Home >> Archives >> 11.15.04
Attachments
I. Roll Call/Agenda
II. Old Business
Alex Kim, Vice President
Motion to vote on representatives
Motion passed
Motion to approve SOAC organizations
Motion passed
Motion to vote on representatives
Motion passed
Motion to approve SOAC organizations
Motion passed
III. New Business
Alex Kim, Vice President: Charlene Liu, SPEC Chair, and I are in charge of appointing the senate representatives to the subcommittees of the Reducing Stress/Enhancing Learning committee.
The subcommittees that need senate reps are:
Nanki Marwah, Freeman: Can you explain the time commitments?
Alex Kim, Vice President: They don’t meet weekly. They meet once a month. It’s not a heavy time commitment.
Lindsey Silver, Beebe: Are going to have the one minute speeches?
Alex Kim, Vice President: No.
Nanki Marwah, Freeman: Will these go through the SOAC interview process?
Alex Kim, Vice President: No, but it depends on the number of applicants
Meg Kilzy: Is there a reason why this is only for senators?
Alex Kim, Vice President: It was started by senators last year, and Dean Lepore wants it to remain a senate committee. In the future we may open it up.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: This could constitute your project for the year.
The subcommittees that need senate reps are:
- Identification of issues. Review of research that the college has collected on stress, compare to national averages, etc. Propose priorities to be addressed. Determine assessment strategies. (collaboration with Office of Institutional Research) Looking for a senate rep to join. Members include: Catherine Collins (Director of Health Education), Vanessa Britto (Director of Health Services), Marilyn Downs (Assistant Director of the Counseling Service), Victor Kazanjian (Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life), Kristine Bang (HP), OMHA student
- Communication and Web Based Technology. Review and revise use of technology & advertisement. Web page development. Passive programming. Other educational web based initiatives (on-line audio meditation). (Collaboration with Information Services) Looking for a senate rep to join. Members include Kris Niendorf (Director of Residential and Campus Life), Anne Manning (Manager of Information Systems in Student Life), Victor Kazanjian, a multifaith council rep, student from the Mellon Residential Life Committee, a student skilled in web based design.
Nanki Marwah, Freeman: Can you explain the time commitments?
Alex Kim, Vice President: They don’t meet weekly. They meet once a month. It’s not a heavy time commitment.
Lindsey Silver, Beebe: Are going to have the one minute speeches?
Alex Kim, Vice President: No.
Nanki Marwah, Freeman: Will these go through the SOAC interview process?
Alex Kim, Vice President: No, but it depends on the number of applicants
Meg Kilzy: Is there a reason why this is only for senators?
Alex Kim, Vice President: It was started by senators last year, and Dean Lepore wants it to remain a senate committee. In the future we may open it up.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: This could constitute your project for the year.
IV. Open Discussion
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: SOFC has been continuing with the process of evaluating the Uniquely Compelling policy. There will probably be a vote on that next week. We’ll be presenting information to you about that next week about how to make the process more equitable.
A couple of weeks ago there was some accounting problems with the Bursar’s office. We had system failure and I turned to my mentor, the new VP of Finance and the Treasurer for the entire College, Andrew Evans. I’m lucky to be interacting with him this year. He’s new in this position this year.
His job is important and it’s good to know about it.
The large endowment is overseen by him and he is in charge of the budgeting of the whole college. We wouldn’t be able to do anything without him.
He served previously at Tufts and Oberlin for over 19 years. Before that, which I thought was interesting, he was with the US Agency of International Development as a Foreign Service Officer serving in Washington, DC with postings in Indonesia, Afghanistan, and other locations.
His background is really interesting and you’re probably interested in similar things. I’ve enjoyed working with him and I wanted you to get a chance to meet him and thank him. I’m so appreciative that he was able to help us out with those accounting details.
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: This is a great opportunity. Thank you very much. It’s wonderful to be here. Any question that comes to mind I’ll try to answer.
The only point that Lindsey didn’t make about me is that I’m a dad. I have 3 daughters. One graduated from Oberlin although she started at Barnard, one from Kenyon, and one is a junior in high school. She’s looking at Wellesley.
I’m having a fantastic time looking at the similarities between Oberlin and Wellesley. It’s amazing how institutions that are so similar are also so different, both subtlety and otherwise.
I wanted to address some questions you may have about the financial situation of the college. I met with the Trustees and had this same conversation.
Some important questions are: How many students are applying? Is it a strong applicant pool? Are they matriculating? Is the student body sufficiently diverse? What is the cost to attend? Is the cost going up? Is it possible for students to attend given their family resources?
It’s unusual that we have a need-blind admissions policy. The donors and alums have given so much money so that we can maintain that remarkable policy. Some of the endowment is specifically for Financial Aid.
