College Council is the student government organization at Williams. Its website is http://wso.williams.edu/orgs/cc.
Contents
Structure and Representatives
Ordinarily led by two co-presidents, it includes student representatives of each class, neighborhood, and first year dorm. Council also has a Treasurer, MinCo representative, Secretary and representative from each neighborhood's governance board.
Current Representatives
Fall 2008
Officers:
- Co-president: Peter Nurnberg '09
- Co-president: Jeremy Goldstein '09
- Treasurer: Rachel Levy '09
- Secretary: Emily Deans '09
All-Campus Representatives:
- 2009: Sarah Moore '09
- 2010: Narae Park '10 and Lizzy Brickley '10 (split time)
- 2011: Emanuel Yekutiel '11
- MinCo: Curtis Flournoy '11
Neighborhood Board and At-Large Representatives:
- Currier: Emily George '09, Ifiok Inyang '11
- Dodd: Emily Behrman '09, Andrew Goldston '08
- Spencer: Joya Sonnenfeldt '10, Kieth Butts '09
- Wood: Francesca Barrett '12, Jenny Danzi '09
First-year Representatives:
- Armstrong: Tim Goggins '12
- Dennett: Zach Evans '12
- Mills: Sam Jonynas '12
- Pratt: Austin Davis '12
- Sage: Newton Davis '12
- Williams: Elizabeth Jimenez '12
Past Representatives
Spring 2008
Officers:
- Co-president: Peter Nurnberg '09
- Co-president: Jeremy Goldstein '09
- Treasurer: Rachel Levy '09
- Secretary: Emily Deans '09
All-Campus Representatives:
- 2009: Sarah Moore '09
- 2010: Thomas Rubinsky '10
- 2011: Emanuel Yekutiel '11
- MinCo: Curtis Flournoy '11
Neighborhood Board and At-Large Representatives:
- Currier: Janay Clyde '10
- Dodd: Narae Park '10, Petya Miteva '10
- Spencer: Toni Kraeva '09, Kieth Butts '09
- Wood: Jon Prigoff '08, Rachel Ko '09
First-year Representatives:
- Armstrong: Lane Wang '11
- Dennett: Tasha Chu '11
- Mills: Joseph Kiernan '11
- Pratt: Brian Shepherd '11
- Sage: To be determined '11
- Williams: KK Durante '11
Fall 2007
Full year positions also served in Spring 2007
Officers:
- Co-president: Kim Dacres '08
- Co-president: Morgan Goodwin '08
- Treasurer: Peter Nurnberg '09
- Secretary: Remington Shepard '08
All-Campus Representatives:
- 2008: Diana Jaffe '08
- 2009: Rashid Duroseau '09
- 2010: Elizabeth Brickley '10
- MinCo: Stephanie Kim '10
Neighborhood Board and At-Large Representatives:
- Currier: Vince Powell-Newman '10
- Dodd: Narae Park '10, Andrew Goldston '09
- Spencer: Toni Kraeva '09, Jon Galinsky '10
- Wood: Jon Prigoff '08, Rachel Ko '09
First-year Representatives:
- Armstrong: Lane Wang '11
- Dennett: Peter Huang '11
- Mills: Muhammad Liaqat '11
- Pratt: Brian Shepherd '11
- Sage: Emanuel Yekutiel '11
- Williams: Justin Routt '11
Responsibilities
College Council's three most important functions are:
- Giving students a voice on campus issues.
- Responsibly and fairly funding over 150 student groups and various campus events.
- Providing a starting point for student initiatives to improve the campus or college programs.
CC also appoints all students to the student faculty committees. These selections take place in the middle of the spring semester. For a list of committees, see the CC website's list of committees. For students interested in applying for committee positions, please read the guide for writing a good self-nom.
Elections
College Council elections for the Spring 2008 term will occur February 14-15. Results are available at: College Council Spring 2008 Election Results
Running
Self-nominations will be due February 7; they can be sent to ephelections (at) gmail. The campaign period will be from February 8 to February 15, when the election period itself will end. The officerships, year-long offices, and semester offices are all up for grabs in Spring elections.
