Contributing Significantly Less

College Council Minutes for 3/7/01

[introduction]

Todd Rogers (Co-President) announced that he and Ami would be dragging their good-bye process out over the next two meetings. After making a plea for the hamentash, Todd explained that he and Ami would be throwing an all-campus farewell party next week.

[recognition]

Dan Auerbach came to request College Council recognition for Artstation, a project by several seniors who are interested in doing art as a career and/or hobby in the future. Basically, the college granted them the use of the old travel store and mobil station at the end of Spring Street. Their goal is to get a lot of community and college involvement in making art inside and outside the buildings. If you want to visit, they’re usually there from 1pm to 5pm Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, or you can also see their website at http://www.art-station.org/. CC voted to recognize: 23-0-0.

[funding]

Ching Ho wants to throw the most memorable party ever in the history of Williams: a masquerade ball. Of course, he promises this each time he throws a party, but, in the words of Ching, delivers every time. The party is mainly funded from other sources, but he needed $500 for a band ($300) and DJ ($200). After a reassurance that this wouldn’t be the only party during Spring Fling, CC voted to fund 23-0-2.

Catherine Szpunt, from VISTA, came to request $1000 to fund part of a Mariachi band for Cinco de Mayo. VISTA puts on a Cinco de Mayo part every year, but they want to make it bigger this year. She explained that MinCo normally funds events like these, but this year they don’t have as much money and the event is more expensive. Federico Sosa (Williams) encouraged council to fund this because it’s one of the biggest events of Spanish heritage, and would be a great diverse and different type of social event. CC agreed, and voted to fund 22-0-3.

James Moorhead (Class of 2001) represented a request from Morgan Barth to get $200 to throw a farewell party for Dining Services employees Carla and her husband Jim, on Thursday, March 15. Morgan explained: “We students should throw her a thank you party for being one of the most thoughtful, caring people in this community.” He also added, “We did the same thing for Hank Payne, who contributed considerably less to the institution.” Caleb Fassett (Off-Campus) voiced his opinion that this would be a bad precedent to set, funding farewell parties. Joe Masters (Secretary) disagreed, pointing out that this is probably the best type of thing that College Council can do with respect to non-students. John Phillips (Prospect) concurred, saying that Carla is one of the greatest people on campus. CC passed the allocation 23-0-2.

[fitch lot parking]

Josh Ain came to Council to request endorsement for a parking proposal. Apparently in past years, half of the parking lot (called FP) between the field house and B&G was student parking. During the science quad renovation, the college gave that space to construction workers, and after that finished, the college lent the space to the town for public parking during Spring Street renovations. The college is intending to turn it into faculty/staff overflow parking and visitor parking for games when Spring Street returns to normal, but Josh would like to see it turned back into student parking, and to move the visitor parking to Weston. James thought it crazy to give it back to the students; Weston just isn’t that much further away. Nishant Nayyar (At-Large) agreed that the walk wasn’t far, but pointed out that the FP lot is never used. Shenil Saya (At-Large) clarified that we weren’t actually advocating new parking for students, but rather a return of previous student parking. Todd asked that if CC does decide on supporting the proposal, we should wait a wait. However, Shenil disagreed, and the proposal was recommended: 20-1-4.

[plaque]

James, still thinking about raising voter participation, suggested that CC put up plaques on the walls of Baxter Lounge that keep a list of past College Council members. Terri O’Brien (Gladden) wasn’t so sure about that idea, but recommended that we keep a list of CC members and their pictures on the walls so people can know who their representatives are. JP (Dodd) liked the proposal, pointing out that it would create an institutional memory for CC, which is desperately needed. No decision was made on this, but it will probably return next week.

[rape and sexual assault on campus]

Jean Thorndike and Donna Denelli-Hess arrived to discuss rape and sexual assault at Williams with Council. Many students believe that it doesn’t happen here, but students are assaulted, and it’s amazing that students just don’t know this. Donna explained that statistically, rapes go unreported, and there are a lot of reasons for this. And despite the fact that no incidents of sexual assault were recorded statistically from 1993 to 1997, Donna can look back at her counseling load and see that she had talked to both men and women who were raped during that period; however, she wasn’t required by law then to report the number to security. Nishant suggested that she publish a pamphlet like the Honor & Discipline one sent out twice a year, detailing the sexual assault that have happened on campus; it would be a way to let everyone know what was happening.

