7:04 | Report from Director of ViCE Peter Denny ‘10 about the Flaming Lips concert. According to Denny, several restaurants reported excellent business on the night of the concert April 17.

ViCE “more than broke even” in ticket sales, Denny say.ViCE earned about $3000 from the concert, though they are still calculating the final amount, and ViCE still has upcoming events, which some of the money will go towards.

7:14 | Report from Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas ‘10: The 2010 Endowed Scholarship Fund has reached its goal and is on route to exceed it, he says.  The senior class will be hosting a panel discussion called “Why Do We Need Financial Aid” on Thursday, April 29.

The VSA elections results party will be in the Retreat tomorrow, April 26, at 8 p.m.

7:17 | Report from VSA President Caitlin Ly ‘10: “The College is close to an agreement with the county bus line.” The College will no longer run the campus shuttle during the week, but the VSA will continue to fund a weekend shuttle possibly on a more limited schedule. The county bus would not run students directly to the mall or to Stop&Shop, which the weekend shuttle will do.

The Old Laundry Building will be empty next year after development moves. As of right now, the space will be swing space–mostly office space–but the President is arguing for security to move into the building to have a presence in the center of campus or for the Computer Science Department to move onto the first floor.

7:24 | Decertification of Catalyst: “More of a merger than a decertification,” says Vice President for Activities Aaron Grober  ‘11. The magazine Catalyst will become the publication of the Student Activist Union.

7:25 | Decertification of the Investment Club: The Investment Club will be joining with the Entrepreneurs Club.

7:26 | Decertification of Red Panda: The Red Panda humor magazine has not published this year, and they have not indicated any plans to publish, says Grober.

7:28 | Vice President for Academics Stephanie Damon-Moore ‘11 is introducing a referenda. The referenda will ask students whether they would prefer to call ‘correlate sequences’ ‘minors.’

The argument is that many employers do not recognize correlates on students’ resumes and the when students come to Vassar they don’t understand what a correlate is and how it differs from a minor at other colleges. According to Damon-Moore, minors already differ amongst colleges and universities.

The Council is debating whether to include an explanation of what a correlate is. Damon-Moore says that she wants to understand how students already understand the distinction between correlate and minor.

7:48 | Allocation of $1250 from the Conference Fund to Christian Fellowship is unanimously approved.

7:50 | Allocation of $1500 from Collaboration to Town Houses for their music event “In Da Circle.”

7:53 | Open discussion.

7:01 | The President introduces special guest Peter Leonard, Director of Field Work. “We have a lot of stuff going on in Field Work, but internally our project is academic field work. For the last 60 years we’ve ben doing it. We excel at it and we do it better than other schools, and we do it for structural reasons,” says Leonard.

7:05 | Leonard: “This semester we have 303 students doing field work, and that’s a lot. Throughout the year, we have over 600 students. Looking at that every year, we’ll have at least 65-70 percent of students graduating having completed some kind of field work.”7:23 | Raymond asks how Leonard thinks the Poughkeepsie community has reacted to Vassar’s initiatives in Field Work. Leonard: “One of the things about Poughkeepsie that is astonishing to me is how open people are not only to us, but to each other. There’s a surprising openness here. I think there’s a curiosity about Vassar as an institution, and that works out very well for us. That’s been a thrilling part of working with Field Work.”

7:48 | Student Life moves to endorse the Sustainability proposal introduced to Council last week. Motion passes unanimously. Academics moves to endorse the SAVP proposal introduced to Council last week. Motion passes unanimously.

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.

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.”

7:10 | Williams: “As my title indicates, I’ve been focusing primarily on education, but I also look at the way Vassar can partner with community-based organizations and other institutions so that we can do more with less effort. For example, Marist College has an after-school program at Poughkeepsie Middle School, but they meet two or three times a week and have about thirty kids, and our program [VAST] has 90 kids and we meet five times a week. We want to be synergizing our resources in the same community.”

7:12 | Williams explains that he has been in dialogue with schools such as the Culinary Institute of America, which is located next door to Poughkeepsie in Hyde Park.

7:13 | Williams: “We’ve been building new relationships. Vassar is not a castle on a hill. It’s not a bastion of elitism. So we’re trying to partner with people to get this city through a difficult time.”

7:18 | Williams: “My hope is that Vassar can help to change lives within this community.”

7:25 | Williams invites questions from Council members.

7:38 | In response to a question from Lathrop, Williams notes that there are over 250 Vassar students currently involved with the five Urban Education programs Vassar coordinates.

7:47 | Following further questions for Williams, Council moves to Fund Applications. Finance moves to allocate $664.96 from the Capital Contingency Fund to the Vassar Filmmakers for camera repair costs. Motion passes unanimously.

