SGA Retreat
16 November 2008
English House
Agenda
History of SGA
Small Group Discussion
Large Group Discussion
Meeting called to order at 7:10 pm.
History of SGA
Aheli Purkayastha, President: In order for you all to think critically about SGA, we want to establish a strong ground from which you can start. We wanted you to know where you are coming from, so here’s a quick presentation about the History of SGA. In 1885, there were no rules at this point, with only seven students at Bryn Mawr. For the first six years, students self-governed themselves, with no rules really guiding them. Everything was great until 1891, when Dean M. Carey Thomas decided that the students were failing in governing themselves, so she wanted them to have some rules. Abby Kirchy ’93 talks about the hurt of having the trust taken away from them. Susan Walker ’93 deserves most of the credit for turning this around – she went into the dorms, meetings with the Trustees, and said, “we know we broke this trust”, and in August of 1892, she called a meeting about how to legitimize self-governance at Bryn Mawr. There was a series of letters between dorms and students and the administration regarding the key issues. No one really knew what format it would take. Grad students like Marguerite Sweet, ’93, decided that they should not be involved. There was a series of meetings between 1891 and 1892 – and finally, on February 23rd, 1892, M. Carey Thomas, James Rhoads, and 5 students came to an agreement. Until the present time, there hadn’t been any written rules, and the administration would trust them to do this, unless actually asked by the Exec Board to interfere. Our college is saying “we think you are smart enough to put all our trust in you to create your own constitution”, even though women at this point did not have the right to vote. SGA’s original goal was to create goals and rules and enforce them. SGA as the Exec Board and advisory board were concerned about how social life would be governed. One thing stayed constant – every member of the undergraduate college is a member. When it began, the Exec Board was a President and a Secretary, and 3 upperclassmen members elected by the student body – 3 random people who came together to write and enforce the rules. The Academic Honor Board had a different construction as well. Freshmen took SGA Exams, and you had permission-givers to enforce the rules – so if you hadn’t passed your exams, there was no way you could leave your dorm for that Haverford party. Exec Board and Advisory Board were in charge of rule-governance – they would be in charge of kicking people out if they were even too loud! M. Carey Thomas talked to the students about how to keep the SGA running – “it’s for you, by you”; “if there are problems, resolve them internally”. In the beginning, all members of the association were voting members, because there were only 70 members at that time. Now, every member of the association votes at Plenary, and we have voting members. Every member on our campus who pays dues are all members of SGA, and here we are predominantly assembly members. We are the oldest self-governance in the US, and the power comes from us.
Small Group Discussions
See transcribed notes from individual groups. (coming soon!)
Large Group Discussion
Aheli Purkayastha: We have time now to talk about the larger questions. We don’t give you guys often times a time to talk about how to be representatives. We have 5 questions for a 25 minute discussion.
- Who are the assembly members representing?
Emma Wisniewski-Barker, Member-at-Large: Represent anyone who doesn’t come to SGA specifically. If you are here, you can make your opinion known, but we should represent those who don’t come.
Katie Kellom, Honor Board Head: I don’t know that I represent anyone – I try to represent student interests in how they want to the honor code to change – because it is vague – my main job is to interpret, not necessarily represent.
Rodline Louijeune, Board of Trustees Rep: I was in the admin/faculty group – we represent the student body at other meetings – Board of Trustees, Faculty, and we speak on their behalf.
Christina Wagner, Class of ’11 Co-President: Class Presidents talked about how they represent the classes alone.
Marisa Franz, Haverford Rep: I have the pleasurable task of representing both colleges regarding Bi-Co problems.
Aheli Purkayastha: Do you hear them?
Marisa Franz: No. If you do have interests/questions, I would be interested in hearing them.
Rachel Corey, Board of Trustees Rep: Caroline Troien brought up a good point in our discussion – I don’t know if I view myself as much as a representative. Like Rodline said, we are bringing the student perspective to another body.
