feel involved! One very important thing to do quarterly is to make sure you register all Senate and Steering meetings. I will put the instructions for this in fall quarter, however, it applies to all quarters, especially if you move locations during in-person meetings. And you likely will.

• Work on Senate and Steering agenda in coordination with the Speaker.
• Senate Weekly Forums- Contact the presenters as early as you can, and send reminders a week before they present. Try to get their presentation materials 24hrs in advance and ask them to set it so that anyone with the link can view. This way you can link their slides on the Senate agenda, which makes it more accessible for senators 
• Forward all adopted Senate legislation to the Board of Directors, and convert it into a board bill. More info on this later! 
• Update the Speaker on any passed legislation from Board, and inform them on any Board business relating to Senate. The Vice Speaker does not speak for the Senate Entity outside of the Board meeting, The Speaker does so it’s important to keep them in the loop on all Senate business. That being said, most Board business outside of Senate legislation is internal ASUW stuff so you likely won’t have a ton more to update the Speaker on besides legislation. 

Summer Quarter 

• Set a Senate and Steering schedule. Senate happens every Tuesday 5-7 pm every week of the quarter except dead week. Steering will depend on the schedule of committee members so you’ll have to send out a when2meet sometime during the Summer to get their schedules (don’t forget the Board reps, Dir. Internal Policy and one other, usually the Dir. of University Affairs). Meetings don’t happen on school holidays. Here are examples of this years: Senate and Steering 

• Reserve meeting spaces for Senate and Steering. This can and should be done with the Speaker (it’s a big job for one person!). You should do this as early as events services will let you (even if people tell you to wait) because you need to have space reserved before you can register meetings. I’ll put more details on how to pick and reserve a room below. Reservations are only for one quarter, so you’ll have to do this again with every new quarter. 

• Register Senate and Steering meetings. Once you have a place reserved, you need to register fall quarter meetings. OPMA requires us to do this, but the Public Records office runs on a normal calendar not an academic calendar like ASUW does so that creates some issues. All regular meetings for 2022 have to be registered with the public records office in November of 2021. I registered Fall 2022 meetings this year to give you guys a chance of not having to run special meetings, but I had to put a location (SAV 260) even though you guys don’t know where you’re having them yet. Here’s the form I used to register them. If you guys want to have them in SAV 260 and are able to reserve it, you’re all set to have regular meetings for Fall quarter and you don’t need to contact public records unless you want to introduce yourself as the new vice speaker! If you don’t want to have them there you have two options: 1) you can email public records (pubrec@uw.edu) and ask them to cancel the remaining Senate meetings for 2022. If you do this, you’ll have to email them weekly throughout Fall quarter to register each week’s Senate meeting as a special meeting at least 72 working hours in advance (which is a pain). Or 2) you can post a sign at SAV 260 noting the meeting location has been changed, which is a lot easier. Here’s the sign we used this spring when we had to switch locations. 

1. 1. 1. Special meetings: These are meetings that were not registered before the regular meeting registration deadline in November according to the Open and Public Meetings Act (OPMA). You can find some OPMA trainings online which are very helpful! Basically the rule is that if you’re in a special meeting, you’re not allowed to take final action on anything that wasn’t on the agenda when it was registered as a special meeting. You have to register the agendas three working days in advance (so by Thursday 5pm), but Senate’s policy is to accept legislation up until Monday at 5pm. Any legislation that’s submitted after the agenda was registered but before the Monday deadline can go on the agenda as new business, but you cannot pass it during that meeting. This essentially limits special orders of the day. It is a massive pain in Senate, but not such a big deal for Steering because Senate has an internal rule that legislation (OAs) have to be considered for two Steering meetings before they can be passed anyway. The main thing that’s annoying is that you have to remember to email public records every week and if you’re even a little late they’re very mean to you. 
      2. You have to send in agendas with registration emails. If it’s a special meeting the agenda should be as up to date as possible, taking special care to include very action item (anything that will have a final vote). If it’s regular, they can be a generic agenda, more on that later. 

• Schedule Fall forums. This will likely have to wait until closer to employee orientation because the main people you’re likely going to get forums with fall quarter are other ASUW employees, but it’s a good idea to start planning! Traditionally, every Board member comes in at some point so get Senate familiar with Board and how Directors can be a resource to senators. There are also lots of UW employees and community members that like to come in every year. Here’s this years schedule if you’re looking for inspo (there are tabs at the bottom for each quarter). Leave a couple of meetings open so that the Speaker has a couple dates to offer to the President’s office when you guys schedule your quarterly forum with her (not required but a great opportunity for students to talk with administration). Any forums with UW administrators will be scheduled by the Speaker not you, but you’ll have to let them know which dates to offer to fit the schedule. 

• Meet with Senate Leadership. It’s a good idea to meet with everyone to get updates in each other’s summer work and get on the same page about big decisions like room reservation, outreach, etc. The Clerk doesn’t have summer hours so they may choose not to go to these since they aren’t being paid for them which is totally fair. Just make sure they’re in the loop about what y’all are working on so they don’t feel behind come fall quarter! 

