Wesleyan Student Assembly — Wesleyan University

Minutes: November 20, 2005, No. 7

WSA Officers

President: Jesse Watson

Vice President: Monica Arduini

Coordinator: Emily Malkin

Treasurer: Matt Ball

Meeting Agenda and Business

Open Forum for Student Concerns

Approval of Minutes

Presentation on SARN (Student Academic Resources Network)

Vice-President-Report on the Board of Trustees Meeting

Discussion on the future vision of dining at Wesleyan with Gabe Tabak

Committee Reports

New Business and Announcements

Attached Documents

Student Academic Resources Network: Wesleyan.edu/sarn

Prototype housing report (Rafael Medrano)

Opening of Meeting: 7:02pm

Open Forum for Student Concerns

Long Lane Farm representatives want to be involved in the dining process.

Approval of Minutes

Minutes approved unanimously

Presentation on SARN

• Renee Johnson Thornton, Shelly Stevenson, Alice Hadler,

• SARN created two years ago, bring faculty and students together. Partnership with various groups and people on campus—Info commons in library, etc— Housed in the Dean-office. SARN intern: editor of online newsletter, coordinates peer advisors. Collaboration between faculty and staff, peer advisors, internship = SARN. Wants to expand.

• Peer tutoring program: from dean-office. Disabilities program, etc... This year, made SARN known to new students during orientation week. Wants more name recognition with upperclassmen. Come to information commons: staff and interns. SARN website: Wesleyan.edu/sarn (work in progress). Wants input to partner with students, and suggestions.

Stack:

• Zelda Ferguson suggests giving a group of freshman an upperclassman as a peer advisor. Sam is currently working on this.

• Dave Knapp asks about advertising the tutoring program. Says professors don't know that it-available. Hadler replies that tutors are by request, some departments are reluctant to participate. Getting major committees involved?

• Anda Greeney talks about the specific programs: math workshop, writing workshop. Part of SARN. Advertise from the bottom up.

• David Wiener says he loves the info commons in Olin. Wants to put another one in SciLi. SARN doesn't have funds to do anything right now, but would love to put one in SciLi. David says he doesn't think it-conducive for both individual and group work.

• Jesse Watson asks about training process for peer advisors, and what kind of interaction. Peer advisors do have training, and have been working for three weeks, continuing training process every week. Case studies: insight to what students need. Hopes that peer advisors would do referrals. PAs should not be the deliverer of info, won't get caught up in "advising." Just developed an email service.

• Benedict Bernstein asks about shortening orientation. When will results be back from the survey? Just got those this past Friday, is compiling data. Benedict says that SARN was addressed briefly during orientation week, but didn't know about it until he joined wsa. SARN will make posters and peer advisors will go to houses and dorms to promote SARN, especially upperclassmen. Article in the Argus is in the works, also campus email. Also promoting to faculty and staff.

• Jason Harris suggests giving a mandatory presentation during orientation week. SARN was on the fliers during the SJB presentation this year.

• Zach Blau says that he went to the writing workshop presentation—didn't realize that the writing workshop was part of SARN.

• Annie Fox says she adores SARN. Says peer advisors sound like librarians. Wouldn't know who to go to: librarians or peer advisors? Always a reference librarian next to the peer advisor. The PA is supposed to give help about the SARN programs, not finding specific items. PAs are all seniors. — And why are departments resistant to SARN? Peer tutoring program is controversial to some professors: TA sessions, etc— thinks peer tutors are superfluous.

• Anda Greeney says that the PAs all seem to be humanities oriented. Thornton says they looked for enthusiasm and capability, might make a better effort next year for more science PAs.

• Jason Harris says he thinks it would be great in the future to have PAs from each discipline.

• Sean Cortlett suggests putting the PA desk in a more prominent area of the library. SARN will be looking at reconfiguring that desk, as soon as there is money.

• Anda Greeney (sorry)—

• Jason Harris asks about programs and lectures in the future. Yes, that would be nice.

Vice-President-Report on the Board of Trustees Meeting

This meeting was shorter than last month-meeting. Friday morning: more trustees than students present. Trustees were excited about hearing student concerns. 3 major concerns:

Student Endowment Advisory Committee

Gender Neutral Housing

Diversity of Opinion at Wesleyan.

Monica was on University relations committee: fundraising stuff, wants to consolidate, be closer to campus, brainstorm places. Commencement ideas.

Endowment: resolution to cut draw out of endowment over the next five years (see minutes from two weeks ago). WSA will work with admin to determine where the decrease draw will happen.