How do we compare to peer institutions? Are we having donors that are continually interested? Has there been strong interest in fundraising campaigns?
The endowment is managed carefully with sound investment decisions. Is our performance getting better? The investment committee on the Board of Trustees deals with our assets and how to allocate them. The investment people work out of Acorns.
Our faculty is the most important part of this institution. Do they stay? Do they have a positively supportive staff?
Do we have sufficient funds to maintain the plant? We have a beautiful place here; do we have the money to maintain that?
In my office we do budgeting. You may have interaction through the student payroll. The financial aid and controller’s offices report to me. We are also tied to Institutional Research, which also reports to me. The sophomore survey, for example. Please fill those out when you get them. We had a 62% response rate 10 days ago.
Ashleigh Georgia: Acorns? Could you say a little bit a bout that? We’re scared of it.
It seems like every time something students want gets discontinued its because of budget reasons. Is that due to the slump of 2001-2002?
Andrew Evans: There are 4 professionals who work in the investment office in Acorns. They work with asset allocations. Their responsibility is to take the appropriate percentages of the 1.2 billion dollar endowment into the right funds Four individuals work in that office. They don’t buy individual stocks. Instead we decide to have an asset allocation to the S&P 500, the New York Stock Exchange, and we make investments through managers. Some of our investments are more risky than others, but we’re always trying to beat the benchmark. We evaluate how those managers are doing. Don’t be scared of that office, be happy about it. They in turn throw off the money earned into our budget. We set something called a spending policy so that we don’t overspend this year leading to an under spending in the future.
We also have to consider intergenerational equity. The endowment goes up or down based on the interest or received gifts. In the bad economy, the value of the endowment goes down. We want to make sure that our budget is constantly increasing. Most of our costs are in people. We want to make sure that we have real growth in our budget in our endowment income.
Yes, the market value of all of the colleges in the nation dropped during the downturn.
We are going to have a problem until the markets move back up. They’re almost up to the point they were before 9/11. We’ve gone down and we’re going back up.
Motion to extend time to accommodate the speakers and close the speakers list.
Motion carries
Kahini Ranade, Munger: What is our endowment at this point and how does it compare?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: $1.2 billion. In terms of liberal arts colleges, in terms of endowment per students, we’re probably second. Williams is probably larger per student, but we’re second. Study hard and keep the money coming.
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: Could you speak a little more about how you oversee student and faculty retention rates. Are we where we want to be?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: We don’t oversee, we measure. The first measure, are we able to hire the people we want the most? We are very competitive, so yes. Do we retain, yes. Occasionally, they do leave, but the retention does seem to be good. I’m still learning.
What is the pattern of our students who are here year after year? Managing the number of students here is a balance and we need to manage that more efficiently. Study abroad issues. We have more first-year students and the quality is great. Students are returning. Students go on leave, and so and so, but managing the total number is very important to us.
Nawar Najeeb, Tower: Do you invest solely profit seeking or is there any ethical component in deciding what companies to invest in?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: We only invest in reputable companies. We don’t invest directly, we trust our fund managers. We won’t invest if we have a reservation in a particular company. We’re trying to beat the benchmark.
Jessica Van Houten, WEED: My constituency is under the influence that you worked with the Environmental Policy Action Committee at Oberlin. How will you get involved with similar initiatives here?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: The initiative came from students and faculty from the environmental studies program. It’s the 2nd largest major at Oberlin. The environmental policy action committee talked about how to put in place a policy with regards to the environment. We had a lot of discussion. It went on for 2 years before we got a mission statement. Green attributes, we worked with the local electric company. Whenever I hear there’s something out there I will participate if asked.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: I just wanted to reiterate the need-blind nature of admission at Wellesley. Does the downturn of the economy affect student need?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: People are accepted to this institution and the College will make it possible for you to attend. The economy does affect need, but since it’s our priority we’ve been able to offer that aid.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Some statements make the need-blind claim for just admissions, but not with financial aid. Wellesley is need-blind in admissions and with financial aid.
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: There are a lot of institutions are need-aware. They will look within the applicant pool and will look to see if the student can contribute to the cost. 50% of our students are on financial aid. That increased 11% from last year. This says a couple of things, the ability to pay is tough. Our stronger applicant pools present a problem with the full-financial aid packages. Outside of Wellesley, the colleges and universities will find it harder to offer this with the economic situation.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President I just wanted to thank you so much. Lindsey and I sit on the Budgetary Affairs Committee. We get to discuss these issues at length. I don’t know that students are exposed to the complexities of this.
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: I’m on the first floor of Green Hall, 146. Stop by and ask any questions.