Fall Quarter

1. Outreach. This is if the Membership Coordinator needs help, and can include tabling, going to various entities, zoom meetings, presentations or RSO’s, and posting on social media. Generally, the first couple of weeks all of Senate Leadership works on outreach and recruitment. Also, be sure to help the Membership Coordinator with onboarding new senators with all things senate, not just parli pro.
2. Parli Pro Training. This quarter will be the most intensive for training, as you will have many brand new senators who have no idea what parli pro is.
   • Senate Folders. there is a parli pro packet in the google drive, however I would encourage you look into new ways to add parli pro into the new senator packets. It always helps to try new methods, one that people liked from this year was Kahoot since it made parli pro training more engaging. 
   • Cake Legislation. As you may know, every year the Vice Speaker submits a practice resolution every year to practice parli pro. Normally this is filled with mistakes that will make senators practice their new parli pro skills. This is normally done at the first meeting. This year, I also submitted one as a board bill. It is a tradition that Vice Speaker and Director of Internal Policy work together to teach Board parli pro (some of them will have no idea what it is or how to use it, you are lucky this year, because there are lots of former senators on Board) and we thought it would be fun to do this through the cake resolution. This also gives you practice creating and submitting Board legislation! 
   • Teaching in Senate. The first couple of meetings you will need to make presentations to teach parli pro, then have little refreshers every so often after. It helps to try to make it fun, so that they remember it more. All my parli pro resources (including the slides I used) are on the website: http://senate.asuw.org/parli-pro-resources/ 
3. Resolution writing. Teach new senators what each type of resolution means, and how to write them effectively. 
   • This means the weekly writing workshop! As you saw it this year, we hosted it weekly (the day is totally up to your team), so that folks who wanted to submit for senate the next meeting could get some immediate feedback. You’ll only get a few people each week, but it is really helpful for those that do go – and you’ll probably get regulars! It’s a good way to get a vibe check of senate, and what’s going on.
4. Board. Every week you will need to prepare legislation and Board Reports before the meeting. Every senate resolution, except Organic Acts, will need to be put into a board bill. It is numbered 5.xx (Example Board Bill 5.01: Resolution in Support of Cake) and includes the entire resolution, this then goes into the shared folder. The new Board AA will send out a folder each week for you to submit them, and to fill out the board reports. Be sure to establish early on whether the speaker or vice speaker will follow up with grammatical, formatting and technical amendments to ensure that bills are consistent; the clerk has done the copyediting the past couple of years but Vice Speaker has made sure that the Board Bill is the same as the Senate bill.
   • Be sure to look at the 2021-2022 folder to look at how to format these bills and update the session number. Here’s my template I used: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u-3KmhFNQqw8Mu4MJiENfQVxyzJfbtJKeCqyxcWs9lc/edit?usp=sharing 
   • You’re also responsible for putting these on the Board agenda which the AA will share with you
   • Also note that although the vast vast majority of senate resolutions will be 5.XX, if they are a binding legislation like a senate bill (which almost never happen) or a legislative directive (which happens once a year) check the BoD bylaws to see what number they should be. 
5. Forums. Normally fall is reserved for getting to know the board members, scheduling short 5-10 minute forums with each of them throughout the quarter. This is so Senators can get to know them. I would suggest including others from the ASUW as well like OGR, EAC, Student Regent etc. Be sure to have the speaker keep to the allotted time limits for each forum.
   • I would recommend using a google sheet to plan out these forums and share it with the rest of senate leadership so they also have the schedule. Make a copy of the previous year’s if it’s easy 🙂
6. Register Meetings. This is one of the most important tasks to complete each quarter. Special meeting registration instructions: At least 3 days before the meeting, email the Public Records office at “pubrec@uw.edu”. You will need a new email for each meeting. In the subject line put “Register ASUW Student Senate Meetings”, then state “The ASUW Student Senate will be holding x special meetings on:” then under list the Date, Room, and Time of each meeting for that quarter. Finally at the end attach very generic agendas for each meetings. Leaving them generic gives you room to change them later in the meeting. Public records considers any meeting not scheduled a year in advance as special. You can look at past emails as examples. 
   • Sometime in October, the President or Dir. of Internal Policy should reach out to you about registering 2023 regular meetings. They’ll send you a form template as well. If they don’t reach out to them, and make sure you meet the deadline so you can have regular meetings the rest of the year. I recommend registering next year’s fall quarter meetings as well so new leadership has the option of running regular meetings. You’ll have to make generic agendas for all these meetings (outlined in the rules) and send them in with the registration form. 
7. Room Reservation. Since you’ll do the fall reservations in Summer, just make sure you remember to reserve a room for winter sometime in early October so you can meet the November deadline for regular meeting registration! Don’t forget to reserve a room for Steering! 
8. Meet Everyone! Not going to lie, Vice Speaker is a bit of an odd position on Board. I would highly suggest taking the first part of the quarter to build relationships with not only Senate, but also board members. This will help a lot later on in the year.
   • Vice Speaker typically does not work directly with senators but be sure to make an effort to get to know everyone because it really helps with retention and building community. Remember you are all people first.
   • Connect and/or meet with anyone you might send a senator to for resources. If you would send a senator to a person seeking information or advice, make sure they at least know your name and position, so if a senator walks in and says “oh, Vice Speaker so-and-so sent me” the person receiving them isn’t caught off guard.
   • Another big part of your job is to be the whip for votes – when it comes to any given bill coming out of senate, by the time board comes around you should be 80+% certain of the outcome. ESPECIALLY controversial bills. You could have a meeting with any board members who might have an issue with it or a vested interested (if they’re in the forwarding clause of examples), checking their thoughts, comments, and feelings about the bill. Schedules get busy, so more often than not just sending a quick slack to check in would be good. Your job is to be a zealous advocate for senate, even if you don’t personally back the bill. Half the time, just talking to a board member and hearing their concerns is enough to quell it before the vote happens.
9. Records. Check in with the new clerk regularly to make sure they are staying up to date on the records page. The agendas need to be posted at least 24 hours in advance, then updated, and the minutes need to be posted as soon as they are signed.
   • Again, make sure you set expectations early on about who will be responsible for what. Make sure your clerk isn’t going over their hours by too much, and remember that they are the only hourly in the office – so they’re the most vulnerable in the office for doing unpaid work. Make sure they’re not overwhelmed or underburdened, and are doing their full job. I was both clerk and vice speaker during my time in Senate and it’s a fun relationship! Nice to have another records nerd in the office 🙂