Finances committee: chose five year plan over one year plan. Most of the decrease in draw will be freezes, not cuts. Technology, financial aid increase will be cut in half. Matt Ball: faculty position increases will be frozen for a year, reducing some staff positions. All plans are subject to change. Create new turf field for sports.

Campus Affairs committee: Sam Ruth-- Advising, science initiatives, increase in gened science courses, 2009 admission and enrollment statistics: looks good. Dean of diversity and academic advancement, and money problems.

Emily Malkin says Trustees had silly ideas for 175^th commencement. Need student input.

Annie Fox wants WSA to work more closely with Barbara Jan Wilson.

Jesse Watson says increased fundraising will hopefully offset endowment draw cuts.

Stack:

Jerry Ai asks about 5.5% draw and the return (13%). Wants returns to be higher than draw. Long lane farm: long term planning? Gabe says undecided, lots of space, future use is undetermined.

Benedict asks about bond with state backing for the endowment cuts. Gabe says no. Wants to keep assets frozen, construction was financed by bonds. Matt Ball says part of the reason that the University wants to cut back to 5.5% is so we can get bonds.

Anda Greeney asks about financial aid increase decrease: Expecting students to earn more over the summer might make students not want to come to Wesleyan. Gabe says that the financial aid formula is standardized. Gabe says potential budget freezes are not set in stone. If plans are made for financial aid decrease, there will be notification and information.

Nya Roy says that other WSA members should have the opportunity to attend Trustees meetings. Doesn't like second hand info. 10-11:30am on Friday was terrible. Jesse says people are invited by Trustees. Used to be 8am on Saturdays, thinks Friday time is better. Next meeting might be at a better time.

Jason Harris asks about Dean of Diversity and academic advancement. Is this final? Sam says yes. Maria likes this name. Jason wants more info about what trustees thought about this. Raffi says that there was concern that the person is doomed to fail, because there is so much this person has to deal with. Annie Fox says that academic resources and diversity often go hand in hand.

Anda Greeney says that the Trustees probably invited the EC by default. Can there be a request to invite more students to the trustees meetings?

Annie Fox says students and student groups would love to access to University relations. WSA should start thinking about ways students can utilize University relations.

Discussion on the future vision of dining at Wesleyan with Zelda Ferguson

Zelda Ferguson: met with Manny Cunard, who is in charge of dinning. Initiatives: maintaining high quality, flexibility, different meal plans, more socially responsible food purchases. Summerfields, WesWings, Pi Caf¨¦ will be maintained, but a lot of dinning options will be consolidated to new University Center. Weshop will be moved to where Neon Deli is. Will be two floors. Meal plans requirements, and using dinning to build community. Encourage faculty to interact with students outside of the classroom during meals. Wants student input.

Stack:

Emily Malkin got email from USLAC rep, Alexandra Early, 07': asks WSA to keep dining workers in mind when talking about dinning changes. Gabe Tabak says contracting is up to students: can make specific requests. Aramark has done a less than satisfactory job.

Jerry Ai asks if it-possible to bring in a chain store to run Weshop. Zelda will look into it.

Anda Greeney asks about proposal: good food and good value seems too obvious, will it be more specific? Gabe Tabak says the general goals will be manifested in more specific initiatives.

Margaret ___ from Long Lane Farm: concerned with lobbying the University to adopt policies friendly to small scale operations like Long Lane. Wants university to guarantee to buy a certain percentage of locally grown food. Wants to write a proposal, and work with WSA. Zelda Ferguson says EON raised this issue to dinning committee. Will defiantly look into this, doesn't know about specific percentage.

Sam Ruth compares Aramark with sports: giving a big football player a long contract won't work as well as giving a young guy a smaller contract. Wants to encourage "test run." Annie Fox thinks that Aramark is actually on a one-year contract. Gabe says we really should have a good plan in place for Aramark-replacement before giving it the boot.

Nathan Ratner asks about late-night: will it be similar to summerfields, or will it be meals? Gabe says they're nowhere near this point. Nate also asks about putting local restaurants on the points system. Gabe: can look into this with the new dinning plan.

Rafael Medrano wants to make sure that the new facilities at Neon Deli is well-lit. Says Red and Black is like a prison.

Benedict Bernstein asks about reliability and price of using local food. Margaret says increase in cost of food is usually offset by transportation costs. Reliability: apples, potatoes, etc— are always available. The contractor would have to work with local farms, not just one farm. Benedict asks about lower-quality food, if there was a crop failure. Will be reasonable percentage.

