~ liar, liar, pants on fire ~

college council minutes

september 25, 2001

~ opening ~

joe masters (co-president) started up the meeting by welcoming everyone and announcing the appointment of the amendment supervisory committee (ASC). the appointed students are nishant nayyar ’02, healy thompson ’03, tom white ’04, sarah pesin ’04, and drew thompson ‘05. they are in charge of soliciting feedback from the campus at-large on how student governance should change, or if it in fact student governance now is satisfactory. he also said that this meeting would be short (LIAR!).

joe went on to say how productive the town hall meeting this past sunday was on CC’s current hot topic, the mad cow. he also announced the williamstown film festival (free movies starring sigourney weaver!) is going on and that students should check it out if they’re interested.

along the lines of performance, sarah barger (co-president) announced that there is a play being put on in bennington called "spinning into butter". it is based on events that happened at williams a few years ago, and it might be interesting for students to see. also, the benefit concert for the victims of the september 11^th tragedies raised over $1400. thank you to everyone for the compassion they have shown in the past two weeks, and special thanks to dave goodman ’03 and eliza segell ’04 for coordinating the awesome event.

dean roseman was asked to join CC this week for an informational session on what kinds of action the dean’s office can take against a student or group of students when a complaint is brought against them. she was joined by andrew woolf ’02, the student chair of the honor and discipline committee. dean roseman first referenced us to the student handbook (yeah, that thing you jot down all your hot dates in…it’s got important information pertaining to this on or around page 135). it describes the rights and responsibilities students have to each other and to the community.

she also wanted to make clear the distinction between the honor committee and the discipline committee. the honor committee hears cases and then makes a suggestion to the dean’s office regarding what type of punishment should be exercised. on the other hand, when something is brought before the discipline committee (comprised of students and faculty), its decisions are the final word, and there is no appeals process. in the midst of this lengthy explanation, dean roseman wanted to remind us that the most important aspect of this process, though, is education.

she and andrew then fielded questions. charlie davidson (dennett) asked if students were involved in the actual determination of the rules themselves? dean roseman answered that the students would have to directly petition the trustees to consider that, because it is explicitly stated that the faculty decides what the rules of conduct are. she also urged us to consider, though, that the language in the text is intentionally designed to be general and vague, so that the discipline committee can be flexible and understanding (but not flimsy).

tom cubeta (carter) wanted to know what the dean’s office did specifically in response to the mad cow situation. dean roseman said that she did nothing. intervention on the part of the deans’ office threatened to usurp CC’s power of self-governance, and while this is a tough decision for CC to make, CC must face that decision rather than shy away from it. she added that she would have listened to a particular grievance that was brought to her by any individual student, but that no such grievance was made.

perhaps the most straightforward question was posed by michael henry (mills/thompson), who asked dean roseman if she thinks CC has the power to derecognize groups that it has previously recognized. dean roseman replied simply that that is up to CC to decide. she did add, however, that "the tragedy of last spring was that a discussion about race that this campus needed to have turned into a discussion of free speech."

lastly, andrew woolf announced that anyone who is interested in knowing more about the honor and discipline committee can visit their website at http://www.williams.edu/resources/honor/index.html.

josh burns, chair of SAC, announced that the first concert of the year is this friday night, featuring tommy-boy recording-artist rustic overtones. doors open at 8:15 with the opening act — the dave goodman band - getting started at 8:30. tickets are $1 for williams students ($5 for others) and are on sale all week in baxter mailroom from 11-1. SAC is also looking for people to work the door and to help with loading and unloading of equipment. you will be rewarded with money and/or free tickets for your assistance. email 02jmb if you can help out.

one of the writers for the mad cow stated their desire to be recognized again. he said, "we’ve cleaned up our act. we’re writing articles about sports, profs…we’re going back to the basics of humor". he added that CC recognition would really be a boost and a step in the direction of free speech.