Amber Zambelli, Elections Co-Head: Something we talked about in the Internal SGA meeting, was that we don’t represent groups of students, but governing documents. Erica and I field questions about how the community feels about the document we represent. We serve as the human element to a very inhuman document.
Anne Bugnaski, Traditions Mistress: Weezie and I represent supposedly the larger community through the lens of traditions. We were thinking that when we were looking at the CollegeACB boards, should we vote from the traditions perspective – should we petition to make ACB a new tradition? When voting about these things that are obviously our personal views, should we as traditions mistresses vote about something that doesn’t have to do with traditions?
Weezie Lauher, Traditions Mistress: We were in the special interest group – and our constituencies are everyone and no one at the same time – if everyone agreed, we wouldn’t be voting on it. It’s hard to vote not on our personal opinion. Are we supposed to look at everything from the lens of how will this affect Hell Week? We talked about how this goes with Members-at-Large, as well.
Deep Singh, Class of ’09 Co-President: I think that there’s clearly a disconnect between ourselves and our constituents – on the ACB boards, our job was to survey everyone else, but if we were truly representing everyone else, we wouldn’t have had to.
Katie Kellom: I think instead of getting their views, because all community members are in charge of representing themselves, it does come down to your personal positions, because if you have been elected, you are supposed to be concerned with it yourselves.
Judy Barr, Curriculum Committee Head: I think as Curriculum Committee Head, we do engage in an active dialog with faculty, regardless of the product, and to a certain extent, I represent the faculty, too, in the assembly.
2. How do/should voting members represent these members of our community?
Amanda Cegielski, Faculty Rep: How do I solicit opinion? – I get two to three emails every once and a while, and generally those people who send them are at the SGA meetings.
Weezie Lauher: In our group, all of us represent the community as a whole, but have specific jobs that don’t necessarily affect smaller groups of students. We talked about the ways in which our roles in SGA function now and how changes might be made. We had guilt about voting for things – it’s not how should we represent them, but how could we do better through the lens of our position.
Sadie Marlow, Member-at-Large: We had in our discussion the fact that getting people to fill out surveys might be the only way to get everyone to say something.
Judy Barr: This came up in ours – it came up because someone said that many don’t view SGA as effective – even dangling food in front of their faces doesn’t motivate many people. We need to open a dialog, and really get down to asking them how want us to represent them.
Kendalyn Brown, Residence Council Co-Head: Weezie talked about feeling guilty about voting for something that doesn’t represent your position – if you do feel that it represents your position, then vote, but if not, then abstain. It got me to think about how we abstain and how we use that.
Marisa Franz: That came up in our discussion too – an interesting thing to look back at was the ACB discussion – it would be interesting to use abstain, or forfeit a vote to a community member – instead of my position always having my vote count. The idea of polling, yes it’s a good idea for some positions, but sending out a survey doesn’t accomplish that much for others.
Elise Nelson, Radnor Dorm Co-President: I feel like it’s not scientific, but the best way to get feedback is to talk to them. Bryn Mawr is not as social as it should be – walking through campus – talking to people that you don’t know. I don’t know people’s names – its important that if you are a member of SGA, you put yourself out there with them.
Taline Cox, COPS Co-Head: My question is logistical – if I were to vote an abstain, does it count in quorum?
Kendra Hayde, Secretary: Yes.
Weezie Lauher: I think the thing about abstentions is if we seriously consider it – I think abstentions carries an air of “I don’t care or I don’t know what’s going on”. For example, Special Events funds events don’t affect us unless it falls on the same night as tradition – it’s not that we don’t care. If it’s going to be established, then we need to have it set down somewhere. Not that this is a sign of apathy, voting “abstain”, but that it has some other meaning behind it.
Anne Bugnaski: Contrary to the last few and my previous comments – people who are elected are trustworthy, but at the same time, if everything doesn’t effect traditions, people elected us because they trust us, so we should be able to vote for something, even if it doesn’t effect our positions directly, because they voted for us and put their trust in us.
Motion to extend time for 10 minutes (Seconded): 24 in favor, 5 against, 2 abstentions. Motion passes.
