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Original art for The Clerk by Nava Mach '27

Students’ Council Minutes 2/25/24

Attendance: Jorge, Maria, Kelly, Emmeline, Ben, Julie, Vy, Tim, Claire, Thea, Emma, Anagha, Grant, Kabir, Yasmin, Stefan, Grace, Yuriko

Agenda:
1. Check in
2. Plenary Tasks
3. Emergency Plenary

Check-in

Jorge: Let’s start with check-ins

Kelly: SECS events are going great, I am having regular meetings with student engagement. SECS is now on EMS! Our only event remaining before spring break is mug decorating on March 2nd. We will send out an email after spring break with events happening after the break.

Emmeline: I don’t have any non plenary updates apart from senior week. I am reaching out to clubs and affinity groups to see if they have senior celebration events to put on the schedule.

Ben: No non-plenary updates

Julie: I met with the students art fund committee on Monday. We talked about plans moving forward and being able to optimize VCAM more for student organization. We want to make more of a network or coalition of artists across campus. I have also been communicating with the arboretum about the contest for artwork in the skate house. We will start official advertising for the contest tomorrow. The skate house is looking for artwork so if you are a student that wants your artwork featured here and you want 50 dollars for green engine and arboretum merch, I highly recommend submitting your landscape art. I was talking with Irene about finding student artists and supplies for BiPOC joy. The arboretum and probably Huford will be advertising for the skate house artwork competition, 

Kabir: We communicated with some reps to clarify things. We have our first students x FAPC meeting tomorrow. We want some more people to join the committee.

Grant: They meet tomorrow from 4-4:30.

Kabir: It is a once a month meeting. 

Grant: This was proposed last semester to increase communication between students and professors. There was miscommunication about what students and professors experience and we thought this committee would be a good plan. That is represented by the members of FAPC which is the administrative committee of the Faculty. We have a meeting right after their faculty senate meetings. We will talk about what is on our minds. Right now Grant, Jesse and I are going.

Kabir: The three stated goals of the committee are: (1) To serve as a channel for communication between faculty and students, whether collectively or for individual departments, (2) to facilitate long-term communication with departments to structurally take into account student voices (eg – not the same as, but in the same spirit as the math department), and (3) to share some version of an Abstract/Agenda/Summary of Faculty meetings. The specifics of this committee can probably be adjusted and finalized during our meetings throughout the spring semester.

Ben: I would love to attend.

Vy:  I have no non-plenary updates.

Tim: I have been working with the treasures to get the quarter 3 budgeting report ready. 

Anagha: I went to the AGC meeting. It was nice to explain things about budgeting. Erin and I are reviewing rolling budgeting and should be sending out allocations agreements tonight.

Claire: I continued my position check-ins this week. I looked for the plenary archive for value statements that are related to the ceasefire resolution. I found something from 2002. In a nutshell it condemns US military actions against Iraq and asks the government to vote against it. It says Haverford is quaker and non-violent. It did not pass, but it did cause a lot of dialogue. The fair trade resolution from 2013 did pass. It called for supporting fair trade and wages and preventing child labor. It called for Haverford to be a fair trade school.

Yasmin: I have similar updates to Claire. I was looking through old StuCo plenary documents. There was a 2005 student government report saying that StuCo worked to coordinate on campus efforts to raise funds and awareness for a tsunami, I am not sure which one they were referring to. Fall 2006 plenary had a peace in the middle east resolution. The page in the packet was blank. The minutes say it was about peace but I have no further information about what the resolution is about. 

Thea: First as the exec board did not meet this week, and this is time pressing, we would like to share a community comment from the Ford Form.

Ford Form: Just wanted to comment that although I initially felt conflicted to about signing the petition, I have come to view it as an imperfect but necessary process. I think it’s main flaw is that a lot of students won’t be able to attend or will have to sacrifice their time in order to attend the in-person town halls. I know you say that it’s asynchronous nature will remedy this, but I think that the voices of those who are there in person will be incredibly important and may come to represent the voice of the student body, especially considering that they will be available to rewatch for students as well. Considering that Zionist students have a history of showing up to events like this, I worry that if students don’t sacrifice their time to show up, there may be a disproportionate representation of the views of the student body. However, I think that time is a worthy and comparatively small sacrifice to make for the sake of opposing a genocide. Also considering that SVP and other groups have co-sponsored it, it gives me hope that they will be able to mobilize students to attend the town halls. Yeah I’m hella biased. You’re not reading this out loud, are you? Also, no matter what, I feel like this plenary will be disruptive to the institution and that’s something I can always get behind. I appreciate your efforts on this matter and I think you’ve done what you can in your end to make this happen, and the rest falls on the student body. Also, guys. What is this? What is this text box? I think I made a few typos back there but I have no way to tell because of this tiny a** text box you put in here. You know there’s an option in Google Forms to put long response questions, right? In what context would a comment ever be so short as to fit in a short answer response box. Sorry, that just bothered me all of a sudden. Anyways, see ya.

