Wesleyan Student Assembly — Wesleyan University

Minutes: December 11, 2005, No. 9

WSA Officers

President: Jesse Watson

Vice President: Monica Arduini

Coordinator: Emily Malkin

Treasurer: Matt Ball

Meeting Agenda and Business

1. Open Forum for Student Concerns
2. Approval of Minutes
3. Extended Committee Reports
4. Last Meeting Business
5. Quick Brainstorming of Objectives for Next Semester
6. New Business and Announcements

Attached Documents

None!

Opening of Meeting

7:17pm

Open Forum for Student Concerns

None present

Approval of Minutes

Minutes approved by majority

Extended Committee Reports

All personal pronouns refer to the specific committee or committee chair.

FINANCES AND FACILITIES

Made progress on almost all goals set in the beginning of the year.

Dinning: Zelda and Max will be writing up the concept for dinning next semester

URLC: Nya has been great, especially for traverse square fence. Fraternities housing proposal and Senior housing survey.

Katie Kalafus has been working on work study and financial aid.

Major Maintenance is meeting regularly. Can't give details yet. List of projects will be finalized soon.

Endowment Advisory Committee: Trustees gave the "go-ahead," will be running in time for Spring proxy season.

Feedback from lighting tour: campus is safer.

More RIDE work for next semester

Nya will be off to Egypt.

EDUCATIONAL POLICY COMMITTEE

1. The Alumni Lecture Program was brought to the EPC and was positively endorsed. We're now working to set up the program itself.

2. Library Committee: We're currently gathering members of last year's library Cmt. and intend to restart the Cmt. this coming semester. Any WSA member interested in joining (it meets about once a month during lunch) can send me (Sruth@wesleyan.edu) and e-mail.

3. Peer Advising: Different conceptions of a peer-advising program have been under discussion, and the conversation will be brought to the EPC this week.

4. We're working on several other issues that will need to stay confidential for now, but could involve some significant changes in both advising and course selection

Sam would like to thank Benedict for being the most active member of EPC.

New registration system!

Alumni lectures…

Research to Advising: big changes coming up, Peer Advising???

Reviewed individual department.

Science initiatives and service learning coming up.

STUDENT BUDGETARY COMMITTEE

The SBC had a busier week than we expected this week. Over fifteen groups came in to our allocations, requesting more money than we have allocated in the past few weeks combined. Chief among them was Ujamaa; we had talked previously with them about planning for February, which is Black History Month, and they came to us with a larger request than we had anticipated. We need to seriously analyze how much we have to spend next year, but there are quite a few things we did not plan for that we now have to spend. For example, there is a 15,000 annual yearbook fee we were completely unaware of, as well as over 30,000 worth of expenses carried over from last year that we did not account for. Given these very unfortunate things, we are in a crunch for money that we need to handle very carefully.

We are therefore very lucky that winter break is approaching. Our lockbox system seems to be getting rave reviews, and it seems like people are very satisfied with it. We plan on taking care of all of the problems with the system by the time we get back from break, as well as getting all of our information up on the website. We also looked over the surveys and we were, for the most part, encouraged by what we saw. Most of the complaints are things that we are looking at changing, and we got quite a few positive evaluations from people who like the direction we are moving towards.

Lastly, elections were this week, and come Sunday, we will be able to see what our committee looks like for the future. Wish us luck!

Matt Ball would like to thank his committee members (Rashida is leaving).

Thinks SBC did a good job this semester. Sad about Manny, excited about Alex. Lisa has been wonderful, very positive. Round of applause. She was very prepared for all of the changes.

Raffi shaved his head!!!

COMMUNITY OUTREACH COMMITTEE

Annie will be off to Denmark next semester.

Big changes: much more organized, working with Lisa.

Splash pages have been a big success, even for administrative oversight.

The student group resource list has been distributed.

Office space has been allotted, and used efficiently. Office space criteria goals for next semester.

Yellow pages: Casey did these.

Dave Woo ran the forum for the new dean.

Keith Schumann organized the activism meeting, including flow charts, from Dean Rick.

Student leader manual's out!

Reslife: Jason will be taking over.

New initiatives to connect student groups and local community groups: initiated by Sean.

Community field day!

Keith resigned!!! Oh no, COCo!

INDEPENDENT PROJECTS COMMITTEE

1. Talking Point! Very successful. Thanks to everyone who came. The next one will be next semester and will be similarly awesome. Any new ideas?

2. Esquid- keep it up?

3. Super brief Ruckus figures update from Anda.

CRC advisory committee has been bigger, more inclusive. Would like to thank Zach for taking over a few meetings.

ITS advisory committee—thanks Anda.

Emergency loan fund: Katie and Zach will get on that.

Ruckus is being used—numbers going up… maybe only for this year.

STUDENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Nathan Ratner: Very foundational—Youth Movement (three freshmen members)

Whitney: t-square project, good work

Garth: fraternities

Max and Renee: gender neutral housing!

OBHS/ gender neutral housing/ fraternities will get a lot of action.

Whitney would like to congratulate Nate!

COORDINATING COMMITTEE

Worked on the Website: ordeal!

Internal/external WSA survey!

Xiaoxi postered!

Ashley archived! If you need anything—just ask.

Elections—very interesting.

Appointments next semester: 3 for COCo, 1 asst. coordinator, 1 EPC, (2 for EAC)?

Constitutional review…

Tackling technology issues: ITS?

Ashley is leaving!

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Making WSA more efficient: huge progress in this era. Far more efficient, which makes us more productive.

More visibility: props to CC, but also more productive.

More input!

Trustees: EC made progress in representing student issues effectively to Trustees' attention. Especially Annie, for her chutzpah, and wonderful work on Splash pages.

Thanks, Lisa, for being fearless all semester.

Dean Rick and Maria: very good relationship, thanks for making the assembly attendance a tradition.

Freshman Committee: 2006 had a strong frosh committee, very pleased that 2009 has been wielding power.

Last Meeting Business

Cards for Lisa, Maria, and Rick!

Secret Santas!

Brainstorming

Annie Fox wants lighting tour to be switched to FiFAC

Xiaoxi wants a Webtech?

Katie Kalafus wants library Committee to meet. Rashida asks: "we have a library committee?"

Annie Fox thinks that Social Committee to do a formal. Rashida says that if she were chair, everything would be fine. Right now, everyone is disorganized, few concrete ideas. Don't want to do anything until next semester. Wants a large main act, but smaller opening act. Spring fling?

Benedict asks if parting members could write letters of advice for future members, not formal reports. Everyone who is leaving, please stay after the meeting.

New Business and Announcements

Xiaoxi Tu apologizes to Anda for spelling his last name wrong all semester.

Benedict went to WESPREP meeting, wants to network groups.

Adjournment: 7:57pm, for the whole semester!

Respectfully submitted,

Xiaoxi Tu, WSA Secretary