Winter Quarter

1. 1. Register Meetings. By the time winter quarter starts, you should have the rest of your meetings registered for the year. Just make sure that if the location changes, you’re posting signs at the old location. 
   2. Board Legislation and Board Reports.
   3. Room Reservation. Try to get the room you registered spring meetings with, but if you can’t remember the room notice. Don’t forget to reserve a room for Steering! 
   4. Records. 
   5. Forums. This is where the bulk of the forums will be. I highly recommend scheduling them well in advance for people such as Ana Mari and the student regent. Ask around who Senators want, and make sure to not overload the senate with too many forums. Learn how to say no when appropriate. Also, be sure if steering sets a time stamp on forums to stick to the time stamp but this is up to the chair to enforce the time stamp. Lean on your chair if you need to move things along.
   6. Bylaws and Rules Review. This is when you will want to start looking at any changes you will want to make. Bylaws had a huge edit in our year (session 28) but that was mostly language, so look at any content edits you want to make! Oversight is  great resource for this, both the chair and the members who may have certain areas they want to look at editing 
   7. Senate Orders. This is the time to look into any constitutional changes that the senate may want to make. These can include changing the senate section, adding specific protected seats not listed, or any other changes senate would like. These need to go on the ballot, and are due by the start of mid winter quarter, talk to the Director of Internal Policy if you have any questions.

Spring Quarter

1. Register Meetings. Again mostly just room notices at this point. Steering may have to be special meetings this quarter, since you registered them in November before members knew their spring schedules. You kind of have to go with the day and time most likely to get you quorum with Steering even if it’s different from what you registered. 
2. Board Legislation and Board Reports 
3. Records. Update the Records page with the new version of the rules/bylaws according to any OAs you passed 
4. Forums. Consider scheduling the President’s State of the ASUW here. We didn’t really do it this year, however it is something to look into… Also the Student Regent, EAC Elections forum, President Cauce, etc. Spring is pretty light on forums because of Senate elections (make sure to have your elections timeline nailed down before you schedule anyone because it’s best to leave elections meetings without any forums)
5. Bylaws and Rules Review. Continue this process, and then get them through the senate.
6. EAC Candidates Forum. Work with the EAC chair to schedule the forum, and then work with the rest of leadership to come up with questions. Make them tough but fair. If you’re running for Board let the rest of leadership know ASAP so they know they’re planning it without you and similarly check with other leadership members to make sure they’re not running so you don’t loop them in on any planning if they are. Same with Senate elections. 
7. Transition Docs. Start revising these! Do it in google docs so WordPress doesn’t delete your progress (it took me several tries to get it to save my changes). Once your successor is elected, reach out to schedule a meeting with them to go over transition documents, website tutorial, show them the office, etc. 
8. Senate Elections. Start advertising who will take over your position, and work with the rest of leadership to coordinate the elections process.

Outside of these you have a lot of autonomy in what you do each week, I’d recommend finding pet projects to work on, such as updating Senate bylaws, sitting on ASUW or external committees, or helping another board member tackle a project.

These depend on the quarter, Fall Quarter is focused on recruitment and parli pro workshops for senators and external communities. Winter quarter will be reviewing bylaws, and Spring Quarter will be focusing on the elections forum, running Senate elections, and preparing a transition for the incoming leadership.

Each quarter you and the Speaker are responsible for reserving rooms for Senate and Steering each quarter. To reserve rooms for Senate you will be working with events services (specialevents@uw.edu). Here’s an email template, just make sure to put the correct dates and location preferences. It’s a good idea to give a few rooms you’re interested in (in order of preference). They’ll get back to you and ask you to answer a few questions about the meeting, and possibly fill out a COVID prevention plan. They’ll put an asterisk on your reservation stating that if a class needs that space, they’ll have to move your meeting and your reservation won’t officially be confirmed until Week One but that never happened to me. I think it’s just protocol. 

The main things to focus on when selecting a room are capacity, accessibility, and technology. Capacity: over 100 people. Accessibility concerns: is the building in an accessible part of campus (the Quad is generally your best bet there), does the building have an accessible entrance with a wide doorway, does it have a functioning elevator, does the classroom have accessible seating and preferable ramps instead of stairs. Technology concerns: Must have projector, HDMI input, AV bridge, and wireless and podium microphones. I’ll talk more about tech set up for hybrid meetings down below. If you google pretty much any classroom at UW, you’ll get a page with all the capacity and tech info, though accessibility stuff is much easier to figure out by going in person. You can also always ask the Student Disability Commission if they have any insight there though I’ve tried to include all the advice they gave me in this document. 

Here’s a list of rooms available for reservation. Anything in Group 1 is free: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j7Na5Ha62luwHGomDoteFsDQoJbwqoH4/view 

Here are some past rooms Senate has used that have typically worked out (though I haven’t used all of them personally):

1. SAV 260 
2. MLR 301 
3. GWN 301
4. EXED 110

If you’re worried about physical accessibility (for example the accessible entrance in Miller is in a weird place), it might be a good idea to put an accessibility map in the pre-meeting and follow up emails. 