Emily Malkin asks about EON-involvement in dinning: Gabe says they wanted more socially responsible food purchases, and more transparency. Most of this will be implemented when contract opens up.

Jason Harris asks about Weshop, after Weshop is gone: lounge?

Committee Reports

Committee reports submitted by committee chairs: all personal pronouns refer to the specific committee or committee chair.

INDEPENDENT PROJECTS COMMITTEE

We don't have anything this week. We'll have twice as much next week to make up for it. Congrats to Anda for being awesome at running for a long time.

EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE

1.Peer Advising+Alumni Guest Lectures Preliminary Peer Advising and Guest Lecture proposals have been created and are being circulated through the administration. Both have been generally well received and may soon be brought to the attention of the Faculty/Student EPC.

2.Science Initiatives Adit Shah and I (Sam Ruth) are in contact with Joe Bruno (Dean of the Sciences) about Wesleyan's recent science initiatives. We'll be working with him to help further these, and to evaluate their success.

3.Orientation : Changes to Frosh Orientation are currently being proposed to the EPC. They include a shortening of Orientation by one day and a subsequent higher frequency of activities within that time-frame.

STUDENT BUDGETARY COMMITTEE

The SBC held our weekly allocation hearings on Monday and had a very productive session. The amount of groups that came in dropped this week to about 15, which meant that we finished our meeting within about two hours. Among the groups that came in were WESU Magazine, Fat Bottom Literary Magazine, and Club Volleyball. We had a very financially efficient meeting, and it appears as though the rest of the semester will go very seamlessly as far as allocations. Janine resigned.

We have a lot of issues facing the SBC right now. We are set to meet on Saturday, so we will report more during the meeting. In addition, we are meeting with John Taveras, the creator of our new accounting system (SBC Lockbox) on Saturday, which we will also report on when we know more.

Submit budget requests online?

STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

I) Undergraduate Residential Life Committee, Meeting Minutes for November 17, 2005

Present: Gabe Tabak, Garth Mitchell, Kim Lam, Matt Johnson, Nya Roy, Gian Ishino, Mike Whaley, Fran Koerting, Robin Hershkowitz, Whitney Matthews

Minutes were distributed and approved.

Gabe gave an update on the Major Maintenance meeting last week, at which 185 projects were approved. A number of the projects involve residential areas, including Foss Hill renovations, improvements to wood frame houses. If anyone would like to know more about the approved projects they should contact Gabe or Jeff. The money for the railing at Traverse Square and Low Rise has been set aside until other measures to improve safety in that area are identified. Gabe will check whether or not they are looking for those suggestions to come from URLC.

Dawn Brown, Area Coordinator for Program Housing, gave an overview of the evaluation process for program houses. She will return to URLC on December 8 to present the results of this semester-valuations.

Brandon Beuhring, Area Coordinator who is responsible for Westco, among other areas, discussed the reporting mechanism which Guidance has suggested. The report would address resident satisfaction, management of the Westco Caf¨¦, leadership and participation of Guidance leadership, and programming. Feedback would be gathered through focus groups, surveys, program evaluations and feedback from Guidance. It was suggested that recruitment efforts and involvement of residents in programming also be incorporated.

Eric Heng, Area Coordinator who is responsible for 200 Church, among other areas, explained that 200 Church would follow a similar reporting process, which would be tailored to fit that community-mission and goals. He will be working with the student staff and unit council to finalize the process.

Lighting Tour was postponed until November 30 due to poor weather again.

Gabe distributed a draft of a survey to be used with seniors currently living in the wood frame houses. Discussion included format, distribution, suggestions and additional questions. He is meeting with his committee tonight to make further revisions, and will bring it back to the URLC on December 1. The hope is to gather feedback from the seniors before the end of the semester, develop a proposal based on that feedback and present it to the student population early next semester.

Have a great Thanksgiving break!

II) Queer Task Force

MEETING WITH THE TRUSTEES:

-representatives from the QTF went to the trustee forum to voice concerns about gender neutral housing/bathrooms—their impression was:

-the bad news: one of the trustees commented on a trans student's "unusual lifestyle". most trustees are concerned with bringing more conservative voices to campus, many had no idea about the issue of gender neutral housing

the good news:

-nobody in the trustees openly blocks gender neutral housing there are few supporters among the trustees

the trustees want to discuss gender neutral housing at their meeting in february, QTF needs to prepare a packet on the subject for them to refer to the trustees are pissed that the admin didn't follow through on their promises so there's a good chance that they will support gender neutral housing

