7:03 | The Council Meeting begins with a report from Chair of the Judicial Board Dan Salton ‘10. “I was sent here on behalf odf the jud board and the daen of students office to inform you about a change in how student conduct is being done here. Traditionally, until last week, disciplinary conduct is divided into two parts: you’re either dealt with by a house advisor or by a more serious college regulations trial overseen by administrators and students. Over the last few months, we’ve been developing a new format to act as a new option—there will be student conduct panels, which are basically miniature squads formed out by the judicial board instead of the house advisors. In cases that are slightly contentious, students will be sent to a panel of three judicial board members who will act in the house advisor’s stead. They will listen to the person, take a vote and then decide on the penalty if it is decided that one is deserved.” This will “increase our student governance significantly,” says Salton.

7:10 | 2011 asks if decisions made by the student conduct panels will be final ones. Salton explains that the Dean of Students felt confident enough with the students on the judicial board to give them the final call on such minor disciplinary matters. Salton says that the student conduct panels will not address anything that would normally be handled by a college regulations panel. He points to drinking fire safety issues as an example of the kind of infraction handled by the student conduct panels.

7:12 | Salton: “We’re not positive yet whether students will be able to chose whether they’d like to have a student conduct panel versus a house advisor try them. I’d like to make that an option that students could have.”

7:17 | Committee Report from ViCE from Peter Denny ‘10: “Jazz Night has been doing really well, and After Hours has been working on some really interesting projects with making music videos” and a pre Founder’s Day show, says Denny. “Special Events has a big party coming up right after break. The theme is Miami Vice. We’re working with the senior class and it will be in conjunction with 50 Nights. The main event will be in UpCDC and will be DJed by student DJs. Amanda Blank will be the headliner for this show, which will be a really big draw for some students.” Her music is hip-hop based, according to Denny.

7:20 | Denny adds that after selling tickets today for the Flaming Lips concert in April, ViCE has already sold 600 Vassar tickets. “After the student tickets have been taken care of, we’ll be doing more outreach to other colleges in the area,” says Denny.

7:31 | Executive Report from Operations: “Mind the Gap was incredibly successful this year,” says Operations. “We’re suprisingly up on giving—last year’s participation average for young graduates was 17 percent. We’re already up to 19 percent and the fiscal year is barely getting started.”

7:40 | Council begins discussion of capital budgeting for the spring 2010 semester. The budget is passed.

8:00 | Council adjourned.

Reading Matthew Vassar’s will

7:02 | President introduces special guest Vice President for Computing and Information Services Bret Ingerman, who announces that “starting in the fall of 2010, you will not be able to plug in a phone in your room,” says Ingerman. “For life safety issues, we’re going to be installing hall phones in every residence halls.”

7:07 | Ingerman explains that this year was the first that the College didn’t offer long distance telephone service in residence halls. This saved the College approximately five to 10 thousand dollars, says Ingerman, who adds that removing phones completely from each individual room will eventually save the College up to one quarter to one half a million dollars.

7:13 | “We’re about to engage in a study about cell phone service in specific residence halls,” explains Ingerman, saying that the College hopes to locate the weakest service points on campus.

7:24 | Council representatives report various problems with VPrint to Ingerman.

7:31 | Students ask Ingerman if there is a fax machine on campus available for student use. While Ingerman did not know of one and felt that the demand for a public fax machine would be relatively low, Alyssa Pabalan ’10—Student Assistant to the President and Career Development Office (CDO) intern—explains that there is in fact a fax machine for students in the CDO.

7:52 | Finance moves to allocate $1000 from the Council Discretionary Fund to Pro-Health for their annual Relay for Life event this spring. Motion passes unanimously.

7:54 | Finance moves to allocate $1000 from the Hosting Fund to the Vassar Prison Initiative for the 2010 Green Haven Reunion. Motion passes unanimously.

8:00 | Finance moves to allocate $1000 from the Council Discretionary Fund to 2010 to aid the Daisy Chain in purchasing dresses for this spring’s commencement ceremony. Motion passes.