Jamie Bernthal, President
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Let me introduce Eleni Keris. She’s absolutely fantastic and is helping me co-chair the College Government Presidents Council this year. We’re a team.
Every year that I can remember CG conducts a service project. They’ve been similar in the past. We wanted to branch out and try something new. You can give me your feedback. CGPC decides the service project and brings it to you.
I’ve consulted with Cabinet and we have noticed that this has been a steady year of change both on and off campus. We wanted to do something that would bring the students together. I think we could all come together on girls and women’s education. I asked my CGPC to look into this and they found this fund for girls in Afghanistan. Slater International had a program supporting education in Afghanistan and we were encouraged.
Eleni found the National Geographic Afghan Girls Fund. We have a contact there and we can give any amount of money. We talked about this at the Seven Sisters Leadership Conference and will contact the other schools to see if we are going to work together on this. We hope to present.
Eleni Keris, CGPC: It was really difficult finding a legitimate and trustworthy fund. We did find many girls schools. Many of them were prone to terrorist attacks, however, so we were glad to find the National Geographic Afghan Girls Fund which is part of the Asia foundation. The National Geographic is really just the intermediary. There were just so many issues so this is a wonderful organization. It’s based in Kabul. There are 270 girls. The students are receiving computer education, English… they just got computers. The girls go on scholarship. Our money could allow more girls to go and for the expansion of the school and possibly development of more schools. We could specify what our money is used for, but they can also use it for how they need it the most.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Thank you for your work. We’ve got people on board. Now it’s a matter of coming up with ideas. I know many of you have raised money before. Two things, there are more questions we should probably ask National Geographic. If you have questions for this organization, email to cgpresident. Secondly, e-mail me by Thanksgiving with ideas of a good fundraiser. This doesn’t have to be detailed, just a brainstorm. We really want to put our heart and soul in this. We want to get this started so that we can start moving in the spring. We’ve thought about putting on a concert with student performance groups. We want this to be an active thing. We’re trying to work with a speaker for a large event in Boston. The beauty of working with other schools is the potential to really reaching a lot of people.
Think of creative ideas for your constituency or the school. We need your help.
Motion to extend time by 3 minutes.
Motion carries.
Nawar Najeeb, Tower: What is the target? What percentage of our donations goes to administrative costs?
Eleni Keris, CGPC: We’ve asked that and he’ll get back to us when he’s back from Burma.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: I wanted to bring it to you before we made a decision. With respect to the other schools we didn’t set a benchmark. We can set more feasible targets when we know the way we’ll be raising money.
Nanki Marwah, Freeman: Could fundraisers in a dorm count as programming and project? What about a mini-marathon around the lake to raise money and garner spirit?
Motion to close speakers list and extend time by 2 minutes.
Motion carries.
Natalie Archibald, Tower: I think we should have donation boxes in each residence hall.
Suilin Yap, Japan Club: Is this a joint-school effort? We could hold a talk to increase awareness of the situation in Afghanistan. Also, people will be more generous if they know the situation.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Yes, we do need to make an educational component. Because you have to donate under an organization, all the schools would donate separately. We would ask at the president’s conference in April how much and publicize our collective amount as to encourage other schools to engage in similar projects.
We had a discussion with the Trustees about the community service motto we have here at Wellesley and really wanted to be more actively involved with our service project.
Meri Smith, Parliamentarian: Now, we’ll move on to the Student Representatives who sit on the Student Life committee to the Board of Trustees. The students here are Sandya Das, Sarah Kelly, and Jamie Bernthal.
Sandya Das: We’re a committee that has 3 SOAC appointed positions and Jamie serves and Sarah serves as a house president. We present to the trustees about issues concerning what its like to be a Wellesley student today. Last year we had a meeting on Town/Gown relations and another one on health and wellness. Sarah will talk about our most recent trustee meeting.
Sarah Kelly: We meet with the trustees during 3 of their 4 annual meetings. We present for 20 minutes and talk with them for 40. We talked about the ways that Wellesley students interact with the outside world. We talked about student organizations, internships, and politics and the election.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: We talked about the “Wellesley Bubble.” Dean Kim helped us with that. It’s important for you to know how we go into that meeting. We pick a topic, get information from students, and present on the topic in a way that is the truth. We don’t things more or less positive or negative than they are. We just present facts. After our presentation there were a few items in responses including the issue of students working greater than 10 hours a week, community service, local and international experiences. How does the time away from Wellesley relate to your time here? There are CWS constraints because students want more and more internships to be offered. Also, there’s a concern about science students and their time constraints. One trustee wanted to know if we’re having fun. There was a wide range of issues. We got to answer questions.
