Attendance: Yasmin, Thea, Jorge, Maria, Kelly, Claire, Julie, Anagha, Clay, Emma, Grant, Vy, Jesse, Michael, Tim, Irene, Grace, Erin, Emmeline, Nicole, Tristan
Agenda:
- Haverfest Accessibility Convo
- Check-in
- Plenary
- Ceasefire Resolution Vote
Haverfest Accessibility Convo
Jorge: Welcome to our meeting. We have a community member joining us today.
Tristan: I am Tristan and I am one of the Haverfest co-heads this year.
Jorge: Tristan is here to give an update on Haverfest, let’s start with those updates.
Tristan: We have gathered about 25 committee members from the hc-all emails so far. The when-to-meet email for that should be coming out on Monday. Committees will start to get assigned projects and things will begin to pick up in March.
Jorge: I know some community members and Grace had some concerns and questions about accessibility at Haverfest. We cannot have this conversation now because we want Renata to be a part of it, but maybe in the future we can have Grace reach out to you.
Grace: Renata couldn’t make it to this meeting. I had some concerns and Jodi copied you on the email. It would be good to put in place some sort of accessibility representative on that committee.
Tristan: That is a good idea. We were going to work with the lights too to try to cut out flashing lights for main events.
Maria: How has the planning been?
Tristan: It has been rough. I was on the board last year so I have some good ground work. I am trying to make the most people happy as possible.
Kelly: Have you started meeting with the Student Engagement office?
Tristan: I am emailing them.
Jorge: Any other questions?
Grace: Is Haverfest on schedule? There was a big concern about that last year.
Tristan: It should be the same as always, the weekend after classes..
Kelly: May 3rd and 4th.
Maria: Thank you for coming! Now we can proceed with our check-ins, focussing on your mini projects.
Jorge: If your recap is related to plenary then please skip.
Check-in
Grace: I don’t really have much. I am sending out an email to the accessibility committee on Friday but I remembered it was president’s week so they will not respond for a bit.
Kelly: We have had a few SECS events that have been great successes with high turnout. We have increased our advertising. We changed HaverPop’s date to April 12th. Check our email for upcoming events!
Irene: I have been working with the AGC on BIPOC Joy. I have also been working with REEO on increasing awareness for identity based community housing. It closes today for anyone that is interested. REEO has a tour video of Qhouse on it’s instagram. There are a lot of options out there.
Julie: I’m meeting with the Hurford center arts fund committee tomorrow. I am also starting to get in the works of planning the spring arts festival. I was talking to the Haverfest co-heads about having it during Haverfest.
Emmeline: Senior week committee stuff is going along. We are trying to finish the schedule. If there is anyone community members want to see please let us know the form for ideas is still open.
Jesse: I am waiting to hear back from the registrar.
Clay: No new updates.
Michael: No updates.
Grant: We have been doing a couple things. On Thursday we presented the shared governance committee report at exec board. We will share it with everyone soon. Kabir and I have been working with Honor Council and the COMLs about restorative practices. We reached out to Jodi about bulletin board paper for the DC StuCo board.
Vy: I met with the club’s sports coordinator Tyler on Wednesday. We wanted to do something similar to the senior blanket ceremony for the sports club seniors. There are 20 seniors. I talked to the treasurers about how much money we can pull out of the rolling budget. I also talked to the club’s seniors about what they would want in terms of gifts.
Tim: Anagha and Erin have helped get me integrated. I helped them to keep the appeals process going for club funding.
Anagha: Last week we met with Diamond from the REEO office to talk about how REEO and history heritage month can provide funding for the affinity groups that the student council budget does not allow for in the appeals process. This week we are meeting with the coheads of NEST to better understand what their situation is, I am meeting with the AGC alongside Maria and Jorge to learn more about what affinity groups think about the budgeting process.
The Rolling Budgeting form can be accessed through Engage via this link: https://haverford.campuslabs.com/engage/submitter/form/start/626434.
