Emma W-B ’11 calls the meeting to order at 7:10 PM.
Roll Call
Excused Absences: Nga Nguyen ’12, Malina Toza ’12, Caitlin Evans ’12, Shannon Ryan ’10, Jennifer Savage ’12, Jill Settlemyer ’10, Elle Works ’10, Caroline Heffernan ’10, Marisa Franz ’10
Unexcused Absences: Blair Smith ’12, Claire Smith ‘12
Community Members: Brittney Thornbury ’11, Allyson Schmieder ’11, Renee Beyer ’12, Heather Taddonio ’12, Lydia Bello ’12, Sharan K. Mehta ’12, Celia Turner ’10
Announcements
Tanya Kaur ’10, On behalf of Caroline Heffernan ’10: This Tuesday from 11-2 and 4-7, there will be a Smart Women, Strong Women Open House in the Fitness Center. The Open House will have information about the upcoming gym closings, Rhoads Fitness Center Openings, and potential new equipment for the new facility. The Athletic Department will also be having a Moving Sale on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday! Come get some great deals on Bryn Mawr Athletic Gear!
Other Dates to know:
All personal belongings in the locker rooms must be out by Thursday, November 19.
The fitness center will be closing on Sunday, November 22 at 8:00 PM.
Rhoads Fitness Center will be opening on Monday, November 30.
Recreational Pool times will end on December 4 at 2:00 PM.
Your Two Cents
None
Middle States Reaccreditation
Dean Tidmarsh: I know you were given a link about the Middle States Reaccreditation process but I realize you might be busy and may not have had time to read it, or perhaps you read it and don’t remember everything, so I brought 40 copies with the information.
Mary Osirim-Hi everybody, I’m Mary Osirim and I thought I would take about 30 seconds to explain the Middle States Reaccreditations process. The Middle States includes states like New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The reaccreditation process is in place because any school that takes any federal funding needs to be accredited. So every 10 years an institution is reaccredited. There are 14 areas that the school needs to be accredited in. We have a committee that deals with this specifically and takes a very detailed look at our college and each of these 14 areas.
Dean Tidmarsh: So the entire reaccreditation documentation can be found in the library, it’s about 150 pages long. What you have in front of you is 40 pages that we thought would be the most pertinent and interesting to you, which is student life. The entire document can only be 150 pages, so the section on student life, which is quite condensed, I’m afraid is in front of you.
Tanya Kaur ’10: So this question isn’t about the actual document but about the accreditation process. Exactly who gets to see this 150-page document?
Dean Tidmarsh: So the document is first seen by the campus community and then we give that self-study to the Middle States committee who reads it and then talks to faculty, administrators, and students about the content.
Dean Tidmarsh: We don’t think we’ll lose reaccreditation as Bryn Mawr College, but at the same time we don’t want to get accredited with a provision to improve in any area because that would be a slap in the face.
Maddy Court ’13: Where does the Middle States Reaccreditation get their authority from?
Mary Osirim: They get their authority from the federal government. The past administration was quite worried about the educational achievement in college, and was going to set up standardized college tests. Not to worry, the Middle States were absolutely against that provision.
Dean Tidmarsh: The idea is that we’re going to be accredidated by peers as opposed to Bureaucrats from Washington D.C.
Emma W-B ’11: So it says that Plenary requires 40% of the student body, but really it requires 1/3 of the student body.
Hannah Curry McDougald ’10: Where are some of the people who are reviewing our college from?
Dean Tidmarsh: I think the chair of the committee is the President from Hamilton College, but I’m not sure about the rest of the committee.
Annalee Garrity ’11: Is there anything the student body should be doing?
Dean Tidmarsh: It’s nice of you to say, but I don’t think so. Be engaged, and answer their questions—you should answer honestly, you don’t need to say everything is wonderful, but be pleasant.
Elizabeth Howell ’12: Could you just talk about these goals that you’ve listed on the back page?
Dean Tidmarsh: We want to address some goals that we as an institution want to meet. We want to make the Deans more accessible to the entire student body. We realize they have a lot of responsibilities and sometimes not all students get their needs met. In addition we’d like to increase the faculty involvement with students when it pertains to academics, while remaining conscious of the other commitments that faculty members have. We also want to introduce a program that would include graduate students on campus in the health center helping with issues pertaining to residential life. We also want to see if we can have a staff member available from residential life to address any concerns Has may have on weekends. We are also planning on enhancing academic programs, particularly quantitative reasoning. And this is important so that the Middle States realize that we are setting goals for the future and looking towards the future.