Sarah Kelly: Our last meeting went very well. Our next meeting will be at the end of January. We meet on a regular basis. We pick our topics based on what we think the trustees should know. Feel free to e-mail me if you have suggestions for topics.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: You meet every 2 and half weeks? And then you meet with the trustees 3 times a year.
Sarah: Yes, we also meet with Dean Kim, Michelle Lepore, Kris Neindorf, and Joanne Murray before the meeting.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Basically a month and half before the meeting we prepare.
Lindsey Boylan: After the election, there was a lot going on. Is there any opportunity for the students to contact the trustees with information about current issues? Is there any outlet other than the meeting?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: First of all the Trustees, they are pretty much on top of things because they get a lot of information. I update them on what happened since the last meeting and President Walsh also e-mails them all the time. They are pretty wired and actually contact us.
Ashira Greene: What was brought up when you talked about fun on campus?
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: That was the last question, so we’ve yet to answer the question. We’ll probably answer that in our next meeting.
Ashira Greene: Will there be a survey?
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: We’re meeting on Friday to come up with our next topics and whoever’s in charge will have a focus group or survey. A big barrier is to get participation, so maybe you can help with that.
Sarah Kelly: We don’t just go from our personal experience, we do solicit feedback.
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: I was speaking with Peter Eastment and I wanted to pass on to you that often when dealing with the administration it seems that transportation is more of an operational cost rather than an aspect of student life.
Motion to extend time by 5 minutes
Motion failed
Alex Kim, Vice President: Bribe students to come to focus groups with gift certificates. What kind of student would you like to see on this committee? What kind of time commitment?
Motion to allow time to answer question
Motion passed
Sarah Kelly: Someone comfortable speaking with trustees, involved on campus.
Sandya Das: It’s not that bad of a time commitment, the last 2 weeks before the presentation are a little hectic. You do have to be on top of things with relationship to your other activities.
Sarah Kelly: The ability to attend the meetings is important but so is the ability to work independently.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: They should understand what an honor it is. The 2 people who get it should be cognizant of their responsibility.
Sarah Kelly: Email me with questions or suggestions.
A couple of weeks ago there was some accounting problems with the Bursar’s office. We had system failure and I turned to my mentor, the new VP of Finance and the Treasurer for the entire College, Andrew Evans. I’m lucky to be interacting with him this year. He’s new in this position this year.
His job is important and it’s good to know about it.
The large endowment is overseen by him and he is in charge of the budgeting of the whole college. We wouldn’t be able to do anything without him.
He served previously at Tufts and Oberlin for over 19 years. Before that, which I thought was interesting, he was with the US Agency of International Development as a Foreign Service Officer serving in Washington, DC with postings in Indonesia, Afghanistan, and other locations.
His background is really interesting and you’re probably interested in similar things. I’ve enjoyed working with him and I wanted you to get a chance to meet him and thank him. I’m so appreciative that he was able to help us out with those accounting details.
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: This is a great opportunity. Thank you very much. It’s wonderful to be here. Any question that comes to mind I’ll try to answer.
The only point that Lindsey didn’t make about me is that I’m a dad. I have 3 daughters. One graduated from Oberlin although she started at Barnard, one from Kenyon, and one is a junior in high school. She’s looking at Wellesley.
I’m having a fantastic time looking at the similarities between Oberlin and Wellesley. It’s amazing how institutions that are so similar are also so different, both subtlety and otherwise.
I wanted to address some questions you may have about the financial situation of the college. I met with the Trustees and had this same conversation.
Some important questions are: How many students are applying? Is it a strong applicant pool? Are they matriculating? Is the student body sufficiently diverse? What is the cost to attend? Is the cost going up? Is it possible for students to attend given their family resources?
It’s unusual that we have a need-blind admissions policy. The donors and alums have given so much money so that we can maintain that remarkable policy. Some of the endowment is specifically for Financial Aid.
How do we compare to peer institutions? Are we having donors that are continually interested? Has there been strong interest in fundraising campaigns?
The endowment is managed carefully with sound investment decisions. Is our performance getting better? The investment committee on the Board of Trustees deals with our assets and how to allocate them. The investment people work out of Acorns.
Our faculty is the most important part of this institution. Do they stay? Do they have a positively supportive staff?
Do we have sufficient funds to maintain the plant? We have a beautiful place here; do we have the money to maintain that?
In my office we do budgeting. You may have interaction through the student payroll. The financial aid and controller’s offices report to me. We are also tied to Institutional Research, which also reports to me. The sophomore survey, for example. Please fill those out when you get them. We had a 62% response rate 10 days ago.
Ashleigh Georgia: Acorns? Could you say a little bit a bout that? We’re scared of it.
It seems like every time something students want gets discontinued its because of budget reasons. Is that due to the slump of 2001-2002?