Thea: We got an update on the skate house! “Wi-Fi will be going in the week before spring break, with the final connection happening over spring break. Following Wi-Fi, we will be installing the sidewalk and then the card access doors. Furniture and rugs are ordered with a delivery date during spring break. Bench cushions are being fabricated at the upholsterer. They should also be ready by the end of spring break. The electric wood stove has arrived and is waiting to go in.  The floors have been epoxied, the cubbies and wood bench/tables have been sanded down and clear coated, and the old wood stove has been cleaned up and spray-painted black. Power outlets and heat are ongoing. Once we get the large work done we will perform a deep clean of the space.”

Maria: To get the website more out there, can we add it to the link tree. Given the emergency plenary this week. Eventually, I want to have a post highlighting the website and encouraging people to use it. A concern brought up by the first year rep was that first years have a lack of understanding about how StuCo works. I was going to ask the secretaries, do librarians have access to hc-all?

Thea: Anyone does, the email will just have to be reviewed through the tentative approval process. 

Maria: I think it would be good to have one email from the librarians about the website.

Emma: Earlier this week we met with Scott and Jodi to discuss the poster policy and started compiling new points we want to add to it to increase clarity about where posters can be placed. We are also trying to update the poster policy to increase accessibility by taking into account the suggestions that DASH and Grace shared with us. 

Yuriko: I have no updates.

Grace: I am meeting with the IDEA advisory committee tomorrow. I am meeting with Keelie and ADS. I have a couple zoom updates for plenary. I can do those later

Stefan: I worked a bit with the Commencement Committee on Honorary Degree selection and general logistic planning on the topics of ASL interpreters for the ceremony, breakfast for seniors the morning of, draping for the field house. For the Honorary Degree recipients, the committee said the 2024 recipients are finalized and should be announced soon. I also created the Google Forms for Plenary Tabling and Community Comment!

Plenary

Jorge: Make sure all the orders are placed. Is that done?

Anagha: I am out of the loop. Erin said she sent the login information to Julie.

Julie: I updated the cart and shared the cart for stickers. So it should be able to be ordered?

Anagha: Did you get confirmation from Tina?

Julie: I didn’t. Erin just told me to tell her.

Anagha: I will ask Erin if the order was placed.

Jorge: So right now we have everything in the cart we just need to buy it. 

Julie: Yes.

Jorge: There was a change in the amount because of the shipping.

Julie: Yes, there was $100 less for tote bags. There are 300 now. For stickers we have slightly less because they were so small so I made them bigger.

Jorge: Have we ordered the masks and the markers?

Anagha: Yes. I put that in the original request. I am fairly confident everything other than the t-shirts, tote bags, and maybe the stickers were ordered.

Jorge: Tomorrow I will check in with both of you to make sure that they are ordered. We only have a month till plenary. 

Maria: Are there any van updates?


Emmeline: Matthias said he had to provide information and is waiting to hear back. I can ask him again. I will be around Sunday morning if need be. 

Maria: Emmeline can you share more about the rehearsal plenary?

Emmeline: I reached out to EMS and they confirmed we have Sharpless, the GIAC and the conference room from 3-4pm on March 21st.. This is when we are trying to do the tech rehearsal. I want people running the satellite rooms to be there so they can get the zooms working smoothly. I reached out to BLAST because they would like to be there and I am still waiting to see if someone can make it. I won’t be on campus Thursday so I was hoping Irene would be the point person. IITS is going to lend us two 50 foot Ethernet cords and dongles to connect the co-secs laptops directly to the wifi during plenary.

Jorge: Grace, do you have updates on the webinar?

Grace: I have requested the zoom link, I should get it tomorrow. I need the start time and end time for the rehearsal to set up the zoom link. I can set that up soon.

Emmeline: It is 3 to 4pm on Thursday March 21st.

Grace: I am not able to be there. Can anyone be there for the webinar? 

Emmeline: I think we could also just do a normal zoom, the problem is just getting the zoom to project on the TVs.

Maria: For the GIAC we were also struggling to understand how the webinar works. Can Michael or Clay come?

Emmeline: I will check. 

Jorge: You can make the same people the host for this webinar too.