~ council business ~

democrats @ williams, represented by keith ericson, asked for CC recognition in an attempt to revitalize the democratic student group. hall o’donnell (tyler/annex) asked if the "@" was a part of the club name, and ericson replied affirmatively. CC voted to recognize democrats @ williams, 26-0-1 (1).

vivian ko came before CC to request recognition for a new student group, dancesport. they will provide professional instruction in ballroom and latin-american dancing, and also compete in college dancesport competitions. freeden oeur (JA) asked vivian to do the foxtrot, but joe intervened, arguing that it wasn’t necessary for her to perform to gain recognition. hall suggested that perhaps they should also consider asking the athletic department to award PE credit for the club, and mayo shattuck (gladden) added that they may even agree to help pay for it. in any case, CC approved, 26-0-1 (2).

the feast sought club recognition from CC, as well. they are an inclusive community of people who create a space for honest discussion (usually over a hearty home-cooked meal) in which all questions and doubts regarding faith, justice, and service have a place. the feast was recognized, 22-3-2 (3).

emmett tracy asked CC to recognize the irish society as a club at williams. as part of their celebration of irish culture, this group would hope to organize two all-campus parties (one in the spring centered around st. paddy’s day), and also to work towards turning the first and third thursdays at the log into "irish pub night". CC recognized the irish society, 25-0-1 (4).

and in the granddaddy of them all (for club recognition, anyway), craig wadman and rob carroll came to CC to gain recognition for the guinness club. in brief, this club would undertake one "special project" each year aimed at gaining entrance into the guinness book of world records. according to their mission statement, "the projects of the club will enhance the camaraderie of williams college, williamstown, and possibly other institutions". CC voted unanimously to recognize the group, 27-0-0 (5).

according to a bylaw passed last year, the general fund this year will be allocated by the general fund allocation committee (GFAC), whose suggestions CC can either vote to accept or reject. the GFAC consists of members of the finance committee (fincom) and at least one, but up to four CC members selected by council. so that we can process funding requests from clubs, we asked members of CC to nominate themselves for appointment. five members, scott grinsell (armstrong), hall o’donnell, federico sosa (class of ’04), michael henry, and charlie davidson nominated themselves for this position. we asked these candidates to leave the room, and much debate ensued on what is the best way to appoint these positions. eventually, however, many CC members voiced their concern that they did not yet know many of the candidates, and would prefer to not make an uninformed appointment . thus, craig tamamoto (secretary) moved to postpone the decision until next week’s meeting, sending a temporary representative to this sunday’s GFAC meeting. this vote ended in a tie, 11-11-0 (6), but sarah and joe agreed that we should send a temporary representative, breaking the tie in favor of the motion. some CC members thought that we should send one of the five candidates, but in the end, it was decided that this might be unfair for the other candidates. cubeta moved to send tamamoto as a temporary member of GFAC, and the vote passed 16-6-5 (7).

JP (treasurer) began by giving a general briefing of how the allocation procedure went. according to him, most of the meetings ran smoothly, but a few groups didn’t show up, and generally their budgets got cut by a lot. he also mentioned that many of the increases in groups’ allocation suggestions can be explained by the increase in the student activities tax. if CC does not approve of a particular subgroup’s allocation, though, we can remove them from the slate and just vote on the other subgroups. then the removed subgroup’s treasurers would have to go back and deliberate their budgets and allocations again.

on behalf of greensense, federico spoke up. he relayed to CC that the treasurer (jenny roizen) forgot about the meeting. he has spoken to the members of this group and they realize that they have screwed up. he added that these groups have done a lot on campus, and should be allocated their money.

JP then added that amnesty international has decided not to spend its allocation for this year. thanks to information from an outside source (thanks kim quigley!) we found out that much of amnesty’s leadership is away for the year, so amnesty decided not to spend any of the money they were allocated this year.

fede moved to remove the activism subgroup (including greensense and amnesty international) from the slate so that the treasurers can go back and deliberate again. the motion failed, 8-15-3 (8).

CC then voted to approve the subgroup allocations suggested by fincom, 25-0-1 (9).

~ unfinished business ~

NONE! ha. that was easy. oh wait, it’s not over…the most exciting part is yet to come!