Once you reserve, you HAVE to verify the room confirmation, because sometimes they mess up and only reserve it for one date rather than for the quarter. 

Reserving a room for Steering is much easier because they’re almost always in the HUB and you can just reserve through their online reservation system EVIS. HUB 303 (the Board room) is your best bet because it’s only used by ASUW and it’s free and easy. However, it is popular, so here are some other options if you can’t get it: 

1. HUB 238
2. HUB 307 
3. HUB 214 

EVIS username: asuw@uw.edu

Password: asuwgov18

Meetings: You go to a lot of them.

Board: Every Thursday in HUB 303 (The room might change and this year we were almost completely remote) usually 5:30-7:30pm. Embrace your role on Board. You are elected to represent the views of Senate, and advocate for the Resolutions that Senate passes, but most issues that Board considers do not have official Senate opinion on them, so get involved in other debates as much as you feel comfortable doing so. I mostly stuck to issues that were related to Senate or had an official Senate opinion, but if you’d like to get more involved in other debates that’s also fair and absolutely your right as a Board member. It’s up to you! You can also bring other Board issues to Senate committee meetings, Steering, or leadership to hear their ideas and bring those back to Board. It’s really whatever you feel comfortable with and whatever you have the capacity to do. 

Steering: Meets once a week to set the Senate agenda and discuss Senate issues. Usually a very short meeting (1 hr or less), but can sometimes run long if you are considering an Organic Act or another resolution that is sent to Steering. Really great place to discuss any logistical issues in Senate (not meeting quorum, committee meetings are too small or not getting a lot of discussion, not enough participation from a broad range of senators, etc)

Senate: Every Tuesday 5pm. (Totally up to Leadership and Steering direction. Planning the meetings and making sure they run smoothly is the main part of your job and takes up a lot of time tbh but the Speaker also has a large part in this so reach out to them if you need help! The office’s main priority as a whole is running these meetings so everyone should pitch in)

Legislative Steering Committee: You are on the Legislative Steering Committee which sets the Legislative Agenda for the State of Washington. This is a really interesting committee to sit on and a very important one. After reviewing the process this year, I would highly suggest starting the year by getting feedback from Senators on what they want to see in the document, then give them weekly updates at senate as to what you are currently working on in the committee. It’s good for them to have an idea of what’s coming when the Legislative Agenda is introduced at the end of the quarter so they have time to draft additions/amendments. Remind them the meetings are open and they can totally come with you and the Senate liaisons if they’re interested! Remember to impress upon senate that the organization of the document is NOT their job, and instead senators should focus on the CONTENT.

You might have some free time so consider becoming a Board or Senate Liaison to other committees that interest you, such as the Student Regent Search Committee, TABS, HUB Board of Reps, etc. Keep an eye out for these opportunities as the year goes on. Be mindful, though, as these positions may not be ones you can take as part of your hours (See: UPASS) unless you’re taking the position AS the senate liaison. Talk to your oversight chair about that!

following up on passed resolutions from previous years. How are those resolutions being instituted, are they still relevant? Should a criteria be developed for when Resolutions “expire” as official student opinion. It comes up and causes issues sometimes, and might be a good thing to have a solution for.

-switching from Robert’s to Sturgis. This idea is often thrown around to cure the woes of Senate’s exclusivity and steep learning curve. I think it’s fine as a step in the right direction, but the two really aren’t that different, and Robert’s is often praised as being better for a body as big as Senate. If it’s too exclusive Sturgis won’t change that, but there is apparently a rule somewhere that we must have a mode of parliamentary procedure (ask Rene about this). We can have a conversation about this more if you want to pursue this. This debate was HUGE last year but not as big this year and I started some research for it but just didn’t have time to really devote to making that change or finding a better solution than Sturgis. It’s up to you if you bring this debate up next year, but you can definitely work it through with the rest of Senate leadership and gather some opinions before deciding how to move forward. As the parliamentarian, you will be the go to person in this debate and any legislation will likely have to come from you (but can be in collaboration with the Dir. Internal Policy, Oversight committee, any interested senators, etc)

• Advice from Mustapha, last year’s VS: “The main issues I see with it, is one of equity in senate. You’re going to have folks who are more than happy to be chatterboxes in senate, and really take the reins. They’re great, but sturgis allows for unstructured (see: open) discussion, without the chair to facilitate. It means that the barrier for speaking is much lower, but until the chair calls the meeting to order, folks can speak in any order they want, back and forth, etc, and this can get out of hand in a 90 person meeting FAST. It will also make your AA cry, trying to take minutes for a 90 person sturgis meeting. Don’t make your AA cry.)”
• In my opinion, order is all well good, but Senate is first and foremost a place for advocacy and if there is a barrier to that it should be addressed. Totally get Mustapha’s point that Sturgis will still have a lot of the same issues though. I was kind of warned away from any alternatives that weren’t Sturgis because the more obscure, the harder it is to find resources online and we are legally required to have some form of parli pro. By the end of the year, it was kind of looking to me like Senate would need its own unique system to really fix the problems, but that would be a lot of work and as it is, most people speak informally in Senate anyway which is fine and doesn’t require a massive OA! It’s up to you, but if you want to make changes, get started early because it will take time to convince people.