7:02 | Sustainability Committee Report: While no representatives from the committee were able to attend, Operations explains that the committee has been working to “putting together a common-sense guide to sustainable programming at Vassar.”

7:03 | Executive Report from the President: The President explains that she has mostly been working on a report for the Board of Trustees, who will be visiting campus on the weekend of Feb. 26. Of the topics addressed in the report, several will include “admin review of study abroad, public art in ACDC and the library, as well as the planned 24-hour study space in the Library.”7:07 | Motion to allocate $530 from the Speakers and Lectures Fund to Philaletheis passes unanimously.

7:08 | Activities moves to certify the Vassar Islamic Society. We’ve been around for 2 and a half years. The President of the group begins by saying that the Islamic Society’s “main goal is to increase Islamic awareness on campus,” he said. “We’re also a support group for Islamic students on campus. This is a very important organization to have on campus.” The motion passes unanimously.

7:15 | Open Discussion: South Commons announces that the Rowing Team will be having a 24-hour ergathon in the coming weeks to fundraise for the team’s spring break trip to Florida.

7:17 | Council adjourned.

6:12 | Student Life announces that the Athletics Proposal endorsed by the Council this September was approved by the Committee on Curricular Policy (CCP). The proposal will next travel to the faculty before it is approved completely.

6:20 | Committee Report from CCP from Academics: “We talked about the relationship between departments and programs in the curriculum. There was a course proposal that sparked a conversation about who gets to teach what and how that’s determined.” Strong adds that there is a subcommittee working to administer Course Evaluation Questionnaires online.

6:26 | The Council discusses a resolution in support of experiential learning; the Executive Board drafted the resolution after members of the Council expressed frustration last week with the recent cancellation of Vassar summer abroad programs. A copy of the resolution can be found at the end of this blog entry.

6:33 | The Council endorses the resolution unanimously.

Fund Applications:

6:35 | Finance moves to allocation $2458 from the Conference Fund to the Asian Students Alliance for the upcoming East Cost Asian American Students Union event at the University of Pennsylvania on March 4. Motion passes unanimously.

6:37 | Finance moves to allocate $1350 from the Collaboration Fund to FWA. Motion passes unanimously.

6:41 | Finance moves to allocate $3800 from the Council Discretionary Fund to Council of Black Students (CBS). A representative from CBS explains that the money would go toward the organization’s annual Baccalaureate dinner.

6:50 | Activities moves to certify the Club of Sandwich, formerly known as the Gentlemen’s Sandwich Club.

7:02 | Certification of the Club of Sandwich will be delayed for a Forum on Domestic Violence, featuring special guests Vassar Director of Health Education Renee Pabst, Sergeant Incorvaia of Campus Security, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Sociology Darlene Deporto and two students who work as counselors for C.A.R.E.S., a student-run, non-judgmental counseling service offered to students 24 hours a day. Deporto teaches a course on Domestic Violence in the Sociology Department (Sociology 210a).

7:14 | Incorvaia: “We’re the contact point for all on-campus counseling services. As far as the things we take from the students, it’s all confidential—students don’t have to tell us anything they don’t want to.”

7:16 | Deporto: “If you ask most students on campus whether we have domestic violence, they will say no. Actually relationship abuse is designed to be invisible—it’s designed to make sure you don’t see it. the dynamics of an abusive relationship are structured in a way that is purposeful. Abusers by nature are obsessed with basically taking control of another human being and taking ownership of another human being through tactics that are hidden.”

7:19 | Deporto continues: “By the time you hear of an abusive relationship, not only is the perpetrator being abusive, but the victims will deny that this is happening, and they will often refuse help. Those kinds of things are reasonable given the situation—they are afraid and have been told by the abuser that no one will believe them and no one will help them. This fear is often debilitating.”

7:39 | Pabst feels that it’s very difficult to address issues of domestic violence at Vassar because “there is no official College charge” in Vassar’s judiciary regulations for domestic violence and relationship abuse.

7:49 | Discussion returns to the certification of the Club of Sandwhich.

