Wesleyan Student Assembly — Wesleyan University

Minutes: February 6, 2005, No. 15

WSA Officers

President: Emily Polak
Vice President: Jeremy Abrams
Treasurer: Brittany Mitchell
Coordinator: Ali Gomer

Meeting Agenda and Business

1. Approval of minutes
2. Approval of appointments
3. EPC discussion on changes to the e-portfolio
4. Dining discussion
5. Committee reports
6. New business and announcements

Opening of Meeting
The meeting is opened at 12:35 PM.

Approval of Minutes

Minutes approved.

Approval of Appointments
Appointments approved.

EPC Discussion on Changes to the E-Portfolio

• Karen Courtheoux, chair of the EPC, says that the first thing we will discuss is the e-portfolio. Are there any suggestions for improvement?
• Annie Fox asks why she is not participating in the e-portfolio changes? Courtheoux says that she should keep working on her projects.
• Nathan Victoria says that he has to wait three minutes for the applet to load when he is trying to look at his schedule. Courtheoux displays that this is not a problem by using the program.
• Evan Simko-Bednarski suggests that it is made more compatible with other computing systems.
• Nora Connor suggests getting CRC information in the e-portfolio.
• Emily Polak suggests that we look into back button and blackboard malfunctions.
• Izzy Greenberg says that we should look to make processes more sensible, for example, being able to access enrollment from the first page of the e-portfolio.
• Jacob Mirsky says that the color scheme of the template is not attractive.
• Elaine Garven suggests that we should be able to access class lists.
• Courtheoux says that one or two deans will be in a meeting this semester to talk about shortening reading week. They think that it will help students save money around Christmas time by being able to fly home earlier. Courtheoux suggests that we should talk about this issue.
• Nathan Victoria asks if we could have more consistently long reading weeks.
• Ali Gomer asks if they have looked into self-scheduled exams.
• Brittany Mitchell says to speak to honor board about this.
• Jacob Mirsky says that some professors have pre-scheduled alternative dates for students with conflicts.
• Anda Greeney suggests that we encourage professors to offer early exams.
• Courtheoux motions to strawpole to maintain the reading week’s five year schedule. Motion passes.

Dining Discussion

Anda Greeney, member of IPC, says that he has put a lot of effort into the proposal and has been working on it several weeks. Alex Dupuy said that Greeney’s report was well-thought-out. There were a lot of objections to small issues in the paper. He suggests that we don’t get hung up on little details. He wants us to pass a resolution that would support the proposal. Greeney’s first issue is the excessive cost of food. $1.00=$1.24. Prices at Wesshop are higher than at stop and shop and Amoco food mart, which gets its supplies from the same source. The consequence is that we are developing habits that are detrimental to our future financial stability, for example buying snacks and overspending. Greeney says that we are not in the role of an active participant but as passive recipients. By forcing students to pay more, the school is taking away their ability to make responsible choices with thought about organic food, etc. The reasons that Wes has the mandatory dining plan are that students will be forcibly eating together and community will be fostered. He says that we might disagree over points but we could agree on the gist of the plan. He proposes a free-market dining model that would attract various restaurants to come to campus. The living wage is $9.16 plus benefits to equal a total of $11.46 an hour. The restaurants he went to all agreed that they would be willing to pay the living wage. He suggests that we would not work on getting rid of Aramark. We could reach off-campus to improve the community. The off-campus restaurants are open all year. He says that we would increase the number of jobs and help the community. Students would use their Middletown cash and the Wescard. A drastic dining reorganization would be difficult, but it would still be superior to Aramark.