Grace: Okay but I just need one person to be the main host.

Thea: I can do it. 

Maria: Also for real plenary webinar, do we also need one main host?

Grace: Yes. I am the major host for that one.

Maria: Did we confirm with Charles Woodard if it would work better if the major host was in another location outside the GIAC?

Grace: I can ask him.

Maria: Main host can be Thea.

Emmeline: Who is doing the satellite rooms?

Jorge: We have to decide that. Kelly is going to do one. Does anyone want to be in Sharpless? 

Emmeline: Do they have non honor council co-presidents who want to do it?

Jorge: We can ask. Does anyone not on the dias want to do it? We can ask Julia and Jesse if they can do Sharpless.

Maria: Maybe an honor council person can do quorum. We need three people.

Jorge: So we have Julia, Jesse, Kelly, and Claire for the satellite rooms. We have to set up the webinar for the rehearsal. We have to confirm the point person for rehearsal, which will be Irene. For social media, is everything with posts ready?

Kelly: Because of emergency plenary, we haven’t been doing advertising for regular plenary.We are thinking of doing a lot of posts next week.

Maria: The second plenary workshop is happening this week.

Kabir: Yes, we met beforehand to go over the honor council resolution.

Maria: Do you guys have access to the instagram templates for the resolutions?

Emma: Yes, Thea and I have them.

Jorge: Stefan did the accommodations form, where can we find them?

Stefan: They should be in the google drive under the plenary folder.

Jorge: BOUNCE and Haverritmo updates?

Emmeline: They agreed. I need to set up a time for them to come and do their blocking. Is there something specific we need in terms of tables and setting up the GIAC. 

Jorge: I will send you the diagram. Make sure based on how many tables sign up that we have the right amount of tables. We will make sure to communicate that with you.

Maria: For the setup one thing we did request is the need for more trash cans. Since we have more boba we will need more trash cans. 

Yuriko: I was wondering because Yi’s was asking when we came. Last time we went like 2 hours in advance. Should we allot more time? Though this time we have a van and more manpower. Maybe 2.5 hours in advance?

Vy: We picked it up an hour in advance because the boba will melt. 

Yuriko: Maybe then 2 hours? Maybe we can ask Yi to not add ice?

Vy: I still think two hours is too long. Because we have a van it should be easier than what we did before. 

Kelly: We also left late last time.

Vy: I think one hour is perfect.

Maria: Yuriko, can you reach out to Danielle Lynch to ask for permission for food in the GIAC?

Yuriko: Yes.

Vy: Please cc me also.

Yuriko: What time is 1 hour before plenary?

Jorge: Plenary starts at 1:45pm, so 12:45pm. 

Emergency Plenary

Maria: Some updates on emergency plenary as well as an ask for help. We are presenting the timeline in an instagram post today.

Jorge: I need you to ask questions. You are the focus group. We have the emergency plenary packet ready. It’s a draft. We don’t know how to add amendments to the packet so people don’t get confused. 

Maria: Why don’t you read it and see if you understand.

Kelly: I would show the opposite example to say that if it does not pass.

Maria: It is hard as amendments are not common. 

Kabir: How are people voting on the amendments?

Maria: It will be the same way as voting for the resolution. The first thing is the text and people say yes or no. Then people say yes no to the various amendments. If the amendment has a simple majority then it is added. In order for it to be added the resolution must also pass.

Jorge: The form will first ask for your name for quorum. Then it will have the vote for the original resolution. Then you will vote on the amendments. 

Thea: I thought it was you said yes and then yes with the amendment. It was like this for the OneCard access resolution. 

Maria: This is going to split the votes in a way that makes it very hard to get a majority because the vote will be split into like five different parts. 

Anagha: So essentially you are first voting if you want it to pass. If it doesn’t pass then there is no point at looking at the votes for the amendments. 

Jorge: With asynchronous we are having the challenge because we cannot vote on amendments first before voting for the resolution after all.

Kabir: Do we have a deadline for when amendments are due?

Maria: Tomorrow.

Kabir: We can decide tomorrow then.

Maria: We can discuss this during our ExecBoard check in meeting tomorrow.

Grant: The more complicated this is, the less people will vote. It will be hard to get the 1000 votes.

Emmeline: Are you making people get signatures for their amendments?

Jorge: Yes. 

Anagha: This format of explanation is confusing. I think it would be helpful to have screenshots of what the voting form will look like.

Maria: If you are free and want to help us with general logistics, we need people to be ushers and set up posters. 

Jorge: It will be Thursday and Sunday.

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