Each week, Students’ Council releases meeting minutes to the Haverford community. The ideas represented in these minutes do not necessarily reflect verified facts, nor do they necessarily capture all of any speaker’s intended point. The original document released by Students’ Council can be found here.
Students’ Council Weekly Meeting
Sunday October 27th, 2019
5:15-7:00pm
Minutes by Devi Namboodiri and Sydney Churchill
Meeting Minutes
Table of Contents
- Attendance
- Summary of Meeting Topics
- Campus Updates
- Presidential Updates
- Plenary
- Attendance
- Council Members
- Co-Presidents: Katie Lieferman & Mariana Ramirez
- Co-Vice Presidents: Noorie Chowdhury & Evan Moon
- Co-Treasurers: Dex Coen Gilbert & Eliza Koren
- Co-Secretaries: Devi Namboodiri & Sydney Churchill
- Officer of Multiculturalism: Brittany Robinson
- Officer of Academics: Lev Greenstein
- Officer of Arts: MacKenzie Somers
- Officer of Athletics: Rodrigo Zuniga
- Officer of Campus Life: Katie Chung
- Representative of International Students: Saket Sekhsaria
- First Year Rep: Rasaaq Shittu
- Sophomore Rep: Natalia Cordon
- Junior Rep: Brian Hu
- Senior Rep: Emily Lin
- Absent: Marked with Red
- Late: Marked with Orange
- Council Members
- Summary of Meeting Topics
- Campus Updates
Noorie: There was a halloween party last night, I was there for a while but there weren’t too many people there.
Katie C.: There was the Bi-Co ASA exhibition yesterday and that was really cool.
MacKenzie: The new CFG exhibit opened and it’s aimed at activating different spaces on campus so keep an eye out for other opportunities to engage with that
Emily: There was Frisbee Haverween which was the 25th anniversary of the sneetches and it was really good and great to interact with alums!
Noorie: SAS is having the Eid/Diwali dinner tonight
Katie L.: For officer updates this week, we are just doing a callout so if you have something to share go for it, but it won’t be mandatory. Does anyone want to start us off?
Brittany: Before break BSL brought it to my attention that shoe-tossing happens on the power lines down by the apartments and this has been going on for years and that was troubling to learn. After break I got in touch with Ben and Nate to remove the shoes and ResLife had to contract out a company to remove the shoes. It’s a pretty offensive practice for students to be getting drunk and throwing shoes onto the power lines because it has a lot of resonance. It’s also important to note that half of the shoes were cleats.
Katie C.: There’s going to be a meeting with the residents who live nearby where the shoes were found.
Brittany: Nate was bringing this up not just from a housing perspective as it is expensive to deal with this issue, but also it litters our community and the areas for people outside the college in the community. ResLife is considering introducing a fine if this continues happening. This is also a triggering practice for some of us who come from communities where this is practiced and frankly it made me lose a lot of hope in this community. We are co-authoring an email with ResLife, Students’ Council, BSL, OMA and probably other affinity groups.
Mariana: Good, I think if people don’t make it this far into the meeting minutes I think it’s really important that people are aware of these conversations.
Noorie: Mike reached out to us saying he wants to reconvene SLAC, which didn’t exist last year but was running until then and this year he wants SLAC to reconvene and discuss belonging and campus traditions.
Evan: To rebrand this, we are creating a Task Force on Community Engagement. The goal of this is to be to evaluate campus events and put a critical lens on the ideas of belonging and engagement and how they relate to the events we have had and how these events could be more inclusive to people of marginalized identities.
Noorie: So SLAC has 8 members, and is represented by 8 community members from different parts of the community. Usually SC Co-Presidents are on it too. But given the volume of applications we’ve been getting, we don’t think we’ll get enough applications so Mike talked to us about appointing people internally from SC so if anyone has questions, feel free to reach out to us.
