Constitutional Interludes

College Council Minutes for 3/14/01

[introduction]

Todd Rogers (Co-President) reminded council about the speech he and Ami gave at First Days to the freshman this fall. He asked if any of the freshmen present recalled exactly what his points were. "Candy…" Federico Sosa (Williams) replied. Todd responded by chucking Hershey’s kisses at the heads of everyone present.

In the story of the week, Todd recounted an odyssey of triviality with Constantine (Colonial Pizza). Todd and Morgan Barth ordered food late last night from Colonial – specifically, two spinach and mushroom calzones. It ended up coming three hours late, at room temperature, and they didn’t really want it. So they bargained with the delivery guy for them for $3. They were upset, but thought, "hey, it’s behind us now." However, the calzones turned out to be sausage and mushroom, not spinach and mushroom, much to the vegetarians’ dismay. But, hey, it was behind them.

Actually, soon thereafter, Scott Braman (Security Officer) showed up, and Morgan offered him the calzones. But apparently the police had called (on orders from an irate Constantine) and reported that two students had hijacked calzones from a deliveryman. So Morgan called up Colonial, and spoke to Constantine in an even, measured tone (apparently Constantine has an affinity for aggression), and told him that he simply wasn’t going to pay for the extremely late delivery of what he didn’t order. Constantine shouted some expletives in Greek, and told him that he’d be calling the police in the morning.

Sure enough, Dave Boyer called Morgan this morning, and Constantine is proceeding with the police to collect his $9. Morgan, of course, is going to court (with a nice new mustache, I might add).

[funding]

What we had left in the budget before this meeting: General Fund: $3,054.44, Nationals Funds: $1,105.08, Intergroup Fund: $833.00, Group Contingency Fund: $10,949.40 (Total Remaining: $15,941.92).

Josh Frankel, from the Williams Ultimate Frisbee Organization, requested $1,099.26 from Council for nine Spring tournament and driving fees. In the Fall budget meetings, WUFO was cut about $3,000 in funding and got $1,000 back right after the Contingency Fund was established. JP (Treasurer-Elect) voiced his support for the budget, explaining that it was a good use of contingency funds. CC agreed: 21-3-2.

Andrew Mitchell, Eric Katerman, and Davy Stevenson came from WCFM to request $1100 for a concert on Wednesday, April 18th (Main Act: $300, Opening Band: $200, Sound: $600). The main act will be North of America (from Canada), and the opening band will be Swirlies (from Boston). Their budget was also drastically cut in the fall; all of their spring concert programming was a part of that reduction. The Williamstown Jazz Festival and the Masquerade Ball will take place the weekend after the concert.

Shenil Saya (At-Large) voiced his support for the proposal, noting that CC usually funds this every year. Caleb Fassett (Off-Campus) agreed, but asked if it would be possible to cut the opening band. CC wanted the Swirlies, and approved the funding 16-4-6.

Brad Nichol of the Williams Sailing Team reminded CC of its current dilemma. The college has mandated that the sailing team have a coach present at all practices. However, after meeting with everyone from the athletic director to the provost, Dean Roseman’s office agreed that the new policy is for the college to finance half of the insurance for club sports and half of the cost of hiring a coach. In the past, the sailing team has used alumni funds to pay for their coaches. Those funds, however, have been exhausted and the college has also refused to allow the sailing team to solicit or accept donations from its alumni. Nichol reported that the team would be unable to sail if it does not receive funding for a coach from CC.

Tracy Borawski (Tyler) asked if the sailing club pays dues like other club sports. Nichol responded that they do. Fassett insisted that CC should really pursue this issue, and make it clear to the administration that if they are going to mandate this coaching requirement, they need to pay for it. CC decided to fund the sailing team’s coach for the spring semester, approving by a vote of 26-1-0.

[sailing support statement]

Garth Schofield, also of the sailing club, came to request CC’s general support in their battle for continued existence. He presented the both the short-term dilemma of coaching costs and the long-term dilemma of replacing actual boats in five years or so without being able to solicit funds from alumni. Schofield also ensured CC that the sailing club would not ask council for large capital expenditures such as funding replacement boats.

Tad Hodgson (Wood/Agard/Garfield) asked why the sailing team is prevented from raising alumni funds, to which Nichol responded that the college sees direct solicitation of money from alumni a detraction from money that could go to the alumni fund. Mayhew also reminded council of the recent donation by Herb Allen towards the Theatre Arts Center; the college basically doesn’t want to have their priorities set for them by alumni.

Laddie Peterson (Class of 2002) inquired if the money could be directly deposited into the treasurer’s account. Schofield responded that they are dealing with large sums of money. Alumni would not be willing to make that type of transaction under the table. In addition, many alumni who donate would like a tax break, and that would not be possible with an under the table transaction.