7:50 | “I wonder if there is a reason you really need to be a VSA organization,” says Academics. A Club of Sandwich representative—who has identified himself as the Earl of Sandwich—explains that official certification would help them distribute “propaganda,” given that clubs cannot hang SARC-certified posters in the College Center without being an official VSA Organization. The group has requested annual funding of only $20.

8:11 | The motion to certify the Club of Sandwich fails in a 2-21 vote.

8:12 | Open Discussion: The Class of 2012 announced their class gift last Friday. 2012 explains that the class will fund-raise for a 24-hour study space in the Library.

—

VASSAR STUDENT ASSOCIATION: Council Resolution 24-2

Supporting Opportunities for Summer Language Study

WHEREAS, immersion experiences for study of a foreign language offer students the only avenue toward true fluency of a language.

WHEREAS, an understanding of multiple languages is an invaluable asset for a college graduate in this era of global citizenship.

WHEREAS experience outside of the United States is transformative for the depth and maturation of a student’s personal and academic world view.

WHEREAS, circumstances such as curricular requirements, positions in student government, athletic seasons, etc. prevent many Vassar students from experiencing language immersion programs during the academic year.

WHEREAS, almost two-thirds of Vassar’s student body receives financial aid and many of these students are unable to fund summer travel experiences independently.

WHEREAS, budgetary reductions have necessitated the cancellation of Vassar’s summer language programs.

BE IT RESOLVED THAT:

1. THE VSA STRONGLY SUPPORTS the availability of high quality, affordable summer opportunities for immersion-based language learning.

2. THE VSA URGES the senior officers and the language departments to develop cost-effective alternatives to the eliminated programs that enable students without financial means for independent travel.

3. THE VSA PROMOTES collaboration among departments and offices (including but not limited to the Fellowships Office, the Career Development Office, and the JYA Office) to create alternative opportunities for students to study language during the summer.

7:01 | Executive Report from Activities: Activities: “We have some organization certifications looming on the horizon. Next week you will see the Gentlemen’s Sandwich Club and the Listening Center among others.” Activities also announces that Director of Campus Activities Terry Quinn and Associate Dean of the College Raymon Parker will now be intermittently sitting in on VSA Activities Committee Meetings to “check in on how the VSA is spending our student activities fee,” says Activities.

Fund Applications:

7:10 | Finance moves to allocate $5000 from Council Discretionary to the Community Shuttle. According to Operations, student Shuttle usage has gone up by about 12 percent since last semester.

7:12 | Motion passes unanimously.

7:44 | Finance moves to allocate $9000 from the Speakers & Lectures Fund to the Black Students Union (BSU). If granted the money, the BSU will host the Black Conference on April 23, which will feature music and lecturers and will focus mostly on black sexuality and black women, explains a representative from the BSU. Motion passes unanimously.

7:48 | Finance moves to allocate $2500 from the Conference Fund to the African Students Union. Motion passes unanimously.

7:49 | Finance moves to allocate $800 from the Conference Fund to the Polo Team. A representative from the team explains that the money would go toward the entry fee for the regional Polo competition, for which the Vassar team qualified following recent victories over Yale and Harvard Universities. Motion passes unanimously.

Open Discussion:

8:02 |  2011 asks Academics about the recent cancellation of Vassar’s five summer study abroad programs, explaining that he agreed strongly with the Miscellany News 1.28.10 Staff Editorial, saying that administrators should have sent an all-campus e-mail informing the entire community of this decision. Academics explains that as she understands it, the senior officers involved in making the decision “wanted department chairs to be the ones to inform their students about it.”

8:12 | Noyes: “The College seems to insist that the only people who care about a department are the majors within that department. We go to a liberal arts college, and the point is that everyone wants to explore different departments. Just because I’m not taking a class in the Italian Department doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the Italian Department … this is not the first time this has happened.”

8:18 | Strong, who is a student representative on the Committee on Curricular Policies (CCP), expressed frustration that she did not know about the cancellation earlier and that the decision did not go through CCP, as nearly all academic-based decisions typically do.

8:23 | President: “I do think that it’s really important that this Council be in support of experiential learning. Perhaps in the coming weeks we can draft a resolution in support of this.”

