At the Oct. 11 Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council Meeting, the VSA Executive Board hosted an academic forum with special guests Rachel Kitzinger, Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs; Jon Chenette, Dean of Faculty; Steve Rock, Chair of Faculty Policy and Conference Committee (FPCC) and Fred Chromey, Chair of Faculty Appointments and Salary Committee (FASC) and Faculty Compensation Committee (FCC). There was also a report from Food Committee Student Representative Ezra Roth ’10 and Executive Reports from Student Life and Academics. Please click “Read the rest of this entry” here or below to view the full live blog, reported from the scene of the forum in the College Center Multipurpose Room.
Posts Tagged ‘VSA Council Meeting’
Live blogging from the Oct. 11 VSA Council Meeting and open forum on academics
October 11th, 2009 by Ruby CramerLive Blogging from the Oct. 4 VSA Council Meeting
October 4th, 2009 by Ruby Cramer7:01 p.m. | Attendance.
7:03 p.m. | Forum on technology led by Vice President for Computing & Information Services (CIS) Bret Ingerman and Director of Academic Computing Services Steve Taylor. Ingerman begins by explaining that automatic e-mails to organization leaders giving budget summaries have been successful thus far. The College’s bandwidth has been increase this fall. “It’s been four weeks and it hasn’t yet been exhausted,” says Ingerman.
In regards to the reductions to College positions made earlier this week, Ingerman explains that the largest area affected by that in CIS has been to GIS services, but the College has hired an outside company to assist students and professors working with maps in classrooms.
7:10 p.m. | Steve Taylor explains that his biggest effort this summer has been transitioning away from Blackboard to Moodle. The College has had Blackboard since 2001. “Moodle looked like a much better product, and—as a side note—was open-source and was therefore free for us,” said Taylor. Taylor explains that this year Blackboard is costing the College $42,00 and—if Vassar were to continue using its services next year—it would cost near $50,000. It won’t be until 2010/11 that Blackboard is no longer available to professors and students at the College.
Though some professors are slow to adapt to the change, there currently are, Taylor explains, twice as many Moodle-run courses as there are Blackboard-run courses.
7:15 p.m. | Ingerman explains that already this year, CIS has had to investigate 16 copyright violation cases. Students caught violating copyright laws will have to put in five hours of community or sanctioned service. Ingerman explains that he wants students to take violation more seriously; he proposes to Council that the five hour time be bumped to 15 hours and that students caught be charged a fee that is sent home to parents. “we want to make the penalties a bit more so that people really think about it,” says Ingerman. “We’re doing this to protect the students from the man.”
7:30 p.m. | Noyes: “I think having the fine actually go to the student account would make the students feel more responsible. I know that my parents don’t look at the bill very closely. I think that that would actually be less effective and that 15 hours is a better idea.”
7:36 p.m. | 2011: “What happens on the second and third offenses?” Ingerman explains that upon a second offense you’re give more sanctioned hours. A system for third offenses has not been formalized. There have been six second offenses since May.
7:39 p.m. | 2011 also asks about printing quotas for seniors working on theses. “The quota was never supposed to cover every students printing needs for a whole year,” says Ingerman.
7:41 p.m. | South Commons: “All the residents of the South Commons have been complaining that we don’t have a VPrint system.” Ingerman explains that the laundry rooms—where VPrint stations are located in the Town Houses and Terrace Apartments—were not big enough in the South Commons for a VPrint station. “We’d love to put one out there, but we were stumped as to where we could go, so suggestions are welcome,” says Ingerman. Ingerman explains that CIS was considering putting one in Security, which is located near the South Commons.
7:46 p.m. | Student Life asks if it would be possible to install a VPrint printer in the dining area of ACDC. Ingerman says that he will look into it.
7:50 p.m. | Executive Report from Finance: “The VSA is in good financial health,” says Finance. “The new P-Card system that we’ve implemented this year is going okay so far.”
7:51 p.m. | Executive Report from Activities: There are 1144 students registered for this weekend’s Meet Me in Poughkeepsie. The VSA Executive Board has exceeded its goal of 1,000 registrants.
Activities also announces that the College will not be replacing former Assistant Director of Campus Activities Megan Habermann’s position.
7:54 p.m. | Announcement from the President: This Tuesday President Hill and the senior officers will be holding a town hall meeting open to the entire campus. The town hall will be held at 8 p.m. in Rocky 300. Dean of the College Chris Roellke will be sending out an all-campus e-mail later this week about the meeting with further details.
7:59 p.m. | Open Discussion
Operations explains that a “Council FAQs” section is now available on vsa.vassar.edu.
