Nontraditional Students Association Meeting Minutes
October 15, 2008
9:30AM Commuter Lounge, Memorial Union

Present
Kathleen O’Connell, President
Barbara Denaro, Vice President
Barbara Smith is away this week

Old Business
1. 2008 Holiday Sharing Program is a partnership between Crossroads Ministries and The Bodwell Center for Services and Volunteerism. During the holiday season, they support the Old Town-Orono community and its surrounding areas. The first meeting is Tuesday, October 21 at 5PM in the Memorial Union's Bumps Room, so details are still open, but based on the information we have received so far, it looks like donations of necessities will be the focus this year. Barb will keep us posted as she gets more details about how we can help.
2. The special funding package is ready to be submitted to Student Government for Non-Traditional Student Week.

New Business
1. Barb suggested that with more description of the Live & Learn Series, she could promote these mini-seminars. We will ask Barbara Smith about this when she returns.
2. We discussed an old idea we had for recognizing professors around campus who showed a particular understanding of non-traditional students, whether it was recognizing an unusual reason to miss a class (like a wife going into labor) or in some way recognizing the life experience of that student. One idea was to have the recognition as part of the graduation breakfast. Barb suggested it should then be recognition of a professor who helped one of the graduating students. That might be limiting, so to include everyone, we discussed having a separate ceremony for this recognition. Barb thought this would also give us another opportunity during the year to advertise our existence. We'll continue discussion on this.
3. We discussed the budgetting process, programs we'd like to address next semester, and their funding. We need to find out what funds are available through Student Government's budgetting process (we hear it's just $200 for supplies). Kat will look into this. Some of the items and programs on our ongoing agenda for when we have the time, involvement from others, and funds include: a tabletop display, a brochure, a Welcome Barbeque during the first week of fall semester (perhaps something in January as well), a mentoring program, Seminar/Training Series that would include informational materials and training in use of the library, training in how to apply for scholarships and financial aid, training in use of the career center, bringing back people who have already graduated to tell us how they did it, and going outside the university to promote college to potential nontrads.

Meeting adjourned at 10:45AM. Minutes submitted by Kat O’Connell

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