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.
Mariana: We have a lot of items on the agenda to get through so we’re gonna get started with what’s going on on campus
Campus updates
Rasaaq: This Thursday coming up there is the 2020 vision art show which is a VCAM art show with 20 artists across different majors curated by Courtney Carter. The opening reception is this Thursday 4:30-6:00pm.
Mariana: Anything else since the semester started?
Lev: There was the budgeting meeting with all the club folks. I guess people learned how to plan and budget and use Engage for all that.
Rasaaq: There was also Stories that Live/Speak and had a student expedition where they connect students at colleges with holocaust survivors and then college students come up with an art piece to tell the story. Today they presented the work and some of the survivors also came to tell their story.
Mariana: Does anyone want to get us started on officer updates?
Eliza: We had our budgeting meeting and we introduced the new system through engage, it should be much easier to do
Dex: Our presentation was short, The SLO added some other procedural information as well.
Katie L: So was that entire thing required for all the clubs?
Dex: We’re also working on creating video tutorials for how to do everything in Engage.
Katie C.: I talked to Mike about the food pantry, everything should be ready by spring break. So I think it’ll be either this week or next week when we decide how to chose managers/ people responsible for the optimal funtioning of the pantry. The pantry will operate on a one card lock system. I’m also meeting with CER to discuss the resolution and how the dorm program would look.
Emily: I met with Joan and Franklyn to plan some drop in sessions for seniors with Wendy. She wants to get the insights and experiences of seniors as a Semester long project.
Noorie: We have a rough timeline for appointments this semester and we’re in the process of getting in touch with all the committees and organizing points of support for the committees and create a procedure for appointments.
Evan: We have nine committees we are appointing for this semester.
If anyone reading the minutes has any new committees please reach out to the VPs!
Natalia: SOHO is having their first meeting this Thursday and then I want to follow up with Mike Elias after to set more goals for this semester.
Rodrigo: If you guys remember from last semester, SAAC was trying to get the party discussion organized with captains and affinity group leaders. It kind of fizzled out due to a lack of communication between SAAC and JSAAP, but have picked up the ball again and going forward with concerns regarding affinity group leaders being involved in that conversation, it could be too much emotional labor on their part to push the conversation forward so convo will be likely between captains and SAAC, facilitated by Ben Hughes of the OMA so it is taking a more internal direction to examine and amend culture.
The athletic and community task force has been split up into small groups, three groups each with different themes and they are trying to speed up the information collection and research process within these themes. There will be a big group meeting Feb 22 and met with Wendy Smith to talk about these plans.
Brittany: I have been working on this workshop MOOD4EVER and I am really excited about it launching off!
We have an alumna coming to organize, bringing in facilitators and both facilitators are community organizers so that could be really good to give us some diverse perspectives from alumni who we do not hear about as much.
I’ve also been working with Brian and Teressa to address two populations, specifically regarding transfer students and students who have taken time off and students of low income who transfer in, and see how we can help transitioning into Haverford community and make it a more welcome space. I’m currently waiting to see what will come out of those conversations.
Saket: I’ve been trying to make a meeting with all of the international cohead groups. Meeting with Teresa to catch up n International Student related Info. Hopefully by next week I’ll have more information from this.
Brian: This week I met with Mike Elias and emailed Jesse Lytle about including the board of managers in the plenary writing resolution part. I mentioned this during our retreat but I think that a rejection from the Presidents’ Office can be demoralizing. Because of the emotion and time they put into the resolution and the alternative methods of trying to pass the resolution after is not clear. Thought it was a good idea not to include them. He mentioned the Co Pres are involved in resolution writing work and I would like to help.
Mack: I spend a lot of time thinking about the situation with Molly CrabApple and the CPGC, even how this will affect my employment and lifestyle, and I think I plan to talk about Wendy Raymond about this because I want to talk to her and hear her perspective on it.
I am also budgeting for James House renovation, with an application for the facilities fund to get more money for this.
I made a poster for plenary to keep it in everyone’s mind.
Katie L: Just so you know, Mariana and I did reach out to the Deans about the situation and they didn’t really know what was going on so it seemed like the best next step was to talk to Noemi.
Katie C: Can I add something about the facilities fund? I don’t think the email of the date correction on the WC will be sent out on time, so I think we should extend the deadline to Feb 8th since people will not have gotten the message yet.