Katie L.: Maybe we could have co-heads of certain groups as a part of SLAC always. As in certain co-heads of affinity groups or team-captains for example, to make sure all these groups are always a part of these conversations. But I could also see this adding too much to people’s plates.
Evan: That sounds nice but I’m also wondering if we limit it to certain groups, it might be hard to have it limited in that way but maybe we can make sure to appoint people from certain affinity groups or from the OMA or from the athletic community.
Mariana: So what is the purpose of this committee?
Noorie: The way Mike framed it was, coming from the Clearness Report, that he wants to find more clarity of why people attend campus events and who attends what events. Also, the way that alcohol and food are being used at campus events and people’s interactions with them and what kinds of needs or interests in events are not being met. I think a lot of this is coming from SECS and FUCS not being a thing anymore.
Evan: So there are sections in the Clearness Report that talk about how certain groups experienced certain party spaces and belonging and how certain groups didn’t feel belonging to the community in this way. We want to figure out what types of events we could host to address these discrepancies.
Katie L.: Were there any action items needed from the group?
Noorie: We are going to run appointments for this soon after plenary weekend. If you guys think of people who would be good to recruit to the committee or who would be good, given your different positions and different groups let us know
Mariana: I’m not sure if this is within the structure of the previous SLAC, but JSAAP co-heads might be good to reach out to because of their work to restructure party spaces.
Emily: Are there appointments today?
Evan: SC Librarian appointments are tonight and this is important to uphold for the plenary resolution.
Mariana: Any more updates?
Saket: Food pantry with IDOMO went well, we spent $150 out of the $300 allocated, we used up a lot of the food and now we are talking about whether or not we want to do something over Thanksgiving Break and it might be good to start early because there were issues with logistics with organizing food delivery.
Katie C.: I’m not sure how feasible this is but maybe getting donations from nearby grocery stores like Whole Foods?
Saket: Yea that’d be good
Rasaaq: This week, I finally finished the outline for the consent advocacy group thing which consists of elements of the rugby talk that we ran and it’s a guideline for the teams we want to use in the pilot program. We want to start with teams with distinct social spaces, soccer, lacrosse and baseball which have 10, 19 and Drinker. I have a couple of guys on the team helping me draft the emails for this.
For the first year website I have a meeting with Katrina and we’re gonna try transfering the Adobe site to the Haverford.edu framework so that it could be passed down to future generations on Stuco. It would be a site for the next reps and could be easily replicated for other reps.
Katie L.: Have you been able to run the outline past non-Rugby members?
Rasaaq: I sent it out to the Women’s Center and got them to look over it because the team isn’t professionally trained to talk about consent and so I thought it would be good to have them look over it. The first talk about consent was by the Womxn’s Center and they are much more effective on it and can help us. I’m currently trying to think of a way to have it presented to multiple groups on campus and have some type of feedback or survey about how they felt about the outline itself and about going through this kind of training. Something like that will happen in the next two weeks.
Rodrigo: Dean Denny reached out to me about the task force on athletics and community she is putting together and she asked me to join the task force and I asked for more details but haven’t gotten a response yet. The sense I got was that this was in regards to the Clearness Committee report.
Katie C.: I will be on that committee too.
Evan: Dean Denny and President Raymond are working on it and we are going to appoint two students to the committee with Rodrigo and Katie.
Mariana: Is there a sense of how many people are gonna be on the committee?
Evan: Two students appointed, two SC members and then one faculty rep, one staff rep and people from the athletic staff.
Ford Form Responses
The seating in the new DC is absurd. The freshmen class is larger than ever and yet there are far fewer seats available, and far fewer suitable for large groups. The high tables are a stupid alternative to the stage, which everyone disliked for a reason. Please tell off whoever made this decision without consulting a single student, and immediately restore a more reasonable seating arrangement. Fear not: I bestow upon you the spirit of the entire student body in order to do so.
