Wesleyan Student Assembly — Wesleyan University

Minutes: April 9, 2006 No. 16

WSA Officers

President: Jesse Watson

Vice President: Monica Arduini

Coordinator: Emily Malkin

Treasurer: Matt Ball

Meeting Agenda and Business

Open Form for Student Concerns
Approval of Minutes
Update from EPC
Approval of Constitutional Changes
Committee Reports
New Business and Announcements

Attached Documents

Opening of Meeting: 7:04 pm

Open Forum for Student Concerns

None

Approval of Minutes

Minutes approved unanimously

Update from EPC

Sam Ruth says that breaking down WSA into committees is good, except that means that most members only have superficial knowledge of what's going on in other committees. Chairs need to keep everyone informed, wants to set precedent of chairs occasionally making presentations.
Current Issues:
More student interest around Cognitive Science. Faculty with interest and experience in this field has increased. Need verifying student interest, then get one or some faculty to spearhead the project.
A faculty member wanted a specific time in the faculty meeting devoted to student issues. This Tuesday, Sam will be giving an update, including EAC, dining, student services, readership program, etc... Wants suggestions for later topics.
Proposal for alumni lecture program: passed on to CRC and University Relations for next year. The program has stalled and changed a bit. Will compile a short private list of alumni speakers, students won't request a specific person. Wants to grow the list in the future.
E-Reserve and Course packs: E-Reserve is cheaper, easier, etc... Some students want paper copies. Proposal: every text should be put on E-Reserve (not books), course packets will be available on request.

Stack:

Jesse Watson wants more info on Cognitive sciences. Sam says it's philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, etc...
Zelda Ferguson asks about advising issues. Sam says the current system for faculty is on a four year schedule... 10 new freshman one year, no new freshman the next year...one sabbatical every four years. Wants to cut the number to 5 each year. Will have to advise each frosh more often. Might be controversial
Nate Ratner asks about pairing students with advisors who aren't in their field of interest. Sam says that issue has fallen by the way-side. Paula Lawson assigns students to their advisor, sensitive issue. Wants to match a professor who teaches the FYI the student is assigned to. The faculty sees that as a generally successful system. Could improve ways to gauge students' interests.
Zach Blau asks if each professor only gets 5 each year, it would be harder to match the kid with the FYI kid.
Emily Malkin asks about choosing an advisor after declaring a major: Sam says you wouldn't have to keep that professor. Also says pairing the kid with the FYI prof is really dumb. Is history major, took chem. FYI freshman year. Sam says it's better for building rapport.
Nora Connor says that Wesleyan encourages Frosh to not focus on one area in their first year, broad liberal arts experience, etc...
Zach Kolodin says that he's noted that there's a big philosophical divide between faculty and students about whether or not FYI pairing is a good idea.
Naomi Takahasi says that we register classes after orientation, so you would have an advisor before you come to school.
Anda Greeny says that it's very important for a student to see the advisor more than once a semester. Sam Ruth says that we can better communicate to Frosh that selecting an FYI is pretty much selecting an advisor.
Zach Blau suggests requiring advisors to meet students more. Sam says that faculty would eat him. Nora gives anecdote: wanted students to give advisors feedback, but turned out to be a really bad idea. Biggest setback to students on EPC.
Estrella Lopez...
Jesse Watson asks about the alumni lecture list. Doesn't seem like a very good idea if students requesting people don't know who they're requesting. Sam Ruth doesn't know how specific they can get.
Jerry Ai asks if frosh could pick top three majors over the summer. Sam says that students do submit likely majors, but a lot of students put down undecided. Also, it's not explicit that possible major = advisor. Wants that to be made explicit. Jerry suggests a couple of more lines on the paper would do the trick.
Benedict made a chart to illustrate the four-year advising system.