The form can also be accessed through Engage by clicking on the ‘Forms’ icon on the left-hand panel of your Engage page. The form is titled ‘Spring 2024 Rolling Budgeting.’ If you are having trouble finding the form please email us at hc-treasurers@haverford.edu.
Erin: We had the budgeting committee meeting to finalize appeals. The allocations have been made. Rolling budgeting starts tomorrow at 8am
Claire: I reached out to Jennifer O’Donnell to get the new StuCo website on Haverford’s page. I also reached out to some members of StuCo for institutional memory check-ins.
Yasmin: Pretty similar updates. We checked in this week to plan our things related to the position and establish to-dos. I also worked on Plenary stuff.
Thea: We had a meeting with Grace, and Renata and Sarah from DASH to discuss how we can incorporate accessibility into the poster policy.
Nicole: No updates.
Plenary
Maria: Let’s start with merch design.
Julie: Because we couldn’t decide on what definition of camp we wanted to go with, we combined all of them. This includes camp as the ironic silly aesthetic plus camp as a child’s summer camp plus camp as in camping in nature. We combined all the ideas in all the designs. There’s nothing deep about the designs. I went for a sketchy texture design as last time the lines were very clean. We made 4 stickers, we will have 100 of each design. Overall the vibe is silly and fun.
Jorge: This looks great. I need you guys to put the orders for the t-shirts and stickers by Wednesday at the latest. I can share the account information with you.
Julie: How do we feel about white, light green and light pink shirts?
*nods around the room*
Jorge: Can I give this job to the co-treasurers to make sure all orders are placed by Wednesday.
Maria: How’s boba?
Vy: Yuriko said she placed the boba order
Maria: We had another thing come up. Is boba gluten free?
*nods*
Jorge: Emmeline you are our back-up driver if Matthias cannot get van-certified. We can move to logistics. Grace, how is the webinar setup going?
Grace: I sent all the emails but have not gotten responses yet because it is President’s weekend. If any of the co-hosts need a refresher on how to use the webinar there is a video that is like half an hour.
Maria: The people that would be co-hosting are the election coordinators and the VPs.
Grace: Elections coordinators, VP’s, Treasures, am I forgetting anyone?
Maria: So I think it would be helpful if those folks did the tutorial with Grace.
*nods*
Maria: Can you schedule a time for the tutorial? We were also talking about how the last time the co-host started getting kicked out of the zoom.
Michael: Why can’t we have one zoom call with like three participants? And just have one person join for all the people in the satellite room.
Maria: The zoom is also joined by people that cannot come in person. I was thinking that if Grace is co-host she can join from her dorm instead of the GIAC so that she has better wifi.
Michael: The priority has to be politely limiting the number of people on zoom.
Grace: Some people who request the link don’t actually need it and just do not want to come in person.
Maria: The people who ask for the link 2 weeks ahead genuinely need it. The people asking for day of are the problem. Last semester it was enough having the people in person. Maybe we have a deadline for asking for the zoom link. We can make it so that people have to email to get a zoom link, and cannot just text someone on StuCo for it.
Jorge: For physical logistics, we need to set up the webinar. Then for the rehearsal, what are the details?
Emmeline: We still need to schedule it. Were we going for Thursday or Friday before? BLAST seems excited to do a small set up before. It would be nice to also know who is running the satellite rooms.
Maria: Thursday would be better. Can day of logistics email Jodi to confirm that Sharpless and the other satellite room are reserved?
Emmeline: I already got a confirmation email I can send you.
Jorge: Do we have the form for tabling and community comment?
Yasmin: Yes, I need to put it in the StuCo drive.
Jorge: We need one for zoom link accommodations.
Grace: I had it last time.
Jorge: If you share it with us we can include it in the next email we send out.
Grace: I can update the form to be stricter and include a deadline for when the form has to be submitted.
Thea: I think we should make the deadline later because a lot of people are going to be traveling around Spring break. A bunch of people always get sick after traveling for break so they would not know if they need zoom links yet.
Maria: Maybe we make it the Wednesday after break, March 20. That would be five days before plenary. The email can be sent out soon.