7:49 | Finance moves to allocate $3000 from the Discretionary Fund to the Ultimate Frisbee Team for their remaining tournaments. Motion passes.

7:55 | Academics announces that there will be a majors fair from 12 to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, April 7 in the All Campus Dining Center.

7:59 | Council adjourned.

7:02 | Committee Report from Board of House Presidents: Raymond: “We worked on the House Officer Expectation document, which we drafted based on what we think should be the expectations of the house officers. It was approved by [the Office of] Residential Life. In terms of fall training, we’re working with Residential Life to revamp fall training and also to figure out the best way to do training and transitioning this spring.”

7:06 | Executive Report from Activities: “April is just an insane month in terms of programming,” says Activities. “I know a lot of organizations have a ton of events coming up. The calendar is booked!” Activities also notes that the Fall Leadership Conference Committee is beginning to meet in preparation for next year’s annual training event for organization leaders. “We’re always trying to make it better,” says Activities.

7:06 | Executive Report from Finance: “Something that I really tried to prevent this year was to not give out too much money at the beginning of the year. I think we’ve remained pretty steady throughout the course of this semester and the last. But as Activities said, the year is coming to an end, and we’re going to be seeing a lot of [fund] applications coming up.”

7:24 | Student Life moves to adopt a revised draft of the Council’s annual Administrative Review; this year, the Student Life and Academics Committees looked at and collected feedback about the Office of International Programs, which handles students’ studies abroad. An earlier version of the Review was discussed by Council members last semester.

7: 27 | Council votes unanimously in favor of the motion.

7:37 | Academics brings up the recent discussion and controversy that has occurred on campus in response to an event planned this past Saturday called “Free Weezy Mug Night.”

7:38 | 2012: “Everyone was so angry that people weren’t really hearing each other. It makes me more upset that we’re not listening to each other on this campus.”

7:41 | Cushing: “For some reason this conversation has brought to mind the forums that we’ve had this year. Even though I think it’s important that we’ve had forums on issues like technology and the deer cull that happened earlier this year, I think what our forums have been lacking have been issues of student life that would reach out to voices that we as a Council don’t normally address.”

7:56 | Council adjourned

7:02 | Operations announces that filing for VSA spring elections will begin on April 14.

7:04 | Operations moves to amend Section 5 of the VSA Bylaws, which outlines the rules for student campaigning. “We’re simplifying it a lot,” says Operations, “and we’re making it a lot shorter than it used to be. Basically, we reorganized the passages, and various things that are repetitive have been taken out. The major differences are that we’re allowing the use of the internet—we thought it was realistically ridiculous that we didn’t allow the use of the internet. And because we’re giving candidates the power of the Web, we’re taking away fliering—we felt that it was a waste of paper, and it’s not worth doing. Instead, we are just going to give people posters that they can put up in main spaces on campus.”

7:11 | Council members discuss making alterations to the wording of the Bylaw amendments.

7:15 | Finance asks if its really necessary that campaigning be banned during the actual voting period. 2011 responds saying that “there’s something to be said for” having the voting period be a time when students aren’t being “bombarded” by campaigning methods and messages.

7:20 | 2010 asks about what “the limits are” for things you buy—like printed t-shirts or baked goods—that would aid a candidate in his or her campaign. Operations responds by saying that anything can be purchased as long as its within the spending limits set forth by the Bylaws.

7:32 | After discussion, Council votes unanimously in favor of the Bylaw amendments.

7:34 | Activities moves to decertify Better Body Image Project (BBIP). Activities explains that the VSA Activities Committee met recently with two leaders from BBIP. “Basically this is a decertification of an organization that’s no longer as active as it used to be,” says Activities. “It’s more paperwork than its worth for them, and the two representatives were both totally fine with this,” he says. “The membership of the group is four people, and the use of their budget is very limited.” Council votes unanimously in favor of the decertification.

7:37 | Finance moves to allocate $800 from the Conference Fund to Act Out. Leslie Hamilton ‘10, Co-President of Act Out, explains that the organization hopes to bring approximately 24 students to Washington D.C. on April 9 in order to lobby for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; the Safe Schools Act; and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Finance’s motion passes unanimously.

7:42 | Finance moves to allocate $2000 from the Speakers & Lecturers Fund to Forum Political Thought for their event, Bao Phi: Asian American Spoken Word and Politics. Motion passes unanimously.

7:44 | Finance moves to allocate $4000 from the Speakers & Lecturers Fund to the Asian Students Alliance for their conference, The “Me” in Media. Motion passes unanimously.

7:47 | Finance moves to allocate $4000 from the Hosting Fund to Squirm for their celebration of their 10th anniversary. Motion passes unanimously.

7:49 | Council adjourned.

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.

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.