Constitutional Changes

Accepted changes

Committee Reports

STUDENT BUDGET COMMITTEE

The SBC met this week and allocated around $7,500. Part of this came from the Independent Student Film Coop, or ISFPC, which had already been planned in our budget, so we stayed well within our unofficial weekly guideline. Among the groups that came in were Westco Guidance, ICBM, Muslim Students Association, and the Handprint. We had a bit of an issue this week with Social Committee. Apparently, they were told that the lead act would attract as many as 1,500 people from the neighboring area, and that this would require extra security forces that could cost as much as $12,000 for the SBC. The SBC is obviously not in a place to fund this at this time. An email was sent to the administrators involved explaining our situation and our inability to fund this at this time, as well as a respectful complaint about the time of this decision. We will have updates about this later. Switched artist for spring fling at last minute

COMMUNITY OUTREACH COMMITTEE

-Naomi, Jason and Nora met with Cathy Crimmins Leichowicz on Wednesday to work out the details of the new COCo-Office of Community Partnerships committee (we're still working on the name). We hope to identify people who would be interested in serving on the committee next year, and have one full meeting before the end of the semester.

-The Spring edition of the COCo Yellow Pages will be out soon, and will be distributed to the Admissions office for WesFest.

-COCo will have our last recognition of the year next Friday, April 14. After that point, student groups looking to get recognized can arrange a meeting with Nora.

-Jason Harris has been working with Nicole Chabot in the Office of Leadership Development. The Leadership Steering Committee is hosting a student leader forum on Tuesday at 7:30pm in Woodhead Lounge.

EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE

This is only a brief listing of EPC's topics this week, as several of them will be presented in more detail at this sunday's general assembly meeting.

Potential new certificate/cluster in Cognition.
New student update during faculty meetings.
Alumni Lecture Program.
Key Capabilities.
Library cmt, 2nd meeting.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

The EC met and discussed:

Nominations for interviewers for the upcoming VP for Finance and Administration candidate visits, the wood frame move-out tag sale date (sat before spring break), the creations of an Office of Community Service Sub-Committee, the possibility of getting the Admissions office to help with the cost of extending the ride to Meriden or New Haven, candidate nominations for the new VP for Academic Affairs (follow up to our Monday discussion with Pres. Bennet), the implementation of the key capabilities, the creation of a proposal for a Cognitive Sciences Cluster, the implementation of Reading week quiet hours and its implications, Gender Neutral housing progress and the final board meeting, the Social Committee situation (their initial request for extra money for safety at Spring Fling, subsequent changes can be read about in the Argus article, the 190 High Proposal, and finally the Vice Chair idea (this will be discussed with the constitution.)

COORDINATING COMMITTEE

Constitutional Review met and reviewed the constitution. We will hopefully be approving the proposed changes today.

2) We're planning a really great WSA end-of-the year dinner! (see above)

3) Website update

FINANCES AND FACILITIES COMMITTEE

This has been a fairly quiet week for fifac.

1. Work-study committee meets Tuesday. Talk to Katie for details.

2. Dining committee meets next week

3. The Code Compliance Board is discussing living wage standards for Wesleyan contractors. Talk to Eric for details.

4. No new resolutions for EAC

INDEPENDENT PROJECTS COMMITTEE

- Estrella and Zach have found that many of our peer institutions have shuttles to nearby cities. The shuttles range in frequency and cost. E and Z will be meeting with the admissions office and Marcello to discuss how a longer-distance shuttle can be instated at Wesleyan.

- No update on readership program yet.

- How do people like the idea of the Ride Board on WesClassifieds?

STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Undergraduate Residential Life Committee

April 4, 2006

1. Minutes were approved.

2. Naomi Takahashi joined us to discuss the senior move-out and tag sale program. It seemed the best date for a tag sale would be Saturday, May 20, since Saturdays seem to be the preferred day for tag sales, and the following week would not be practical. The earlier date also makes it possible for the other students to purchase items before leaving that day. In addition to the tag sale, the "free cycle" program will be going on, with large collection bins placed around campus.

Students feel it would be worthwhile to have trailers in the Vine Street lot again this year during the transition to furnished houses, and to have it staffed that Saturday during move out so students could store items they just purchased from the tag sale.

3. Proactive measures to reduce end of the year costs: it was suggested that flyers be distributed to the wood frame houses prior to closing, with photos from last year, and post it on the web page as well. We could ask Parent Programs to send an email to parents with a link to the photos. Closing emails will be particular to that residence, rather than covering all housing in one email. The committee suggested it come from the RA, rather than the department, which would make them more likely to open it and read it, and use the senior class officers and/or community advisors for emails to seniors.