Jorge: By next week we need people to sign up to help in satellite rooms. This is so for the rehearsal people it is all prepared. Can we reach out to BOUNCE if we want them there?
Emmeline: I already emailed BOUNCE. Also Haverritmo is down to perform if we want them
Julie: I reached out to Lorelai and they are happy to table for the art collective. I asked if they needed supplies and they said it would be good to have more markers. I found a massive box for $60 that I added to the budget.
Jorge: Perfect. We will make sure that is ordered by Wednesday through the treasurers. Use the plenary channel in Slack if you guys have any questions.
Ceasefire Resolution Vote
Maria: The final part of our meeting is introducing and discussing the ceasefire resolution. In the past few weeks Jorge and I have been talking with community stakeholders and receiving their feedback. We want to draft something that can bring the student body together. We also talked to Wendy. No one will be caught by surprise. Today is the final day for stakeholders to let us know if they want to co-sponsor. A lot have said if they did not want to co-sponsor but that they would support it. We have received confirmation that MSA and JSU will be co-sponsoring.
Jorge and I have been drafting the formal announcement to the community and explain how an emergency plenary will work. We felt the best way to do emergency plenary would be hybrid. In order to initiate the process we need 40% of the student body to agree to that process. We then need 200 signatures for a resolution to be introduced. We will have town halls which will be recorded and the quorum and voting will be on engage and be over 2 to 4 days. That’s the general overview. You have all received the draft we wrote. This is a time for questions before we vote on it. We appreciate feedback, but we have co-signers so we cannot change the text that much.
Jorge: Maria put it really well. We have an infographic to share with the community. It has a timeline on how it will work. I am still a little iffy about having an engage form rather than a google form for voting. Engage is hard to understand.
Maria: I think as engage is more secure.
Jorge: I appreciate your guys’ feedback. We will have 3 or 4 different forms. First we need 532 signatures for an emergency plenary, then 200 to present the resolution. We need a lot of engagement these two weeks for community members. We are planning a whole social media thing and are working with affinity groups and stakeholders.The final step is presidential approval. We are doing a plenary system and the president must approve. The other thing is we are talking to the election coordinators so we can confirm that we can do this from a constitutional standpoint.
Michael: According to Section 4.02 j of the Constitution of the Students’ Association a Further Plenary session can be convened in a case where 40% of the Students’ Association supports a Further Plenary Session. At present 40% requires 537 supporters in the Students’ Association. 537 members of the Students’ Association must sign a document indicating the following: “I support convening a Further Plenary Session at the soonest available opportunity for the purpose of discussing (cease fire resolution).” Once these signatures have been received the Co-Presidents may call for a Further Plenary. It is worth remarking that a Further Plenary Session has not been convened during the last four years, meaning that a Further Plenary Session would be an unprecedented measure for the current members of the Students’ Association. There is no Constitutional framework about how a Further Plenary Session is conducted. Since 2020 Plenary has changed significantly, allowing members of the Students’ Association to attend plenary virtually. Keeping this in mind it is proposed that a Further Plenary Session can be convened virtually. Furthermore, lacking guidance on voting at a Further Plenary Session, it is proposed that the resolution at a Further Plenary Session should be treated in manner similar to Honor Code ratification at Spring Plenary, as outlined in Section 3.08 of the Constitution of the Students’ Association. After the Further Plenary session concludes an electronic ballot will be shared with members of the Students’ Association. Members of the Students’ Association will be asked to vote either “Yes, I support (Ceasefire Resolution),” or “No, I do not support (Ceasefire Resolution).” In order for this resolution to be adopted 75% of the Students’ Association (1,007) must vote “Yes, I support (Ceasefire Resolution). See section 4.02 j of the Constitution of the Students’ Association: Quorum for (a Further Plenary Session) must be seventy-five percent (75%) of the Students’ Association.” Voting will be open for a period of 96 hours, the maximum period allowed in section 8.03 d of the Constitution of the Students’ Association. It is the opinion of the Elections’ Coordinators that the Students’ Council must NOT support voting “yes” or “no,” but should encourage participation.