QTF also needs to make a packet to present to the SLC

they are pissed at the WSA for not putting gender neutral housing on the agenda - they think that it's important enough that the burden should not be on them to discuss it during the student forum section of the meeting and will continue to put pressure on the WSA to hold it as a high priority

GENDER NEUTRAL BATHROOMS

-meeting with brandon on the 28th, 730, fauver apartments

-will discuss gender neutral bathrooms, where they should be put, work on a proposal to the dean of the college

-approach we should take for putting more gender neutral bathrooms in buildings:

1. increase awareness of choosing your gender every time you have to go to the bathrooms

2. focus on single-toilet bathrooms - they're safer especially for females

3. focus on the disability aspect - those in wheelchairs are better served by single stall bathrooms that are bigger in size

4. remember that people aren't opposed to gender neutral bathrooms but unless they are convinved properly they won't fight FOR them

-queer retreat is tomorrow (Saturday) all day

-monday - lunch for queer students and staff - "queer and home for the holidays", queer resource center 12-1 faculty, students, admin all invited

-website is up and running, new index page, menu, of note section

-the university relations office could create something for us, but we like having QTF members working on the website directly

-new: section on academics being worked on by faculty and students — you can go online and check it out

future events:

- lighting tour - keeps getting postponed but need to have a queer presence for queer safety issues and to rub shoulders with the admin - next meeting either December 2 or December 9th - we'll all get emails letting us know.

III) Garth attended the meeting regarding prototype housing...more to come at the Assembly meeting

Advisory Diversity Board description: Diversity initiatives/ advise new dean. Will be sending report to WSA, then Maria. The board should have power to change politics, collect information, website, network for student groups, and liaison between students and admin. Oversee some money?

COORDINATING COMMITTEE

1) Both Ashley and Xiaoxi are working on their individual projects (Ashley is creating a written guide on the future of the filing project and Xioaxi is working on getting her brilliant WSA poster printed/distributed

2) The WSA newsletter is hopefully going to be distributed the week we get back from Thanksgiving. There will be a draft at Sunday's meeting for everyone to edit, make changes/corrections etc...It's also not too late to submit something, so let me know if you're interested. We're probably going to distribute it in everyone's mailbox, so that the whole school definitely gets it. I have several people 'contributing' to writing, but there's still a couple of issues that haven't been covered.

3) We are thinking of doing both an internal and external survey of the WSA and how it runs. The external WSA survey will hopefully correspond with SBC elections, so that we don't have to do too much advertising to get people to participate. The internal survey will give us a better sense of how individual members are feeling about how the inner workings of the WSA. More about that within the next week or so.

4) Similar to the archiving of documents in the file cabinet, we're thinking of having all WSA members write some straight-up advice that would be passed along from year to year. Right now, all committees write formal mid year and end of the year reports, but we're looking to have individuals write informal advice on working with particular administrators, working with different sub-committees, insight into organizing, and random things that they wished they had known about the WSA. This will probably be winter break 'homework' for everyone.

5) There will be no meeting next week

6) Emily talked with Lisa about creating a system for maintaining the website. There were several ideas and suggestions, but it was agreed that something needs to be done so that there-an easy way to update the website from year to year. Lisa will probably gain access to updating the webpage in order to make changes over the summer. This will be discussed more throughout the remainder of the semester and next semester. More thanlikely, it will end up being a joint CC/SBC/COCo thing.

7) WSA member of the week is Ashley Martin for her archival work.

FINANCE AND FACILITIES COMMITTEE

Financial Aid - Gabe and Katie met with Jennifer Lawton, head of financial aid. We discussed trying to shift the work-study search process to make it easier and faster for students to find employment. Katie and Jennifer will be meeting after Thanksgiving to further discuss it. Also, we talked about the pending reauthorization of the higher education funding in congress, and the impact that federal dollars have on financial aid.

Campus Center — Eric met with the campus center committee to discuss issues with Davenport.

URLC — Gabe is helping to develop a survey about furnishing woodframes; the working draft is below. Please look at it and give any comments to Gabe. Otherwise, please see SAC report.

Dining — Zelda and Gabe met with Manny Cunard to discuss the concept of dining with the new University Center. Dining committee will meet again after Thanksgiving.

Major Maintenance — Still trying to attach priority levels to every project in the book. If you have any questions about timetables on specific projects, ask Gabe.

