introduction

no stories, funding requests for CC

college council minutes, april 11, 2001

~ introduction ~

over the past two days, elections were held to replace CC reps that had vacated their spots and sarah (co-pres) took this time to introduce our new members: brendan docherty (williams), darlene forde (dodd quad), laddie peterson (JA), and ben thompson (bryant/woodbridge). welcome aboard!

joe (co-pres) then took a straw-poll to see how many members of CC are also good citizens. he would like to organize a community service day for CC members, but only if there was sufficient interest. after joe twisted CC's collective arm, enough members said they would do it to warrant scheduling a community service project.

joe also announced the start of the forums that will take a closer look at campus governance restructuring. any member of the williams community is welcome to offer your input on how you think issues like campus advocacy, funding, and social organization should be restructured. the first forum is tuesday, april 17 at 9:30 pm. joe emphasized that this time was chosen to make the forum accessible to the widest possible cross-section of campus, so have your voice heard!

in other electoral action, sarah announced that the elections for the class of '02 honorary degrees committee has closed and the student members will be alix partnow, morgan barth, and dan elsea.

also, this sunday at midnight, the constitutional amendment to place minority coalition (minco) reps on the appointments committee will open for voting on jose. again, 50% of the campus must vote and 2/3 of those votes must be affirmative for the constitutional amendment to take effect.

lastly, sarah reminded everyone that self-nominations for student-faculty committees are due friday, april 13 to selfnoms@wso.williams.edu. get involved!

~ funding bylaw changes ~

jp (treasurer) opened discussion by soliciting council's thoughts on his proposals. these proposals would in effect remove the funding procedure from CC meeting and place that responsibility in the hands of the financial committee (fincom). CC would still ultimately decide to accept or reject fincom's suggestions, but wouldn’t waste time in meetings discussing the details of each funding request.

caroline messmer (class of '02) asked how much money fincom handles every year. jp said that fincom doles out much of its money to student groups at the beginning of the year, retaining only $30,000 for the general fund.

tim karpoff (mark hopkins) wanted to know exactly what the advantages of this change would be. jp responded that these changes would free up a lot of time in CC meeting to tackle larger advocacy issues. also, he has emailed the treasurer's listserver with this proposal and received 10 responses, all positive. many groups hate to come to CC for funding.

at this point, joe jumped in to give a little background on the general complaints regarding funding. many people feel that CC spends too freely, too recklessly, and too inconsistently. this proposal would solve these issues, providing a service both to groups (by making funding requests more friendly) and to CC (by freeing up its time for other issues).

meg cooley (west/spencer) wanted to know how easy it would be for CC to make changes to fincom's suggestions. what if CC approves of some, but not all, of the proposed budget? she worries that this added bureaucracy might actually slow down the funding process.

should this bylaw be adopted, caleb fassett (off-campus sub) would like CC to review it again at the beginning of next year. since it is a bylaw, it could be treated as a temporary trial to gauge its successes and failures. royce smith (co-op) wanted to ensure that there would be an appeals process available to groups who felt slighted. jp assured him that there is.

several members of CC were uncomfortable with allowing fincom to entertain all requests under $2,000. in response to this, ari kessler (morgan/lehman) moved to amend the proposal so that all requests over $1,000 would come directly before CC. apparently CC thought this amount was too low and defeated the amendment, 5-20-2.

tim expressed his concern over the fact that the fincom is an entirely appointed committee. he moved to amend the proposal to make the funding group a subcommittee of CC with a rotating membership. since there was no second on the motion, it died. laddie reminded CC that fincom members are not scheming to embezzle money. they are probably more educated on the funding process and capable of making better decisions than the full CC body.

since time ran out (several times), the proposal was tabled until open time…read on for the grand conclusion. does it pass? does it fail? can you handle the suspense?

~ take back the night ~

kathryn hibbert and diane williams from the rape and sexual assault network came to CC to announce the annual "take back the night" endeavor. it is designed to 1) raise awareness of rape and sexual assault at williams and to 2) provide support for survivors of sexual assault. the event is next wednesday at 9 pm, starting at chapin steps. the theme is "women and men building community by raising awareness, breaking silences, and taking a stand against rape and sexual assault".

this year the hotline is hoping to attract over 500 people to "take back the night". kathryn reminded CC that rape and sexual assault is definitely present on williams campus, as evidenced by the hotline's more than 20 contacts in the first semester of this year alone. she asked CC members to please talk up the event - there will be musical performances, survivor speeches, and open mic portions of the event. if you were there last year, it was a very moving experience and this year will be even better. so come and show your support!

~ restructuring initiative ~

joe announced that the first restructuring initiative meeting will be next tuesday at 9:30 pm in goodrich. this meeting is open to any and all members of this community and the topic will be campus advocacy. how do you want your voice to be heard? come to the forum and help to create the williams college you want.

~ committees and groups ~

steve floyd reported on four committees at this meeting. the first two, the OCC advisory committee and the bookstore advisory committee both reported that they no longer exist. this raised an interesting dilemma, especially considering the recent controversy over the high prices at waterstreet books.

cathryn christensen reported to steve that the last time they met was a month or two ago, when they were working on establishing the travel options for winter study.

the safety committee's rob sawyer reported that recently they have been taking a closer look at fire safety in dorms. they will also be stepping up the retrofitting of dorms with sprinklers.

