Todd stated that the committee has begun planning next years lecture series. In contrast to the lecture series this year, next year’s series is not going to have an overriding theme (this year’s theme was "The necessity of Failure") — instead, they are just going for the best and biggest names possible. Any comments or concerns about the lecture committee? Email Todd at 01ttr.

The CDC just had meeting where they compiled all the information that they had collected over the year. Over the course of this past year, the primary "projects" of the CDC were 1) to analyze the distribution of minority students in freshmen housing. It was noticed that minority students tend to get clustered in certain freshmen dorms and the committee spoke to Tom McEvoy as to whether there were any reasons as to why this seemed to be the case. 2) The committee spoke about financial aid and admissions policies on campus in order to assess whether the college was doing an adequate job of attracting minority students. 3) The committee assessed freshmen first days and whether it was possible to make it possible for students to participate in both WOW/ALANA and WOOLF trips. 4) The CDC also focused in on the college’s recruitment and retention of minority faculty, which seems to be one of the biggest problems they see in the composition of the faculty at present at Williams. 5) They also assessed the academic success of minority students in comparison to non-minority students. The new video addressing what it is to be a minority at Williams, which will be shown to first years at first days next year, will be shown at the last CDC meeting. Todd Rogers ‘01 questioned whether SPARC was part of CDC. Medha said no, but that the Williams College Community Builders are the folk that are responsible for the SPARC workshops, and that they have made changes to next year’s program and are extremely excited about next fall.

Comments, Questions? Email 00mjk.

Remember last year when Cathy Booty, the Pratt custodian, and Professor Singleton won awards and dinner at Hobson’s Choice because students took the time to nominate them and tell us why they were the best staff or faculty/administration members on campus? Well it is that time of year again and we are waiting to hear from all of you as to who should win this years awards. The deadline for nominations — May 7^th. Any questions or concern email me at 01ampJ .

*****Elections Supervisory Committee Bylaw and proposed amendment to the Constitution :

Nishant Nayarr ’02 proposed amendments to the constitution and a changed elections bylaw because at present the elections committee sometimes get caught between defending the council and supervising the elections. Nishant Nayarr ‘02, Phil Fernbach ’01, Tim Karpoff ’01, Matt Haldeman ‘02, Heather Matthews’02, Medha Kirtane’00, Erin Troy’01 and Bert Leatherman discussed whether the actual composition of the elections supervisory committee should be in the amendment to the constitution — not just in the changed bylaw. Sean Glasheen’01, Tim Karpoff’01, and Phil Fernbach ‘01 discussed the fact that the council shouldn’t worry about what type of amendment the students will come out and vote for, instead we should just focus on what we feel needs to be changed. Bert Leatherman ‘00 came up with an idea for solving the "elections committee" problem without actually changing the constitution. It was possible to change the present state of the elections committee by simply changing the bylaws. Garren Bird ’99 proposed the idea that the new bylaw completely eliminate the role of the presidents in elections. Ryan Mayhew ’01 asked the question whether the elections supervisory committee would also be responsible for the house elections in the fall and in the spring because this was not clarified in the proposed amendment. The Council then voted on whether we found in necessary to begin the process towards amending the constitution itself. The council decided that making a constitutional amendment was not necessary. The vote -- 6-15-1.

The council then voted on the elections supervisory committee bylaw as proposed by Nishant Nayarr ‘02 including amendments to the bylaw stating that the supervisory committee presides only over the all-campus elections and that the supervisory committee is responsible to the elections committee. The vote (after days of discusion): 22-0-0. The final draft of the NEW BYLAW will be on the college council web page soon.

Medha reported that people representing all different groups on campus will be meeting at Mt. Hope with a portion of the Presidential Selection Committee this weekend to inform the committee of what they would like to see in the ideal future president. Thursday May 6^th, 6-8 — goodrich living room — all students can come and speak to members of the presidential selection committee about what they want in their future president. Students can also email any comments about the search committee or what they want to see in the next college president to: Search@williams.edu or any questions can be sent to 00nab_2, 00amw, 00mjk, or 00raw.

Bert reported that three students from Williams went to a forum with students from other NESCAC schools. He reported that the present team restriction won’t be in effect until next year. The students were very optimistic that teams will be able to go nationals.

COMING BACK - Tuesday May 4 : 11AM-1:30PM. THE TOPIC -- WHAT DO YOU WANT COLLEGE COUNCIL TO DO NEXT YEAR?…CANDY WILL BE THERE…

The Goodrich committee and the college council officers met last week to try to establish a concrete bylaw defining the relationship between CC and the committee. Presently it is a HOT TOPIC that needs to be discussed more. The main question is whether the CC should have veto power over decisions made by the Goodrich committee. DON’T FORGET TO RESPOND TO THE GOODRICH SURVEYJ

More questions concerning goodrich?— email Janet Iwasa.

*****OPINIONS — Student Requests -

--Transitional and summer housing should be the same so that students don’t have to move twice during the summer. — Sheraz Choudary ’00 looking into this.

-- Bert Leatherman sent in an opinion that reserve desk hours at sawyer should close at nine and not at 8:45. It was partially due to the fact that the reserve desk closed earlier than Bert expected, that he ended up getting locked in the library this past w eekend-security is still giving him bad looks. Virginia Pyle ’00 is looking into extending reserve desk hours.

--an opinion regarding substance free housing was sent to us — Owen Boger’01 will be responding to this

-- A student requested that a student written evaluation booklet for courses be established — this is already on the council’s agenda for the coming yearJ

--A student suggested computerizing elections because this would lead to a the larger turnout — Ryan Mayhew ’01, Erin Troy ’01 and Todd Rogers ‘01 are looking into it.

--Bernhard Music Center should be opened later —Sheraz Choudary’00 is on this one.

-- A complaint was sent to opinions regarding the fact that the suites in prospect are unisex and that this was not publicized during housing draw, leading to much confusion and upset students. Supposedly, the housing department’s reason for why the suites are unisex, is that they can’t have girls and guys living next to eachother without locks on the doors that connect the rooms because it is a fire hazard — sparks may fly!

Ami Parekh ’01 brought up the fact that there have been numerous housing draw problems in general this year — students have complained about lies being told to them at the housing draw and of misinformation. People looking into the problems — me, Todd Rogers ’01, Sheraz choudary ’00, Virginia Pyle ’00, Erin Troy ’01 and Tim Karpoff ’01.

Bert Leatherman ’00 reminded students to nominate themselves for the remaining COMMITTEE POSITIONS. Owen Boger ’01 stated that it would be better if election material be sent to the class list servers instead of the "all-students" list server because many students are unsubscribed from that list.