-uploading old Senate legislation to the website/records page. We have tons of paper copies (both in the Senate office and in Rene’s). We’ve been wanting to move into the digital age for a while, and some progress was made this year on the new website but I don’t think it was finished. 

-Vice Speaker’s Vote on Board: This has been an ongoing conversation for years. We can talk more about it if you are interested in pursing it. It always creates lots of strong opinions, and is heavily debated every time back in 2019 and years in the past. I did not bring it up this year and Board did not discuss it.

Pros:

Senate Legitimacy: Theoretically, Senate is the sole legislative body of the ASUW, and constitutes roughly one third or one fourth of the ASUW’s general functioning. The way that the BoD is designed complicates this because it in many ways acts as the true and final legislative body for the Association, which freezes Senate out. At most other schools, their Senate is responsible for setting the budget, establishing programming etc. but this comes at the expense of a very limited membership. So, it is strange that the official student opinion making body/legislative body does not have a strong voice on the entity that makes the most impactful decisions. Giving the Vice Speaker a vote would be largely ceremonial, but would make a lot of sense theoretically and would give Senate more of the power it should probably have.

Parli Pro Issues: It is strange that someone can have the power to make objections, offer motions, etc. without having the ability to vote on them. Often times these actions are more powerful than voting itself so the inequality is strange at the least.

Senate can’t vote on Senate Legislation: Again, it is strange that the Vice Speaker offers the senate legislation to the BoD but is unable to vote on their final passage. Senate forwards this legislation to the BoD with the intent that it passes, and they have no guarantee of even one vote in support. Adding the vote would guarantee some sort of support for the legislation, and could increase accountability of the Vice Speaker. You would be obligated to vote for passed Senate legislation, and there would be an easily accessible record of whether or not you did so whereas now there is only a record of what the Vice Speaker says at the meeting.

Vice Speaker’s Constituency: In theory, the Vice Speaker and Senate represent more people than people who voted for at large members of the BoD. At an average of 150 registered Senators, with 15 constituents each (some of whom are protected seats for commissions, or residence hall senators!), you technically represent 2,250+ people, the same amount (if not more) than those who cast votes in the general election. This statistic has some problems, especially since only ~80 people come to senate weekly. It’s interesting to think about though! Some Board members really hate this idea though lol 

Cons:

“Double Dipping”: Some see this as giving senate too much power, and that the board should hold the most power. They view this as senate having a say in making resolutions, and then having further say at final approval.

“Exclusivity of Senate”: Some folks in the past raised the point that Senate is exclusive and privileges certain viewpoints and experiences over others, and giving Senate a vote on Board would further privilege these view points by granting them more power.

Legitimacy of Other Board Members: If the Vice Speaker can become a full voting member of the BoD by winning a much smaller Senate election, what does this suggest about the ASUW General Elections? Is it fair to the others who went through much more, and should have a broader constituency to grant the Vice Speaker the same amounts of power as them? But the GPSS Rep gets a Vote on Board and ASUW senate is much bigger!!

Conclusion: I really don’t know the answer to most of these questions, or the best way to go about solving this problem. A lot of conversations are going to have to happen before this change can take place, and that change would ultimately come in the form of a ballot question that could be posed through the passage of a Senate Order through the Senate body and the BoD.

Congrats! You’re a member of the Board of Directors! And you didn’t even have to make T-shirts. You also don’t get a vote, but maybe you can change that!

Logistics:

1. Submit Resolutions that pass at Senate to the Board’s Google Drive the next day by 4 pm. You will need to reformat it into a Board Resolution (5.XX) (unless it’s a Senate Bill, then it would be 3.XX in the Board numbering code). I just copy/pasted them into a document on the Drive and put them on the agenda. Make sure that it’s all queued up, and use the blank board bill template. Don’t make any substantive changes to the document, obvs. Editing for grammar is okay, changing the body of the document is a BIG no-no.

• You don’t need to bring Organic Acts to Board (just make them aware or whatever the bylaws say)
• DO: Bring the Leg. Agenda, Senate Orders (Board gets to approve the language of the ballot question)

When representing the resolutions passed at Senate to the Board, I usually read it, explain the meaning and its impact, voice some of the major discussions we had on the Senate floor, and usually I’d end with my perspective in a limited way. If discussions happened, I would try to limit my arguments to what was discussed on the floor, so that I was representing what senate discussed/deliberated for the bill.

2. Don’t forget to fill out your Board Report!  Put whatever you want on it. But it’s public record. So not TOO much of whatever you want. I usually tried to do what was happening in Senate, what I was working on, and what the office was working on.

Here’s the big thing: There is going to be contention, there’s going to be ongoing stuff. Your job is to just hold up your end, and to use that drama to your advantage by staying out of it as MUCH as possible. My goal for this year was #nocringe, so that when I passed it onto my successor, I would be able to calmly and cleanly explain why and what relationships were the way they were. It was to middling success. Just stay out of the drama, be the best west wing impersonator you can, and whip those votes. Your job is to advocate for senate, and that means being a reasonable but zealous advocate.

Pro-tips:

1. Establish of your place on the Board

This year and last, we’ve been able to reestablish good-ish relations with the Board, but in the past the Senate has come into conflict with them, which doesn’t really help anyone or promote the best interest of Senate or students at the UW. This conflict has often come from the personality of the Vice Speaker or the Board’s perspective on their contribution during Senate in past years, however this year it stemmed from Board members being afraid to come to senate after they were almost recalled (yes people were actually afraid of senate). I encourage you to participate in debate (at Board) as often as you feel appropriate, but keep in mind you were elected to represent the senate, and you’re obligated to represent the opinion of the Senate at Board.