8:32 | Council adjourned.

]]> http://blogs.miscellanynews.com/newsroom/2010/01/31/live-blogging-from-the-jan-31-vsa-council-meeting/feed/ 0 http://blogs.miscellanynews.com/newsroom/2010/01/24/live-blogging-from-jan-24-vsa-council-meeting/ http://blogs.miscellanynews.com/newsroom/2010/01/24/live-blogging-from-jan-24-vsa-council-meeting/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 00:36:30 +0000 Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief http://blogs.miscellanynews.com/newsroom/?p=770 7:01 p.m. | Attendance

7:03 | Special guest Associate Dean of the Faculty Marianne Begemann begins forum on recent deer-culling that occurred over the course of Winter Break. Begemann explains that the College decided to pursue a “deer management program on the preserve.” Over the course of the program, exactly 64 deer were culled—the deer provided 12-15,000 meals to the homeless. “We did the right thing in terms of the ecological preserve. People will disagree with it undoubtably from a moral perspective. It was a very difficult decision to make,” says Begemann.

7:08 | “We”ll be continuing to work with the community members,” notes Begemann. “We’ve also been working with the town and the city, and that did not come out in The Poughkeepsie Journal, because i think that officials were reluctant to be supportive because they knew there was going to be some push-back. But we’ve been working with the mayor and the town-supervisor for about six months.

The deer cull was covered throughout the break in The Poughkeepsie Journal on several occasions, and once in one of the paper’s staff editorials.

7:15 | Begemann: “The size of the herd was so large compared to what it should have been. If we had to cull only 10 or 15 deer, there would have been a lot more open to us.”

7:20 | Announcements: There will be a student-faculty basketball game on Thursday, Feb. 25, to fundraise for the Senior Class Gift. Faculty participating will include Dean of the College Chris Roellke, Professor of History Robert Brigham and Professor of English Kiese Laymon. There will be a 2$ entry fee, and President Catharine Hill will toss the first ball of the game.

7:33 | Operations introduces Constitution amendment for discussion. The amendments offer a rationale for the VSA to consider petitions and came as a result of the Nov. 22 VSA Council Meeting, during which Council was asked by the Campus Solidarity Working Group to endorse a letter written by members of the faculty. Members of Council will vote on the amendments next week.

7:36 | Noyes introduces a Bylaw amendment that mandates that after spring elections, if there is a house officer position that has not been filled, “the Appointments Committee will meet to review applications and appoint individuals to those positions,” the proposed amendment reads. “The Committee will meet several days following the elections, to allow interest applicants time to fill out the application form. If there are no applicants, or if the Committee cannot select an appropriate individual, the position will remain open until the following school year, when the process will repeat.” All vote in favor of the amendment; Noyes’ motion passes.

“We have done a great deal of planning around the College’s workforce,” she wrote. ”Since compensation takes up two-thirds of our operating budget, reducing the size of the workforce is essential to creating equilibrium in the College’s financial structure now and into the future.”

According to Hill, the College has looked for ways to improve efficiency at the College through coordination between offices, the reorganization to some student services and a reduction in spending on capital improvements. Hill also reported on the number of staff and administrative positions that have been cut. She wrote that since the onset of the financial crisis, the College has reduced non-faculty postions by 80. “We were able to achieve most of that reduction by not filling open positions and by offering a program of retirement incentives,” she wrote. ”We feel great sadness, however, that 20 of the 80 reductions in positions required laying off valued colleagues among our staff and administration. We are working with those employees to help them find other work; and, in fact, to date 11 of them have taken positions in other areas of the College or found employment elsewhere.”

Hill also gave an update on savings that the College has made on the faculty salary budget including how many non-tenure-track have not had their contracts approved. “Considering requests made for 2009/10 as well as 2010/11, a total of 19 non-tenure-track faculty in part or full-time positions have not had their contracts renewed,” she wrote. “In some other cases we have agreed to renewed contracts with a reduced course load.” Hill noted that every year only a portion of requests for courses taught by non-tenure-track professors are approved, though a smaller proportion was approved this year than usual.