Also, please add door handles to the outside doors, and don’t have the alarm go off when it’s open. It’s incredibly annoying. So what if 4 people per day decide to go against community values and skip paying for their food? The entire freshman class and everyone else upcampus are on the full meal plan anyway, and most apartment folk will still respect what they paid for. A non-community member would not use that door to begin with, so it’s not like it’s a safety concern. Literally zero reason for the DC to engage in this stupid practice because “reeeee money” at the expense of OUR community values. Trust is MUTUAL. aghghhhh </rant>
I just transferred to Haverford as an upperclassman and I’d love to see some type of scheduled dorm community-building activities that people can drop by to participate in. I’ve heard from many people in my upperclassmen dorm that they feel like they don’t know their dorm mates and feel lonely and isolated sometimes because of this. I feel like this would improve feelings of community at Haverford. Examples could be a study break at a designated time with coloring, meditation, stretching…etc. or a dorm movie night.
Add an anonymous forum to submit concerns about Haverford. Then have an open discussion for anyone who wants to corroborate or object to the statement made. While this might not seem appropriate during fall plenary, it most certainly is important for students’ council to hear inquiries into students’ general thoughts about campus life and efforts for the coming year. I highly encourage this to be implemented.
I would love to see the live-stream setup from Special Plenary re-implemented, or at least for a conversation to be opened about it. Having a large group “discussion” is ineffective since it dilutes people’s voices to the extent where only group-think is what decides what passes and what doesn’t. Having such a large crowd grants anonymity which makes it easier to ignore those speaking, even if they’re close to you. I suggest having small group discussions then having someone report from those individual meetings into a larger one where all thoughts are decided.
Having small groups vote on each resolution can motivate those who are willing to vote against what those around them are voting for since they know that maybe in other groups they would have been a majority. This would make the voting process much more fair and less intimidating.
Should the baseball team, or for that matter any group, regularly be sitting in the back rooms of the DC for meals? I understand if this is done occasionally for specific meetings, but, when done on a regular basis, it has the air of, We shouldn’t have to stoop so low as to eat with these “other” people–which doesn’t exactly fit with Haverford’s ethos. I’m sure this isn’t the intention of anyone, but that’s certainly how it looks.
This is unrelated to the prompt; I hope that’s okay. I’ve noticed there’s a bit of confusion about library etiquette. I really need silence but have frequently encountered people talking and laughing relatively loudly in the main study sections. Are there sections where people don’t talk? Also, I’ve heard that people (A) have seen someone (B) reserve the study space they are inside on the screen outside and then A was kicked out of the room they were in by B. Is there a way to fix this system?
Toilet paper. worst part of campus. We need, nay, we deserve thiccer, higher quality toilet paper. This is a fact.
Hi I just want to let you know that the form for clubs to fill out and to be featured in the weekly consensus is not working. I’m representing Pan Asian Resource Center to advertise an art-making event on Friday (Oct 25th). Can you let me know how else can our club get featured since the form is not working?
Students’ council should discuss free speech on campus and how honor council does not actively protect freedom of speech. Given the sanctions issued by the baseball team for “culturally appropriating” Hawaiian culture, that is clearly an absurd attempt to restrict expression on campus. Given that the school rejected such obvious and problematic sanctions, this should at the minimum be a topic of discussion. If honor council’s decisions get nullified, what authority to they really have? Also, where is the formal abstract that should have been released during the same semester of the incident? These are all questions that should be answered to the residents of drinker and the Haverford community.
