Universal U-PASS Advisory Board November 9th, 2012 Present: Adam Sherman – GPSS President Austin Bell – ASUW Representative Celeste Gilman – Transportation Services Evan Smith – ASUW Representative, ASUW President Josh Kavanagh – Transportation Services Kate Callison – ASUW Representative Katie Bass – Advisory Board Staff Melanie Mayock- Advisory Board Chair, GPSS Representative Michelle Rhoads- Transportation Services Miles Fernandez – Advisory Board Vice-Chair, ASUW Representative Rene Singleton – Student Life Steven Do - ASUW Representative Zach Nostdal – GPSS Representative

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Call to order- Mayock a. At 2:35 p.m. Public comment period - Mayock a. No one present to speak Approval of Agenda and Minutes a. Motion (Austin):Move to approve b. Second (Miles) c. No objections Arbitration – Kavanagh a. Comment (Josh): I sent an email detailing where we are. We have a process clarification and a timeline forthcoming from the Arbitrator. b. Comment (Katie): I am in the process of completing the research that I was asked to do at the last meeting. So far, of our peers in the PAC 12 which have mandatory transportation fees or programs, none of them treat their equivalent of Academic Student Employees any differently than any other student in regards to transportation fees. The only possible exception is Utah; their student employees pay the fee, and the departments that the employees work for pay their fee for them as well. So, they have double paid into the pool. I will offer another update when the rest of the research is completed. c. Comment (Josh): If the AB wants to ask the arbitrator additional questions about the process, or wants to ask Katie to reach out to the arbitrator on the AB’s behalf, that is possible. d. Question (Melanie): Evan, weren’t you going to meet with the Attorney General’s office on the Advisory Board’s behalf first?

i. Comment (Evan): Yes. I put in a request to meet with the assistant AG, and we got a response from UW HR and the Provost’s office saying that they would be happy to meet with us. ii. Question (Melanie): So we don’t have independent access to the AG? iii. Comment (Evan): Right. The goal of that meeting was not to establish a timeline. The goal was to get an inside look at the timeline, and we were able to get that. iv. Comment (Josh): I think that Mindy or the Provost might have misunderstood. If the AG’s office is the ASUW or GPSS’s attorney, you should be able to meet with your attorney. v. Comment (Adam): I think that it is a difficult question about who the Attorney General is representing. The question becomes are they representing you the entity of the UW, or, are we our own entity that is being advised? I have solicited advice on the issue from various legal professionals that I am in contact with. From that I have had significantly different advice about if it would be beneficial for us to insert ourselves, or if it is best to wait until our rights as students are infringed upon before we act. e. Comment (Melanie): So, it sounds like since this is moving pretty fast that we are not reaching out to the arbitrator. i. Comment (Adam): It is my opinion, though I am not a lawyer, that if we were to decide to assert ourselves, the way to do so would be through an amicus brief. Considering that the arbitrator is supposed to be a neutral third party, the more people get involved directly with the Arbitrator, the less that works. f. Comment (Melanie): My recollection from the last meeting that we wanted to do this was because the UAW’s motion could be interpreted as making the U-PASS voluntary. But when I discussed it with UAW folks they said that they thought they were using UW’s language, and thus not threatening its universality. i. Comment (Adam): So, again back to the amicus brief. If that were to be the case, then they would be infringing our rights. So we could, at that point file a grievance, or we could head that off with an amicus brief. ii. Comment (Melanie): I am concerned about the process if we are not going to be able to access the AG’s office. I am also still concerned about the language and weather it can be interpreted to make the U-PASS voluntary. iii. Comment (Josh): When the University first crafted that language, and to the extent that I was involved, we crafted it very carefully so that it couldn’t be interpreted that way. It could be read that they don’t need to use their U-PASS, but that they couldn’t opt out of it. I think that UAW missed that when they tried to copy it. iv. Comment (Melanie): In re-reading the language from the UAW motion, the word decline is what is troubling.

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g. Comment (Adam): We might want to use different language like an agreement between employer and employee that states that if they do not use it, then they will be compensated for it. h. Comment (Melanie): I guess our decision for right now is that if the arbitrator reaches a decision that undermines students’ authority then we will move forward. I sent out an email with the GPSS resolution on this issue that recently passed, does anyone have any comments or questions about that? i. Comment (Zach): It was interesting to read. I think it is probably a good idea. ii. Comment (Adam): If it doesn’t create any controversy, I am happy. iii. Comment (Josh): It looks like some good work went on in senate to be supportive of the union but create language that that isn’t contradictory to student interests. iv. Comment (Melanie): It reaffirmed students’ ability to levy fees. And the UW’s ability to resolve the dispute. The second THAT clause says that we want this dispute and resolution to not hurt other students. i. Comment (Miles): I would like to say that ASUW student senate has our own bill. It is supporting the universality aspect. I received an email from a TA requesting that we pull it and table it indefinitely. We decided that it would be best to debate on the senate floor. i. Comment (Evan): There was some contention about its support of the initial University grievance. We will be debating on Tuesday whether it is in our best interest to get involved. Also, it’s important to remember that all ASE’s don’t speak with the same voice. Advisory Board Annual Report Edits – Mayock/Bass a. Comment (Melanie): We thought that it would be a great idea to have an Advisory Board annual report. One thing that I thought about is including data about the number of communications that we receive and what they are generally about. b. Comment (Josh): I think one thing to think about is the incredible amount of proactive transparency that this group has had. Maybe linking to the transit contracts would be one more way to reinforce that. c. Comment (Adam): One of the things that I have been doing a lot of thinking about is transparency as well. I think that we should have information like SAF has that explains the fee, the authority, what we are able to produce, and not produce. i. Question (Melanie): Do you think that there is something that could be added to this Annual Report to achieve that? ii. Comment (Adam): There should be a page online about the UPASS, and it should mirror the SAF website as they are very transparent, and focused on the way that students receive information. That would shift the focus away from governance.