8:04 p.m. | Council adjourned.
Live Blogging from the fifth VSA Council meeting of the year
September 27th, 2009 by Ruby Cramer7:03 p.m. | Committee Report from CCP student representative Kelly Stout ’10. Stout explains that CCP has been discussing team teaching and whether or not “team teaching is something we can support financially right now.” The committee has not made any formal decisions on this issue as of yet. They have formed three subcommittees, one of which being a Quantitative Analysis Requirement subcommittee, which will work on reviewing the academic requirement.
7:07 p.m. | 2011 asks if CCP is looking at re-evaluating Course Evaluation Questionnaires (CEQs). Stout explains that although the committee has not had any formal votes on the issue, it is among the committees top priorities this year.
7:09 p.m. | Report from Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) President Peter Denny ’10. “One of our main goals this year,” said Denny, “is to make collaborations meaningful. It’s possible to have collaborations that aren’t just financial.”
7:13 p.m. | Executive Report from Operations. Organizations will now be able to use VCash when tabling in the College Center.
7:15 p.m. | The Faculty Commons will soon be a 24-hour study space for students. Starting Friday, students will be able to access the room with their VCards.
7:25 p.m. | Operations declares Lathrop Junior Representative an open position.
7:26 p.m. | Council adjourned.
Live Blogging from Sept. 20 VSA Council Meeting
September 20th, 2009 by Ruby CramerAlso follow this Council meeting at http://twitter.com/miscellanynews
7:03 p.m. | Executive Report from Activities.
7:05 p.m. | Executive Report from Academics. Academics met with her Committee last week. Goals for this year include improving Course Evaluation Questionnaires, looking for Multidisciplinary programs and pushing for a Social Justice requirements of some kind. Academics will also develop a survey to go out to the Faculty on how to best deal with a cut 3.2 million dollars from the faculty budget.
7:10 p.m. | Council begins discussion of Security Point System proposal. President and Student Life explain that the proposal is a draft, rather than a final version. “The details are up for discussion,” says President. According to the proposal, “Vassar College is developing a ‘point system’ to make the student disciplinary and sanctioning process more clear, consistent, transparent, efficient, and equitable. When a student is found responsible for violating College Regulations they are assigned points according to the table below.’
7:14 p.m. | “I think this is a step in the right direction,” says Town Houses. “It helps to have a tangible number.”
7:15 p.m. | “If we want this to work, we have to make it focused on alcoholic incidents only,” says Raymond.
7:19 p.m. | According to Student Life, Hamilton and Gettysburg Colleges have similar point systems that are actually more extreme.
7:24 p.m. | “In our Board of House President’s Meeting, we didn’t necessarily want a point system,” says Main, “but we thought about creating a group of guidelines that we can publish for the House Advisors.”
7:27 p.m. | “I think we need to link consequences to actions, rather than just assigning points. Otherwise, people may not learn from their mistakes,” says Charlie Nicholson ’12, who will proxy for the 2013 position, until a freshman will be elected on Thursday, Sept. 24.
7:31 p.m. | “I know this document is highly problematic for a variety of reasons, which have all been discussed tonight. But I’d really like to discuss the overall idea of a point system,” says the President.
7:32 p.m. | 2010: “I am in favor of moving towards this system, since I think one of the biggest problems we have now is consistency. I think there are a lot of issues with the current document we’re looking at, but I am in favor of moving in this direction.”
7:40 p.m. | “Maybe we should just say that we don’t have an alcohol policy. Haverford College has something like that,” says Town Students. The President responds by explaining that if the College did not have it’s own policy, we would have to abide by New York State law, which is clearly more harsh than any College policy.
7:49 p.m. | President calls for a straw (informal) vote of whether or not Council would like to work on creating a point system. 19 vote in favor of the effort, 5 vote against. President: “A subcommittee of the Committee on College life may form to work on this.”
7:53 p.m. | Finance moves to allocate $500 from the Hudson Valley Fund to VSA organization Ice Brewed. Ice Brewed hopes to fund ice-skating lessons.
8:01 p.m. | Activities begins discussion of addition to VSA bylaws addressing “Off-Campus Representation Responsibilities.”
8:07 p.m. | By a vote of 22 to 1, this motion passes.
8:13 p.m. | Move to Open Discussion.
Live Blogging from the Sept. 13 VSA Council Meeting
September 13th, 2009 by Ruby Cramer7:03 p.m. | Council begins with a presentation by Director of Institutional Research David Davis Van Atta. Presentation is call “Is Vassar Really Co-Educational?”