On the Plenary planning form you say “Given that its friends and family weekend, how much time can you commit to plenary?” And then list the minimum as 2-3. I know plenary is important but it seems like that’s REALLY not the best time to be having it, since Sunday afternoon is like the ideal time to spend with visiting family…
Hello! I’m an alum and current staff member. I don’t get the Weekly Consensus anymore so I’m not sure if this has already been brought up or is in the works (staff don’t hear a lot about student government or student life), apologies if it has/is. I think there should be an initiative to put menstrual supplies in the academic bathrooms, particularly the women’s and gender neutral bathrooms, but men’s too because of trans men. To my knowledge, the dispensers in the women’s bathrooms have never worked, and if you live in HCA you know the struggle of being caught up campus without supplies. The struggle is multiplied for Bryn Mawr students. At the very least, there should be supplies in Health Services next to the condoms, and perhaps in the little condom baggies that SHAC puts in the dorms as well. It would send a great message to first-years if they got condoms AND tampons. When I was a student, Swarthmore had baskets of supplies in all their female bathrooms (and they were rarely empty) so it’s definitely do-able. There are even a few menstrual product companies like Aunt Flow that have data and quotes readily available for these kinds of projects. If you want to take it to the administration, it might not be a bad idea to run a student survey of how many people had been caught without supplies, have had to leave or skip class to go back to their dorm for supplies, have been unable to focus in class because they were caught unprepared, etc. Just my two cents. Thanks for reading and sorry about the length!
I’d really appreciate it if the links to the constitution worked again, and if at all possible if links to past constitutions could be posted. Thanks!
The change in the DC table structure is less than ideal for large groups of people to sit together. I wish students were asked about table/seating preferences since a significant number of us eat there regularly. Could you also find out why the DC takes some food away earlier than 8PM or whenever it closes? I understand that food can run out, but is the situation that the particular food completely runs out or if it’s just taken away to start the clean-up process? I understand that the workers should be able to leave earlier, but after practice, sometimes we aren’t able to have the same food choices as other people, which is discouraging and frustrating. I wish students could have more active communication with the Dining Center management and participation in the change process.
Mariana: Is there anyone willing to reach out to the DC about the seating?
Mackenzie: I was on the tables and chairs committee
Emily: Me too.
Katie L.: There is also frustration about teams using the back rooms without reserving them.
Mackenzie: The managers have had to lock the doors because they’ve asked teams not to do that and they’ve continued to do that
Mariana: There was also another concern about how the DC takes food away before 8pm and it decreases the amount of food options available
Katie L.: The link will be up as soon as the constitution is updated, which will be soon.
Mariana: We’ve been working with the College Archivist to work on cleaning up the SC website because the previous website was really messy and outdated which would be bad if students are looking into Haverford.
Katie C.: About the response talking about support for transfer students and community-building events, that’s something we’re interested in because we want to encourage RSLs to create more community-oriented events
Katie L.: Someone asked if we could live-stream plenary this time again and we can look into that
Devi: For the live-streaming question, how would this work in the discussion-based plenary and how would this count towards quorum?
Emily: In the past , They did count towards quorum if people demonstrated that they needed it. They could potentially be participating or discussing things without having to be in the room.
Noorie: I think one challenge of that would be the fact that there are so many large groups, what would be screening to them during that?
Evan: I think that’s a valid concern, maybe we can talk to ADS about that and understand their standard practice around that.
Natalia: How many people generally use the live-streaming?
Emily: I think it was once during special plenary. But this is not usually there for all plenaries so I’m not sure how many.
Brian: We had a live-stream for a special room upstairs right?
Emily: I think that was only for special plenary.
Katie L.: We were talking about trying to use the upstairs room for one group that needs a more noise-sensitive space in case people need it
- Presidential Updates
Mariana: Board of Managers weekend was this weekend. But we’ll update you next week on this. For now, we’ll give you a brief update on customs, Mike, Dean Denny and the deans have come up with three models to pay custom’s people. They want to get feedback on the three different models from the community.
They told us Wednesday at 6:30pm for the Town Hall but not confirmed yet, date TBD. The idea is to get people talking about this during plenary in their own groups and maybe deciding which model is best or talking about each model.
Katie L.: Right now, in the poll that we sent out, labor and discussions was pulling #1 so this is clearly a primary concern. Labor and wages will likely be one of the major discussion topics. The labor task force has asked that that the 3 models they are proposing be part of the discussion.