Andrew Evans: There are 4 professionals who work in the investment office in Acorns. They work with asset allocations. Their responsibility is to take the appropriate percentages of the 1.2 billion dollar endowment into the right funds Four individuals work in that office. They don’t buy individual stocks. Instead we decide to have an asset allocation to the S&P 500, the New York Stock Exchange, and we make investments through managers. Some of our investments are more risky than others, but we’re always trying to beat the benchmark. We evaluate how those managers are doing. Don’t be scared of that office, be happy about it. They in turn throw off the money earned into our budget. We set something called a spending policy so that we don’t overspend this year leading to an under spending in the future.
We also have to consider intergenerational equity. The endowment goes up or down based on the interest or received gifts. In the bad economy, the value of the endowment goes down. We want to make sure that our budget is constantly increasing. Most of our costs are in people. We want to make sure that we have real growth in our budget in our endowment income.
Yes, the market value of all of the colleges in the nation dropped during the downturn.
We are going to have a problem until the markets move back up. They’re almost up to the point they were before 9/11. We’ve gone down and we’re going back up.
Motion to extend time to accommodate the speakers and close the speakers list.
Motion carries
Kahini Ranade, Munger: What is our endowment at this point and how does it compare?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: $1.2 billion. In terms of liberal arts colleges, in terms of endowment per students, we’re probably second. Williams is probably larger per student, but we’re second. Study hard and keep the money coming.
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: Could you speak a little more about how you oversee student and faculty retention rates. Are we where we want to be?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: We don’t oversee, we measure. The first measure, are we able to hire the people we want the most? We are very competitive, so yes. Do we retain, yes. Occasionally, they do leave, but the retention does seem to be good. I’m still learning.
What is the pattern of our students who are here year after year? Managing the number of students here is a balance and we need to manage that more efficiently. Study abroad issues. We have more first-year students and the quality is great. Students are returning. Students go on leave, and so and so, but managing the total number is very important to us.
Nawar Najeeb, Tower: Do you invest solely profit seeking or is there any ethical component in deciding what companies to invest in?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: We only invest in reputable companies. We don’t invest directly, we trust our fund managers. We won’t invest if we have a reservation in a particular company. We’re trying to beat the benchmark.
Jessica Van Houten, WEED: My constituency is under the influence that you worked with the Environmental Policy Action Committee at Oberlin. How will you get involved with similar initiatives here?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: The initiative came from students and faculty from the environmental studies program. It’s the 2nd largest major at Oberlin. The environmental policy action committee talked about how to put in place a policy with regards to the environment. We had a lot of discussion. It went on for 2 years before we got a mission statement. Green attributes, we worked with the local electric company. Whenever I hear there’s something out there I will participate if asked.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: I just wanted to reiterate the need-blind nature of admission at Wellesley. Does the downturn of the economy affect student need?
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: People are accepted to this institution and the College will make it possible for you to attend. The economy does affect need, but since it’s our priority we’ve been able to offer that aid.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Some statements make the need-blind claim for just admissions, but not with financial aid. Wellesley is need-blind in admissions and with financial aid.
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: There are a lot of institutions are need-aware. They will look within the applicant pool and will look to see if the student can contribute to the cost. 50% of our students are on financial aid. That increased 11% from last year. This says a couple of things, the ability to pay is tough. Our stronger applicant pools present a problem with the full-financial aid packages. Outside of Wellesley, the colleges and universities will find it harder to offer this with the economic situation.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President I just wanted to thank you so much. Lindsey and I sit on the Budgetary Affairs Committee. We get to discuss these issues at length. I don’t know that students are exposed to the complexities of this.
Andrew Evans, VP of Finance and Treasurer: I’m on the first floor of Green Hall, 146. Stop by and ask any questions.
Jamie Bernthal, President
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Let me introduce Eleni Keris. She’s absolutely fantastic and is helping me co-chair the College Government Presidents Council this year. We’re a team.
Every year that I can remember CG conducts a service project. They’ve been similar in the past. We wanted to branch out and try something new. You can give me your feedback. CGPC decides the service project and brings it to you.
I’ve consulted with Cabinet and we have noticed that this has been a steady year of change both on and off campus. We wanted to do something that would bring the students together. I think we could all come together on girls and women’s education. I asked my CGPC to look into this and they found this fund for girls in Afghanistan. Slater International had a program supporting education in Afghanistan and we were encouraged.
Eleni found the National Geographic Afghan Girls Fund. We have a contact there and we can give any amount of money. We talked about this at the Seven Sisters Leadership Conference and will contact the other schools to see if we are going to work together on this. We hope to present.