Chelsea Dunkel, Merion Dorm President: We said that talking to people is a good idea – I sent an email to my dorm and said that they (and I) need to be vigilant rather than passive – be a participant in all perspectives.
Katie Kellom: I think it is important because we get limited feedback that you treat yourselves as a community member – it’s better to have the voting body larger than smaller.
Susie Kim, Member-at-Large: I was talking to a few people on our hall – about half of them said “what is SGA?” I feel like it’s important to get people to engage in it.
3. What long-term goals/progress do we see?
Aheli Purkayastha: We are all facing similar problems – how do we tell people what SGA is? What do we want, how do we address these issues?
Marisa Franz: We talked about if SGA had a specific goal for each year, rather than amorphous statements – I think it is important for SGA to do these larger things, but it’s hard if you are representing these larger groups of people – it’s hard to get involved. We can still discuss other things, but that would be a larger thing – this idea that we’ve accomplished something. At least then, it would give us a chance to talk to Haverford and see what they’ve done for this, etc.
Rachel Corey: I second Marisa’s suggestions. I think we should – if we have to do internal work in SGA, we get it done fast, and then we can really focus on doing something in SGA so that the student body can see that there is progress being made.
Judy Barr: I would like to see some concrete goals discussed. I think this is addressed with online stuff, but the turnover is really short. I would like to see that our positions don’t have to have the same conversations over and over again, year after year.
Weezie Lauher: We’ve talked about this during SGA, but I think it merits repeating – we have a hard time with turnaround. It’s hard to map over long-term. Mapping progress without being able to carry through if the people succeeding you don’t have the same goals is frustrating. It’s hard to expect long-term progress and improvement when there’s not one concrete goal. But it’s SGA – should there only be one thing to work towards?
Liana Donohue, Class of ’12 President: We need to increase visibility on campus. Frosh feel like they can only come to meetings each week if they’ve been coming already.
Deep Singh: I think we need to have effective things done – the most recent votes, the fact that I can’t remember them, says a lot that other people won’t care, either.
Anne Bugnaski: I don’t usually talk as much in meetings. I am aware of the fact that there are a lot of people on campus who just don’t care about SGA – this isn’t the institution where 70 students can come together – there are 50 people out of 1500. It’s not necessarily our faults – it’s OK that they don’t care. When we have a small turnout at Step Sings, it sucks, but there are people who don’t care and it’s OK. As people who are into this kind of thing – there are people who don’t care, and it’s not our failure. It’s not a personal attack, it’s not that they don’t like us, which is important for some of us to remember. I think those of us who come all the time, who don’t see our friends, find it frustrating, but it’s not always our fault.
Rachel Brody, Rock Dorm Co-President: Addressing the freshman thing, I think it would be good to have a freshman day at SGA – where we had cookies and food – showing them how things work at SGA. I didn’t go as a frosh, but now I’m here and I like it.
Judy Barr: We do in fact represent other concerns – my position is effective in that it has been representing student input for a long time – maybe Sunday meetings just aren’t effective. Maybe we need to have people understand what happens on the other six days of the week.
Amanda Cegielski: How do we make SGA more visible?
Liana Donohue: Facebook.
Rodline Louijeune: In terms of the turnover rate – we should make use of faculty liaisons, because that would be really helpful. When I came in, I had no clue what to do, but having someone there who is a constant, who can help guide you in the right direction would be very helpful.
Christina Wagner: I think it’s a valid point that a lot of people just don’t care – we should accept and respect that – if they don’t want SGA in their lives, we shouldn’t force that.
Meeting adjourned at 8:44 pm.
–Minutes respectfully submitted by Kendra Hayde, SGA Secretary ’08-’09.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Big Cheese Forum
23 November 2008
Campus Center Main Lounge
7pm
Special Guests
Glenn Smith, Facilities
Mary Beth Horvath, Student Activities
Angie Sheets, Director of Residential Life
Dean Karen Tidmarsh, Dean of the Undergraduate College
President Jane McAuliffe, President of Bryn Mawr College
Meeting called to order at 7:10 pm.