Sarah Barger (JA) said that it seems like this is a vote on an empty advocacy. This statement says that we support this, but doesn’t actually require CC to do anything. She asks if there is anything that CC can do besides just pass this statement? Parekh (Co-President) offered some assurance, saying that previously, statements have forced members of CC to stand by their word and actually go to meetings to get things done.

John Phillips (Prospect) asserted that CC should address the issue of alumni funding directly. The next CC administration should work out how CC groups can solicit alumni funding through the school. In the end, CC voted in favor of supporting the sailing club 27-0-0.

[musical interlude]

At this point CC waited for Koegel to perform a dance at Rogers’ request. Koegel refused to get his groove on, however, and the dance showcase rapidly fizzled into a musical intermission.

 

[CEP]

Justin Crowe, Jenny Roizen, and Morgan Barth, from the Committee on Educational Policy, announced their initial proposals, first released to the campus a week ago. These proposals are not written in stone, and will all be revised after they receive input from students, faculty, and staff. Please read the proposals by going to http://www.williams.edu/go/strategicplanning/.

Justin briefly outlined the proposals:

Jenny informed CC that every student would receive a copy of the proposals after spring break with a note from the CEP on how things will proceed from here. So read the proposal, and write to the CEP at cep@williams.edu. They really do need feedback; there will be changes in the proposals, and those proposals will eventually go to the trustees.

[latino studies]

Lesley Reith and Christina Villegas from VISTA came to College Council to speak about their quest to get a Latino Studies program at Williams. Lesley recited the brief history: The Latino Studies movement has been going on for 10 or 11 years. It started with hunger strikes in 1991 by frustrated Latino students who were tired of all faculty members looking like middle-aged white males. As a college student, you look for role models in professors to inspire you intellectually. After another hunger strike in 1993, the College committed to hiring an English and a History professor both to teach Latino studies in their field. Since then, VISTA has not been really active in pushing the Latino Studies program. However, last year, when it became apparent that things at the college were going to change, they decided to bring it up again.

VISTA has put forth a proposal to the CEP (a concentration of six courses, which would require two more professors to teach Latino studies classes). Lesley acknowledged that most other schools like us (liberal arts and Ivy League) do not have Latino Studies programs, but Williams prides itself in a unique and advanced curriculum. Furthermore, Latinos are the largest minority, and are influential in modern art, music, anthropology, and politics.

What has disappointed VISTA the most in this process is that the CEP left Latino Studies out of its proposals; after eleven years of fighting for the program, they would like to see some mention in the suggestions for curricular reform. Therefore, during the week after Spring Break, VISTA will be passing petitions out all over campus to get signatures asking the CEP and Administrators to acknowledge and discuss the idea of having a Latino Studies program. There will be an email petition, and a physical petition. The physical petition will take place in Baxter, and members of VISTA as well as members of College Council will be tabling for it.

Morgan responded for the CEP by saying that before they could start a program, they would need more professors – a decision-making power that resides with CAP. Furthermore, he pointed out that the CEP’s proposals have focused on larger issues, and no proposal discusses the content of the curriculum. However, the CEP does make recommendations to CAP on what types of faculty to hire, and he encouraged VISTA to be involved in that discussion. Phillips asked what the main opposition to the Latino Studies was. Lesley replied that they would need more professors, and to get the existing professors tenured. Morgan agreed, pointing out that once a critical mass of classes is reached on the subject, a program could be formed.

[gratitude week]

Dave Walfish (Faculty) and Lissa Healy came from the Hawai’i Ohana to suggest an expansion to the yearly tradition of sending mahalograms. Mahalo means "thank you" in Hawai’ian, and so they would like to start a "gratitude week" that would encourage students to reflect on what they are thankful for. This week would start with Run for a Cure and end with a Community Service Day. Ami suggested that this would be a great way for CC members to get involved with hands-on advocacy, and accordingly, several reps signed up for the project.

[minco reps on the appointments committee]

Joe Masters (Secretary) announced that the College Council officers and at-large reps had decided that the bylaw he brought last week (to add the two Minority Coalition reps as voting members to the College Council Appointments Committee) was unconstitutional. However, they did decide that there were two possible ways to give the MinCo reps a voice on the committee, which appoints the student members of most of the student-faculty committees (like CUL, CEP, CDC).

The current line-up of the Appointments Committee as defined by the Constitution is the four campus at-large reps, the three class reps (senior, junior, and sophomore), and one of the co-presidents as a non-voting chair. Additionally, a bylaw adds two non-voting members: the secretary of College Council, and the other co-president as an optional non-voting member.

