Wesleyan Student Assembly — Wesleyan University

Minutes: April 10, 2005, No. 21

WSA Officers

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

Meeting Agenda and Business

1. Approval of Minutes
2. Discussion with Marcia Bromberg and Manny Cunard about the RIDE, housing and Long Lane
3. Constitutional Review Committee update
4. Committee Reports
5. New Business and Announcements

Opening of Meeting
Meeting opened 7:05 PM.

Approval of Minutes

Minutes approved.

Discussion with Marcia Bromberg and Manny Cunard about the RIDE, housing and Long Lane

Marcia Bromberg, vice president of finance and administration, has come to answer questions about facilities and finance. Bromberg said that her committee decided not to put trash cans in the new Fauver apartment rooms but that they would still be put in the new freshmen dorms.

Stack

• Karen Courtheoux asks if the RIDE will be improved . She suggests that it is underperforming right now. Bromberg says it is probably a management issue. Courtheoux says that the drivers think it unlikely that the RIDE will get better. Bromberg reasserts that the management is the problem; the drivers need to be prevented from slacking off. We also need to make sure that the radios and telephones are working properly.
• Jacob Mirsky asks, what is going on with Long Lane? The office will soon get a permit to demolish all of the buildings on the newly purchased property because they are in poor shape. South of the softball field, there will be a turf field. The office is considering building an active living community to the west of Long Lane. Right now, the land is going to be used as a “land bank” for projects down the road, 20 or 50 years from now. Next year, the university will bring back an architect to discuss what is to be done about it.
• Brittany Mitchell suggests that the RIDE is now going bad because more people know about it and are inundating it with service. Communications issues are also important to look into, especially the inefficiency of the cell phone system. Bromberg says that there is no reason why the drivers can’t pick up their phones and tell students where they are.
• Nora Connor suggests that we need another van to go to downtown locations, especially on Wednesday night. Bromberg says that this is
• Evan Simko-Bednarski asks what is the projected time range is for the RIDE improvements. Bromberg says she will start tomorrow. Simko-Bednarski asks about the cost of Long Lane. Bromberg says that the University borrowed $16 million to buy the Long Lane property and will spend $3 million on demolition.
• Elaine Garven asks about whether the RIDE will get the special services vehicle. Bromberg says she needs to talk to Manny Cunard about this. It would be very expensive.
• Jacob Mirsky asks what is the long-term plan for the prototype housing. In the next year, the school will be looking into the most cost-effective ways of renovating old houses, making environmentally friendly changes. Mirsky suggests that students want to retain wood-frame houses. Bromberg says that they are incredibly expensive to heat.
• Bromberg says that the school is planning to furnish the prototypes. They will fully furnish these ones, but it will just be a test case.
• Emily Polak asks why is the school furnishing the apartments. Bromberg says that it is the general consensus among parents.
• Anda Greeney suggests that there could be a limit on heating. Bromberg: there is a significant cost when any kind of change to infrastructure is made. The old wood-frame houses are not designed to be used as they are.
• Jacob Mirsky asks which houses will be used as models for the renovation of old houses. Five Vine will be renovated this summer.
• Sam Ruth asks if students could volunteer to renovate senior houses. The university has strict rules for hiring professionals.
• Brittany Mitchell asks if it would help for the WSA to elicit student responses.

Constitutional Review Committee Update

• Office Coordinator’s duty of meeting with someone from North College will be articulated.
• The Dining committee will be chaired by a FiFac member instead of a SAC chair.
• The constitutional review committee will look into impeachment procedures. We need to reconfigure the impeachment part of the constitution, which was lost last year.

Committee Reports

CC

• The CC ran the senior officer elections this week. It was successful, but the VP election will be repeated next week because of an error.
• We are reviewing applications for the Leonard Prize.
• We are short on funds this year but still hope to have a
• Member of the Week is Gabe Tabak for using a highly elevated vocabulary and saying the word sui generis at the last meeting.
• The WSA elections will take place from April 18-25, and petitions will be due on April 14.

COCo

• New student orientation program will be arranged.
• COCo is working to provide more rides to New Haven and the airport.

EC

• Ask Emily Polak.

EPC

• The advisor questionnaire will go out soon.

FiFac

• Serving on the search committee for the new director of Power Plant.