Aheli Purkayastha, President: Thanks for coming to the Big Cheese Forum. The purpose is to have administrators and students talk to each other and ask any questions you may have. I’m going to give them a chance to let them introduce themselves.
Karen Tidmarsh, Dean of the Undergraduate College: I’ve been dean since 1990. Recently, I’m pleased about the fact that I’ve been visited by Anna Lee Mueser and we’ve made room for Art Club, and the fine arts classes in Arnecliffe are moving out in January, so as they move, and I’ve found out about their activities, and whether Arnecliffe could be a studio space for students, as well as the Stained Glass Club, who will now have a really nice space to use! Before we renovated Cambrian Row, I wanted to do that, and now we can.
Jane McAuliffe, President: I’ve been here almost 5 months now, and still in full-blown immersion mode, and still enjoying it. I’m going to turn it around a bit and mention something students have done for me quite recently – allowing me to participate in Lantern Night, which was an extraordinary experience. Until you’ve walked through it, the mystique and sense of it doesn’t come through. It was fun to line up under Pem Arch, and it was marvelous to see the excitement with all the students. The way the entire 300+ group fell silent and processed in, and it was amazing. It was magical, and one I’m grateful to have shared, and it felt like a gift from the students to their new President. I will try and respond to the question – tell you about something I’m doing with students on the road. I’ve got a Bryn Mawr roadshow going on. Our alumni association has set up tons of meetings all around the country, in Philly, New York, Boston, and London. I thought why don’t we showcase Bryn Mawr today, bring faculty and students with us to provide a panel presentation for alums who are not able to come to campus, and it’s been a tremendous success. Alums love to hear from current students. Jody Cohen brought along Rachel Awkward and Zanny Alter to talk about their work in education and sociology. The audience was riveted, they enjoyed it, and I did, as well.
Angie Sheets, Director of Residential Life: I’ve been at Bryn Mawr since July of 1998, a decade at the Mawr. One of the things I’m involved in right now that may not be exciting right now to you yet, but Haverford is in search for a new housing director for their campus. I think it’s an exciting opportunity to be involved in that Bi-college relationship, and they are looking at some changes to their housing right now, with additions, renovations, and thinking a lot about how they envision the residential life aspect of campus, and they do not necessarily have the same system of leadership as we do, like Hall Advisors and Residential Council. I’m enjoying working towards thinking about how this change and their shifting philosophies affects us, and people who are Dorm Presidents, cross-training, cross leadership opportunities, as well as the Bi-college housing exchange. It has some exciting opportunities, and I will keep you all posted on that front as we move forward.
Mary Beth Horvath, Director of Student Activities: I came to Bryn Mawr in September of 2002; and generally most of you know me because you have undisclosed events. I do so much that doesn’t involve the party policy. We do a variety of events, trips to KOP, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Dave and Busters, music events, like the coffeehouse on Friday, Comedy Nights at the beginning of the semester. I also rent out karaoke, and a Playstation with Guitar Hero. I help people plan events, especially those who have been approved by the Special Events Fund. Something I’m looking forward to, is that we now have people on the Alcohol Concerns Review Board to do something other than revise the party policy like alcohol education, etc.
Glenn Smith, Director of Facilities Services: I’ve been here for a little over 11 years now. We’ve been trying to catch some renegade squirrels in Brecon, but probably the biggest thing is the Goodhart project. We are now done digging, and we are going to really start building to create an absolute state-of-the-art teaching theater that will be one of a kind. I know some of you will not be back next year, but for those of you who will, we will have a major ribbon-cutting, and you all will get to enjoy a new theater and auditorium, new chairs, new lighting, new bathrooms, new catwalks above the new stage. There is almost nothing that won’t be touched. Associated with that project, we have converted what was the LLC in Denbigh to a new studio – it will be ready for use second semester this school year.
Aheli Purkayastha: Questions for the panel?