Draft of Furnishing Survey:

There have been several requests from the University community considering the furnishing of wood frame houses. The reasons for considering this course of action include: the room rate cost (currently at $6,508) that also requires students to purchase furniture; the difficulty for some students in locating and/or moving furniture; the wear and tear on the house; the difficulty in painting, repairing and cleaning units while furniture is stored there; and the positive feedback regarding fully furnished apartments and prototypes on campus. It is feasible that the university could furnish the entire house and only have to increase the room rate by approximately $50.00. There is complete flexibility in how much furniture is provided as well. We appreciate you taking a few minutes to give us feedback on what course of action the University should take, and what your experience has been furnishing your own house.

Thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey!

Section I:

If you bought your own furniture, approximately how much did you spend?

If you bought furniture from students on campus, approximately how much did

you spend?

Section II

Using the following scale, please rate the following items:

5 - Strongly Agree

4 - Agree

3 - Somewhat Agree

2 - Somewhat Disagree

1 - Strongly Disagree

N/A — Not applicable

_____ I liked being able to personalize my house with my own furniture

_____ It was time consuming to obtain furniture.

_____ It was difficult to obtain furniture.

_____ It was important to me to be able to get the kind of bed I prefer

_____ It was difficult to physically move the furniture into the house

_____ It was inconvenient to have to move the furniture into the house during finals

_____ I would have preferred that my house had been furnished

_____ The distance of my hometown from campus made it more difficult to provide my own furniture

_____ My parents were concerned that I had to provide my own furniture during my senior year

_____ I felt uncomfortable that the security of the furniture left in the house over the summer could not be guaranteed

_____ I believe the furniture the university would provide would not be comfortable

_____ My recommendation would be that the university not provide any furniture for the wood frame houses

_____ My recommendation would be that the university provide some furniture for the wood frame houses (see next section)

Section III

If you would appreciate having a specific item furnished by the University, indicate yes; if not, indicate no. Please put appropriate comments in the indicated areas; be as detailed as possible.

Room:

Bedroom

Bed - Yes/no

Dresser - Yes/no

Desk chair - Yes/no

Desk - Yes/no

Bookcase - Yes/no

Wastebasket - Yes/no

Lamp - Yes/no

Comments on furnishing bedrooms:

Common area

Couch - Yes/no

Chairs - Yes/no

Comments on furnishing common areas:

Kitchen

Kitchen table - Yes/no

Chairs - Yes/no

Comments on furnishing kitchens:

General Comments:

Thanks for your cooperation!

COMMUNITY OUTREACH COMMITTEE:

Really bad week. Weather/technology problems

Keith made fliers!

Recognized four groups.

Stack:

Emily Malkin: is the funding for railing in Traverse square still there? $16,000 seems a bit much.

Anda Greeney has changes to the survey: wants first question to be "I want my house to be furnished." Doesn't like the scale. Gabe has new questions: specific price ranges, and where students are getting the furniture. Anda also wants to reward groups not requesting inflated amounts. Matt Ball says the system works pretty well—must give receipt from purchases. Relatively hard for students to get more money than they need.

Jason Harris says Hi&LoRise will be first on the lighting tour. Gabe Tabak also suggests CFA, and gaps blue light phones (has budget for a few more of these).

Nathan Ratner suggests "I was satisfied with how I got my furniture" in the questionnaire.

Matt Ball doesn't think anyone is in opposition to gender neutral housing. Monica and Annie disagrees. Sam Ruth doesn't think they know about the issue. Matt doesn't think Trustees should not meddle in administrative affairs. Raffi agrees.

Eric Rosenblum asks about appointment to SBC, why not elected? Constitutional issues/ really silly.

Benedict Bernstein asks if anyone knows if Dave has had a meeting with Dean Maria? Raffi says that he hasn't gone to her office hours. Benedict also wants student/faculty/staff to be able to fire the dean of diversity.

Sean Cortlett talks about Psafe racial profiling on campus: how can WSA make a statement on that? Jesse Watson says public safety goes through extensive training for issues like that. The assembly could come to a position on this, if this becomes a bigger problem.

Annie Fox says that expectations are laid out, this would be under the new dean and diversity board.

Sean suggests coming up with an anonymous way for students to report these.

Gabe Tabak says they will have the EAC up and running in time for spring proxy season.

Jason Harris will ask for questions on student rights with Psafe issues.

New Business and Announcements

Monica Arduini found a watch.

Annie Fox asks for other copies of the flier he made.

Nya Roy: Samsara, Dec. 2

Jesse Watson: EC stays

Emily Malkin: no meeting next week, everyone should stay around for a picture, and COCo too. EC needs a picture, too. SBC should take your own picture.

Nate Ratner asks about agenda: can't we put agenda business on the email?

Adjournment: 9:02pm

Respectfully submitted,

Xiaoxi Tu, WSA Secretary