Wesleyan Student Assembly — Wesleyan University

Minutes: October 2, 2005, No. 1

WSA Officers
President: Jesse Watson
Vice President: Monica Arduini
Coordinator: Emily Malkin
Treasurer: Matt Ball

Meeting Agenda and Business

1. Approval of Minutes
2. Presentation of Assembly Meeting Format and Structure
3. President's Report on the Executive Committee Retreat (25 minutes)
4. Vice-President's Report on the Board of Trustees Retreat (25 minutes)
5. Brief Committe Reports (20 minutes)
6. New Business and Announcements (15 minutes)

Opening of Meeting
Meeting opened 7:06 PM.

Approval of Minutes
Minutes approved unanimously.

Presentation of Assembly Meeting Format and Structure

• Emily Malkin: EC retreat this past weekend discussed: improving meeting efficiency-- time limits on specific agenda items. There were concerns about accomplishing goals of meetings; deliberative space should be productive and effective. Speaking time will be shortened to 2min instead of 3. “Piggy-backing” is discouraged. Anne Fox introduces snapping is an appropriate alternative.
• Jesse Watson elaborates: anyone on assembly can motion to extend the debate.

President’s Report on the Executive Committee Retreat

• Jesse Watson: slightly under the weather, but hopes to still convey excitement. At the EC meeting this past Friday, goals of the semester were discussed. The rest of the WSA will be discussing these with committee chairs in the coming week. There was also a trustees meeting. EC is very tired. Stuff deemed important by the EC for this year:
• Institutional memory
  • Complete EC turnover this year—need better records of past decisions. EPC has archive, wants to extend that.
• Structure of WSA office
  • New office coordinator, Lisa Hendricks. WSA will move to new student center after construction, but still want to keep 190 High street (current office) for student groups.
• Website
• Expand and update info
  • There will be a new committee through IPC. Post mid and final year reports and other stuff.
• Student-WSA communication
  • Help student groups add agenda items, work with CoCO to better represent student groups. Have time for students to voice concerns, work actively with Argus. Will implement more polls and institutional research. EC will have office hours from 9-9:30pm on Tuesdays. President Bennett recently removed his office hours. WSA hopes that he will reinstate them.
• Keeping WSA members informed and effective
  • There will be committee reports every week from EC. Everyone should read these before coming to meetings. Will continue to help new members assimilate. Develop a listserv and possible blackboard discussion. Chairs will discuss EC meeting and previous Sunday meetings at committee meetings.
• Taking stronger stances
  • WSA needs consistent, compelling, strongly reasoned rationales for concerns. Also needs to consider past decisions.
• Efficient meetings
  • Already discussed.
• Annie Fox elaborates on stronger stances part: work on clear stances, articulate and polite presentations, and stand behind them. WSA recently gained credibility with administration, use it.
• Matt Ball says that efficient meetings should be everyone’s priority.

Stack

• Jerry Ai is confused about institutional memory: is it bad or good? Gabe Tabak says we want to be sure of what previous committees have done and preserve everything for future WSA members.
• Jerry asks about 190 high street. What does the admin want to do? Jesse says that there is a possibility of keeping the building for office space.
• Jerry asks about possibility of ITS maintaining the website. More interactive, easier to update. Emily Malkin informs that there is a webtech, and forming a website committee. --Anne Fox says ITS would not be possible.
• Jerry asks about how to get across to admin about the stronger stances. Sam Ruth says that we can look back to previous examples. Chalking was supported by faculty and students, but admin said no. If things like this happens again, WSA can make sure that it will not become such a big debate. Proposes solution: make it very public, let all trustees and alums know about disagreement between student and admin. Campus unrest will ensue. Trustees won’t like it. Fundraising might take a big hit. Trustees are the admin’s bosses. Admin should respond accordingly.
• Anda Greeny says (secretary did not get this part down, please ask Anda for details).
• Gabe Tabak says it is not a case of students getting what they want, but that the admin does not explain decisions. Students are not satisfied.
• Anne Fox snaps in agreement.
• Emily Malkin asks if Jesse’s report will be distributed. Yes.