Eleni Keris, CGPC: It was really difficult finding a legitimate and trustworthy fund. We did find many girls schools. Many of them were prone to terrorist attacks, however, so we were glad to find the National Geographic Afghan Girls Fund which is part of the Asia foundation. The National Geographic is really just the intermediary. There were just so many issues so this is a wonderful organization. It’s based in Kabul. There are 270 girls. The students are receiving computer education, English… they just got computers. The girls go on scholarship. Our money could allow more girls to go and for the expansion of the school and possibly development of more schools. We could specify what our money is used for, but they can also use it for how they need it the most.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Thank you for your work. We’ve got people on board. Now it’s a matter of coming up with ideas. I know many of you have raised money before. Two things, there are more questions we should probably ask National Geographic. If you have questions for this organization, email to cgpresident. Secondly, e-mail me by Thanksgiving with ideas of a good fundraiser. This doesn’t have to be detailed, just a brainstorm. We really want to put our heart and soul in this. We want to get this started so that we can start moving in the spring. We’ve thought about putting on a concert with student performance groups. We want this to be an active thing. We’re trying to work with a speaker for a large event in Boston. The beauty of working with other schools is the potential to really reaching a lot of people.
Think of creative ideas for your constituency or the school. We need your help.
Motion to extend time by 3 minutes.
Motion carries.
Nawar Najeeb, Tower: What is the target? What percentage of our donations goes to administrative costs?
Eleni Keris, CGPC: We’ve asked that and he’ll get back to us when he’s back from Burma.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: I wanted to bring it to you before we made a decision. With respect to the other schools we didn’t set a benchmark. We can set more feasible targets when we know the way we’ll be raising money.
Nanki Marwah, Freeman: Could fundraisers in a dorm count as programming and project? What about a mini-marathon around the lake to raise money and garner spirit?
Motion to close speakers list and extend time by 2 minutes.
Motion carries.
Natalie Archibald, Tower: I think we should have donation boxes in each residence hall.
Suilin Yap, Japan Club: Is this a joint-school effort? We could hold a talk to increase awareness of the situation in Afghanistan. Also, people will be more generous if they know the situation.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Yes, we do need to make an educational component. Because you have to donate under an organization, all the schools would donate separately. We would ask at the president’s conference in April how much and publicize our collective amount as to encourage other schools to engage in similar projects.
We had a discussion with the Trustees about the community service motto we have here at Wellesley and really wanted to be more actively involved with our service project.
Meri Smith, Parliamentarian: Now, we’ll move on to the Student Representatives who sit on the Student Life committee to the Board of Trustees. The students here are Sandya Das, Sarah Kelly, and Jamie Bernthal.
Sandya Das: We’re a committee that has 3 SOAC appointed positions and Jamie serves and Sarah serves as a house president. We present to the trustees about issues concerning what its like to be a Wellesley student today. Last year we had a meeting on Town/Gown relations and another one on health and wellness. Sarah will talk about our most recent trustee meeting.
Sarah Kelly: We meet with the trustees during 3 of their 4 annual meetings. We present for 20 minutes and talk with them for 40. We talked about the ways that Wellesley students interact with the outside world. We talked about student organizations, internships, and politics and the election.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: We talked about the “Wellesley Bubble.” Dean Kim helped us with that. It’s important for you to know how we go into that meeting. We pick a topic, get information from students, and present on the topic in a way that is the truth. We don’t things more or less positive or negative than they are. We just present facts. After our presentation there were a few items in responses including the issue of students working greater than 10 hours a week, community service, local and international experiences. How does the time away from Wellesley relate to your time here? There are CWS constraints because students want more and more internships to be offered. Also, there’s a concern about science students and their time constraints. One trustee wanted to know if we’re having fun. There was a wide range of issues. We got to answer questions.
Sarah Kelly: Our last meeting went very well. Our next meeting will be at the end of January. We meet on a regular basis. We pick our topics based on what we think the trustees should know. Feel free to e-mail me if you have suggestions for topics.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: You meet every 2 and half weeks? And then you meet with the trustees 3 times a year.
Sarah: Yes, we also meet with Dean Kim, Michelle Lepore, Kris Neindorf, and Joanne Murray before the meeting.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: Basically a month and half before the meeting we prepare.
Lindsey Boylan: After the election, there was a lot going on. Is there any opportunity for the students to contact the trustees with information about current issues? Is there any outlet other than the meeting?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: First of all the Trustees, they are pretty much on top of things because they get a lot of information. I update them on what happened since the last meeting and President Walsh also e-mails them all the time. They are pretty wired and actually contact us.
Ashira Greene: What was brought up when you talked about fun on campus?
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: That was the last question, so we’ve yet to answer the question. We’ll probably answer that in our next meeting.