2. Teach the Board Parli Pro!

This is a great opportunity to establish your role on Board. IF YOU CAN, finding time to work with Board members over the summer and Fall Quarter helps build a relationships, and shows the board you have a place at the table. You can give them the same presentations you give Senate, the BOD uses Sturgis rather than Robert’s Rules, but the basics are the same. Do it early and make sure that everyone at the table knows how to make motions, amend things, etc. Sometimes meetings have been slowed down by confusion surrounding parli-pro, and believe me you don’t want to deal with that 5 hours into a budget meeting. Make contact with the Director of Internal Policy as early as possible to go over Public Record training, and keep your wits sharp! 

3. Work with your Director of Internal Policy

The Vice Speaker-Internal Policy relationship is a little weird (lol). Both of you will be point people for parli pro, Senate knowledge, and Association history and procedures. Establish your relationship early, and figure out what responsibilities you want to collaborate on, and which ones you are going to clearly separate. The Board-Senate, and the Senate-Board liaisonship can overlap a lot, so figure out how you want to define that. It can also get a little weird having two board members liaison to one group, so I suggest you meet with the new IP early to go over how you want to work together. You will also potentially have a third board liaison in the University Affairs Director – only use this if it’s to your advantage.

4. Be clear about your expectations for Board in Senate

My approach was to minimize legislation that gets sent back to Senate. I feel that Board should be at Senate meetings (they’re required to go once a month, but more is always better) and be present for the discussions. They’re there to provide information and help Senators craft the best student opinion- not impose their own ideas on Senators. However, if they know a resolution would fail board for whatever reason, make that clear DURING Senate, not after. Also, if they do decide to send back resolutions, make sure they are doing it for tangible reasons with actual edits, not simply because they do not like it overall. Feel free to take your own approach but that’s how I balance the power of the two bodies.

This is a fine line to walk, because if board DOESN’T come to senate, you may be blindsided with pushback that you could have seen coming. However, Board is to remain somewhat distant at senate – otherwise, we just become a rubberstamp for them. There is a give and take nature to the relationship, and your job is to be the go-between for it. By all means, send senators to board members – it’s good for them to have someone show up at their office hours – and involve board members with bills that are relevant to their position,  but don’t let board trample senators.

5. Know your Senate history!

Definitely look to see if there’s past Senate legislation on issues you’re talking about at the Board table. Sometimes it helps steer conversation, sometimes it saves writing another Senate resolution when one already exists.

You have summer reading!

Read Robert’s Rules cover to cover and be very familiar with it, you don’t want to be caught out by not knowing to do when a motion arises. There are some books in the Vice Speaker’s desk drawer at the office that you’re welcome to and I have a good one at my house: please please remind me to give it to you before the end of the year! 

Resources: http://senate.asuw.org/parli-pro-resources/ (extended cheat sheet is what I look at during meetings)

In all seriousness, do not be afraid to look things up! Roberts rules are massive, and for one person to know it cover to cover would take forever. Never be afraid to double check, and don’t be afraid to tell Senators to cool down for a minute while you verify. Google is your friend, and get flashcards if you can, so you can practice it. And when it doubt, point of parliamentary procedure and google like a fiend.

How to update records page, if you change the bylaws or anything: log in to records.asuw.org on your ASUW account, click “admin” in the top right and it’ll take you to a page of all the pages you have access to. Click the appropriate one and you should be able to upload the new documents!

Pretty easy.

But you’re in charge of the governing docs now.

That also means enforcing the bylaws and rules as part of being parliamentarian.

The Master copy of the Bylaw and Rules are found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JY-lbZvocKZ2Rl7FtrIXxKxBaoNuyb4Q  and you’re going to want to make OA edits to THESE documents, export as a pdf, and post the PDF to the records page. This makes life infinitely easier and I’m not throwing shade, but also I am, and editable forms of this document is very difficult to find otherwise. Make sure you edit the 2021-2022 ones because those are the ones with the updated language we passed this year. 

HOW TO EDIT THE DOCUMENTS:

These documents were formatted by Mustapha Samateh, during the 2020-2021 senate year. They have been formatted to use headers and table of contents. Rule of thumb for adding new sections to the Bylaws or Rules:

Articles/Rules = Header 1

Sections WITH TITLES = Header 2

Subsections WITH TITLES = Header 3

All other text = Normal Text

Once you have edited the document, make sure to refresh the table of contents at the top of the document to reflect page changes/new sections, add your name/date to the bottom of the document to denote changes, and then export as a pdf. Hey presto, you’ve managed a document!

Senate forums are all on you to plan. Get people that are relevant to campus issues/happenings in Senate.

Here’s a list of common forum guests over the past years:

• Ana Mari (UW President),
• Denzil Suite (Vice President of Student Life)
• HFS- Pam Schreiber is the Director, I usually just tell her what aspects of HFS students are interested in (master plan, food costs etc) and she brings the appropriate people. Or you can ask her to bring anyone she thinks would be exciting to Senators. Or just reach out specific people
• Student regent + maybe other regents- in the past we’ve had one forum in Fall with just the student regent and then another later with them and other regents (ask them to arrange that). One year we had a forum with all three student regent candidates. That was cool.
• VP of OMAD
• Various groups on campus will reach out to you, such as the IMA or Health and Wellness

Who to Email for Forums (and how to get a response!)