7:12 p.m. | Van Atta shows Vassar profile of “Reasons for Going to College.” Top reasons are as follows: “Learn More About Things of Interest,” “Gain a General Education & APpreciation of Ideas,” “Become a More Cultured Person” and “Prepare for Graduate School.”
7:57 p.m. | Van Atta ends his presentation.
7:59 p.m. | Operations announces that filing for Freshmen Elections will begin on Sept. 15.
8:04 p.m. | Finance: “The VSA is in good financial health.”
8:10 p.m. | Student Life moves to endorse a Room Entry policy, which the VSA has been working on for “over two years.”
8:14 p.m. | Davison Moves to strike section 21, part 01c, which states “that the room entry procedure requires the security officer to make efforts to have a house officer and/or the house fellow/administrator present when the room is entered.” Many say that student fellows or house team members would not comfotable being present.
Town Houses: House members don’t want to be associated with that—that’s why we have Student Fellows and not RA figures.
Finance: When I was on the Student Life Committee last year, we saw this as a way for house team members to act on the student’s behalf, not as siding with security. This can add a measure of comfort for the student in question.
Noyes: “Would there have to be a house team member ‘on duty.’ I just don’t see how this would work.”
Student Life: “I did not mean for this to be an obligation.”
8:27 p.m. | By a vote of 23 to 1 this motion passes. The proposal has been adopted.
8:35 p.m. | Finance moves to allocate $2,000 from Council Discretionary to ActOut!
8:37 p.m. | ActOut! President Casey Katims ’10 moves to ammend the amount to $4,000, given an unexpected volume of interested participants, causing them to have to order a second bus for the trip to Washington D.C.
8:40 p.m. | Town Houses: “I hesitate to allocate nearly one-third of Council Discretionary Fund after only our second Council Meeting.” Last Sunday, the Council members allocated $5,000 to the Campus Shuttle.
8:44 p.m. | 2012: “I think $4,000 is a lot to ask for.”
8:48 p.m. | Katims moves to withdraw the original amendment and moves to amend the allocation amount to $3,000.
Live Blogging from the first VSA Council Meeting of the year
September 6th, 2009 by Ruby CramerAlso follow this Council Meeting on Twitter at twitter.com/miscellanynews
Special Guests Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger and Dean of Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier
7:01 p.m. | First Council meeting begins with Attendance and an introduction of Vice President for Finance and Administration Elizabeth Eismeier. “We have to plan for a very long recovery,” said Eismeier who began with a discussion of the economy.
7:03 p.m. | Dean of Planning and Academic Affairs Rachel Kitzinger enters the room and takes her seat beside Eismeier.
7:07 p.m. | “Financial Aid has emerged as the leading financial priority this year,” says Eismeier. The endowment supplies over 30 percent of our budget, and when it gets hurt, we get hurt. The other piece of it is that we get about 10 percent of our budget from private gifts form graduates and parents and friends of the College,” said Eismeier. “The potential right now for those gifts to get up is pretty hard to imagine. The annual fund is still achieving a high level, but it’s not growing. We’re still looking carefully at this year’s goal, to see if we can make. All of our sources were hard-hit. It’s a difficult time.”
7:10 p.m. | “We want to find ways in which we can reorganize the things we do and think about how we can do things differently, so that we can really adjust the biggest category of expense at the College, which is compensation,” adds Kitzinger.
7:12 p.m. | “The other thing that we have to prioritize is our physical plant. We have to have buildings, we have to have labs, we have to have space for drama, for music, for art,” says Kitzinger. “All of these things are expensive and we have an aging campus. It’s very tempting as we have in the past to delay putting money into the physical plant rather than reducing compensation or staff. But we can only do that to a certain degree, because it can cause very large problems for the College.”
7:16 p.m. | “One thing that has come up a lot are the Library hours. We’re wondering how many people are in the library around 9 a.m. Could we open the library later in the morning, but keep it open later at night,” asks Noyes House President Hannah Groch-Begley ’12.
“We’ve looked at absolutely every other option,” says Kitzinger. “The idea of rearranging people’s workdays is not as easy as what you’re asking. It actually involves lots of tensions and pressures and risks. I appreciate that the Library goes to the heart of our mission, and that having the library there is extremely important. We’re working hard to find a solution to keep the Library open until 1 a.m.
7:29 p.m. | “Our goal is to do this through involuntary departures. And that means that the planning is fluid, and will continue to be fluid, since we don’t know when there will be unexpected vacancies,” says Kitzinger.
7:35 p.m. | “When it’s possible to give information, we really want to do that. We have no desire to hide anything. If you ahve something that you really want to pursue, you need to inform yourself about which Senior Officer is most responsible for the area that you’re interested in,” said Kitzinger.