Sydney: Also we had a task force meeting on Friday and another thing they wanted us to talk about at plenary discussion was the idea of service vs. work and how this would apply to jobs and other positions going forward
Katie L: They also asked that SC be involved so that would be great.
Katrina Glanzer is putting together a module on self-governance before first years get to campus and the ways that you can make ideas reality through student governance. The first step would be creating a script. We wanted to gauge what level of involvement people want to have with this and if anyone wants to be on the email chain for the emails (Rasaaq and Katie C. added to email chain)
Noorie: What would the timeline for the script be?
Katie L.: Script writing in Feb, then the film would be done in early april.
Mariana: This is all for content development but they will then use professional people to film and stuff.
Katie L: We met with Kim Callahan before Fall Break and her and Tom King laid out the processes behind why and how they send safety alert emails. Kim sent the email when normally she wouldn’t have sent it because Tom King was away. It was a unique situation for them. But they were open to what we were saying because they are always open to and wanting student feedback and they always want to get better in their work so they offered to come to one of our council meetings to talk with us.
Emily: It seemed from the discussion with Wendy that there is certain information required in emails. So I want to understand if there really could be something done.
Katie L.: Yep. It sounds like they were trying to draft an email template to try to standardize it, but then realized soon how unique each situation is that is brought to them. The provost suggested that each email contains six characteristics and then people said this wouldn’t be realistic so there wasn’t a clear consensus. I think that’s why they offered to come talk to us.
Brittany: I personally think this is very important and they should come talk to us, there are people’s parents who have been profiled on this campus who have been black.
Evan: I think it is important to meet in person to address this but maybe in a smaller group of us. We are not only dealing with procedural questions but also the question of why certain descriptors that were used at that time. I want to understand why they used these characteristics.
Katie L.: It could also be a larger conversation that doesn’t necessarily end there.
Mariana: We could just continue the line of communication with them and check in on where they are with developing the template of the email they would send out. They are not using a template and thinking on their feet and that’s where the implicit bias comes out. As one doesn’t always think about the implications of their words.
Natalia: I think before they develop it they should first come to a meeting.
Brittany: I’m kind of with Evan and I think that this might be good for a smaller group of us to get together and talk to them. Because the Ardmore police was there and it would be good to understand when are they called on campus and when they are not for different issues.
Mackenzie: If I remember the email correctly, there was a note that said there would be increased police presence due to the report.
Katie L.: Is it the sentiment that it would be better for a smaller subset to meet? Or should there also be a whole council meeting?
Evan: I think small group
Brittany: I do think that there is value for them to come to these meetings. I think there needs to be more SC involvement with these issues. Even if you aren’t particularly passionate about something, it is still important to be there for issues that affect communities you aren’t necessarily a part of.
Mariana: We’re not meeting this coming week so do people feel good about meeting with them in 2-3 weeks?
Brian: Tom King was not present so does that imply that Tom King knows the procedure for disseminating this information? I’m just a little confused.
Katie L.: This is a more time sensitive information in their eyes than it may seem to us, as in the moment they are trying to disseminate info. I think it’s important that they come and speak for themselves.
Saket: I have a question, there was a suggestion about the anonymous form from the Ford Form and I think we should make a decision on that. How are we going forward with it?
Katie L.: I think we should hear feedback from the room
Emily: Did the student say why they wanted an anonymous form?
Mariana: Sounds like they are speaking within the context of plenary. We can talk about it more on Tuesday if people want to think more about it.
Lev: There is no one outside of Co-presidents and Co-Secs seeing the emails linked to these responses so the Ford Form is in many ways anonymous, maybe we need to clarify this to students.
Katie L.: We could clarify that to students, that their names aren’t coming up during these meetings either.
- Plenary
Mariana: Do we have any plenary updates?
Mackenzie: The performance group has had challenges getting responses
Katie C.: We only have half. Mayuri said they would do it if we have other performers.
Rodrigo: I have a friend on outskirts who said she would reach out to them so they’re going to decide about that tonight.