Hannah Curry McDougald ’10: On page 5, it says “Customs people, sophomores” but actually not all customs people are sophomores.
Sophie Papavizas ’11: I’m confused what it means that the SGA has restructured it’s board in Section 2(v)
Dean Tidmarsh: Yeah I was confused by that as well, so now that I know that’s not accurate we’ll take that out.
Yung Jung Cho ’12: I was wondering about experimenting with Graduate Students on campus.
Dean Tidmarsh: It’s something we are experimenting with this year, since we can’t have a nurse on campus Friday-Sunday, so instead we are trying to get graduate students involved and we are interviewing potential staff members, who probably are graduate students to be on campus at that time. So in case there is an emergency or someone needs to get to the hospital, there is someone to help.
Taline Cox ’10: So is that one person? Or a few?
Dean Tidmarsh: It would be one per weekend, but we would probably hire 2 people so that they can work every other week.
Adelyn Kishbaugh ’12: Does it have to be someone on campus? Or can they live close to campus? I feel that someone won’t stay awake on campus all time.
Dean Tidmarsh: We are willing to be flexible depending upon where they live.
Colleen Hayley ’11: I was wondering if the pay is different for nurses and graduate students?
Dean Tidmarsh: Sure, great question. The hourly pay for nurses is higher. However, there isn’t a significant difference that would be hard to accommodate financially. However, there is a very high demand for nurses, especially on weekends. Hospitals also want nurses to work on weekends, and they can afford to pay them more. As a result, even if the nurse model was one we thought was better, it was getting hard to staff at this point.
Adelyn Kishbaugh ’12: Would you consider a student EMS service? I know other colleges have student services that create student positions on campus.
Dean Tidmarsh: I think it’s something we would be perfectly happy to talk about. Our small size would mean that students know each other so it sometimes becomes uncomfortable. But we can certainly talk about it.
Emma W-B ’11: We have run out of time for this, but if you have any questions please email them to mosirim@brynmawr.edu.
Big Cheese Forum
President McAulife: I’m Jane McAuliffe and I’m the President of the College. I thought in explaining my role it could be helpful if I just told you what I did for the last 2 weeks. November 1 was Lantern Night, which I greatly enjoyed. Monday morning I had lunch with other college administrators from the Tri-Co. Back in the office I hosted an administrative meeting with fellowship awardees who are shadowing the leadership of other institutions. I then went to Philadelphia to be on the panel for an inner city school, the Jesus School. Every year they host a symposium that brings in educators and philanthropists, which then place these students in different high schools. About 95% of these students graduate from High School. Then I came back to campus to introduce the Flexner speaker, Sanjay Subrahmanyum at the Flexner lecture. Tuesday I met with new staff members and the cabinet, and then later met with the diversity council. The next day I was in Boston fundraising with alumni and donors. I do this quite a bit—in fact I’m generally away from campus at least once a week fundraising. Friday, I was back for meetings and to host a lunch with the Flexner lecturer, and a reception for Parent’s Weekend. The next morning, there were various panels I was on and moderating during Parent’s Weekend. That gives you one week in November, which encompasses my role: meeting with senior staff on campus, to meet with students, to meet with parents, to heighten the exposure of Bryn Mawr and to fundraise.
Dean Tidmarsh: The dean of the undergraduate college is responsible for the welfare of the students and the college. I straddle the responsibilities for academic and non-academic advising. So I oversee the deans academic responsibilities, as well as non-academic advising—res life, student activities, and the like. I also have an advising load of my own students. I meet with Emma as a link to SGA. Ex-officio I am co-chair with Katherine Redford of Honor Board and of the Curriculum Committee.
Angie Sheets: I’m the director of Residential Life, and Bryn Mawr is a residential campus, so my main responsibilities are with housing, residential council, and the hall advisor program. I also network with and collaborate with a number of campus groups and departments—for example, I may have to deal issues around a raccoon, or with students in their room with the flu.
