[welcome]

Ami Parekh (Co-President) and Todd Rogers (Co-President) tackled the first council meeting by presenting an outline of what their goals are for this year’s council. Todd listed three central objectives they have: combating social fragmentation, increasing political awareness and involvement on campus, and making college council more accessible and effective.

To that end, Ami announced the continuation of two projects begun last year – The Log, after its emergency shutdown last year, is back up and running thanks in a large part to the efforts of James Moorhead (Class of 2001 Rep). The New York Times is also back in action, thanks to Jonathan Pahl ’03, and the Purple Bubble group. We are receiving 125 papers for all of campus, so please leave them in common areas.

Todd also addressed several other changes that College Council has initiated: the Resource Room on the second floor of Goodrich is now open to all students and groups, and has some new computers (both IBM and Mac) online. He and Ami have also started a group called Student Leaders of Small Colleges, which is essentially a network of college councils around New England. We will be using this to get information on how other colleges do things, which in turn should give us a solid foundation for many of our monetary requests from campus administrators.

Finally, Todd announced that the Class of 1971 has set up a fund to sponsor high-profile speakers in debates on campus that may be broadcast on NPR. The debates will concern issues that are directly relevant to many students, such as a discussion on the effects and legality of Napster.

[all about council]

The next thirty minutes of the meeting were devoted to an overview and introduction to the constitution and bylaws of college council, and the voting procedures of council. Although this is necessarily dry material, it is also necessary material, and such a review is required by a bylaw. Ami and Todd livened things up a bit by skipping over the boring parts and passing out candy. Well, not exactly skipping. At any rate, I present to you my personal overview of the constitution and minutes below. Keep in mind that my rephrasing probably won’t be the most fascinating thing you’ve read today, but it may help you understand more about council. And if it is the most fascinating thing you’ve read today … Well, you can read more at the College Council web site (more on that later).

[the constitution]

The goal of College Council is to create a representative government for Williams students. As representatives, the council has two major functions: (1) as a forum of public opinion, and (2) as a funding body. For the former function, council appoints members to and hears reports from various student-faculty committees. We also help students get in contact with administrators that can help them, and we help administrators to gather student opinion. As a funding organization, Council receives an activities tax out of each student’s tuition, and uses those funds to promote (guess what?) student activities.

The constitution goes on to describe who’s on council, how it’s conducted, and how the student body can overthrow – overturn – council’s decisions. The full constitution is on the web site.

[bylaws]

Ami and Todd only went over the newly updated bylaws in this meeting; there will be a couple more in the next. So, here they are, in gory detail:

College Council provides two main services for groups. The first is recognition of student groups. This recognition is based on a group’s mission and interest, and, once recognized, gives groups certain privileges, like free DA ads, consideration for funding, and free copies in the resource room. Council also provides funding for College-Council-recognized student groups. We have various guidelines about where the money can go (publicity, yes; beer, no). If you want your group to be recognized and/or funded by College Council, email me (02jtm) and we’ll put you in the agenda.

The other bylaws concern the reporting of student-faculty groups to council (once a month), the semesterly review of the bylaws and constitution, and how the funding system works, among other things. These bylaws are online at the college council website (address below).

[money]

Ryan Mayhew (Treasurer) introduced our current financial situation: less money, more groups. Here’s a quick and dirty outline of how funding works: newly groups come to council, get recognized, and get funded out of a "General Fund" (this year it’s around $32,000). Once a group has been funded for a full year, it is moved into a "subgroup" – basically, a collection of student groups with similar goals (i.e., there’s an Athletics & Tournaments subgroup that includes WUFO, Rugby, Water Polo, and Cycling). At the beginning of the year, the Financial Committee (FinCom) makes recommendations about how much money each group should receive based on their budget and how much they spent last year. FinCom then totals these requests in each subgroup, and comes up with a breakdown of the total budget (this year it’s $256,425.97) in subgroups. College Council approves the subgroup allocations, then the treasurers from each of the groups meet and divvy up the amount of money in their subgroup, and then the final budgets come back to council for approval.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But this year, we have less money than ever before due to somewhat reckless spending by council last year, more student groups in subgroups, and a smaller student body (and thus less money coming from the student activities tax). In fact, we have so much less than last year that even after FinCom pruned and hacked groups’ budgets, they still had to impose an across-the-board 10% cut to keep college council in the black. Don’t panic about your student group disappearing due to lack of funding – we’re working on getting more money into council. Things are just a bit tight right now.

Ryan then turned the meeting over to the business of approving FinCom’s recommended subgroup allocations. (Rounded-Off Summary: Activism, $10K; Arts, $12.4K; Athletics & Tournaments I, $37K; Athletics & Tournaments II, $17K; Campus Services, $106K; CC Operations, $9.4K; Music, $9K; Publications, $10.3K; Spiritualism, $6.4K; General Fund, $32K; Intergroup Fund, $2K; Nationals Fund, $5K). Tim Karpoff (Co-Op Rep) asked about why we seem to have less left in the general fund, down $40,000 or so from two years ago. Ryan explained that the decrease is related to both the smaller budget and the movement of many groups that were formerly funded out of the general fund to subgroups. Council voted to approve the subgroup allocations 22-3-2.

[opinions]

There were two opinions this week:

Someone requested the paving of Mission lower lot, an issue that comes up every year. Mayo will look into it.

Several students wrote in about the pre-emptive anti-buying-alcohol-if-you’re-a-student move of the WPD. Apparently all liquor store owners in the area have been politely informed that Massachusetts State Law recognizes only a couple valid forms of identification – a Massachusetts state license, a Mass. non-resident ID ($25), or military ID. Council will be working on this issue, and Tim (01tak) offered to answer this opinion directly.

[members open time]

Every meeting, members of council and members of the student body are invited to speak about any issue on their minds.

John Phillips (Prospect Rep) wrote an article in the Real Deal about the student activities tax. Essentially, he would remove funding from the Activism subgroup, and instead give every student a voucher that he could put toward an activist group or groups of his choice. Please read the editorial; council will be discussing this issue in a future meeting.

Princess Alegre (MinCo Rep) announced that a Beverly Tatum will be giving a lecture about "Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria" in TCL 206 at 8:00pm Thursday. There will be a discussion forum after the lecture in Jenness House.

James Moorhead is trying to get every varsity team to do a community service project during their off-season. AD Sheehy is very excited about the project. James envisions the project in three stages that will start with one day of community service during the off-season, and eventually, in two or three years, having athletic teams and groups working on a service project together for a day.

Terri O’Brien (Gladden Rep) is on the Dining Services Committee, and she can take your opinion on how to improve the food on this campus. Email 02tco.

Mayo, College Council’s liaison with Housing Committee, reported that Jean Thorndyke announced a ban on drinking games in Monday Night’s Housing Committee meeting. Apparently drinking games, regardless of one’s age, are now off-limits in dorms. This specifically concerns beer pong, but could also include coins, cups, and cards, all of which can be confiscated at an officer’s concern. Matthew Wessler (Off-Campus Rep) also informed council that 40s are illegal, which caused Nishant Nayyar (At-Large Rep) visible distress. Mayo will be working on this problem with the Housing Committee. Feel free to email him (03mas_2) or opinions.

Nishant related that security walkthroughs are still happening in freshman dorms, but Sarah replied that the officers are being great about how they handle the freshmen, and the walkthroughs really aren’t a big deal for her.

[in closing]

Coming up in the next couple weeks for council: both President Shapiro and Dean Roseman will be attending meetings, and we will be giving out the Faculty, Staff, and Administrator of the Year Awards.

[notes from the secretary]