April 11th, 2010 by Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief
7:02 p.m. | Attendance
7:04 | President introduces special guest Director of Religious and Spiritual Life (RSL) Sam Speers. “We work in three broad areas when we think about community-based learning in my office—one is the community service work study program.” When the program began, there were 15 Vassar students involved, and there are now over 50 participating.
7:20 | Academics asks about the connection between “faith” and “service” and how “that’s manifested in the RSL office.”
7:21 | Speers: “Those two categories are related. Part of the challenge here is that we want to show the link between those two things while also showing that we’re in a different moment right now than we were 25 years ago, than we were 100 years ago, than we were when the College was founded. When the College was founded it was largely a Protestant institution, and we’ve now distanced ourselves from the Protestant roots of our College. That’s an accomplishment in my eyes.”
7:27 | Academics moves to endorse the Sexual Assault Violence Prevention (SAVP) Proposal, drafted by the Sexual Assault Response Committee. The proposal encourages the College to reestablish the position of an SAVP Coordinator.
7:40 | Report from Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE): Outgoing Director of ViCE Peter Denny ’10 announces that the 2010-2011 ViCE Executive Board has been finalized. Allie St. Jules ’11 will serve as Director next year. Denny also says that the organizaiton has created two new Assistant Director positions.
7:42 | Denny says that ViCE has sold approximately 2300 tickets so far for this Saturday’s Flaming Lips concert.
7:57 | Academics moves to endorse College Sustainability Coordinator Jeffrey Walker’s Sustainability Proposal, which is a proposal to the Environmental Research Institute for support of training to perform Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventories. As with the SAVP proposal, the Council will vote to endorse this document during next week’s meeting.
8:20 | Finance moves to allocate $1500 from the Collaboration Fund to Main for their second annual Pool Party event, which will be run in collaboration with ViCE. The party will be on Sunday, April 25, on Ballentine Field. Motion passes unanimously.
8:34 | Council adjourned.
Tags: Live Blogging, Poughkeepsie, Student Organizations, ViCE, VSA, VSA Council Meeting
April 4th, 2010 by Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief
7:01 p.m. | Attendance
7:02 | The President introduces special guest Leslie Williams, Vassar’s Education Outreach Coordinator. “This year we’ve been trying to assess Vassar’s strenghts weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats to what we refer to authentic community engagement.” Williams works with the school district of Poughkeepsie and with Vassar After School Tutoring (VAST) and the Exploring College program, among others.
7:03 | Williams: “Most people don’t know this, but the high school graduation rate in the City of Poughkeepsie is below 50 percent.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Live Blogging, Poughkeepsie, Student Organizations, VSA, VSA Council Meeting
February 16th, 2010 by Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief
The Poughkeepsie Journal reported moments ago that today’s snow is set to wind down by evening. “Another two to three inches is expected to fall today, and total accumulation for the Poughkeepsie area should be about five inches,” said Evan Heller, a meteorologist based in Albany. No weather-related cancellations are planned for Vassar classes, and the Journal reports that no cancellations have yet been announced at Marist College, the State University of New York at New Paltz, Dutchess Community College or Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh. To see photos of today’s snowfall, see this Exposure photoessay by Eric Estes, Design and Production Editor.
Tags: Poughkeepsie
November 10th, 2009 by Ruby Cramer, Editor in Chief
In today’s issue of The Poughkeepsie Journal a Letter to the Editor from President of the College Catharine Bond Hill appeared in the pages of the paper’s Opinion section. In her Letter Hill addressed the Dutchess County Elections—held last Tuesday, Nov. 3—and suggested that in the future Vassar and elected officials “work together to resolve the obstacles for future elections that made it difficult for students to vote in the last election.”
“I am proud of our students for all of these ways in which they reach out beyond campus,” wrote Hill. “So many of them have a very strong commitment to the local community where they live the vast majority of the year. They also by law have the right to register and vote locally.”
Read Hill’s letter in full below:
Ease Voting Process For Vassar Students
Vassar College students take part in the local community in many ways: several hundred volunteer each semester, working in human service agencies, at health-care clinics, as tutors in local schools, to note only a few examples. Through internships in the community, they contribute what they’ve learned in classes and gain additional on-the-job experience in government, business and social services. They raise money for local causes, including contributing to the college’s annual Community Works campaign, which to date has raised more than $500,000 for local nonprofits. I am proud of our students for all of these ways in which they reach out beyond campus. So many of them have a very strong commitment to the local community where they live the vast majority of the year. They also by law have the right to register and vote locally.
For that reason, I would ask election officials for the opportunity to work together to resolve the obstacles for future elections that made it difficult for students to vote in the last election. Many of our students were challenged as they went to the polls, being required to vote by paper “affidavit” ballot rather than using a voting machine. The issues cited involved students’ addresses on campus, a situation complicated by the fact that the Vassar campus is in multiple voting districts.
We need to be able to assure our students who are registered voters of their opportunity to participate in elections.
Catharine Hill
President, Vassar College
Poughkeepsie
Tags: Catharine Bond Hill, Elections, Poughkeepsie, Vassar in the News
November 3rd, 2009 by Kelly Stout, Features Editor
Since November 2008 there has been a marked increase in the number of Vassar students choosing to vote in Poughkeepsie instead of their home districts. According to Board of Elections (BOE) official Ira Margulies, about 400 Vassar students are registered to vote in local elections.
However, students who have gone to vote at Arthur S. May Elementary School today have had their eligibility to vote challenged. The challenges have come on the grounds that their current addresses do not match up with the addresses under which they are registered in the voter rolls.
As of 5pm on Tuesday an injunction was filed against Vassar students wishing to vote at Arthur S. May Elementary School. This means that students whose votes are successfully challenged by the Board of Elections will be unable to vote on voting machines, and will instead have to vote by paper ballot.
In a 4:30pm all-campus email Associate Dean of the College Ray Parker wrote on behalf of Professor of Political Science Sarita Gregory, “The most important message for students: Do not leave the site without voting! You have the constitutional right to vote if you are registered in this county. The only reason you should fill out any paper or show any proof of identification is if you have been successfully challenged. At that time, you have to complete the challenge oath, but you can still vote!”
When a voter’s right to cast a ballot is challenged, there is a set protocol for resolution, according to Margulies. First, a voter or elections worker present at the polling location must make a challenge. Then the voter is required to take an oath certifying that his or her voter registration information is correct. Then there is an opportunity for the four elections specialists to question the voter and decide whether or not he or she is eligible. If at least two of the four specialists affirm that the voter is eligible, he or she can cast a vote in a polling booth.
Dutchess County Democratic Commissioner, Fran Knapp called these challenges to Vassar voters “nothing more than voter intimidation.” Knapp was outraged at the situation at Arthur S. May, and said, “you cannot wholesale block a group from voting. And that’s what [Republican election officials] are trying to do. It’s terrible. It’s a political tactic.”
Margulies urged students “not to get intimidated. Even if all inspectors [challenge you], you can still take an oath and vote.” Gregory encouraged students to visit votingatvassar.wordpress.com for updates on the situation at Arthur S. May and information about voting eligibility in today’s election.
Polls will remain open at Arthur S. May Elementary School on Raymond Ave. until 9pm tonight.
Tags: Local Politics, Poughkeepsie