Ashira Greene: Will there be a survey?
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: We’re meeting on Friday to come up with our next topics and whoever’s in charge will have a focus group or survey. A big barrier is to get participation, so maybe you can help with that.
Sarah Kelly: We don’t just go from our personal experience, we do solicit feedback.
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: I was speaking with Peter Eastment and I wanted to pass on to you that often when dealing with the administration it seems that transportation is more of an operational cost rather than an aspect of student life.
Motion to extend time by 5 minutes
Motion failed
Alex Kim, Vice President: Bribe students to come to focus groups with gift certificates. What kind of student would you like to see on this committee? What kind of time commitment?
Motion to allow time to answer question
Motion passed
Sarah Kelly: Someone comfortable speaking with trustees, involved on campus.
Sandya Das: It’s not that bad of a time commitment, the last 2 weeks before the presentation are a little hectic. You do have to be on top of things with relationship to your other activities.
Sarah Kelly: The ability to attend the meetings is important but so is the ability to work independently.
Jamie Bernthal, CG President: They should understand what an honor it is. The 2 people who get it should be cognizant of their responsibility.
Sarah Kelly: Email me with questions or suggestions.
V. Dean’s Corner
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: Last week I was at a conference with the COFIE deans. Michelle’s at a conference now. COFIE is the ivy leagues, new ivies, the seven siblings and other elite liberal arts schools. We talked about the developmental needs of students, and the needs of students of color. Online communication came up. Our interaction with parents and ways to support that interaction. We’re also concerned with advising, especially sophomores. We’re also looking at stress, it’s not just a problem at Wellesley.
I got to see Trojan Women and Dwali last week. Thank you for the invitations.
I had a discussion with the Boston Leadership Group to talk about FirstClass. They were completely fascinated by FirstClass. Flick Coleman, Andre Issak, and I met with them with some students. It was such an interesting meeting.
I was with Ethos on Sunday. I’m hoping that my schedule will be lighter in the future, but I do love those invitations.
I want to give you some updates on faculty. There are 12 searches right now, which is a lot for us. Psychology, PoliSci, Art, Econ-3, History-2, Biology-2, East Asian Lang. and Lit, Philosophy. Candidates present a “shop talk” and they’re usually open. Show up to give your student voice to who is hired. You have 12 opportunities to make a difference.
One of the senior most trustees, Sidney Knafel, gave $8 million for endowed professorships. These are used to get younger, tenure track professors who we really want.
There’s a huge push within the Dean of the College to increase the amount of diverse faculty members and especially African American faculty.
You had asked me for a list of the 5 new trustees, and I’m still working on that.
We had a conversation on Grade Inflation. We’ve gotten e-mails with faculty names who were misinterpreting the grading policy and we’ve passed that on to the Dean of the College.
There are specific groups of the community who feel that they may be inappropriately disadvantaged by policy. We’ll look at the data and split it up by various factors.
I’m not sure how I’m going to do this, but the sophomore class is expressing much more stress than normal. We feel that we definitely need to improve sophomore advising. We need to also reduce your stress. If you have any ideas, pleas contact me with suggestions.
The investment office will be moved out and I will live in Acorns next year. We’ll work on the party schedule so I don’t make too much noise.
Sarah Kelly: For the 12 positions are any of them newly created or are they replacements? For the Knafel donations, are those incorporated into the 12 positions?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: I think most are replacements, but some are new. Knafel has donated the money and the Dean of the College will use that money later. It’s still early.
Suilin Yap: Have you done any research on why faculty members leave? Is it retirement?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: Most retire; most don’t go to other institutions. We have an aging group of professors.
Suilin Yap: What are the other concerns of COFC schools?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: We set the agenda together so we’re dealing with a lot of the same issues. The differences of the schools lend themselves to different issues. Everybody’s talking about stress, parents. Online communication is typically a smaller, liberal-arts college
Motion to accommodate speakers and close speakers list.
Passed
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: With the shop talks, it would be helpful if those were widely publicized.
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: What normally happens is that departments publicize.
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: Encourage them to open it up to everyone, not everybody who cares about a department is a major.
Maxine Brownstein, Lake: What are the specific groups with concerns about the Grading Policy?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: Members of the African American community. We’re just going to look to see if there’s any merit to the concern.
Maxine Brownstein: Why would there be a difference?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: I’m not sure, you can ask them.
Ashleigh Georgia, Multicultural Affairs Coordinator: There are still issues of racism in the classroom. People are just scared that something like that may creep into our bubble due to the policy.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: Did the juniors get their major declaration forms in?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: yes.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: I think for sophomores we need to focus on sophomore advising. Even if you don’t think you’ll concentrate in a certain area you should still feel comfortable approaching a faculty member who isn’t visiting, abroad, or retiring.