Vice-President’s Report on the Board of Trustees Retreat

• Monica Arduini: two general points at Trustee’s meeting. Discussion on liberalism and its meaning. Trustees were in favor of liberalism. Trustees also pleased with student involvement. Strategic plan of University (05/06):
• Academic excellence
• Key capabilities
• Increased student participation in science: new facilities, more classes. Anne fox corrects: rebuilding old facilities, not building new ones
• Freshman advising was discussed, no decision made
• Support infrastructure: better faculty/student relationship, etc.
• Admissions: statistics on geographic displacement of students. Better recruiting in problem areas (such as the South and Midwest).
• Environmental stewardship: Fauver is at the lowest standard possible for efficiency, but still good nonetheless.
• External relations: better middletown/Wes relationships, nice idea.
• Better communications with alum and parents (for money)
• Fundraising: consultant came in, endowment and annual fund was discussed. Wants to vigorously increase fundraising in all areas.
• Internal measures and external measures: Senior survey from last year showed low ratings for freshmen advising, dinning, reslife, admin responsiveness, student government. Approval rating of WSA dropped, probably from “rise-up” campaign.
• External reviews like US news: Wesleyan dropped from 9 to 12 th. Trustees didn’t seem too worried. Top 20 figures are volatile, crude measures. Gabe Tabak says that the numbers in top 20 are very close. Washington monthly has new rating, based on social responsibility. Wesleyan ranks 2, but it’s also a crude rating. Gabe Tabak elaborates on the rating (secretary could not type fast enough, please see Gabe for details).
• Also at the Trustees meeting, there were committee meetings.
• Monica Arduini talks about university relations committee. This commencement is Wesleyan’s 175 th. Mrs. Bennett wants to do student reenactment of Wesleyan’s founding (WSA skeptical). Also want some famous people. Zelda Ferguson specifically hopes for people from The West Wing. Also big alum events.
• Sam Ruth reports on affairs committee. Office of behavioral health is having huge restructuring process. Advising, admission, financial aid (need-blind), funding science trend, key capabilities, more aware of campus facilities and staff. Sorry Frosh, too much information, ask questions later. The trustees are fantastic and really important people, very interested in us. Trustees are a huge resource.
• Gabe Tabak reports on finances. University has improved financial situation, still worried about paying off new construction (Fauver, etc). Science center will be reconstructed (not anytime soon, so don’t get your hopes up). Endowment per student needs to be raised as well as overall value. Too much is used for current operating expenses. Trustees want to keep need-blind admissions, ensure future financial stability. Heard presentation about socially responsible investing (portfolio/future meetings/talk about it after the meeting)
• Rafael Medrano reports on campus affairs multi-cultural dean (secretary zoned out for a few seconds, please ask Rafael). Trustees concerned about vandalism and theft.

Stack

• Jerry Ai asks if Trustees talked about student population increases. Monica says the assumption is that the student body size will remain the same. Matt Ball agrees.
• Anne Fox says that strategic plan does not talk about advising, but EC got it on the Trustee’s minds. Communication and planning—WSA needs to discuss reports of these meetings to the whole campus. Gender neutral housing was discussed. New university relations for 175 th anniversary.
• Dave Woo wants to know about improving housing in the near future (not Fauver). Monica says they talked about converting wood-frame houses. Foss hill dorms are getting renovated next year.
• Dave asks how per student endowment will be raised. Gabe Tabak answers: make the endowment bigger (secretary is sure that the issue isn’t this simplistic, is apologetic about not being able to convey this).
• Emily concludes that the Trustees were very interested in the students. Anectode: Anne make a comment about advising, admin brushed it off, Trustees were concerned. Very productive.
• Benedict Berstein asks about approval rating of WSA. Gabe Tabak says the survey is very simple, does not list specific concerns about WSA.
• Anne Fox says that there were ideas (at the Trustee’s meeting) about having dialogue sessions with students, not just alum and parents.
• Monica and Jesse are always available for further questions.

Committee Reports

CC

• Did not meet this week.
• Monica and Emily are putting together new website committee. Any WSA member with website prowess is welcome.
• Met with Greg Dubinsky about Argus article about interest in the WSA.
• There was a resignation from SBC due to scheduling problems. Will be appointing 5 new members (Sam Ruth says maybe 6). 21 are interested. This shows that there is interest in the WSA, just not interest in running and campaigning.

SAC

• Did not meet.
• Rafael Medrano says they will be meeting with Maria Cruz-Saco soon.
• SJB (student judicial board) appointments this week.

IPC

• Did meet this week.
• Allocated jobs.
• Jesse and Monica approached by Dean Rick: alum works on MTVU (MTV for universities), wants to bring the channel Wesleyan, will provide flat screen TVs in Davenport, if we play MTVU all the time on them. Can give some advertising slots for Wesleyan (four minutes). Zach Blau suggests we can use the advertising time for WSA announcements, then proceeds to read official jargon from MTVU. Nya asks about what channel we would loose. Monica says we have 3 channels. Jesse Watson talks about possible contractual agreements.

COCo

• Met.
• Anne Fox: Dave Woo will be on Public safety advisory and will focus on traffic problems (very hard to fix, involves Middletown and CT state government, which means years of red tape). Try to redefine group categories.
• Keith Schumann will take on activism groups. Student group info will be up on Splash-pages (online info that every recognized group must create, calendar of events, officers, etc, makes it easy to maintain accountability). Identity groups and affinity groups: hopes to draw line between discrimination and not discrimination.