Jen Pierre, ’11: My question is what is the status of the Halloween Party? I’ve heard conflicting rumors and would like to clear some things up, like if it is canceled, is that final?
Mary Beth Horvath: It is not canceled to my knowledge – we are trying to work with issues like over-crowding. We are looking at strategies – do we restrict the guest policy, how do we keep it Tri-Co only. I don’t think we are going to cancel, but we need new strategies. We will do a survey.
Karen Tidmarsh: There were enough students taken to the hospital and enough people working the parties that it just felt out of control at times, and we were lucky there weren’t more safety issues. Bad enough things did happen, and it’s time to look at the whole thing again. My sense was that everyone worked really hard to make it safe and make it work – we don’t have enough room for the crowds because of space, so somehow we have to rethink the design of it all. I don’t think cancellation is anyone’s first or best thought, and that’s part of the survey, trying to figure out what should stay and what should change.
Anne Kauth, ’11: This is for President McAuliffe: I know our endowment has taken a hit, and I know that the whole campus received an email with your take on it. I was wondering how this would affect our plans for renovation on campus, and whether the college has a plan for weathering the storm, as it were?
President McAuliffe: Our endowment has taken a significant downturn, no matter how diversified you are. If everything is going south, it’s all going south. The difficulty of planning is that no one knows the depth or the duration of the present fiscal situation, but with the guidance of John Griffiths, CFO, we are doing models, and Bryn Mawr has a long-term plan for investment. We can see how we are doing in a post-election period, and we hear and see signs of greater stability, all of which will allow us to be more stable. We are very much in planning mode. In terms of fund-raising, I’ve dedicated myself to enhance our athletic facilities, and building a fitness center in addition to Schwartz Gym. I’ve talked to many who have been generous to us in the past, and I’ve been on the road as have others in the Resources office. It is not an easy time to be on the road. Most people express interest, but many people cannot make a commitment to any giving because of their own economic situations. We are continuing to go out and meet as many people as we can, and raise consciousness about it, so that when things do get better, we can take advantage of those connections.
Britt Fremstad, ’09: I would like an update on the Abu Dhabi campus – what was the motivation behind it, and what would be the changes behind faculty moving, what kind of student body are we looking at?
President McAuliffe: I would like to sketch this briefly. This came to Bryn Mawr via a contact I had just after I was elected – opening a small residential campus in the UAE. The crown prince of Abu Dhabi was interested in attracting an elite women’s college in the US to open one. Because I was heading off here, and specialize in Middle Eastern Studies, and because I helped put a Georgetown campus in Qatar, I was contacted. I visited in April along with Kim Cassidy. I put together a small working group with faculty and administration in July. It’s a huge undertaking – takes a lot of planing, thinking, and trying to envision all that goes on here, and to bring it there is a lot of work. We’ve started to explore this – we went to Abu Dhabi in October and came back convinced this was an opportunity worth exploring. Can a small school like this do this sort of thing, and can we build a financial model to make it possible? Those are the questions we are moving forward with at this point.
Cara Sogliuzzo, ’09: I know that selling Glenmede, we lost rooming, and we are accepting more students every year. What’s the plan with the new, bigger incoming classes, and not making campus huge by building a new dorm?
Angie Sheets: We did acquire new apartments, and I constantly talk with Admissions about how big the classes are, and Glens is a part of this conversation as well. Fall semester is always tighter than Spring, and we are looking at enrollment patterns and JYA to figure out a better balance. We do have vacancies. When students say we have a housing crunch – if you talk to folks looking at the financial piece of things, filling our beds is important. From my perspective, it’s looking that we offer enough housing that is attractive to students, and the type of housing. I was really excited to receive permission from the township that allows us to rent some apartments locally, and that’s an option we haven’t had before. I honestly can’t say about new apartments, because it depends on availability, and enrollment. Having that opportunity is important, and I would like to continue it. That’s why I’m excited to work with Haverford, because they have some options we don’t have.
Taline Cox, ’10: What are the plans for expanding student population, and how does that affect our small school status?