This is gonna take googling – and sometimes a bit of a prayer. If you’re emailing someone directly *not using a form*, then you’ll also want to cc their secretary as well, when possible. That’s going to be the best way to schedule a forum with them. Be mindful, though! Try not to have too many, and try not to pack too much in. 1-2 per meeting MAX, and try to not schedule more than half an hour of forums unless it’s for someone special (Ana Mari), or something important (EAC Forum, Senate Elections, etc.).

1. Ana Mari (or current president) & Mark Richards (or current provost)
   1. https://www.washington.edu/president/inviting-the-president-to-your-event/
   2. This will be the same for the provost, and make sure to schedule these FAR in advance. Get the ASUW President to help if need be. Fill out the forms, be patient, and be diligent! Always coordinate with the Speaker when scheduling President Cauce or Provost Richards
2.   Denzil Suite, VP of Student Life
   1. stulife@uw.edu
3. Student Regent (changes year to year)
   1. stureg@uw.edu
4. RCSA Director of Government Affairs (changes every year)
   1. Good person to  bring in for fall quarter, and a good point of contact for senators in dorms or who want to write legislation for dorms/HFS stuff. (r-26-XX A Resolution Against Chocolate Milk In Vending Machines,  for example)
   2. rcsagov@uw.edu
5. SAF Chair
   1. SAFCOM@uw.edu
6. EAC Chair (for both EAC forum, and for encouraging volunteer participation in the yearly elections)
   1. asuwvote@uw.edu
7. Someone from TABS- replaced the Provost Advisory Committee for Students (PACS). Not sure what the deal is with this, there isn’t a ton of information online about it. Ask the Dir. of University Affairs!
8. VP of OMAD (Rickey Hall)
   1. vpomad@uw.edu
   2. ALSO cc their secretary, (see this page for that detail https://www.washington.edu/diversity/cdo/ )
9. You may also want to reach out to local politicians! However, they must be ESTABLISHED politicians, as you are expressly not allowed to bring on nor discuss issues that are active on the ballot. No matter what! Rene will talk about it with you. She will tell you this again and again. Don’t do it!

Write them a thank you note also! Get some cards and give them a nice little thanks. They appreciate it and will come back the next year.

Senate tech is the bane of my existence but I’m going to give you the best advice I can lol. 

The big thing is going to be keeping the agendas and meetings organized – look in the google drive for the 27th (XXVII) session and look at the different legislation folders. Each quarter was a wild ride, but I think that the SP2021 was best suited. It had the weekly agendas and the relevant documents (legislation, powerpoints from forums, etiquette, etc) in each of the week’s folders and it made life much, much easier. Just do the work up front and then relax because you know that it’s done for the quarter. You can use the agenda template that I used, but make sure you send the agendas to the public records office as soon as you can, so your meetings are properly registered. Accessibility note: if you hire a CART captioner (which I think is a necessity for hybrid meetings), they will want the agenda and any materials that are going to be read ahead of time. If you manage all that stuff in folders for each meeting, you can just share the drive with them so they always have access and it makes life a lot easier! You can also check the CC folder in the Session 28 (XVIII) shared drive to see examples of that. Email dimitri1@uw.edu (Dimitri Azadi, DSO Coordinator) to hire the CC. 

Voting instructions are under the Senate website section! 

Voting Cards if ever the website goes down in an in person meeting: There should be a giant pile of cardstock cards stapled together – one green, one blue, one red. Talk to your membership coordinator. What you’ll need to do is count the votes when needed. Coordinate with your MC and speaker to do this. It’s gonna suck. It’s gonna be slow. But it’s what you need to do to make the votes official – for the most part, hand votes are fine except for final passage and the Big Votes like moving something or suspending the rules.

Meeting setup: 

• Senate Hybrid Set-up:
  • Connect laptop to HDMI and USB cord provided in the room (might need to get an adapter ahead of time from Communications or office coordinator if no one has an HDMI or USB port) 
  • Start the Zoom and connect audio and video to the room’s AV system (click the little ^ by the mute/unmute and camera buttons, I’m not sure what it will be called but you can test the different options out). The camera should be from the Panoprto camera at the back of the classroom and the audio from Zoom should go out through the room’s speakers. 
  • Share screen 
  • Make sure to turn captions on or assign your cart captioner to type captions 
  • Open the voting results page: https://senate.asuw.org/voting/live-results/
    • Set up a quorum call or an attendance vote depending on when your MC decides to have the attendance vote 
  • Remember to turn the subtitles on so people in the room can see too 
  • Zoom in on agenda/legislation so people in the back of the room can read it 
  • Podium and wireless microphone volume control on the screen at the podium
  • You’ll need to tap your student ID on the chip thingy at the podium to get into the podium screen and open the podium drawer
    • The wireless mic is in the drawer along with batteries, make sure the mic is at full battery at the start of the meeting a have a couple spare batteries handy to replace during the meeting if necessary 
• Setting up votes 
  • Instructions under the website portion 
  • I use a separate laptop to do this so it doesn’t show up on the projector (I hooked up my personal laptop to the screen and AV bridge and did votes on the ASUW laptop
  • Remember to keep laptops charged and bring your charger to meetings lmao 
• Keep Zoom’s software updated on your laptop because otherwise it will freeze in the middle of the meeting because of course 
• Steering’s hybrid set up is pretty much the same, but you don’t need to use the voting software, you can take in person/Zoom hand votes 
  • You’ll probably just use auto captions for this meeting because they’ll be way more accurate for a small meeting than a big one like Senate and Captioners are expensive 

Microphones SUCK. The hardest part of hybrid meetings is without a doubt trying to make sure that everyone in person can be heard over Zoom. I tried reaching out to UWIT, event services, Academic Tech, Student Technology Loan Program, and STF about this but no one was really able to help me out. My best lead that UWIT never got back to me on was trying to get a table microphone that the Speaker/MC/intern/you can carry around the room that feeds audio back to zoom. I know they have them in Parrington, so you could talk to their tech department and see if other buildings have them. Our current system was just having the Speaker carry the wireless mic around to everyone as you know, and we got better at it as the year went on so there’s always that. Unfortunately getting another wireless mic does not work since only one can run off the room’s speaker system at once and for whatever reason, they won’t feed directly into Zoom like a table mic would. So. 