Brian: Have you reached out to all the acapella groups?
Lev: I can push it through mine.
Mackenzie: Our next option is to reach out individually through fb messenger.
Katie L.: I think it’s important to hold the events right before plenary
Mackenzie: It would overlap into the quorum reaching phase
Katie L.: Did you guys reach out to comedy/ improv groups?
Mariana: I feel like we are reaching a point: I think it’s time to reach out to your friends on groups to participate in the plenary performances.
Katie C.: We did reach out to one improv group but we didn’t hear back
Mackenzie: We can send who else is performing to a group chat so that can help us get other groups excited to perform.
Mariana: I do think it’s a really good idea but I do think that if no one is doing it, no one wants to be doing it alone
Lev: Are we at all concerned that people will vote no on all of our plans?
Katie L.: Yes, I think that that’s why we tried to be as transparent as possible through planning. I think it is also why we should give the reasoning and intent for planning plenary in this way. I think a large part of this is letting people know the why and the reasoning behind this. Honor Council has agreed to be a part of this statement and a person on each council could read some of the statement at plenary.
Mariana: I do think that people need to hear the context and why we are doing all of this to fully understand why they would vote for it. We’re gonna share out a response to you guys so you can edit it
Katie L.: We are also writing an article with Soha and Carter to get the word and our reasoning out
Emily: Are there plans to have state of the ford like there was last fall?
Katie L.: This would be the substitute for this. Any updates for food? For Facilitators?
Evan: For facilitators, Brittany and I sent out the call for it but we didn’t get a lot of responses. Please reach out to anyone who has any level of experience. Are Council members allowed to facilitate?
Katie L.: I don’t think Co-Pres would be able to but any other position
Brittany: I have started calling out people I know and people have concerns of being facilitators, one concern was being placed in a shitty group to use the phrasing I heard. Maybe from this meeting, we could have a more specific idea of the topics because that might influence people to be able to feel comfortable facilitating.
Katie L.: Do we want to put that poll in the minutes one more time?
Evan: The training starts on Wednesday, so we should know the topics by Tuesday at the latest.
Katie L.: Just so everyone knows on the poll: Labor/Wages is 1, Customs is 2, Party Spaces and Culture is 3
Brittany: Are we gonna form questions for facilitators to bring up to each group? I will say at this point we are going to need everyone on SC to sign up.
Katie L.: It will take extra work to get every facilitator that we need.
Mackenzie: When are the trainings going to be?
Evan: Wed, Thurs, Fri 7-8 but you only need to attend one of three
Lev: Are you in contact with Theresa Thensuan or anyone else for backup?
Brittany: Yes. I also just wanted to add that people sometimes get intimidated by facilitating but this is just an hour long training and it won’t prepare you for everything. Facilitating is a lifelong skill.
Mariana: What do you think makes people unwilling to apply for this position? I know emotional labor
Brian: Probably the time commitment
Devi: Some people might be afraid of the backlash they would receive from facilitating. I was talking to some people about doing it and they didn’t want to because they were scared of having to call people out or something else, it was kind of the emotional labor thing and they didn’t want to face backlash after plenary.
Rodrigo: Part of the reason may be lack of familiarity with the issues we are going to talk about. Even if you just need to be able to facilitate the conversation, I think we need to make that clear so that people don’t feel intimidated.
Evan: In that case I think it might help to include the topic in the next outreach email and also the exact role of the facilitator and what it would mean. Now I see that our first email might have been too vague so maybe we can outline expectations more clearly.
Katie L.: I completely agree: All the concerns people have heard are valid. At the end of the day there’s positives and negatives of this structure. I also don’t think that the facilitators have to be the most informed so maybe can clarify that and put a more detailed job description.
Natalia: I think also highlighting that they will ideally be with another facilitator would be good.
Emily: Maybe people could sign up with someone
Natalia: Or even during the facilitator training, they could pair people so that they can start working out plans for facilitation, might make it more approachable. They could talk to the person they are facilitating with.