Jenny Rickard: I’m Jenny Rickard and I’m the Chief Communications and Enrollment Officer. It’s a new office, and it was the result of a yearlong process that looked at how we were creating and delivering services to all of you. We look at financial aid, and have combined that with student accounts. This also includes College Communications, and the Registrar among some other departments. One goal is to align the communications effort for recruitment and visibility purposes. Right now we are in the process of looking at Student Services and seeing how we deliver services and how we can fix it, so we’ll be looking to you for feedback and then we’ll be trying to transition that by the end of the this year.
Elizabeth Howell ’12: How did we respond to Haverford’s Sexual Assault last week?
President McAuliffe: I was immediately in touch with Steve Emerson to offer support and to briefed if necessary. Of course Mike Hill and Tom King have also been in touch and were working well together in order to resolve the situation.
Dean Tidmarsh: I also was briefed and kept informed, and we have a weekly Monday meeting to discuss what had happened, and I felt that we had a lot of access to the information—both myself and the community. I felt that they were telling us what they knew.
Taline Cox ’10: So last year in the spring, when we were discussing budget cuts, we were talking about expanding the post-bac program, so has that been discussed further?
President McAuliffe: Well something occurred that was not expected but fortuitous. We had proposed to increase the post-bac students by 10 spots, and then we did have an increased yield of post-bac students who were very qualified-and it was in fact, 10 additional students. In terms of your questions, we always have admission goals, but none that we have expanded officially.
Liana Donahue ’12: I had a question for Angie for single mothers—will they get housing on campus? I was giving a tour yesterday and I was asked this question.
Angie Sheets: We just had this conversation last week because we do think this is very important. We still have a leasing arrangement with the Marks Apt, and so we have apartments close to campus, which is our best option, because we would like to offer family housing options. In terms of logistics, we haven’t determined costs, but as a women’s college we would like to address that need.
Hannah Curry McDougald ’10: I was wondering why current students don’t get their financial information till July and prospective students get it with their offers earlier.
Jenny Rickard: Sure well part of it is logistically; we time our financial aid packages around tax season, which is filed by April 15. We send it to prospective students first and then send it to current students. We would love to send it to everyone around the same time, but we don’t have the staff to make that happen.
Julia Fahl ’12: President McAuliffe, last year you spent a lot of time talking students in dorms. Are you planning on expanding that program? What have you reaped from that? What are you other ideas?
President McAuliffe: Sure, I’m trying to have dinner with student groups in Haffner but I’m not too sure if that is working well. I will also be inviting the senior class to dinner at Pen y Groes. I was thinking about office hours, but I’ve also heard that can be intimidating. So I’m not sure what would be the best informal venue for us to have a productive conversation, so I would love any ideas you can have.
Julia Fahl ’12: As a quick follow up—what is your role in student life?
President McAuliffe: I want to be in a listening role frankly. Additional ways where I can be part of the thought life are of great interest to me.
Pragya Krishna ’13: Dean Tidmarsh, I heard that there will be changes in the foreign language requirement…
Dean Tidmarsh: Sure so we are talking about, requiring all students to take 2 semesters of a language regardless of proficiency. So if you are proficient you can take 2 semesters of a new language, or a higher level of the language you are proficient in. This of course wouldn’t apply to any of you, as your requirements are the ones that you come in with as freshman.
Sophie Papavizas ’11: Jenny, in terms of the restructuring you were talking about, how are you getting student feedback?
Jenny Rickard: Sure, so we have had student focus groups, and we have sent out student surveys. So we will be coming back to you to figure out how we want to garner feedback. It seems communication and technology seems to be the biggest thing: there seems to be a lot of feelings about Virtual Bryn Mawr and that it could be better, or that it is better but students don’t know how it’s better and that’s on us as well, to communicate to you how to effectively use these resources.
Renee Beyer ’12: I’m the president of the outdoor club, and I know at fall frolic President McAuliffe you had come by and said that you would be interested in getting increasing bi-co outdoor activities.
President McAuliffe: Sure, you are good to remind me—I still would be interested in increasing bi-co participation in outdoor activities, and I certainly need to look into this more.
Rachel Brody ’11: This was more of last year, but how is the sister campus in Abu Dhabi going?
President McAuliffe: It’s not. Due to the economic downturn, it didn’t make sense to invest our time there. However, I am still looking towards similar ventures. I just met with the Indian Minister of Education for setting up a partner institution in India.