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: Maybe we’ll need to set a new structure in place similar to those I’ve seen previously at other schools. Thanks.
I got to see Trojan Women and Dwali last week. Thank you for the invitations.
I had a discussion with the Boston Leadership Group to talk about FirstClass. They were completely fascinated by FirstClass. Flick Coleman, Andre Issak, and I met with them with some students. It was such an interesting meeting.
I was with Ethos on Sunday. I’m hoping that my schedule will be lighter in the future, but I do love those invitations.
I want to give you some updates on faculty. There are 12 searches right now, which is a lot for us. Psychology, PoliSci, Art, Econ-3, History-2, Biology-2, East Asian Lang. and Lit, Philosophy. Candidates present a “shop talk” and they’re usually open. Show up to give your student voice to who is hired. You have 12 opportunities to make a difference.
One of the senior most trustees, Sidney Knafel, gave $8 million for endowed professorships. These are used to get younger, tenure track professors who we really want.
There’s a huge push within the Dean of the College to increase the amount of diverse faculty members and especially African American faculty.
You had asked me for a list of the 5 new trustees, and I’m still working on that.
We had a conversation on Grade Inflation. We’ve gotten e-mails with faculty names who were misinterpreting the grading policy and we’ve passed that on to the Dean of the College.
There are specific groups of the community who feel that they may be inappropriately disadvantaged by policy. We’ll look at the data and split it up by various factors.
I’m not sure how I’m going to do this, but the sophomore class is expressing much more stress than normal. We feel that we definitely need to improve sophomore advising. We need to also reduce your stress. If you have any ideas, pleas contact me with suggestions.
The investment office will be moved out and I will live in Acorns next year. We’ll work on the party schedule so I don’t make too much noise.
Sarah Kelly: For the 12 positions are any of them newly created or are they replacements? For the Knafel donations, are those incorporated into the 12 positions?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: I think most are replacements, but some are new. Knafel has donated the money and the Dean of the College will use that money later. It’s still early.
Suilin Yap: Have you done any research on why faculty members leave? Is it retirement?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: Most retire; most don’t go to other institutions. We have an aging group of professors.
Suilin Yap: What are the other concerns of COFC schools?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: We set the agenda together so we’re dealing with a lot of the same issues. The differences of the schools lend themselves to different issues. Everybody’s talking about stress, parents. Online communication is typically a smaller, liberal-arts college
Motion to accommodate speakers and close speakers list.
Passed
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: With the shop talks, it would be helpful if those were widely publicized.
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: What normally happens is that departments publicize.
Roshni Kapadia, Claflin: Encourage them to open it up to everyone, not everybody who cares about a department is a major.
Maxine Brownstein, Lake: What are the specific groups with concerns about the Grading Policy?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: Members of the African American community. We’re just going to look to see if there’s any merit to the concern.
Maxine Brownstein: Why would there be a difference?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: I’m not sure, you can ask them.
Ashleigh Georgia, Multicultural Affairs Coordinator: There are still issues of racism in the classroom. People are just scared that something like that may creep into our bubble due to the policy.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: Did the juniors get their major declaration forms in?
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: yes.
Lindsey Boylan, Student Bursar: I think for sophomores we need to focus on sophomore advising. Even if you don’t think you’ll concentrate in a certain area you should still feel comfortable approaching a faculty member who isn’t visiting, abroad, or retiring.
Kim Goff-Crews, Dean of Students: Maybe we’ll need to set a new structure in place similar to those I’ve seen previously at other schools. Thanks.
VI. Announcements/Adjourn
Star Senator: Nadine Abraham
This week Nadine Abraham deserves special credit for her ongoing work and dedication to SOFC. She has spent a significant amount of free time working on SOFC legislation changes, communicating with student organizations, and contributing to SOFC policy discussions. She is polite but direct with her informed views of policy while in committee meetings. She sets an excellent example in her dedication to making SOFC policy user friendly. We all appreciate her work on this committee. Her positive attitude helps keep others motivated. For this College Government thanks you.
See attachment for Announcements
This week Nadine Abraham deserves special credit for her ongoing work and dedication to SOFC. She has spent a significant amount of free time working on SOFC legislation changes, communicating with student organizations, and contributing to SOFC policy discussions. She is polite but direct with her informed views of policy while in committee meetings. She sets an excellent example in her dedication to making SOFC policy user friendly. We all appreciate her work on this committee. Her positive attitude helps keep others motivated. For this College Government thanks you.
See attachment for Announcements
cgmail (at) wellesley.edu
Created: July 2004
Last Modified: 18 October 2004
Expires: June 2005
Wellesley College