Voting
The election will be conducted using the BigPulse electronic election system.
- Everyone will receive a link to his/her electronic ballot via his/her Williams.edu email address.
- This election will use Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). This means that in races with more than two candidates, voters will be asked to order the candidates by preference.
- If any candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, that candidate wins.
- If no candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, the first-choice votes that went to the candidate who did worst will be reallocated to their second choices. This process will repeat until a candidate has won with more than 50% of the vote.
Projects
College Council works on projects suggested by the representatives or members of their constituencies, and has assisted in the success of such projects as bringing Ephporium to Spring Street and the Motorcoach service.
Some Recent Projects
- In the spring of 2006 College Council reps accomplished the projects listed here: Stuff CC has done.
- In the spring of 2007, the newly elected College Council Treasurer wrote and distributed the Nurnberg Funding guide to inform all students about the funding sources available at Williams, the most effective methods for requesting money, and how to use the college's voucher, peoplesoft and purchasing card systems. That guide can be found here.
Projects Completed by the 2008 (into Winter Study and Feb. 2009) CC
- In the spring and fall of 2008, College Council undertook numerous small and large projects. The most expansive project undertaken by that College Council was the College Council initiated Permanent Textbook Reserve Program.
- In the Spring of 2008, College Council worked with members of StandWithUS and other interested parties to create and launch the Committee on Community Interactions (CCI). Here is the Committee on Community Interactions Mandate. The reporting guidelines and deadlines in the mandate were amended at future CC meetings. The CCI's meeting minutes and current representatives can be found here.
- In the Fall of 2008, College Council created a Subcommittee to craft a proposal for a Sophomore Orientation Program. That Subcommittee is currently working on making that proposal a reality. The proposal can be found here: College Council Sophomore Orientation Proposal
- In the Fall of 2008, College Council also established the Facilities Director Committee. This committee meets monthly with the three directors of facilities to provide a space where students can know what changes are being made in the future, while also providing feedback and concerns that are brought to them by their constituents.
- In the fall of 2008, College Council created an All Campus Social Calendar to inform the student body about events on campus and help organizations in their planning processes. Click here to view the calendar. See the All-Campus Social Calendar willipedia page for information about how to post an event on the calendar or subscribe to the calendar manager’s weekly upcoming events email.
- During winter study 2009, College Council brought back the snow sculpture competition. See the Snow Sculpture Competition willipedia page for more information about that competition and pictures of the entries.
- To improve communications between CC and student groups and ensure that all students groups know that CC is dedicated to supporting them, interested in advocating on their behalf and determined to address issues important to them, CC created the CC liaison program in the Spring of 2008 and continued the program in the Fall of 2008. Through this program, all CC members were assigned to be a liaison to a few large student groups. Each liaison is responsible to making contact with the groups he or she represents and determining the best way to foster good communication and effective collaboration between CC and the group the liaison is responsible for representing. Suggested methods of contact include meeting with the group’s leadership a few times a semester or attending the group’s meetings a few times a semester.
- To improve CC’s transparency and ensure that all CC members are accountable to the students they represent, CC instituted a public voting record in the Spring of 2008 and continued the voting record into the Fall of 2008. Under the old practice, the CC Secretary recorded and reported in the minutes the aggregate results of each CC vote. Now, for each official vote, the CC Secretary records how each CC individual CC representative voted. That information will be made available and distributed to the campus at the end of the full year officers’ terms (i.e. right before Spring elections).
- In the Spring and Fall of 2008, CC worked with members of the senior staff—including the Provost, Dean of the Faculty and Dean of the College—to improve the college’s support for club sports teams, ensure that club sport coaches received fair salaries that were annually adjusted for cost of living changes, and create a formal and fair process for approving and recognizing new club sport teams. As part of this process, the senior staff and CC officially defined categories of club sports teams and outlined the support provided by the college to each category of team. See the willipedia page on [Club Sports Policies] for the result of this work.