college council minutes, april 18, 2001

joe (co-pres) started by taking care of a few housekeeping issues at the beginning of this meeting. he reminded CC of its community service project at berkshire farm on 4/29. also, he announced housing committee's decision to divide into two sub-groups, one to deal with residential issues and one to deal with social planning.

he also announced that tuesday, april 17 marked the date for the first campus-restructuring forum. the basic end result of this first forum on student advocacy is a recognition that the current model for student advocacy is pretty effective, with one general advocacy body (CC) and one minority advocacy body (minco).

at this point, sarah (co-pres) updated CC on the voter turnout for the amendment to place the two minco reps to CC on the appointments committee. as of last night's meeting, 40% of the campus has voted in this amendment. since the results are worthless unless 50% of the campus votes on this amendment, we need approximately 200 more votes. polls close today at 11:59 pm, so log on to jose.williams.edu and vote! vote yes…vote no…heck, there's even an 'I don't care' option designed especially for apathetic voters.

lastly, sarah recognized rory kramer (minco co-chair) and congratulated him on his election as minco co-chair with renee robinson. both joe and sarah expressed their eagerness to work closely with rory and renee.

alison stewart came before council on behalf of w(h)ufo to request extra funds for the spring semester. w(h)ufo projected an increase of 5 new members this spring and got 14 instead. in addition to paying UPA membership dues for these players, they just learned that they must travel to yale to compete in regionals. CC voted to fund the request, 27-0-1.

we are in the midst of gratitude days 2001 and dave walfish (faculty) requested $323.68, most of which would be used to pay for mahalograms. gratitude days is an attempt to group together many of the events taking place around this time of the year, including earth week, mahalograms, and run for a cure, and to get the campus thinking more about gratitude in general. in addition to the traditional mahalograms, walfish plans to have temporary tattoos of the chinese symbol for "thank you". ching ho (campus at-large) called on the williams campus to "share a little more love" and CC responded by sharing $323.68 worth of love, 28-0-1.

megan voeller, representing cinephiles, asked CC for $976.00 to allow her organization to show two more films before the end of the year, "following" and "gohatto". many members of CC were hesitant to fund this large sum of money due to the historically low audience at past movies shown by cinephiles. ben thompson (bryant/woodbridge) proposed to cut out the fee structure, increasing the amount CC would have to fund by $60 (to $1036), but allowing students to view the movies free of charge. CC supported this change, realizing that this negligible increase in price may cause a substantial increase in viewing interest, and ratified this amendment to the original proposal, 20-7-1. CC then decided to bring both of these movies to campus in a 16-10-2 vote.

meg inners (floyd's entry) asked CC to recognize this new organization devoted to increasing awareness "about the importance of reproductive rights". inners was quick to point out that voice for choice was not created to oppose williams for life. that would mean that they're pro-death, and well, they're not. CC readily recognized this group, 27-0-2.

joe introduced this issue by challenging CC to thin k of a better place where we could have meetings. baxter lounge is good enough, but it certainly has its drawbacks, including noise from the snack bar. one way to decrease the noise is to close the double-doors, but that fosters a feeling of isolation and secrecy. how do we resolve this dilemma?

garry sanders (campus at-large) recommended moving meetings to the goodrich great hall. it may be noisier than baxter lounge even, but students would be more immediately aware of CC's current status. caleb fassett (off-campus) suggested placing CC meetings on the central calendar so people know they're welcome. terri o'brien (gladden) proposed the idea of a roving location for CC meetings (for example, having one meeting a month in goodrich). this would make CC more accessible and more accountable to the student body. ching paced back and forth and threw up his arms in frustration on this topic while complaining that baxter lounge sucks. time ran out, but this discussion will continue, as it seems that there is an interest in relocating CC meetings.

christina villegas (minco) reported that recently, in conjunction with the powerful latino studies initiative, there was a meeting with president schapiro, the provost, dean roseman, and other very important people. at this meeting, it became clear that the senior staff is ready to act upon what they heard in the past few weeks. senior staff is going to give an FTE (full time equivalent) for latino studies, which is a major step towards the improvement of latino studies at williams. if you would like to see CEP consider this latino studies initiative more closely next year, please e-mail laurie.heatherington@williams.edu with that suggestion.

hopefully, by now, you're familiar with the constitutional amendment and its goals. if you're not clear on exactly what the amendment means, here's an explanation. currently the minco and campus at-large reps are elected by the same procedures (all-campus popular vote). yet, only the campus at-large reps, together the class reps, are on the appointments committee. voting yes to this proposal would place the two minco reps on the very important appointments committee (the appointments committee appoints students to student-faculty committees like CEP, CUL, and Dining Services). vote on jose! vote yes, vote no, just vote.

sarah announced that we have reached 40% of possible voters in the constitutional amendment. as of the beginning of the meeting, 200 additional votes were needed to make the results of the ballot valid.

since there is no guarantee that 50% of the campus will vote on this amendment, nick kerr (minco) expressed his desire for a safety net in case voter turnout is below 50%. he proposed a bylaw that would allow the minco representatives to hold voting power on a subcommittee of the appointments committee. this subcommittee would be responsible to the appointments committee and the appointments committee could veto or overturn any decision made by the subcommittee. due to less than ideal timing (the appointments committee is meeting on this sunday), this proposal could not wait until next week's CC meeting, when the voting results would be known. craig tamamoto (secretary) reminded CC that if the student body failed to clearly state its position (by virtue of a less than 50% turnout) then it becomes the duty of CC representatives to speak on behalf of their constituents to the best of their abilities.

still, CC decided not to pass the proposal by a vote of 12-14-2. but don't go away…more to come during open time…

heather matthews is planning a multi-cultural potluck on sunday evening in conjunction with earth day. its objective is to bring together groups from all walks of campus life, and so is requesting $250 from the intergroup fund to help participating groups subsidize food expenditures for this event. CC voted unanimously to fund the multi-cultural potluck, 27-0-0.

according to a recently passed bylaw, greensense was not allowed on the agenda since it did not file its request two weeks prior to the event. daniel shearer of greensense explained some of the mitigating circumstances that surrounded this late notice. supposedly greensense thought it had its funding sources determined, but they came up short. since the original request was filed on sunday, they were able to find some money from another source, so they cut their funding request from $600 to $450. the purpose of the bylaw was to prevent last-minute funding of speakers, just like this. the speaker spoke once on wednesday night and again on thursday. CC decided that it would like to hear the case pleaded directly from the mouth of the organizer, so greensense was asked to return again next week with carlos silva.

steve floyd (campus at-large) reported that starting the second week of may, schow and sawyer will be open on fridays and saturdays until 1 am.

nick kerr brought CC back to discussion on the constitutional amendment. he proposed another bylaw that would add the minority representatives as non-voting members to the appointments committee. like the previous proposal, this would only be enacted if the student body chose not to speak one way or the other (less than 50% voter turnout). after brief discussion, the proposal* passed, 24-2-1. it is important to note that this is merely a contingency plan that will only be enacted if less than half the campus votes on the amendment.

joe and sarah wrapped up this meeting very quickly so people could go to take back the night.

cc secretary

tim patterson (frosh council), tim karpoff (mark hopkins), mike winton (pratt), tracy borawski (tyler), meg cooley (west/spencer)