Stack

• Nathan Victoria asks if Middletown cash would be an option to use. Yes, it would be an easy form of service. How would it work for financial aid services? He’s not sure. Greeney says that a lot of the same locations would not be Aramark-run. Victoria suggests that the capital turnover would be very important to consider.
• Rabs Hutchful suggests that WesShop is higher priced than the other stores is that the high prices are a matter of profit for the university. She suggests that the university would not believe that developing financial independence in students is the responsibility of the university. Hutchful raises the issue of not having enough non-vegan items.
• Jesse Watson suggests that much of the much of the inefficiencies relates to the plan’s inability to account for students’ wishes to have long hours of operation. Greeney says that we could stipulate the hours before the businesses say they will join the plan.
• Jacob Mirsky asks if the university would be independent of the university. Greeney says that it would depend on the contracts we create. He asks what would enable competition. What would happen if a business sank? Not sure.
• Ali Gomer asks that we should look at other peer institutions of Wesleyan’s size. Greeney says that we would be at the forefront of our peer institutions. Gomer suggests that it might not be present at other campuses because it was not viable.
• Brian Brotman asks what constitutes poor service. Greeney suggest that it is in the eyes of a customer and can range from long lines to poor services. Brotman says that Wesleyan’s workers are all part of a union and under this plan the sources would fracture. Greeney suggests that his program is not mandating that unions will be fractured. Brotman suggests that it will.
• Arijit Sen suggests that if sub-contractors change, the employees remain the same. This means that business employees would not be bringing employees to campus. Brian Brotman says that the turnover issue depends on whether or not such a stipulation is made in the union contract. He thinks that it is not viable to have one union and multiple businesses.
• Elaine Garven suggests that there are human costs to consider. Laborers might have to learn several different jobs in short amounts of time. She also suggests that there might be increases in price. Greeney thinks that would be better prices and better food. Garven suggests that
• Emily Polak asks when Aramark’s contract is terminated. Every year. Has the contract for the new campus center been signed yet. No. Polak says we should look into it; she suggests that we look into community/Wes relations. Greeney suggests that bringing dining options onto campus would allow community members to eat at campus dining venues.
• Evan Simko-Bednarski asks who would be in control of the facilities. The restaurants would be paying a rent to the university. Greeney thinks it would be easier for students to ask for dining.
• Brittany Mitchell suggests that the sense of community that Mocon fosters makes a big difference. Greeney suggests that he hopes such a freshman dining plan would be available.
• Karen Courtheoux asks about difficulty in getting to Middletown.
• Nathan Victoria suggests that we could somehow keep Mocon from getting demolished and allow it to be subcontracted. Brittany Mitchell suggests that we look into Vassar’s program.
• Gabe Tabak suggests that most of the overhead costs probably goes to higher labor costs. Tabak suggests that we could look into some kind of concrete proposal for how financial aid students would be affected. He is wary of a co-op system. He wants to know how vegan and kosher students would be affected by the new system. Tabak also says that we should always consider the benefits brought by the new campus center.
• Evan Simko-Bednarski says that complexities that will arise when the contracts are in effect should account for collective bargaining.
• Jeremy Abrams says that workers will not be receiving tips, will be working longer hours and later for higher wages. Greeney says that it is unclear whether or not we would have large turnover. Abrams says that the food off-campus is too specialized.
• Emily Malkin says that Oberlin has a very successful co-op that allows students to run their food issues. Different co-ops operate different kinds of businesses. Such an option would allow students to choose their own food, cook it, etc.
• Zach Kolodin says that it would be almost impossible to implement such a program because no one would agree to it. We would be scrambling to get such a program off the ground.
• Arijit Sen says it is feasible that non-Aramark companies could be operating on campus.
• Kara, a guest, suggests that it would be a shame to give up on our program at this time after so much effort has been put into it. She says that we should focus not on technicalities but that we should look into some of these options. One idea: we should look into university operation of franchises. Nathan Victoria says that students are mainly interested in labor union issues, including grandfathering longtime workers.
• Nora Connor is curious what the administration will say about this. We should look into what parts of the project would be feasible.
• Brittany Mitchell agrees that we should show the administration we are not satisfied with dining but that she is concerned that the university might just neglect everything we say if they disagree with our plan. She also suggests that this plan would be retroactive in the recent development of Main Street. If there are two separate locations, we would be detracting business from Main Street.
• Anda Greeney suggests that we pass a resolution. Gabe Tabak motions to table this discussion until next week. Motion passes.

Committee Reports

CC

• Hung up flyers listing the agenda.
• Appointed four new members.
• Will meet with Nik Gavelis, web coordinator, this week.
• Member of the week is Anda Greeney.

COCo

• Yellow pages will come out soon.
• AWARE meeting occurred. There was a general consensus that students were satisfied with AWARE issues.

EC

• Ask Emily
• Working on Cari McDermott’s replacement search.

EPC

• Met with Billy Weitzer and Judith.
• Library committee has ten new members.

FiFac

• Met with major maintenance representatives. 200 Church will be getting a complete renovation this summer. Eclectic is getting a kitchen, and its two first floor bathrooms are going to be made handicap-accessible. Westco Café is getting redone. Current kitchenette in Westco will turn into a kitchen. Low-rise ten person units will be transformed into 2 four person units. There will be some tree cutting down and replanting around Low-rise. Gabe will be meeting with the director of financial aid this week. Bookcases or shelves for Low-rise? New furniture will be added in Low-rise. Full construction of the new senior houses will begin soon.

IPC

• Jeremy Abrams says that there will not be anymore AWARE meetings this year.
• There will be a CRC advisory committee meeting this week.
• Jesse Watson will be working on a survey.
• Anda Greeney will be meeting with social committee. Should there be one big band or two to three less famous bands.

SAC

• Talked about idea of a multicultural dean, suggests we email Elaine Garven if interested.
• Dining committee met and discussed eight issues. Email Elaine for more information.

SBC

• Janine Criscuolo says that the social committee is looking into many different band possibilities. The deans might try to get us to pay for the barbecue company next year.
• Matt Ball will look for more funding for the film series outside of the WSA
• Jerry Ai will be working on an online quick form for groups to get money.
• Brittany Mitchell will be in the WSA office for office hours from 12-2 p.m. on Tuesday to answer questions.
• Will be working to develop SBC’s image.

Stack:

• Arijit Sen asks about Cari’s job search. It will be an internal search and then progress into an external search. The administration will have no role in the search until later on. The point is to get this person on campus while Cari and students are still here.
• Zach Kolodin asks where will Brittany Mitchell be in the office. In the SBC room. He tells Nathan Victoria that shelves would work best in Low-rise because the rooms are so small.
• Anda Greeney says that if we have comments send them to him.

New Business and Announcements

• Anda Greeney strawpolls that we pass the resolution he has just created. The strawpole is passed.
• Brittany Mitchell suggests that students who feel they are being abused against should begin sending some sort of testimonial. Karen Courtheoux says that we should work on this project.
• Anda Greeney asks that we talk about the social committee spring fling issue. Emily Polak says that we will work on getting social committee members for next week.
• Students working on the tsunami relief project want to talk about their business before the WSA.
• Annie Fox suggests that all different groups should be contacted about sustained dialogue issues.
• Ali Gomer says that we will talk about the dining issue next week and look into the social committee members coming as well.

Adjournment
The meeting is adjourned at 2:42 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
Arie Eernisse, WSA Secretary