Quiet Hours during Reading/Finals week: the proposal was amended to say "beginning at midnight on the first full day of reading period through the last day of finals, twenty-four hour quiet hours are in effect in all residence halls. Each program house(not contained within a residence hall) will decide its quiet hours for this period on a semesterly basis, while being mindful of its surroundings, and submit it in writing to the department of Residential Life." (This proposal will come to the SLC for approval, it is not yet final. Also, not everyone at reslife is comfortable with the statement specifically the issue of granting autonomy to program houses).

Agenda for this coming weeks meeting is Storage and more discussion about quiet hours.

DDAA Search Committee: We have narrow down the number of candidates to seven. The search committee will meet with this individual to further narrow the number of candidates to two. We have seven nominations for the advisory committee. We will be making decision regarding the composition of the membership at the upcoming SLC meeting.

QTF:

We talked about the wonderful job done by the april planning committee. Aslo, Dean Mike and I updated the group on where we stand on Gender Sensitive Housing: the QTF and the group of students that have been actively working on the language and creating of the program are meeting with three experts regarding gender sensitive housing. These meeting will take place at the end of the month. This is being done at the request of the Board of Trustees. Britney Mitchell and I are working on providing the housing experience of at least 5 trans/lbgtq students to be included in the report for the may meeting with the board of trustee. This report in mainly to educate the board of trustees on gender sensitive housing as they are really disconnected with the student culture and housing need on campus.

SLC:

Meeting this upcoming Friday

Agenda items include

Bias incidents procedures/forum update from whitney

OBHS report

DDAA stuff

Auxiliary services update (peter Paton might be coming to this

upcoming meeting or the following, it's not confirmed yet).

Stack

Naomi Takahashi asks if we could advertise the switch, because he already posted the event on his website. 1500 people are still going to show up.
Zach Blau asks why we don't have mechanisms in place already for this security problem. Jerry Ai says that Foss Hill is a very open space, no effective way to secure it. Alex Halpern-Levy says that if the space was closed, they would have to enforce drug and alcohol policies. Nicole Ippoliti says that Dean Rick has talked to social committee about this idea before, and social committee didn't want it.
Estrella Lopez says that perhaps we shouldn't focus so much on big name artists, but more on the experience of spring fling.
Benedict Bernstein says that SBC can only reclaim money after April 1^st. Doesn't apply this time.
Zelda Ferguson says that maybe SBC could meet with Administration to come up with a favorable contract. Alex Halpern-Levy asked, administrators seemed dismissive. Jerry Ai says that the contract was brought to the legal advisor, but he wasn't involved in negotiating the specific details.
Alex Halpern-Levy...
Jesse Watson says that social committee is having a meeting right now, to discuss this.
Nate Ratner asks if the money saved with a cheaper artist would be allocated to other activities around spring fling.
Jerry Ai asks about rain site. No rain site.
Nora Connor says that she's uncomfortable with an assembly condoning drug and alcohol use. Also says that traditionally, the school wouldn't know who was playing until the day of the event, so the extra 1500 wouldn't come. Wants to add a clause in contract that no one can advertise.
Jerry Ai asks about the senior furniture tag sale. Naomi Takahashi says that the sale would be May 20^th. Jerry says 8 days before graduation... Takahashi says that it would be too difficult to have it later, and you might be able to live without a couch for a week. Ai asks if we could have them pick the furniture up on the 28^th. Takahashi says that it won't be convenient for Middletown residents, because they would have to come in the morning. Will have a donation event in the last week.
Jason Harris asks about general elections, separating presidential and class reps. Emily Malkin says that she brought it up, but no one thought it was a good idea at the time. Will look into it for next year.
Jorge Soto says that assembly members haven't been very respectful to each other.

New Business and Announcements

Happy 20^th to Dave Woo!!!

Constitutional review people stay.

Adjournment: 8:27 pm

Respectfully submitted,

Xiaoxi Tu, WSA Secretary