Student Council

Student Council Meeting
Minutes
02/17/08

In Attendance: Alyssa, Elisha, Lacey, Liana, Nate, Peter, Sarah, Sven
Absent: Andrea, Paul
Guests: Daily Gazette, Phoenix, Chris Greene, Chris Compton, Brian, Ben

-Presentation from Ben Zhang
-wants Swat to have an on-line forum
-different from daily jolt, will have categories
-did some research into Williams and Haverfords similar websites
-will facilitate discussions
-written responses, nothing will expire
-what role could student council play in the website?
-marketing, make it more official
-Nate wants to make sure that the website is centralized
-funding?
-perhaps can outsource web maintenance if possible depending
-Sarah asks what about the Daily Gazette?
-perhaps forum will become a subset of the Daily Gazette
-have a few students working already
-student council will try to help garner student demand for forum
-perhaps the forum will have a link on the new dashboard if there is evidence of student demand

-Presentation from DU (Chris and Brian)
-things going well for DU recently
-DU runs the blood drive every year
-good response, things running smoothly
-don’t need Student Council help here
-want to seriously expand community service involvement
-overhauled alcohol policy a few years ago
-now has a stricter alcohol policy than the campus as a whole
-Peter brings up working with the WRC
-planning an open forum where groups can come together and discuss sexual assault
-planned to be some time in the next few weeks

-Board of managers
-Peter has heard back from 10 people
-11:30 in the Scheuer Room
-will have panel discussion
-Nate asks if a report could be compiled and then distributed to students
-more transparency with regards to what the concerns and issues are

-Forum notes compiling
-so far 13 single spaced pages of notes
-Peter is working on making a smaller list
-Important to send all of the main points to both student planning committees and students
-maybe will include major points in the next newsletter
-what format will the points be presented to the planning groups?
-points cover very broad range
-need intro paragraph with the major interests and then a list of more particular interests (Alyssa)
-meeting on Thursday from 6-7 in Parrish to help put together a packet

-Dean Smaw wants Student Council to have a community wide party, wants us to meet with Paury
-Dean Larrimore also interested
-want to have bands, student performers, catered food
-need to brainstorm
-Lacey will let people know when brainstorming meeting will happen
-Lacey will also meet with Paury and investigate constraints

-Bring up issue of Student Council involvement in Orientation at next meeting with Paury Flowers

-Special Appointments
-want to appoint more students to the planning committees
-Nate could have process set up by spring break
-Elisha asks how much longer the committees will be running and if it will be worth it for new students to be appointed
-maybe chairs wouldn’t want new students to come into the committees
-students could only show up in late march
-Alyssa suggests sending e-mail to chairs and gaging their feelings about adding more students
-need to make it clear that some students do not show up or have gone abroad
-committee chairs should update rosters and perhaps get more students
-There is a list of chairs and students sitting on committees on-line

-Nate was approached by and SBC member who said that SBC was concerned about the potential of amending the Student Council constitution’s appeals policy
-Chris says that the official stance of SBC is to wait and see what Student Council does
-Invite Ginnina to the next meeting
-What is the issue at hand? What will the amendmant address?
-Student Council can either overturn or not overturn SBC decision
-creates a binary
-Student Council felt frustrated that they could not grant partial funding
-receipts are sometimes an issue (people buying personal items on receipts for             parties etc.)
-There is also a middle process where students can appeal to SBC and then the decision can be appealed beyond that if necessary
-The new amendment seems very vague, dealing with the monetary issues will be unwieldy
-SBC is very precedent-driven so they will not accept any bad receipts no matter what
-Student Council is the final arbiter on these affairs because they deal with students on a personal level
-the amendment will be have to be very specific if it is added to the constitution
-SBC is intimately involved in the fiscal history of the groups
-need to have Giannina and Paul at the next meeting