Mackenzie: I think one thing holding people back is that this event is a total experiment. Like this thing could go really badly. It could also be productive and cool. I think presenting this as a new thing that will be really cool and productive. I think that re-framing it would be good. There’s like a risk to that.
Katie L.: There definitely is a risk to it and that’s what we began with because you can keep doing what is easy but bad. But if we work hard and try our best, this could be a huge opportunity for growth.
Mariana: Going off of that I would rather be associated with trying and failing than not trying and not doing something about an issue we’ve known about for a long time.
Emily: Are we opening this change for a vote?
Katie L.: yes
Emily: Could we still have those discussions happen if the change gets voted down? They would just be informal?
Katie L.: One of the big things we have been thinking about is what are the cons that can be raised and how can we prepare to address them? We were thinking about coming up with a pro-con document so that we as a council can speak to the intention and reasoning behind this change. Honor Council had also offered to speak on the pro side for this with SC.
Emily: I guess I’m just thinking that we should be open to modifications from the students?
Lev: Ideally people can bring concerns to tabling — Maybe there’s space for them to bring up concerns there (at tabling) rather than bring it to plenary.
Katie L.: We want to know any ideas you guys have about how to hype up plenary over the next few days?
Rodrigo: A meme
Mariana: Does anyone know how to make a meme?
Rasaaq: Yes, but at the same time, if it’s a bad meme, the cost is not worth the reward.
Katie L.: Other ideas?
Emily: Maybe we could do the sheet of paper/poster for people to write ideas on, each day next week. It could be about plenary the structure or other topics, so people can think about it.
Saket: I was wondering with tabling, could be table for specific topics because I think it would be good to get the most information possible on each of the topics so that we’re best prepared for the discussions on Sunday.
Mariana: What do people think?
Mackenzie: I like that idea
Katie L.: On Wednesday or Thursday, we will have the topics decided so the papers could be handed out while tabling.
Noorie: Monday and Tuesday, whoever is tabling can have the form for facilitator sign up there.
Mackenzie: On Saturday, FAB is having a Fall Fair on Saturday and if we could table there, that would be good.
Emily: What’s our plan for creating the discussion questions?
Mariana: Yea so we have the poll results and we could do one of two things: Katie and I could condense them into questions or we could spend Tuesday brainstorming.
Brittany: I would prefer the former so we can start sooner.
Noorie: Could we make the doc public? Also, once you guys have the guidelines for facilitations, it would be good to make that public too so that people know what is expected of facilitators.
Brittany: Yes
Saket: I was wondering if this week it would be possible to make the ford form about getting questions instead of data. Within specific topics which questions do you want us to discuss?
Lev: Having an email going out for norms would be nice to standardize so that all students go in with the same amount of knowledge
Katie L.: I’m thinking of how we normally share the plenary agenda with students ahead of time, we can do a similar thing here
Rasaaq: One last update about the accessibility stuff for plenary. We wanted to make sure that people with physical disabilities won’t have to travel across the entire room and so we need to figure out how to deal with this in randomization of groups. We should also mention in the email that because we are going to be sitting down for long periods of time and this could be painful on your body. Suggestions about stretching or other tips to make sure plenary is not too physically exhaustive. Having people not be afraid to ask to get up and stretch, etc. Make sure facilitators know they can give people stretch breaks, etc. Also, if people would somehow have questions they could view on their phone if they can’t see the screen. Earlier this week, I emailed Katie and Mariana about Blast and plenary, we want to have 2-3 people running with mics so that it’s easier/faster to make transitions between speeches.
Katie L: There’s usually a packet send on Friday about plenary and we can include this accomodations information. Make sure student body is clear about food and the process.
Lev: Can we make sure we have water bottles available? Even though this is not environmentally sustainable.
Natalia: We could get the orange gatorade tanks to give water sustainably.
Be First to Comment