EPC

• Met. Meetings every Monday with faculty.
• Sam Ruth: briefed new members.

FiFaC

• Did not meet.
• Gabe Tabak says CAFSAC facilities committee, dinning committee, library committee, etc. will be set up in the next few weeks.

SBC

• Did not meet.
• Matt Ball: need break after initials. Preparing detailed account of initials. Wants to hold off on reporting until then. Jerry will be identity rep, program house Rashida, Mike Cho is sports (secretary did not get every position down, sorry).

Stack

• Sam Ruth asks about MTVU. Who’s behind it, where does the money go? Monica says that Dean Rick didn’t seem to know more, probably just a normal TV station. Wesleyan won’t be paying for it. Zelda says that we are actually doing them a favor, not vice versa. Sam says he doesn’t want to do it and then have a campus activism group against that.
• Anne Fox asks if it is possible to get the station and not have it in Campus center. Monica says yes. Anne says we should poll.
• Anda Greeney says he is against putting MTVU in campus center all the time. Doesn’t want to be surrounded by advertising.
• Anne Fox snaps.
• Benedict Bernstein says MTV makes him want to gag. Doesn’t want to attach university backing to it.
• Anne Fox snaps.
• Matt Cho says it is not our position to decide that. Leave it to students.
• Rafael Medrano says MTV is just for fun. We’re all just students. He’s in support of this.
• Sam Ruth motions to extend discussion 9.5 minutes. Benedict seconds. Approved by majority.
• Zach responds to Benny. Can understand his point, but it’s a matter of choice—not necessarily giving university support.
• Benny responds that he isn’t concerned with Wesleyan receiving it, but supporting it by having a MTVU bandwidth.
• Nya asks how many other universities are using this. Zach says it’s in 700 (not exact number) campuses. Nya also says that since an alum works at this station, it is a useful asset for spreading Wes’s concerns to other campuses.
• Monica snaps, and says that alum is in charge of social issue programming ( Darfur, etc).
• Matt Ball asks what current 3 stations are used for. Nothing. Asks how long the contract will be. A year. Likes Nya’s point.
• David Wiener says he doesn’t see why we can’t try it for a year.
• Benny is concerned with students will forming groups against MTVU.
• Anne Fox motions to straw-poll MTVU playing in public campus spaces. Max Ornstein seconds. 10 supports. 17 opposed.
• Sam Ruth motions to straw-poll on whether or not we should have MTVU at all. Max seconds. 23 supports. 2 opposed. 1 abstain.
• Nathan Ratner asks if we get MTV already. Confusion. Zelda says it’s already there, we’re already getting brainwashed.

New Business and Announcements

• Rafael Medrano: SAC stays after meeting.
• Monica says she was talking to Jose, who works/lives in the WSA office. An emergency loan fund exists. Jose wants to institutionalize it in WSA. Gabe explains: the fund will be used if there is an emergency financial hardship such as a death in the family, and is beyond financial aid’s adjustments. The fund was previously passed on from person to person (sketchy), but hopefully not anymore. Interested people stay behind.
• Sam Ruth says we should start thinking about issues that hasn’t been on the WSA table in the (recent) past, such as the frats. The admin is not consistent with decisions and interaction between frats.
• Gabe Tabak: Fifac should stay after the meeting.
• Emily wants web gurus to stay after. Might get paid. Webtech is a paid position. Revamping website is a big undertaking, current Webtech might not have time. May be about $12/hour.
• Anne Fox says that Leilani Kupo said that the school does not want any connections with Beta anymore: concerned about discrimination (female membership). Double standard for frats not fair. Wants to create poll.
• Nya says Reslife staff at Hi-LoRise was informed that there will be a wall put up between it and traverse square. There will be more meetings, to explain rationale (safety). Would like to have community meeting about this Wednesday, 10pm at LoRise D4. Show up if interested.
• Jesse Watson specifies that it will be a fence, not a wall. It will run around the parking lot (makes doubtful circular motion). Monica says that it is to prevent crime by making it harder to access.
• Nya says that there will be meetings with Traverse square residents.
• Rafael Medrano says that residents who come to AWARE meetings are not from Traverse square.
• Decision to talk about this after further information is provided.
• Emily Malkin asks about purpose of wall. Loosely, to prevent crime. More updates later.
• Anne Fox motions to take straw poll of support for this fence. Decision to poll later.
• Benedict Bernstein is antsy about WSA/student body rating stuff, wants to talk about it next week.

Adjournment
The meeting is adjourned at 8:38 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
Xiaoxi Tu, WSA Secretary