7:36 p.m. | 2010 President Selina Strasburger ’10 asks, “Is there a space alternate to the Library that we could use for late-night studying?”
7:37 p.m. | It needs to be accesible, it needs to be a card-swipe-accessible and it needs to be safe. We’re considering the Faculty Commons,” says Kitzinger.
“There could be a student monitor at ACDC. It’s a possibility,” says Eismeier.
“My problem with the Faculty Commons,” says Strasburger, “is that it may not be big enough. I’ve spent time down there at night and it feels very crowded.”
7:45 p.m. | Kitzinger and Eismeier leave the room after answering questions from Council members
Motion to allocate $5,000 to the Community Shuttle
8:12 p.m. | By a vote of 22 to zero, the motion to allocate $5,000 from Council Discretionary to the Community Shuttle passes
Exec Report
8:15 p.m. | “There is an open forum this-coming Sunday,” says VSA President Caitlin Ly ’10. “The trustees are coming into town to give an update on the economic situation and to answer questions and have discussion. We absolutely have to have a strong showing.”
8:17 p.m. | “We’re working really hard to get the Atrium back and to improve the Meal Plan,” says Ly.
8:18 p.m. | “I know a lot of people were upset about the Health Care hours getting reduced, but it’s really a liability issue, and we’re mimicking our peer institutions, who have all eliminated late-night health care,” says Ly.
8:21 p.m. | “We’re aiming for a bigger and better Meet Me in Poughkeepsie this year,” says Ly. “We want there to be 40 events with over 1,000 people participating.”
8:23 p.m. | “The committee situation is one aspect that I’m working on,” says VSA Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas ’10. Farkas also explained that he worked over the summer with VSA Web designer Eric Estes ’11 to redesign the VSA webstie, http://vsa.vassar.edu.
8:31 p.m. | VSA VP for Activities Aaron Grober ’11 motions to recess for five minutes. Motion passes.
Goals Document
8:40 p.m. | Council resumes meeting and begins discussion of the Goals Document.
8:42 p.m. | Farkas discusses the possibility of the Vassar/Yale Formal, an alumnae/i event meant to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Vassar’s coeducation.
Appointments
8:48 p.m. | By a vote of 22 to zero, Lindsey Andon is appointed to the position of Noyes Secretary.
8:48 p.m. | By a vote of 22 to zero, Michael Mestitz is appointed to the position of Noyes Treasurer.
Adoption of the Athletics Proposal
8:51 p.m. | VSA VP for Student Life Elizabeth Anderson ’11 endorses the Athletics Proposal. She explains that half a credit will be given to students participating in more than a year of varsity athletics. Speaker’s List quickly grows to over six representatives.
8:53 p.m. | Class of 2012 President Tanay Tatum says that she feels “the proposal is exclusive.”
8:55 p.m. | Cushing House President Rosie Russo ’12 suggests that to get academic credit, athletes should have to write a paper to make sure that “they are getting something out of it.”
8:57 p.m. | Strong House President Laura Riker ’11 expresses concern that “other students who are not involved in atheltics—but are involved heavily in extracurriculars—will feel that they should get credit too.” She also wonders about non-varsity sports such as the Rugby and Ultimate Frisbee teams.
9:00 p.m. | “We’re not making a significant change in the way we view athletics on campus,” explains VSA Vice President for Academics Stephanie Damon-Moore,” because we already have P.E. credits. All we’re saying is that we respect the kind of learning you’re getting from a varsity sport, just how we respect the kind of learning you’re getting from a P.E. class.”
9: 03 p.m. | Noyes: “I agree with this proposal. Participants in VRDT and drama programs get academic credit. This is just extending that gesture to the athletes in our community.”
9:06 p.m. | President: “This is not a huge step—it’s a minor addition. And I can say with full confidence that [President Hill] has endorsed this proposal.”
9:07 p.m. | ”By adopting this change,” said Student-Athlete Advisory Committee President Laura Smith ’10. “We would not be pact-makers in the world of Division III athletics. THere are a lot of Colleges who give academic credit for varsity sports.”
9:12 p.m. | VP for Student Life: “Rugby and Ultimate Frisbee will not receiving credit, since they are not covered or funded by the Vassar Athletics Department.”
9:28 p.m. | By a vote of 19 to 3, the Athletics Proposal passes. In the following weeks, the proposal will be taken to the Committee on Curricular Policy, upon which—if it is endorsed by that committee—it will move to the Faculty Floor, where faculty will vote on the issue.
9:50 p.m. | Open Discussion
9:55 p.m. | Motion to adjourn has passed.