Dean Tidmarsh: A quite thorough study was conducted a few years ago, and we are looking at increasing the size of the faculty and student body depending on so many things, financial aid, facilities, etc. The conclusion was that unless we were on the brink of increasing by 100-150 students, we didn’t feel we were at a point to grow in that way. If we can’t do that, we can’t do much. We are adding about 20-30 students, which depends on apartments and balancing our students who study abroad, especially having more in the fall and less in the spring. We’ve been able to play with that a bit and create more spaces. But beyond an increase of maybe 20-30 students, a lot of our facilities would see a crunch and be stretched, especially athletic facilities. We are not aiming for a huge increase currently.
Katie Kellom, ’09: What’s with the path to Erdman? Are there plans for the circle?
Glenn Smith: It’s a long an interesting story, dating back to the 60′s. You may be aware of the fact that Erdman was designed by Louis Kahn. Having said that, there is a love-hate relationship with the building, but it is the number one most visited dorm on campus – we have over 2000 people visit it a year. When it was designed, Kahn’s original design was that he aligned it with Pem Arch. There used to be a street that ran down through there past Helfarian and the College Inn that was down there, with a sidewalk there. The street eventually went away but the sidewalk stayed. The plan was to move the sidewalk over. When Nancy Vickers was here, that was a desire of hers to have Louis Kahn’s vision ultimately realized. Barbara Thatcher passed away, and she was a former chairman of the Board of Trustees, and the opportunity came up to relocate the path and dedicate it in her memory. We have now directly connected the front door with Pem Arch. The asphalt circle is to be replaced with a circle of cobblestone or bricks where people who donate to the college can have their names commemorated. That was a desire of the Thatcher family. We are still refining the design of how those bricks will go into place, so the asphalt is a holding place right now. But we had to do something before winter came in.
Anne Bugnaski, ’10: I was wondering was, how if this Abu Dhabi campus is created, how do we ensure that our morals of this campus are injected into that campus. I’m wondering how we ensure it’s a comfortable transition for students.
President McAuliffe: It’s a great question and one that’s under careful consideration right now. It’s not as if we as a college say we want to start a campus in country X. There are only 2 countries in the world that have these deep pockets to actually start this. Abu Dhabi is one, Singapore is the other. The only reason we are in conversation is that if you are able to bring the quality of education from Bryn Mawr, we (the government of Abu Dhabi) will fully fund this. It remains cost-neutral, in fact, better than cost-neutral. Unless we would benefit from it, I would not explore this. We were invited to do this by a country who is trying to modernize itself – by a country who knows that they need to increase educational opportunities for its people, especially its women. They are particularly interested because of the quality of education. Nevertheless, you are right. It is not a society that enjoys the same kind of rights and freedoms that we enjoy. A vigorous investigation is underway to determine if we even can do this, can we export professors, can we ensure a Bryn Mawr experience? That is the capacity question. Equally important is the cultural question. Is a place where the record on human rights issues, the restrictions on human acts – is that a place that we could operate as Bryn Mawr? We would move forward by securing safe space for students. We have hired a law firm in Abu Dhabi to investigate that, what is the lived experience of the people there? What is the real part of life like on the ground there? Our faculty are engaged in a very intense and deep conversation on this. I think we’ll have to send some faculty groups out there. We’ve got to satisfy ourselves that we really can be Bryn Mawr there, or cannot. We are not alone in these endeavors – other major institutions like the Louvre, the Sorbonne, the Guggenheim, NYU (who has a large liberal arts college there), and MIT – that have been asking the same kinds of questions. It’s in a partnership with them that we can best assure an operating capacity there.
Jane Morris, ’10: We passed a plenary resolution regarding our Credit/No Credit policy. We got an update that said that we are talking about it. Can you speak to what is going on with that, how the Dean’s Office responded to that, and what we can do to make sure that it keeps going?