~ new business ~

zach kung (currier/fitch) brought the tabled motion on the revokation of the mad cow decision before CC once again. joe and sarah first asked for non-CC members to voice their opinions.

mike pinkel stood up and his pages of notes weren’t far behind. in an eloquent plea to CC, he started by expressing the apology of the mad cow and even said, "if it’s ever unclear as to whether we apologized before, ask me, and i will apologize again." he went on to assert that, at a college the following principle applies: "without vigorous discourse, there is no academy," and cited the mission of the gaudino forums: "to provide for uncomfortable learning." he closed by challenging CC to "encourage discourse at every turn".

mike’s speech received substantial applause, but did not go unopposed. in response, shehryar qureshi (dodd complex) declared that with great freedom and power comes great responsibility. free speech does not mean you can just go up to someone and mouth off whatever you feel at any given time. he implored CC members to consider this when voting on this motion.

sharifa wright (wood/agard/garfield) accepted that there are people who believe that CC had no place in making this decision at all, but she still maintains that CC has the power to do what we did last spring. it is especially important to consider this in light of dean roseman’s words earlier tonight, which basically left the proverbial ball in CC’s court to decide what kind of action we want to take.

nathan winstanley (pratt) voiced the hesitation of a few CC members, when he said that he simply wasn’t ready to make a decision on revokation when there was no plan for how to deal with these situations in the future. that was not enough to prevent the vote, however, and CC revoked the decision made last spring to derecognize the mad cow in a 17-6-1 (10) vote. it should be mentioned here that CC IS INVESTIGATING various avenues and attempting to determine the most appropriate steps that should be taken were this type of situation to arise again in the future.

mayo moved to move this amount of money, which represents amnesty international’s allocation, back to the general fund from the activism subgroup since fincom’s original allocation was calculated to include amnesty international’s budget.

fede argued that we should see more activism on this campus, not less, so we should keep this money in the subgroup. darlene forde(prospect) argued for the motion, however; "who’s to say activism is more important than culturalism or other subgroups?".

caroline messmer (class of ’02) would prefer to move the money at a later date, when we have a more concrete situation on hand. currently, the money cannot be spent by any of the groups because it is "frozen"; even though it sits in the activism subgroup, it has not been allocated to any specific group, so no one is authorized to spend that money.

for the second time this meeting, the vote ended in a tie 10-10-2 (11), and so the decision fell to the co-presidents. if they are not unified in their support for the motion, it automatically fails. in this situation, such a difference of opinion occurred, so the motion failed.

garry sanders (all-campus) brought up an idea for a possible avenue of censure that CC might consider for implementation in the future dealings with its organizations. he has not worked out the details, but basically it would be a warning system that had a "memory window" of four years. the proposal is not yet ready to present to CC, however, so this is just to inform CC of an idea that is in the works. when a more complete proposal is ready, he will bring it before council.

steve floyd (all-campus) moved that we amend our bylaws to require that we have quorum established on every single vote taken by CC. as it is, the constitution and bylaws afford that once quorum is established at the beginning of each meeting (by virtue of presence for the first vote), people can leave during the meeting and quorum is not affected. floyd considers this a serious threat to any sort of legitimacy and democracy that CC can have in any decision it makes.

zach hesitates to say that people can just get up and leave and all of a sudden we can’t take a vote.

checking his watch and reading the faces of the other CC members, JP moved to postpone this motion until next meeting. his motion passed 15-6-1 (12).

charlie davidson announced his desire to get involved in the movement to reinstate drinking games on campus. but that can wait until another time. seriously though, he feels strongly that the ban on drinking games is dangerous, and is planning on meeting with dean roseman on the issue.

mark rosenthal (class of ’03) wanted to have a record of an official commitment on the part of CC to address the issues of funding and recognition, so he moved to have CC discuss future issues or funding and recognition of controversial CC groups. this motion passed, 21-1-0 (13).

~ closing ~

what a meeting. great job everyone. see you next week. the meeting will return to wednesday night at 7:30 pm, but the location will be GRIFFIN 6. don’t get lost.

respectfully submitted,

craig tamamoto

CC secretary

02cat@williams.edu

~ absentees ~

nick kerr (minco)