Full text of the e-mail is below:

Dear members of the Vassar community,

As the semester comes to a close, I write not only to express my gratitude for the hard work and attention so many of you have given to getting through this difficult year at the College, but also to look ahead with renewed energy to our future. It has been a challenging fall and the Vassar community has participated in passionate discussion about how best to sustain the extraordinary College we all believe in. The focus of our discussion has centered on how to weigh the importance of different aspects of this complex institution, and it is only right that in our intellectually engaged community, we will have different ideas about how to preserve its well being. Although we may not all agree, our commitment to having these conversations with respect for differing points of view reflects Vassar’s strength as an academic community.

As we have worked to make the changes necessary to bring the College’s spending to a sustainable level, we have kept our focus on the values that define Vassar: our varied and exciting academic program; our commitment to making this academic experience available to all qualified students without regard to their financial need; our commitment to providing fair compensation to all employees; responsible care for the physical facilities of our campus; and strong connections to our neighboring communities. These values have been at the forefront of our planning processes.

Throughout the course of this year, we have made substantive changes in our operating costs through reorganization and responsible reductions in services. In almost every office in the College we have asked people to rethink the way they do their work, to innovate, and consider what may not be necessary. We have, for example, coordinated and consolidated work among offices where there was overlap in responsibilities; we have temporarily slowed down our program of capital improvements in response to reduced financial resources; and we have made adjustments in how we provide services in many areas, from health services and student employment to the faculty housing program and cleaning services. These changes have required all of us on campus to reconsider our expectations and open our minds to new approaches.

We have done a great deal of planning around the College’s workforce. Since compensation takes up two-thirds of our operating budget, reducing the size of the workforce is essential to creating equilibrium in the College’s financial structure now and into the future. In making decisions about where we could reduce staffing we have paid careful attention to the potential effect of reductions on our educational mission. We have particularly considered areas where cooperation and efficiency could be improved within and among offices as staffing is reduced. The overall result of this planning is that since the fall of 2008, our non-faculty staffing has been reduced by a total of about 80 positions. We were able to achieve most of that reduction by not filling open positions and by offering a program of retirement incentives. We feel great sadness, however, that 20 of the 80 reductions in positions required laying off valued colleagues among our staff and administration. We are working with those employees to help them find other work; and, in fact, to date 11 of them have taken positions in other areas of the College or found employment elsewhere.

We also have reduced the faculty salary budget but have done so in a way that minimizes the effect on the curriculum. To achieve necessary savings we offered eligible faculty retirement and phased retirement incentives; restricted leave replacements; declined a portion of the requests for new tenure-track appointments; and reduced the number of team-taught courses and classes of fewer than five students.

Every year departments make requests for additional staffing, including renewal of non-tenure-track faculty contracts, and only a portion of those requests is typically approved. In consultation with department chairs over the past several weeks we have approved a smaller proportion than usual of requests for courses to be taught by non-tenure-track faculty in the next academic year. Considering requests made for 2009/10 as well as 2010/11, a total of 19 non-tenure-track faculty in part or full-time positions have not had their contracts renewed. In some other cases we have agreed to renewed contracts with a reduced course load. Colleagues and students will deeply miss those faculty who will no longer be at the College; they have enriched Vassar and had a significant impact on their colleagues and students.

Although we are still planning the curriculum for 2010/11, we expect that it will be the same size or slightly larger than this year’s curriculum due to leave patterns and fewer course reductions for faculty who have taken on administrative duties.

The Vassar community has met the unprecedented challenges of the past year, and we are now in a better position to move forward even as we face uncertain economic conditions ahead. The College will continue to be a place where curious, creative, and engaged young people from all backgrounds are challenged intellectually and stimulated by their interactions with each other and the other members of the community. Because we believe in the importance of this kind of education, we must steward the College’s resources so that Vassar continues to play a leading role in creating a better future for people here and around the world. I look forward to working with all of you in reaffirming our commitment to that mission and to strengthening the College and all that it means to our students now and for generations to come. I wish you all restful holidays and, again, I thank you for all that you do for Vassar.

Catharine Hill
President