IPC

• Annie Fox talks about improvements to the Splash pages. It will now include feeds to different information sources and websites.

SAC

• Minimum meal plan for freshmen next year will be 12 meals a week.
• Hours for reading week and exam week in the future are being planned.
• Multicultural dean idea was discussed. An office, and not just one person, is needed. The task force will share more of its research and findings at another meeting.
• Over a third of the SJB cases were repeat offenders. Over 100 cases were dismissed. To avoid this problem, more communications will be needed.
• Spring Fling: there will be 12 porta-potties instead of four. There will be a barbecue at the top of the hill. Only lawn furniture will be allowed.
• Office of Behavioral Health is trying to reduce the amount of visits that a person can make so that staff working hours can increase.

SBC

• Allocated funding. Not as many groups are coming in.
• Leilani said that there are not enough funds to give money to the film series fund. Matt Ball is working on looking at other possible sources.
• The SBC is looking into different possibilities for the Cari MacDermott fund. Emily Polak suggests that the committee is still looking into new options. We will be sending emails to all alumni who have worked on the WSA and asking them for donations. The WSA will also be sponsoring some fundraisers to
• There will be a banquet in honor of Cari on May 21 at 1:30 p.m. in the McKelvey room.

Stack

• Yao, senior class president, asks about the nature of SJB violations. He also asks what the VP election problem was. There was a flyer placed within 15 feet from a computer.
• Brittany Mitchell asks why the WSA election is earlier this year. Will interim elections take place a week early, too? Ali Gomer says she will think about that.
• Jacob Mirsky asks if Thomas Coen has any concluding remarks about Dining Accountability Week. He says that there are a few trends such as running out of food that have been noted by many students. He is generally pleased with the way it went but feels that there could have been more boxes in the campus center. He asks if the Cari MacDermott fund will be endowed. No, it will not.
• Nora Connor asks why people have not been informed of their SJB hearings. Pacho Carreno says that the problem might have resulted from the change to a new plan.
• Ali Gomer asks about the financial status of Spring Fling. Nathan Victoria says that all acts have been booked.
• Yao says that some VP candidates have been treated unjustly. Ali Gomer explains the procedures that the election committee has made to promote the next election. Dan Lee was trying to turn in his petition for senior class president because he was late. He called Ali Gomer to ask if he could send in his petition later, she said yes but then later refused to accept his petition.
• Jerry Ai asks how can the WSA hold the Argus accountable. He was a victim of a misplaced campaign statement that made it look like he was a VP candidate when he was a president campaign. Ali Gomer says that the Argus screwed up royally but that it is very difficult to hold the Argus accountable. The election committee could look into checking the Argus the night before an election.
• Nathan Victoria says that it is possible to make money for the Cari MacDermott fund through recycling.
• Ali Gomer says that Dan Lee had called her and she had made a hasty decision to accept his petition late. She apologizes for this.
• Pacho Carreno suggests that the constitutional review committee should look at the constitution’s section on elections. Emily Polak responds that she does not think that the decision should be up to the elections committee because it would be subjective. Jerry Ai suggests that the election results could stand so long as the undisqualified members of the election agreed.
• Yao says that the election committee should take its role very seriously.
• Brittany Mitchell says that it is very unnecessary to attack Ali Gomer in front of the WSA. Elaine Garven says that the Dan Lee issue was a “slip-up” and that the communications issue was not too big.
• Karen Courtheoux suggests that the WSA should take note of the importance of maintaining a fair election experience.

New Business and Announcements

• Motion to close the minutes by Evan Simko-Bednarski. He nullifies it. He wants to bring back chalking as an issue and he is putting together a chalking party that will take place next week. He feels that it is an issue that the school is in danger of letting go of. He suggests that we need to ensure that the issue does not die.
• Brittany Mitchell suggests that we could work on a compromise about chalking. Simko-Bednarski says that we should put a compromise on the table.
• Elaine Garven says that we should be wary of thieves because one thief stole a computer yesterday.
• Nathan Victoria suggests that Wes students should treat the newly recruited students well during Wesfest because the admissions office has worked extra hard this year.
• There will be a meeting on Monday, April 18 at 3:00 in South College to talk about the new university relations mission statement.

Adjournment
The meeting is adjourned at 8:55 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
Arie Eernisse, WSA Secretary