How many students are sexually assaulted every year? Well, it doesn’t really matter; any more than one is too many. And most get reported not to security or the health center, but to a friend.

Apparently every case of sexual assault security has investigated has involved alcohol or other drugs. Furthermore, one in four women who graduate from college say that they were sexually assaulted while in college. This stands for Williams, too. However, there are some great things about Williams – there are a lot of resources: security, the health center, the rape and sexual assault network, the chaplain’s office, psych services… Terri asked how the new date-rape drugs factored into things; apparently they are frequently suspected, but the health center has only had one opportunity to test for them (where the student was willing, and the test could be performed). Princess asked if there was any legal liability you might be exposing yourself to if you told the Health Center that a friend of yours had been assaulted; Donna assured her that there was none, and that for them to help, the survivor would have to talk to her directory. If you have any questions or comments, email ddenelli@williams.edu

[minco reps on the appointments committee]

Following a suggestion proposed at the summit on race this past weekend, Joe proposed a bylaw change to put the Minority Coalition reps on the College Council Appointments Committee. The Appointments Committee currently consists of seven voting members, the three class representatives and four at-large representatives, and appoints students onto many committees, like SAC, CEP, CUL, CDC, and about eight others. Joe thought that the MinCo reps should have a voice in who is selected for each of these committees.

However, Nishant pointed at that, although there is a bylaw that details the composition of the committee, there is also a part of the Constitution which outlines it (for those of you who want to play along at home, it’s in article VI, section 2b). And while changing a bylaw is easy (a simple council vote), changing the constitution is quite a different matter. Two-thirds of the council needs to vote to propose the amendment, and then fifty percent of the student body need to vote on it, and two-thirds of them have to approve it. But, before the voting can happen, CC needs to advertise it for two weeks; in other words, we couldn’t do it before spring break.

However, there was some hope: the same committee described in the constitution was also supposed to be in charge of elections, but we’ve now ceded that responsibility to the Elections Supervisory Committee. So, in a similar way, we could have that constitutionally-described appointments committee cede its power to a similar body (but with MinCo reps). At any rate, CC members are going to look over the Constitution and Bylaws, and make a determination next week on whether we need to pass a referendum, or whether a bylaw will be sufficient.

[opinions]

-1 request for a card reader in prospect (sent to Terri)

-1 complaint about the upstairs computers in Goodrich, and a comment that “the library terminals are shifty and unreliable, like mayo shattuck” (sent to Caleb)

-1 complaint about all-campus emails (sent to Joe)

-a request to get the 1914 library a standing budget to help them buy books on their own (sent to Ami)

-a concern that the Ballot Initiative #1 had a default response of “YES”:

Joe explained that when he originally wrote JOSE, there wasn’t a “big ballot” option, so that he hadn’t conceived that people would be voting in elections where they wouldn’t want to register a vote. So referenda are set up so that they are either YES or NO, and can’t just be “nothing.” Despite comments that the initiative wasn’t binding, Terri really thought it proper that we change it to have a “no vote” option and to run it again during run-offs with a disclaimer explaining why it is there. CC agreed 17-3-4.

[open time]

Princess Alegre updated CC: Lesley Reith came to MinCo last week to discuss Latino Studies. Apparently, she’s been jumping through a lot of hoops that she shouldn’t have to just to bring the idea up in conversation. Lesley will be coming next week to discuss Latino Studies. Todd mentioned that the Committee on Diversity and Community made recommendations to the CEP (Committee on Educational Policy) questioning their silence on Latino Studies in the CEP’s discussions.

Todd also questioned the council vote on the FP parking lot proposal. He is sure there are other factors we didn’t hear about, and felt that taking more time could not have hurt anything. Shenil disagreed, saying that if security decides it’s not going to happen, it’s not going to happen. It’s a just a recommendation coming from CC. Todd remained unconvinced, believing that there are factors that we simply have no idea about, and a failure to investigate these adequately is a failure in fully understanding the situation.

Joe Masters

CC Secretary

wso.williams.edu