Rasaaq: The first year website is finished, I can give you the link (click for website). I have future plans for that to kind of the informal first year website and putting more stuff on there than is on the Haverford first year website currently. Before we went on break, I spoke with Wendy Smith about a sexual health and protection program. And will coordinate with OneLove and work with Women’s lacrosse captains making a OneLove club.
Nick: All is good on the archive front, before the break I wrapped up the project of the known plenary packets, all the known plenary minutes, they are all safe and organized in pdf form. I was also at the resolution writing workshop to answer questions about the constitution.
Ford Form Responses
1st response
How much money total is available to be dispensed through the Students’ Council Grants and if the choice is made to keep that number confidential, why?
Dex: Our initial choice wasn’t to keep money amount confidential and then we were told that [keeping it confidential] was probably the best path forward so that there will not be confusion for calculations that this pot of money is a one-time and this has accumulated over a few years but it isn’t a recurring source of funding. The admin will then expect students to afford those costs in the upcoming years. It is $80,000 though.
Eliza: We were advised that because there is confusion about how money works on this campus and we didn’t want there to be confusion between what is surplus vs what is a recurring source of funding.
2nd response
Perhaps this is too vague, but I’d like our leadership to work on a sort of general unity project. In Quaker spirit, I’d like for us to learn how to love our community members even when we all don’t see eye to eye.
3rd response
Hello! First, thanks to everyone on SC for doing an awesome job. Second, I’d be interested in seeing SC get more involved in furthering environmental goals for the college if that is something within SC’s power.
4th response
Why are there naked people in the library?
5th response
The light pollution resolution that was passed last year is far too weak. We need to hold Haverford responsible for the immense light pollution experienced campus wide, due to its effects on wildlife, sleep patterns of on-campus residents, and the capacity of Strawbridge Observatory. I’m doing my thesis on this.
6th response
It might be too late, but as someone who’s been abroad this semester it would be nice to get some sort of summary of what campus discussions about the Kardashians trial have roughly looked like (ie the abstract discussions) – obviously if it’s too late I get it but it’s weird getting emails but feeling out of the loop with regards to the state of the disc-horse
7th response
Please can the New York Times be provided in the DC again? I love to do the crossword and copies used to be in the entryway, but now they’re not there. I asked the DC staff and they said they didn’t provide them and that I should contact y’all! Thank you!
8th response
I know it’s been a while, but it’s still on my mind. There was a section in the Task Force Report about the athlete/non-athlete divide that had a chart of how time is spent by athletes and non, and something I would like to see addressed in maybe a different forum or whatever is the ways that low-income students spend their time vs non because someone working multiple jobs has a very different ability to become part of the campus culture and often their work goes unrecognized and underappreciated, doubly so for POC, women, queer, and other marginalized students.
9th response
Please put the Constitution back on the website. All of your customs models are fatal to the program.
COMMENTS FROM SC:
Katie L.: The light pollution, there is a resolution going to plenary that addresses those concerns. There are 4 resolutions going to plenary regarding environmental initiatives.
Marianna: Over the summer, we were asked if we wanted to continue getting print issues of the NYT. In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, we decided to discontinue print subscription.
Katie L.: The constitution is on Engage and the Custom’s models are not produced by SC.
Marianna: We sent the response to Honor Council Co-heads about the Kardashians Trial and they were able to respond to this concern.
Katie L.: We can talk specifically about this in the next board meeting as well. I don’t have a response to the quaker unity response if anyone wants to chime in on that.
Lev: I think that finding ways to unite the campus through an activity or reflection is something that has been tried. There have been a number of notable attempts but have had some obstacles.
Mariana: Going back to the clearness committee ford form response, at the last board of managers meeting, none of the board of managers had read the clearness report. Martha Denney sent an email this upcoming weekend to remind folks to read it before this weekend’s board of managers meeting. Katie and I were planning to highlight certain aspects of the report so let us know if you have any thoughts on this.
Evan: I know the students on clearness can provide info on the raw data for knowing more trends on demographic differences. In response to the Honor Council thing, I know they did their best to update students on any relevant updates and honor council was open about sending the raw documents. Students who were abroad last semester can reach out to honor council to get minutes from discussion.
Mack: In response to the art thing, I think the libraries exhibition is a unique chance to see other students’ artwork and I hope that as a community we are a little bit beyond regulating nudity in art works.