Dean Tidmarsh: It was discussed in the Curriculum Committee, and that is where we are right now. What came across to the faculty was the fact that BMC students wanted BMC faculty to consider letting us have what Haverford students have. Before we took that to the faculty, we wanted students to understand that they may not also take any course that satisfies a requirement C/NC, which is the policy at Haverford. We know that a fair number of students take classes like that if they are in a great deal of stress, so I guess the issue is that would students want it if it would change which courses it counts. 2-3 years ago when students brought this up, Haverford said that their system was a disaster. At that point, we went from 3 weeks to 6 weeks to deciding when one could request C/NC. I guess Bryn Mawr is not as changeable as Haverford. I think our faculty hearing that would be pretty open to change it. I’m not convinced they would change it to Haverford’s system, but not to every course. I think it’s a huge advantage when we can have the same policy as Haverford. I’d love for it to be the same. It’s both an added amount of freedom and a loss. We sent the student back to say this should be discussed amongst the students, and we haven’t heard back.
Sarah Kelley, ’11: Where, and if, can a Bryn Mawr student get a copy of the budget of Bryn Mawr College?
President McAuliffe: I don’t know. I would have to find out. I know that John Griffith does make presentations at the Board of Trustees and to the SGA. I don’t know what his practice is.
Dean Tidmarsh: I think there is a student representative to the budget committee, and we meet this week. In the last few years the student rep has come to the meeting. There are students who would find it interesting. And the idea was to have a student rep.
Klaralee Charlton: I will be there – if after winter break, you want me to make a presentation, I would be happy to do that.
Shelley Gupta, ’09: The sidewalk that was there for commencement, it’s just there in the middle of Merion Green. What’s going on with it?
Glenn Smith: The sidewalk to nowhere. That sidewalk typically is put in every year for commencement to provide additional access to the tent. We have explored various ways to do that. Obviously setting up a tent in the middle of the green presents challenges for some. In recent years, we put in a temporary path. This year, we kept it in for inauguration. Quite honestly, we haven’t gotten around to taking it out, and at this point, we may just leave it until May. It’s not meant to be permanent. We are also exploring wood-planking systems, as we are not the only campus to do this.
Cara Sogliuzzo, ’09: I have a question – we have the non-academic hour that we have between 4-6. As a result, many of us have had to choose between academic and athletic/social events. What is the stance on what that hour is supposed to be for, etc.?
Dean Tidmarsh: 4-6 is supposed to be a time period in which athletic teams practice, and there is supposed to be no regular classes scheduled during that time. For some, that’s the only time they did have. We did cave on the fact that if it is a multiple section course, then one can meet then, so a student involved in athletics could still go to one. But things like PLI, Drill Sessions move into that a lot, and what we count on, is that we don’t hear about them because they are not scheduled through the Registrar’s Office. We just had a special dispensation to have a seminar class then, because the professor is visiting and cannot make it any other time. Our concern is with athletes. There are lectures and colloquia at that time a lot, and there are certain kinds of optional events, but we don’t think you should have to make a choice with academics. Please let us know if there are things creeping in there because that seems to me to be the best we can do. Evening events have moved into the time block when Haverford faculty have counted on having Orchestra and chorale rehearsal. You need to speak up unless it’s been checked out. Lots of things informally move in and sometimes faculty are unaware.
Cara Sogliuzzo: Who would we contact?
Dean Tidmarsh: The Registrar or me.
Cara Sogliuzzo: Great. Awesome. Thank you.
Katie Kellom, ’09: I’m concerned about the assumption that we want to adopt Haverford’s system. I think our plenary resolution just talked about uncovering grades. My understanding would be, I would love to uncover if I do better, and also have it count towards requirements.
Dean Tidmarsh: I guess it wasn’t clear to us that Bryn Mawr students knew about this difference. If what you wanted to propose was that, not that we want the Haverford system, then we can take it to the faculty that way. It wasn’t clear to us whether they knew that the faculty wanted it that way. We wanted to students to realize that there was a difference between your proposal and what Haverford has.
Britt Fremstad, ’09: I know that there was talk about increasing the base salary of non-salaried workers on campus. If Bryn Mawr is severely affected, how do we deal with layoffs with our staff – do we have a no-layoff policy?