We also decided to make the vote just yes or no because considering the nature of the resolution we wanted the support to be clear and just had yes or no for support.
Jorge: We have been in communication with the Clerk. Can we share this with them?
Michael: Yes, we can talk about it.
Maria: For honor code ratification, is that done through engage?
Michael: It doesn’t say engage is required to be used, but recently it has been used.
Maria: Are there any questions?
Grant: Are we allowed to present the information for this resolution through town halls? I am a little skeptical of this. Also I am concerned about what happens if this plenary fails and how this will reflect on Students’ Council.
Maria: If it fails then we used a mechanism to show what the student body thinks. If the student body isn’t unified then we are showing that. It is more about the process of doing this and having people engage with the resolution and groups on campus. I am not too concerned if it fails then what we did had to be done. We can’t change the results because we wanted it to turn out a certain way.
Jorge: As StuCo we are the “executive power”. If the Students’ Association does not want to engage with this then they do not have to and that is fine. We want to have the option for this to happen because we talked to the stakeholders and they want to see this.
Maria: I am glad we have to do the 40% first, we then know at least there is an engaged 40%.
Jorge: For the town halls, it is a very complicated procedure to introduce. We are still having a regular plenary on March 24 and I want people to show up for that. We don’t want people to get confused if we have another plenary and think that they are required to attend both plenary sessions. Calling them town halls instead of plenary sessions is more flexible. The town halls will not have any boba or any merch. The guideline we are following is also super vague.
Maria: The StuCo presidents can decide the format of plenary. Because of it we had the room to implement informal voting last semester. Yes, we are setting a precedent. Also regardless of the outcome of the resolution, going through this resolution will empower StuCo in future years.This is something that admin had expressed that StuCo has a lot more power to its name and what it does because we are being very intentional and going above and being engaged with issues that matter with the community. It is all part of what we have to do. It will leave a mark even if it fails.
The way this resolution is written is a values statement and is not asking anyone to do anything. Yes Wendy will have to sign it, and she will write a paragraph.
Michael: I know I’m not in StuCo technically. For StuCo’s sake, as the guidelines are so limited it is unlikely that a student can make any better or more “correct” interpretation. It is vague. You can interpret in many ways, which is to our strength, and the strength of critics. The question I have is how would you respond to someone who says “I am a member of the Students’ Association and I do not support this. But, the resolution refers to the entire Students’ Association.”
Maria: The voting totals will be public. If there is 10% then it will be there. That 10% will highlight that it wasn’t the whole student body. That’s how voting works. If you have a representative of office, sometimes they don’t vote or represent you. It is a flaw in the system of democracy.
Anagha: I think it would be nice if some of the statistics in the resolution could be updated.
Maria: Yes, we struggled finding sources. If you could find a source that would be great.
Anagha: When are you planning on having the final version?
Jorge: Tomorrow. This is going out tomorrow.
Maria: We don’t want to change the words because of the co-sponsors, we can update the citations though.
Jorge: The other thing is I know Wendy will want the numbers from voting. We want to make a place where people can voice concerns, but also we will release the specific outcome that occurs.
Maria: Something I have noticed even talking with the president’s office is, given the nature of this resolution, people are starting to ask questions that they don’t ask about other resolutions.
Emmeline: I think a FAQ page would be good. You seem to have a lot of answers to questions already.
Maria: A lot of this will be good for our instagram page.
Jorge: We might have an FAQ in the Clerk. Hopefully it gets published tomorrow.
Emmeline: Are you putting up posters?
Maria: We are trying not to confuse folks with special plenary and regular plenary. We don’t want to put posters up and have people get confused.
Jorge: We might put the timeline.
Maria: We could put it on the StuCo DC board.
[Voting on Ceasefire Resolution & Introduction of petition]
Maria: Those in favor please raise your hand. Those not in favor.
Maria: It passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned.
Be First to Comment