AAS Senate Meeting Minutes – November 28th, 2016
Meeting Begins: 8:32 pm
I. Attendance
II. BC Recs
Aditi Krishnamurthy presented the BC Recommendations.
There was a motion to approve the BC Recommendations.
Motion to approve the BC Recommendations by role-call vote.
Result: Passes
Mohamed Ramy requested 170 dollars from the Senate Fund for the Social Writing Wellness Event.
Karen Blake requested 70 dollars to from the Senate Fund to purchase cookies for the Town Hall on December 5th about the honor code.
Kaelan McCone motioned to approve Ramy’s request and Karen’s request from the Senate Fund.
Motion to approve Ramy’s request and Karen’s request from the Senate Fund.
Result: Passes
III. New Business
Alejandro Quintero said that submissions for mascot suggestions end tomorrow and the Mascot Committee is working on cutting them down to about 35 to 50 options. He said that the Committee is trying to get about 300 students to help them in their decision-making process. There are 50 seats for the Senate to allocate, so about 32 will go to Senate and E-Board members and 18 will be left over. He said that he and Karen are thinking about offering the seats to students, who do not fit into a specific group, but are seen as active in clubs, activities and events on campus. He and Karen came up with a preliminary list of these students.
Karen said that varsity sport teams, affinity groups and Senate hold half of the seats right now, while the other half will be allocated in a random lottery.
Paul Gramieri suggested giving seats to orchestra, choir, and other music groups.
Silvia Sotolongo asked whether Alejandro and Karen planned to give the seats to clubs to allocate, or to specifically give to certain individuals within the clubs.
Karen said that they were originally going to give them to clubs to decide, but then she and Alejandro came up with a list of active people. She said that some of these students don’t fit into a specific group or club.
Tasha Kim said that the preliminary list would be problematic. She said that these active students would already be signing up for the random lottery. If the Senate picks less active students, who would not sign up for the lottery on their own, then the Mascot Committee would have a more representative sample of students.
Karen said that she thinks that it is important to hand pick these active students so other students who are less involved on campus will have more access to the lottery. She said that these less active students, who aren’t in many clubs and/or groups, would be able to have a voice. She said that underclassmen especially would have a better chance of getting a seat on the Mascot Committee.
Felix Edwards suggested adding these leftover seats to the random lottery.
Alejandro said that the purpose of the Senate having these extra seats is to allocate them to underrepresented groups.
Will Zaubler suggested blocking music groups, club sports and other groups and then selecting random people from each block to get a cross section.
Aditi said that she thinks cherry picking is problematic. If the student body knew that these active students got seats through this process, this would trouble many students.
Maeve McNamara said that she would feel more comfortable if the Senate as a whole created a list of these active students.
Olivia Mastrangelo said that they should give the seats to club sports and music groups, and any leftover seats should go to the random lottery.
Philip Yan suggested making a list of these alternatives.
Paul said that they should allocate seats to the various underrepresented groups such as club sports, music groups and publications. If the groups do not nominate someone for the committee, the seat can be automatically given to the club leader.
Tasha posed a straw poll. Option A was giving the seats to the random lottery. Option B was giving the seats to different subsections/groups on campus. Option C was neither. The majority of senators preferred Option B.
Alejandro said that Mike Kelly would be speaking at Frost Library tomorrow on the history of Amherst College and how it relates to the mascot and the future of the mascot.
Paul said that he, Will and Renai Foster met with Laura Draucker, Director of Sustainability, to discuss the tray situation. They encouraged her to get more feedback from students on going trayless.
IV. Committee Reports
Paul said that College Council met to finish changes to the honor code. He said that there would be a forum on the honor code next Monday during the Senate meeting.
Chico said that the Committee on Educational Policy met and the Classics External Review Committee came in. He added that they are still discussing recommendations from the Curriculum Committee and drafting policy from the recommendations.
Maeve said that the Committee on Education and Athletics met. They talked about the “Diver Report”, which discusses the role of athletics in the mission of the College.
V. Approve the Minutes
Kaelan motioned to approve the Senate minutes from November 14th.
Motion to approve the Senate minutes from November 14th.
Result: Passes
VI. Officer Reports
Felix said that the Judiciary Committee would meet November 29th to talk about club budgets. They would also divide up the Constitution to review its sections individually and also discuss alternates for the Judiciary Committee.
Karen said that she would be working with Professor Sarat to create a policy that work cannot be assigned over breaks.
VII. Adjournment