Budget Committee Recommendations

Yearbook Discussion

Town Hall Meeting Discussion

Open Announcements

Budget Committee Recommendations

Two requests under $1000 approved unanimously: Bowling Club and One Knight Stand.

Heavenrich discussed the SRF proposal created last year that has not yet been approved. She wrote the proposal for new showerheads in some dorms. The showerheads would be placed in community shower dorms only—not in the new dorms, Davis, Burton, and Severance.

Davis asked why Burton would not get showerheads.

Heavenrich clarified that the proposal hasn’t gone through and Burton could be added.

Kimball clarified that Burton was excluded from calculations because of the dining hall that also resides in the building and uses water.

Heavenrich moves to approve.

Bharucha seconds movement.

Proposal is approved with one abstention.

Yearbook Discussion

Duer opens discussion of yearbooks.

Bharucha lays out alternative options to current yearbook supplier:

650 copies, 120 pages @ 16,000 dollars

650 copies, 120 pages @ 13,995 dollars

Yearbook from last year will be brought in to next meeting, and further discussion will take place when the yearbook is available.

Heifetz mentioned that last year there was discussion of moving to online only version.

Town Hall Meeting Discussion

Thornton explained that Heather Campbell, Julia Walther, Mike Stevens, two faculty, and three staff members make up the committee in charge of the Sexual Misconduct Complaint Process Review. They have conducted interviews with people that have been part of complaint process and solicited email responses. Now that prominent issues have been gathered, they are opening it up to everyone for some conversation on issues and solutions.

The first goal of the Town Hall Meeting is to tell campus community who the committee is and what they have done so far.

The second goal is to discuss the accuracy of the issues they have been made aware of and find out what is missing and how they can improve the Sexual Misconduct Complaint Process at Carleton.

Duer asked what the issues that the surveys have uncovered so far are.

Thornton clarified that the Town Hall Meeting will not dissect policy; it will dissect the complaint process. The committee has been looking at policy, but two differing booklets, and two online sources make it confusing.

Campbell noted that the lack of information revicitmized people.

Thornton pointed out that another big area of problems is support along with the complaint process. For example, the respondent doesn’t have rights in process, and that’s an issue.

Campbell noted that the Sexual Misconduct Review Board felt too judicial and removed form the rest of the process because it had different rules than the rest of process.

Thornton said that the board isn’t properly trained and doesn’t get enough notice before cases. She reiterated that there are lots of problems with the process.

To fix this, she suggested the removal of discrepancies in policy in different places and more staff to support the process. However, she noted that there are no specifics at this point.

Campbell suggested that people don’t feel like they should come to the Town Hall Meeting unless they’ve been affected or know someone that has been affected, and she tried to be intentional about inviting everyone to be a part of it.

Bharucha asked about policies at other schools that have been researched.

Campbell explained that some schools didn’t have it and some have review boards. Also, some schools have legally based policies and some have community-based policies. Legal is not the most caring approach, but the school needs to protect itself liability-wise. Currently, Carleton has a legally based policy that came as a result of lawsuits against Carleton in the 90’s.

Duane asked if they have a list of questions for the town hall meeting.

Thornton said that they have list of issues to discuss, but don’t want to get too specific, because it could expose victims.

Gourevitch noted that at the last town hall meeting, people took questions how they wanted to, so a few broad questions can elicit lots of responses.

Duer added that the feedback from the last town hall showed that sharing information gathered back at end is not effective, because it’s repetitive. She recommended that senators write down thoughts shared as they go. This town hall will involve very delicate discussions, so it’s important to hear what everyone says. Senators will be writing what people say down.

Gourevitch said that she agreed that group discussions were good, but reporting back got idealistic and preachy, which took away from small groups ideas. She noted that questions about policy will come up, and there should be people that can be flagged down to answer policy questions.

Bharucha noted that the deans weren’t at last one, so people felt it was unimportant. She recommended inviting them.