So one way to include MinCo Reps on the Appointments Committee would be to simply add them as two optional non-voting members. However, Joe felt that this solution wasn’t enough, and instead proposed another way. This proposal, questionably constitutional and certainly convoluted, would define a new subcommittee of the Appointments Committee. It would consist of nine voting members – the seven voting members of the original Appointments Committee plus the two MinCo reps. However, to make this constitutional, the original Appointments Committee would have veto power over anything the subcommittee did.

JP objected, pointing out that this proposal really convolutes the constitution. He felt that we should work on pushing a constitutional amendment through this year, before the appointments committee meets.

Nishant agreed, and pointed out that there really isn’t a lot of voting on the Appointments Committee anyhow. It pretty much just comes to a consensus about decisions (only one out of all the appointments last year was contested enough to come to a vote).

Tad believed that it would be unfeasible to pass a constitutional amendment – we’d need to have 50% of the campus vote, and 2/3rds of them agree with the proposal. He felt that the only way to accomplish it was through Joe’s bylaw. Princess concurred, saying that we should support the bylaw now, and go for the constitutional change so that next year it will be institutionalized. Ryan expressed a concern that having such a subcommittee would set up a situation where the original seven would veto the decisions of the nine, and that would be more disastrous in general for minority relations. Ami countered that it would also be torturous to have two non-voting members not listened to, since they couldn’t vote to make their ideas known. Nishant, on the other hand, felt that having eloquent speakers would work well, and believed that the biggest risk was to the Constitution.

Shenil objected: "It boils down to this: if you don’t vote, you don’t have any power. I don’t care about the constitution; we have to get minority representation on this committee." In order to pass to the proposal, CC would have to vote with a 2/3rds majority, and that didn’t happen: 12-11-4. (But it’s not over! Read on…)

[opinions]

Unfortunately, Mayo Shattuck (Class of 2003) was too sick (mono) to make the meeting, so Peter Walke (Dennett) announced the opinions:

[open time]

Chris Koegel (At-Large) apologized for Gen. James Moorhead (Class of 2001) not being at the meeting, and James wanted to thanks council for a "full year of fun."

Nishant was upset that JOSE had been down during the elections, and wanted to know if the Elections Supervisory Committee was going to do anything about it. Ryan explained that it had been down for a total of 45 minutes, and that the ESC had decided not to extend the deadline.

Nishant proposed to change the current CC bylaw to add two MinCo reps as non-voting members to the committee – this would be constitutionally sound while still giving minority students some say in appointments. Koegel retorted that he would rather give the MinCo reps a vote than add them in but not give them a vote. Craig Tamamoto (Secretary-Elect) agreed, saying that placing MinCo reps on the appointments committee with non-voting status is ridiculous. This bylaw amendment would be temporary, and could be changed back if and when a constitutional amendment takes place.

Royce Smith (Co-op) asked why people are so skeptical of substantial campus turnout. Shenil responded that not enough people on this campus care about minority issues to get the majority turnout necessary for constitutional reform. Nick Kerr (MinCo Rep-Elect) entreated CC to give the newly elected MinCo reps a chance to vote on the appointments committee. At least until a constitutional amendment has been passed, there can be some concrete way to ensure that they can vote.

[chaotic interlude]

Todd and Ami restored order to the meeting, at which time the proposal to amend the bylaw to add the two MinCo reps as non-voting members of the appointments committee was voted down, 11-13-3.

JP made a motion to hold a constitutional referendum to place two voting members onto the appointments committee. CC endorsed this motion, passing it 24-1-2.

Subsequently, in a final effort (in this meeting, anyway) to place voting members on the appointments committee without having to wait for the results of a constitutional referendum, the initial proposal to form a nine-member subcommittee returned at the request of Koegel. Since it had already been discussed extensively, CC moved directly to a vote. Needing 2/3rds majority vote, the proposal failed by 1 1/3 vote, 16-7-3.

[farewell]

Todd said goodbye to the outgoing College Council reps: At-Large Reps Chris Koegel, Nishant Nayyar, Rob Sica, and Shenil Saya, MinCo Reps Gideon Lee and Princess Alegre, Senior Class Rep James Moorhead, Junior Class Rep Laddie Peterson, Sophomore Class Rep Mayo Shattuck, Treasurer Ryan Mayhew, Secretary Joe Masters, and Co-Presidents Ami Parekh and Todd Rogers.

Ami finished her final CC meeting by saying that Williams is a great place, but there’s a lot to do to make it better. She went to a faculty meeting, and was disheartened that most of the faculty seemed not to want to change things. They got uptight about change. But Williams needs change. Todd voiced his agreement: we are largely empowered in the next year to make Williams what we want it to be.

 

 

Joe Masters craig tamamoto

CC Secretary cc secretary

wso.williams.edu/cc