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d. Comment (Adam): SAF has fee history so that you know exactly what it was for a given year, and what the fund was used for. Obviously they are doing a lot more than U-PASS is, but it is still great transparency. It also has procedures, timelines, and information. i. Comment (Melanie): Let’s look at what we currently have on our website. ii. Comment (Adam): I think that it is great what we have, but it isn’t necessarily accessible to students. But if we make it prettier and more intuitive, that will be more useful. e. Question (Katie): Do we want to have the Transportation Services communications department give the Annual Report an InDesign shine? i. General affirmation f. Question (Melanie): Did we have any thoughts about distributing the Annual Report? g. Comment (Rene): If we re-do the website to make it pretty, this will put us in a good spot if we need to do a little bit more promoting. h. Comment (Josh): The accountability of the AB is to the senates. It would make sense that the Annual Report be delivered to the senates. Even if it is just at some meeting and you let it be known and let it stand in the minutes. i. Comment (Adam): I agree. ii. Comment (Melanie): I think that’s great. I need to write a message from the chair, and we will work on making it more attractive. Survey Consideration a. Comment (Melanie): Sean is not here. We should probably discuss it anyway. b. Comment (Evan): I think that it’s a great idea. Every time I send out an oncampus email, I get about five or six replies about the U-PASS. One student requested another survey to see if students still agree with this issue. I know that SAF is trying to put together some money to send out a survey about student services, we might be able to tack on to that. i. Comment (Adam): We could minimize a lot of our costs by doing that. c. Question (Melanie): Are there better times than others to send these sorts of surveys out? d. Comment (Rene): Yes, I think we need to do some thinking about the timing. If the thing with the ASEs is still going on, we are going to get a lot of responses from them. Also, don’t want to send it out on the day tuition is due, or something like that. e. Question (Melanie): Does anyone know if the first time the survey went out if ASEs thought that the University was going to be paying for their UPASS? i. Comment (Josh): That is plausible. At the time the survey was done, we didn’t know if it was going to be a University fee or a student fee. If an ASE was really thinking about who pays what, they might have interpreted it that way.

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f. Question (Adam): Do we want to have a program that only 40% of the students on campus want? i. Comment (Melanie): We can’t run away from it. ii. Comment (Rene): That’s one of the reasons that I am looking at timing. After the issue with the union, people might have a different opinion. Or, if the weather is better, maybe they will be happier. We want to get to the other side of these issues before we survey people. If you do an all campus survey, you can’t exclude populations. g. Comment (Celeste): We will be wrapping up the transportation survey that we do every two years this week. We ask about satisfaction with the UPASS program. We need to process the data before it’s available, but we will relatively soon have data about U-PASS satisfaction. h. Comment (Melanie): What was the purpose of that survey? Do we need another one? i. Comment (Josh): The survey that Celeste is referring to was not talking about universality. If you want to get into that issue, it would need to be a separate survey. What we will be able to tell is if universality has increased or decreased satisfaction. j. Question (Adam): Are there other factors that are correlated to satisfaction that might not be directly related to universality? i. Comment (Josh): There are some service changes. Those have hit faculty and staff harder than students. k. Comment (Evan): It might be interesting to get those preliminary results, and then decide if we are going to dig deeper. l. Comment (Melanie): I think there was talk about having something ready to go, to time it well, and decide if we are going to do it at all. m. Question (Celeste): A question that I have is whether the same level of participation could be generated or not. There was an urgency from a time of crisis when the first survey went out that was a large motivator for responses. n. Comment (Josh): I suspect that support will go down, simply because no one’s fee has doubled in the last year. We have had price stability after a price decrease. o. Question (Zach): Do you know roughly when you will have data from the survey? i. Comment (Celeste): I don’t know. Typically it’s a pretty long process. There are some new tools available to us to make it faster, but the survey consultant is having some issues with them. p. Comment (Melanie): The first time the survey was given out the STT sent it. I want to make sure we are doing all we can to replicate all parts of it. q. Comment (Evan): I think that we could get a decent level of participation, but it probably won’t be near what we got last time. Agenda Setting a. Comment (Rene): Next meeting we should think about elections, because Melanie is leaving.

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b. Question (Josh): Are we short a GPSS member? c. Comment (Melanie): We need to replace me but as of right now, we are looking for my replacement. I would like to resign entirely, but might be able to stay on in a role other than chair. d. Comment (Melanie): The Vice-Chair steps into that role. At the next meeting we will elect a new Vice-Chair, and I will resign as chair. Adjournment at 3:18