~ project time ~

joe presented the new CC project board. this is an attempt to keep track of all the projects that various CC members are tackling, as well as an attempt to increase accountability for the completion of these projects. the project board will reside in the CC office and make appearances at all CC meetings. everyone should feel free to take up a project and place it on the board, but on the flip side, reps will feel embarrassed if their project seems to be stalling. that said, here is an update of CC's current projects:

extended snack bar hours – steve and will allen (campus at-large) met with dining services, who cited shortages in storage space and staffing as obstacles to later hours at the snacky-b. they currently have problems storing enough food to satiate williams' students huge late-night appetites, and also did not receive much response from students who would be willing to work some late shifts.

student handbook – garry sanders (campus at-large) would like to increase students' awareness of the student handbook as a resource. he says that many students don't understand that many of the things they want to know can be found in the handbook, and he will be working with the handbook committee to resolve this.

funding for WSP – christina villegas (minco) would like to see winter study travel opportunities made more financially feasible for all williams students. she is currently researching how many students are faced with this dilemma.

computers for financial aid students – nick kerr (minco) is currently trying to get stats on how many students who are on financial aid don't get computers and exploring what difficulties financial aid students face that prevent them from getting computers.

semi-attachable laundry baskets – hate it when your newly washed clothes are strewn all over the laundry room? federico sosa (class of '04) is working on getting steel semi-attachable baskets for the temporary storage of laundry. the baskets are on back order, though, so tom mcevoy (housing) recommended that federico go purchase plastic laundry baskets for now. federico then bemoaned his lack of vehicular transportation. sarah pointed out that both of federico's JA's have cars, and he's free to borrow them anytime. isn't that cute?

access to ice – federico asked CC if they thought students are plagued by the lack of frozen H20 on campus. especially in mission, ice is not accessible 24/7 and federico wondered if this warranted a project. most CC members seemed to think that the ice situation on campus is acceptable. whew.

extended gym hours – craig asked gary guerin from the athletics department how we could re-establish extended gym hours like the ones we had just before spring break? guerin replied, citing budgets restrictions and staffing problems as reasons why the gym returned to regulars. he also offered to meet with craig to discuss possible ways to implement extended gym hours for next year.

centralized calendar – joe reported that the centralized calendar project has been completed and you will see the results all around campus.

~ opinions ~

caroline was excited to report that she received her first (five) opinions this week. they were:

the proposed funding bylaw is not representative enough and the $2000 threshold is too high (to jp)
two hooray-for-first-fridays opinions (to terri)
need a public restroom on spring street (to garry)
one opinion chiding the poor non-alcoholic options at first fridays (to terri)

~ open time ~

steve said that CC funded a SOCA currier club a while back and band never showed. he wanted to know if CC was planning on asking for its money back. since the steel pan band had to play all night, SOCA would like to compensate them $250 for their performance. the remaining $2000 will be returned to CC.

since steve has no life, he was reading over the CC constitution and bylaws and according to those documents, minco representatives to CC are only elected by "self-identified minorities". we should think about revising it to make them elected by the entire campus.

at this point, we returned to discussion on the proposed funding bylaw. steve, who couldn’t stop talking tonight, moved to amend the proposal to add up to four elected members to fincom depending on interest. CC expressed their consent, passing the amendment 21-6-0.

royce moved to reduce the $2000 upper threshold that fincom can entertain to $1500. this amendment passed 15-13-0. CC then voted to implement the bylaw, 25-2-0.

this means that from now on, all funding requests under $1500 will not come before council, but will be directed towards fincom instead, and fincom meetings will be held weekly. contact jp, cc treasurer and fincom chair, regarding funding requests.

~ cinephiles ~

since the cinephiles representative didn't show up to the meeting, jp served as their advocate. however, CC preferred not to fund a group that didn't show up to the meeting, tabling the request until next week in a 25-3-0 vote.

~ closing ~

joe and sarah closed the meeting with an invitation to wednesday night club. joe applauded CC's discussion on the funding issue and sarah reminded CC of the upcoming events: forum on campus advocacy in goodrich (4/17, 9:30 pm) and take back the night (4/18, 9 pm).

respectfully submitted,

craig tamamoto

cc secretary

wso.williams.edu/cc

~ absentees ~

catherine denver (mills/thompson), john phillips (prospect), tracy borawski (tyler), tad hodgson (wood/agard/garfield)

~ current CC project board ~

caroline messmer -wider variety of food @ the log jp -funding bylaws

ching ho -monthly dinners mark rosenthal -parking in greylock

-diversity study

nick kerr -CC/minco softball

christina villegas -funding for WSP -laptops for finaid students

craig tamamoto -extended gym hours sarah barger -CC/minco softball

federico sosa -ice machine in mission steve floyd -snack bar hours

-laundry baskets in williams -library hours

garry sanders -course catalog and handbook will allen -monthly dinners

~ straw poll ~

i have found it very difficult to deliver this information to you more concisely than this. yet i realize that these minutes appear lengthy. do you think my minutes are overly protracted? do you think more people would read the minutes if they were shorter? email me at 02cat if you feel strongly one way or the other. thanks for your input!