Thornton replied that the Monday and Tuesday meetings open to anyone, and members of Student Life staff have been invited, and the Tuesday meeting will be primarily faculty and staff.

Duer said that she would send personal invitation to dean of students.

Heckman asked if there could be policy copies on the table, because many people don’t know parts of the policy.

Duer agreed to have them on the tables.

Campbell reminded the senate that the meeting’s goal is not to change policy, but to change process.

Thornton passed out posters for the meeting. She asked the senate for ideas on how to end the town hall meeting.

Duer suggested having a paper on each table so that people can add whatever they don’t feel comfortable sharing with the group at the end.

Gourevitch noted that it needs to be clear that the town hall meeting is about sexual misconduct, so it isn’t confused with last one

Bharucha suggested ending with a timeline of the follow up steps after the town hall meeting.

Duer noted that there would be pizza on the tables, allowing people to eat while the town hall meeting is happening. She clarified that the tables will have copies of the policy, food, note taking materials, and paper for extra comments.

Kimball added that there should be a paper with bullets on steps of process at each table.

Duane added that there should be a box for comments.

Heavenrich noted that the senate should inform people where the comment box comments will go, and who will read them.

Duer asked about publicity for the event.

Ali suggested going to study breaks.

Duer agreed, and suggested that each senator do the study breaks that they did last time.

Thornton said that she would send out an email to the senate that can be forwarded around campus.

Duer clarified that there would be an all campus email, personal emails, and posters.

Kimball suggested posters with questions that start conversation. He said that he didn’t know what good questions were, but perhaps things like “What’s the difference between formal and informal complaint processes?”

Duer noted that posters were to be put up tonight, and posters with questions could go up Wednesday and Thursday.

Thornton asked senators to invite faculty and staff.

Duer encouraged senators to dive into this event, because it is very important.

Thornton added that the board of trustees wants to hear the results in the 3^rd week of February.

Open Announcements

Duer sent around office hour signup sheets.

Duer suggested that each person pick two things to work on this term. She suggested advertising office hours in NNB, and using office hour time to work on the two things, since senators have to be there anyway.

Barucha added that CSA bathroom stalls can be worked on during office hours, and senators can put the information from the senate display case in the bathroom stalls. This information should include the senator’s name, year, position, and contact info.

Duer added that the stalls should have write-ups on what the senate does each week, updated weekly. Duer told the senators to type up their bathroom stall blurb, and get it to her by Friday.

Duane suggested that each person pick an area of interest to be contacted for.

Ali announced that there would be a meeting on Thursday at 7pm to polish the POSSE resolution.

Duer announced that this year there will be a constitutional review board, as is required every three years. It will be comprised of three senators and three students-at-large.

Bharucha added that the board is responsible for going over the bylaws and editing for content and grammar. She told the senate to tell students to apply for the student-at-large spots, because there have to be three of them to have the board.

Gourevitch, Heckman, and Boyce volunteered to be the three senators on the board.

Duer reminded that the senate elections have to be completed by 8^th week of this term.

Bharucha noted that one senator appointment goes up tonight, and all officers and senators at large will be elected. This will be the first round of by-class elections, and the elections will follow the same format they previously have, taking place Sunday through Wednesday.

Mouhamadou announced that he and other Carls attended an anti-racism event funded by Carleton, and they are required to do something for the campus using the knowledge they gained at the event. He noted that racism is something that doesn’t affect most people, but everyone must be aware of it and most students on campus are unaware.

Bharucha asked if he was planning a dinner for the event.

Mouhamadou said that he was thinking about having food at the event, but his group is just throwing around ideas at this point.

Longabaugh brought up the idea of having a Red Box on campus.

Bharucha said that she had tried to get one before, but that to qualify for one, you need certain number of people in certain radius, and there are already three Red Boxes in Northfield, so Carleton doesn’t qualify.

Ladner mentioned that library has Carleton’s DVD collection on display now.

Bharucha said that the senate could look into other DVD machines.

Duer called for other announcements.

Meeting is adjourned.