Marianna: Does anyone else have any thoughts on the responses
Presidential Updates
Marianna: A couple updates regarding plenary we have a meeting with Roger from ITS. We want to live stream plenary and we think it’s important to do regularly as a council. We will be meeting with him to set it up. We have pizza that is not from Haverford and they’re going to have a couple options that are gluten free and vegan. So that’s it for logistics.
In terms of plenary resolutions, the deadline is tomorrow and by tomorrow we’ll know how many resolutions we have and what they will be about. So far, Katie and I have seen drafts for 3 of the resolutions.
We met with CER to talk about one of their resolutions about investments of the college so we met to discuss that with them.
Katie L: We’re going to get drafts back tomorrow and then get comments to them tomorrow and then we’re hoping to send them out to all the students so students can start workshopping them. On a different note, we met with Katrina with Noorie and Rasaaq to plan the self governance module for first years.
We’re at the point where we have two actors from council who have agreed to be part of the video and we’re writing the script. We’re hoping to have everything done within the next month and a half.
Noorie: For the video, we’re also looking for other people to speak about the topics that we’ve scripted so if anyone is interested in being a spokesperson, please reach out to us.
Katie L.: Ideally we need 1-2 more people
Grant Proposal
Dex: Did everyone get to see the submission from GCC?
This is an all campus event and it could be funded by the student engagement funds but we decided since it is all money coming from the same bank account and the event’s cultural significance we could decide on it tonight.
Noorie: Along those lines, is there enough money left over in the student engagement fund for them to ask for that through that funding?
Eliza: I think we were intentionally vague so that we could open up the money for use by the campus.
The answer to if there is enough money left in SEF for that is unclear but there is enough in the grant. The potentially recurring nature of the event doesn’t seem super relevant to the decision.
Dex: I think we can decide now here as the SEF is only for the semester and is more limited in money.
Evan: They do mention that it is for the Tri-Co community. Do you know if there will be funds provided by Swarthmore or Bryn Mawr?
Dex: We’re not sure but does that seem problematic to folks if the other colleges aren’t?
Katie L.: I think it’s important to know the answer to this question before we make this decision.
Dex: My concern is that there are many events provided by one college and the three campuses are open. GCC is technically a bi-co club but if you want to open it up to other people, it’s up to them. We can roll it into SEF if we don’t feel comfortable making this decision right now.
Devi: I would be fine with giving the surplus for this.
Emily: I’m just wondering if anyone has any hangups and if so is it just the trico thing?
If we want to find the event we can do that still and just not
Lev: I think another possible advantage of confirming it is that it gives them more prep time
Evan: I think that one thing that would help is if we had mechanisms in place to make sure it is publicized fully and if there was follow up and evaluation of whether or not it served the whole community.
Dex: It’s definitely something we can do here. Maybe we can help publicize on engage, print out flyers.For me that would satisfy the requirement there. I’m not sure, In terms of the follow up evaluation, I don’t feel qualified to make that.
Evan: I think you’re right and by evaluation I mean more like how they thought the event went and what we can do to help engage and planning be better.
Brian: Maybe like if you’re concerned with getting feedback, the grant seeker can ask the attendees to fill out a survey to gauge how the event went from the eyes of the attendees.
Dex: I agree with the theory of this idea, but it would likely be difficult to ask everyone to fill out a survey after attending it.
I think part of our mission with this grant was to create a really low barrier way for people to have an idea and act on it. If this event isn’t the way we want to do it I’m very confident that it would go into the SEF meeting and the event would be approved with little to no problem.
Katie L.: I have no problem funding it and I think either way it will find funding. My bigger thing is when Marianna and I came in at the beginning of the year, we wanted to address how the structure of how money flows can be really confusing. Regardless of this decision, I think it would be important to clarify how clubs should get event funding.
Eliza: I think our intention was that the SC grants was that I think this is actually a really great example of an event that could have been applied for through the SC grant or SEF funding. I think it’s ok for this fund of money to overlap and thus help boost the volume in other pots of money.
Dex: And I feel like if we limit it saying we won’t fund events, then I feel like we limit the nature of the grant. For example I know the Haverfest coheads want to apply for funding to expand Haverfest and someone wants to bring a more expensive poet so that could be cool since we have the extra money this year. I think the reason SEF was created was because the weekly budgeting is difficult to follow up with for big, one time events.
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