President McAuliffe: Jerry Berenson, our Chief Administrative Officer would be best to answer this question. How we will deal with staff/faculty – obviously we will do the best that we can to keep stable jobs. If a job is vacated, we are being very slow to replace as a matter of fiscal prudence for moving forward. We are going to ensure a level of wage increase for faculty and staff. We are trying to make decisions about building a budget in a climate when we don’t know if the endowment has dropped to as low as it will go, and not knowing how low the crisis will last.
Glenn Smith: I may be able to add to the wage rates. I have lot of hourly workers in Facilities, and the college recently conducted a market wage rate study, and basically, it is a range, and it is a policy to pay at the midpoint of the range. We did have some that fell below the low point, and my understanding is that adjustments are being made to get people to the low point of the range for their jobs. The economic situation helps us decide how fast that happens. The college is committed to a fair wage. In Facilities, there are only 3 people below the mid-point, and certainly within our department people are fairly compensated. Plumber, 20 dollars an hour plus benefits. We don’t have the lowest paid people within facilities – there are people in other departments. The lowest in facilities is about 15 dollars an hour.
Ashton Shaffer, ’11: At Bryn Mawr, we have lots of abbreviations for people and things. We have “Jmac” right now, for you, Presdient McAuliffe. Is that OK, or do you have another preference?
President McAuliffe: I’m perfectly fine with it, that works.
Taline Cox, ’10: What do you feel were the major benefits of the revision of the party policy last year – what kinds of educational things are you going to do?
Mary Beth Horvath: The Party Policy Committee is not just me, so it’s not solely my decisions, despite what some think. Increasing the party level from 20 to 30 people – there was a lot of desire from students. Changing it to 3 levels – we now only have a handful of parties that fall into the highest level. Cleaning up the language, and voided out things. We also put in a section about reporting violations that wasn’t there before. We also put in writing about the Party Fund. We didn’t make a whole lot of changes. As far as the Alcohol Concerns Review Board, typically it was only convened when we were updating the party policy, but we talked last year about keeping it every year. We spent the whole first semester talking about the Party Policy, and then second semester we revised. So I definitely need to do more education on alcohol consumption – workshops done with students, publicity in dorms. When I meet with the appointed people, we will look at what should we be doing and what can we do.
Deep Singh, ’09: As a senior in a popular major, I’ve noticed that most of my classes are very heavily populated. I know that majors rise and fall over time in popularity. Especially in the crunch of hiring, is there a census to see where students could have smaller class sizes?
President McAuliffe: Certainly we look at enrollment levels in department, majors, and courses to see where there is rising pressure. We go through a lengthy process to see which places need more professors, so there is an effort to be sensitive to that.
Dean Tidmarsh: The provost, when she sits down with each department, looks at the past couple of years and looks at how many students that professor is teaching – there is a lot of variation in fields. Some courses can afford it, others cannot. When it’s clear that some departments have too many people in too many classes, that’s when their request to add faculty is taken seriously.
Klaralee Charlton, ’09: What is the policy with Public Safety to let them know different things about the dorms? This arises about a personal situation – The power went off in Erdman one night, and Public Safety was called to see what the problem was. They were unable to find the switch, and told us that Facilities would do it in the morning. It turned out that the breaker box was located in the men’s restroom! Do they have any manuals, so they can find things after hours, or do we have to wait it out like we did?
Glenn Smith: It’s a good question. Public Safety is the only office here on campus 24 hours a day. They are the first responders to any problem after hours. We try to keep the various people aware of where the water shutoffs, electrical panels are, etc. We also have an on-call facilities mechanic every day. And that mechanic is required to be on call to be able to be here within an hour. Public Safety should have called us, because there is no reason to have a dorm without power for all night, unless there is a larger problem. We do have procedures in place to respond and respond quickly. We had a fire that was responded to very quickly in Bettswy Coed. If any of you have a situation, please let us know.
Meeting adjourned at 8:30 pm.