Daisy Shetterly ’12: I had 2 questions: the first was about Guild: we were told that we were downsizing Guild due to reasons around reducing our carbon footprint, however given that everyone on campus needs a computer—if we don’t provide computers, they are still being brought on in the form of laptops and so we aren’t reducing our carbon footprint at all. As a student who doesn’t have a laptop, I’ve found the current state of Guild really problematic because it makes it a lot harder to get work done. Is there any way of bringing Guild back? The second question was about your policy on alcohol use on campus: how does it conflict and go along with our principles of self-governance?
President McAuliffe: Sure, I have spoken to Elliott Shore about this primarily. And the idea was to consolidate the resources in Canaday so that everyone can have access to it. But if you have feedback please feel free to let us know. Now your question about alcohol use, I don’t really understand.
Daisy Shutterly ’12: I wanted to give feedback about Guild: the current system isn’t working very well at all. Guild is a completely unused space, and the computers that have been removed from there are missed. In terms of my other question, I’ve heard a lot of things around campus about your policy on alcohol usage, but I wanted to know from you what your policy on drinking on campus is?
Presidnet McAuliffe: My policy is the laws of Pennsylvania. It does deeply concern me that people on campus end up in the hospital from alcohol consumption and I think that as a community we need to be more conscientious about alcohol consumption and be more careful. People die from alcohol consumption and students who are taken to the ER neeed the help that they are given there.
Simran Singh ’10: This is a question for Dean Tidmarsh: has there been any talk about getting course credit for internships?
Dean Tidmarsh: Yes, and we’ve been talking to Ellie Esmond, and I do think it’s been an increasing trend for summer employment to only offer academic credit rather than some compensation, and it leaves us to write incredibly convoluted letters explaining that we don’t give credit, but we want this student to have this opportunity, so we are trying to roll something out by spring so that students can take advantage of it for this summer.
Simran Singh ’10: As a follow up question-a lot of internships turn into jobs, so would this be made available for graduating seniors?
Dean Tidmarsh: Well we certainly want the seniors to get jobs, but it puts us in a strange place to offer academic credit towards a degree that a student has already earned, nevertheless that’s a category of people we should be talking about.
Emma W-B ’11: We are running out of time on this conversation, so all in favor of extending time to the end of the speaking order: Yes-30; No-0; Abstain-0; time has been extended.
Miranda Hansen Hunt ’11: What is being done to integrate our virtual registrar with Haverford’s virtual registrar? I major at Haverford, and it’s problem sometimes.
President McAuliffe: We realize it’s a total mess to get access to information. Part of the problem is technology and it’s fixable but it’ll take time. Part of the problem is faculty policies. Faculty policies differ about the add/drop period, and about how many people can be in a class, so coordinating those policies can be a bit of a challenge.
Yung Jung Cho ’12: Where are Bryn Mawr College’s priorities in terms of sustainability? What do we hope to achieve in the next 5-10 years?
President McAuliffe: Well Bryn Mawr certainly believes in green energy policies and in sustainability. I talk regularly with Don Abramowitz who coordinates sustainability issues and is a great resource. There is an effort into integration and coordination of ideas rather than of implementation at this point. The report about this is going to be completed by the end of this year. In terms of our carbon footprint, it is really due to our electrical use—for example, Park Science is a huge chunk of our electrical use. Sustainability is very much on people’s minds at this point. However, we struggle between what we want to do and what we can afford to do at this point.
Angie Sheets: I would just echo some of those sentiments, and I think that this is really echoed throughout residential life. For example, with buildings and grounds committee, we really discuss our sustainability goals. The trustees also expect that the college takes this seriously. Glenn Smith is always trying to get grant funding for this, and it’s been successful. Facilities are also working really hard to figure out ways for students to get involved and research ways to find newer solutions that could work for our sustainability goals.
Liana Donahue ’12: What is Bryn Mawr and Tri-Co’s relationship with neighboring colleges? I know that we can always go into neighboring college’s parties, but they can’t necessarily get into which seems to be very exclusive. So how has this helped our community?
Dean Tidmarsh: Regarding the Halloween party, we did say that Bryn Mawr students can bring a guest from anywhere. We didn’t allow other students to come in primarily for safety reasons because we didn’t want other students coming in droves and making it an unsafe environment.
Old Business
None
New Business
None
Meeting adjourned at 8:34 PM.