FIRST: In order to be OPMA compliant you’ll need to use a Zoom Webinar. You guys have a line item in your budget for this. The Speaker should purchase it with their personal UW email (for whatever reason the asuw accounts don’t have a good Zoom subscription so you’ll all need to use your personal UW accounts that you use for school when it comes to Zoom). 

SECOND: So you wanna set up a meeting! Here are some super important settings:

Watch the zoom tutorials. I know you feel like you’re gonna be fine without them, I know they’re dull and there are a lot of them, and it sucks, but this will save your *** when something goes wrong and you need to know what broke to fix it. Dedicate a weekend to it before you have your first meeting via zoom. 

Make sure your webinar does NOT require registration. Double check that setting. Save and then go back in and check again. If it requires registration you’re immediately out of compliance. So fix it!

Make a game plan with your team for how to handle zoom calls. Handling a 90 person zoom call is a nightmare and a half on it’s own, you’re going to need to figure out roles. This goes double for hybrid meetings. Make all of core leadership co-hosts, and make all senators panelists. Invite members of the public to speak if they want to, but otherwise leave them as attendees.

Remember that you can set a meeting to “follow host view” where all that attendees can see is whatever the meeting host can see, but you can also do “gallery view” or “active speaker” view. Figure out what is needed and if it’s host following view, that you know who needs to be host.

^A lot of this instruction is from last year when we had to vote via Zoom so things were a lot more complicated. We didn’t have Zoom webinar this time because we had no need to differentiate between voting senators and guests because all voting happened through the website. Your team can discuss which subscription you want to get. 

This is a section dedicated to all the traditions of Senate. Mostly because I’m leaving, and I need you to carry on the Senate legacy. So I compiled a list of all the traditions I can think of, some related to the Vice Speaker, and some that just exist. Plz enjoy, and carry the torch. Also in my brainstorm notes for this section I wrote “Senate traditions, like guns in the South, are a given necessity.” Yikes. (These are nearly entirely from what was passed onto me, I kept them because I find them funny. Enjoy!)

1. Cake legislation: use it as a parli pro teaching tool, don’t forget to include that funding comes from Rene
2. Ugly Holiday Sweater Meeting: last meeting of fall quarter, the Speaker wears the red snowman vest in the office. Senate 2019-2020 did an ugly sweater contest and it was very popular. We forgot to do it this year because we were in a tight schedule to approve the Legislative Agenda.

3. Leadership Brunch/ Hangout: We did a couple of senate hangouts in person, this year it’s more like when were were up of it mostly in Spring Quarter. But connect outside of work.

4. Gossip Entity: Senate always knows everything about everyone. The more you try to hold yourself at a distance from drama, the more hot gossip you’ll get, so be mindful of that. Especially among the BoD, you’re going to have to wrestle cats to get the high school drama to die down. Try to get a vibe check of senate, who are the chatty ones, who are the social ones, and try to be really inviting.
5. ASUW Elections Forum: make tough (but fair) questions. scare the newbies. We also usually make a powerpoint to go behind the candidates. Also make sure to invite the Daily, and get it live streamed or recorded if you use zoom.
6. End of the Year Festivities:

• – The end of the year celebration is normally in the last month or two, invite all of the Senators.
• – On the last day of work: drink in the office. like get drunk. make sure the Speaker signs Frank Underwood. clean up the office a little. put your extra business cards in the ceiling panels (it’s a thing).
• – “We also usually do an end of the year steering bonding with old and new steering. Like going to the beach. Or drinking. We like drinking.” <—- Jessa wrote that (she was VS 2015-2016)”

7. Steering Bonding: do it. Make them feel part of the squad. It can be awkward because usually leadership is very tight knit and steering isn’t so much. But, Steering usually really enjoy it and it can be fun.
8. Squad: take at least one professional-ish group picture of leadership and frame it. FOR THE MEMORIES. (and for Rene)
9. Senate Hooligans: there’s always one, or a few. Usually it’s a freshman who just really comes into their own and you know…is a mess. This year I’m not super sure who it is. There’s a few- Timmy (but he’s been the *sole* hooligan before) or Erin or Amanda or Joe, but before that there was Alice Crowe, Timmy, Russell Wiita, Kiehl (one of my earliest Senate memories is of Speaker Ada Waelder threatening to throw him out of the chamber), and it goes back throughout history. So enjoy them! But also don’t be afraid to be firm for your own sanity.
10. Senate Elections: there’s always some low-key ticket forming as you may be well aware. Senate elections also are always influenced by ASUW Elections. So when people as you who’s running for Speaker before ASUW campaigning even starts, say no. We also usually do a presentation about our positions earlier in spring quarter.
11. Kevin Shotwell Lifetime Achievement Award: It’s a new thing. This was the second year. Give it to someone great who’s been involved for a long time. Keep the legacy.