AAS Meeting Minutes 11/12/12
Meeting Begins: 8:30 PM
I.Attendance (Noah Gordon ‘14)
II.Public Comment
a.Open to all students on any topic
III.BC Recs (Abigail Xu ‘15)
Passed.
IV.Reports
a.Committee Reports
Chris Friend ’14: CPR met on Wednesday. Talk about the MRC and Women’s Center: unclear whether it is under our perview.
Dvij Bajpai ‘15: Arts committee met. Don’t forget to come to Eyes of Amherst in Friedmann room at 8 PM tomorrow night!
Matt deButts ‘14: What is the problem with the open curriculum? We’re also moving forward with ANNEX and not TUTOR.
Peter Crane ’15: I’m meeting our agent in person. Spring Concert planning is going well. There’s a survey out.
Shruthi Badri ‘16: Women’s Mentors meeting happened. We had about 50 or 60 people show up.
Matt deButts: Alumni vs. student count?
Shruthi: Mostly alumni.
Joe Kim ‘14: The t-shirts they were handing out during Homecoming were inappropriate… just throwing that out there.
b.General Announcements
c.Officer Reports
Noah Gordon ‘14: I got an email today inviting me and Professor Tawa of the Japanese and Chinese departments to the College Council to talk about placement for the Japanese and Chinese language houses, which is something I’ve been working on for quite some time now. I’ll work on that over Thanksgiving break, as well as on the AAS census.
Abigail Xu ‘15: Semester budgets are coming up. Some clubs had confusion on AAS recognition. Meghna scheduled a meeting for clubs to come petition and get AAS recognition.
George Tepe ‘14: NESCAC Student Government. Shruthi and Bess are interested. It’s this weekend.
Jeff Feldman ‘15: College council: Found out about TYSO: take your staff out!
Tania Dias ‘13: Great job, Arts committee. Student referendum regarding reenvisioning of the campus center will be happening soon. We meet with student groups and we’re thinking of sending a referendum out after Thanksgiving. I met with Dean Fatemi and we discussed bikes. AAS could organize Random Acts of Kindness responsible with coming up with cool ideas. A secret, surprise idea like free concerts, cupcakes and t-shirts.
Noah Gordon ‘14: Met an alumnus at Homecoming. He was upset that no one knows the college’s songs. I’m working with the Vice President of Glee Club among others to try and increase knowledge of songs across campus.
V. MRC&Women’s Center Move
Noah: I made sure Senate’s comments were taken into consideration. One of the options involved moving the gameroom into room that Amherst Student already occupies. The Amherst Student shouldn’t have to give up more than half of their space. Here’s my new proposal: *shows diagram on screen. When you walk into building, you’ll see the gameroom in front of you and there’s a beautiful circular window. Knocking down walls and having some spillovers into lounges will allow for ample space. I ask that WAMH give up two rooms instead of one and they seem to be okay with that, as long as we give them another door. This is a preliminary plan. Peter Root mentioned he can make a lounge downstairs by knocking down walls in the basement, but this again is preliminary planning. There are other details we need to work out such as where we’re storing the pool equipment and such. In addition to all these changes, we’re thinking of changing carpeting, windows, etc.
Sam Keaser ‘16: Sound concerns?
Noah: We can make walls thicker. Peter Root is addressing those concerns.
Matt deButts: Any discussion about separating the needs for MRC and Women’s Center?
Noah: If we move forward with my new proposal, I think it could be a lot more feasible.
Carlos Gonzalez ‘13: I like the plan, I just wasn’t aware that the Women’s Center was moving, too. I just want to know how recent that decision was made. To me, it doesn’t seem fair to move the MRC and to give priority to all these constituencies and still have the Jose Marti room stuck in the basement (a Latino culture center).
Noah: The decision about the Women’s Center was made in reaction to the recent events on campus. Part of the concern is that the MRC and the Women’s Center are really small and filled up with useless storage items. We can definitely talk about the Jose Marti room in the future and consider improvements. We’re trying to fit more stuff into the same amount of space. There are plans to build a new campus center in the distant future.
VI. Van Policy
Noah: Current policy is not fair. For the period between four weeks and three weeks, people can only request one van at a time.
George: Why AAS recognized clubs?
Noah: The AAS has certain policies that requires of the clubs. It makes sense to give priority to clubs recognized by us.
Sam: Examples of non-AAS recognized clubs?
George: The only thing you get from being an AAS recognized club is a club budget. Once you get recognition, you have it forever. You need to prove that the club will continue on once the founder graduates. (Examples: Model UN, Amherst Political Union).
Chris Friend: The clubs that do use vans most are almost exclusively all AAS recognized clubs. Some sort of delineation between AAS recognized clubs get first pass at vans followed by other clubs seems okay and fair to me. Because once you lower the bar, it means basically anyone can register, which is essentially the system we have now. What we’re changing is we’re clearly setting lines.
Noah: Our van policy says right now we give priority to AAS recognized clubs, we just have no mechanism for doing that.
Joe Kim ‘14: Is APU not recognized by the AAS? And do we not use vans to pick up speakers? The APU should be able to use the vans and should be able to book people at the same time as other AAS recognized clubs. There should be a very legitimate reason as to why they are not recognized by the AAS.
Amani Ahmed ‘15: Has there been a problem with registered student organizations reserving vans? Why is there a need to revise the policy?
Noah: The example I used was the Zumbyes. The Zumbyes isn’t an exclusive organization and they use the vans for profit. Part of the purposes of this policy is so the Zumbyes can’t reserve three vans for an event.
Chris Friend: Current van policy states that only clubs that follow AAS non discrimination policy may use vans. With the new chances, we’re basically allowing anyone, within two weeks, to rent a van. I like Noah’s delineation.
Shruthi: Maybe you can have a second stamp of approval from the AAS. Saying something like “non-discriminating” is open to debate. There should be a permanent way you can decide if a club is okay with the AAS or not.
George: We can always just lower the bar for AAS recognition.
John Yarchoan ’13: Seems to me like the main reason why clubs who meet our criteria don’t register with the AAS is because they’re lazy. These new changes create an extra incentive for clubs to become registered.
Matt deButts: Informal rule about not making language more complicated than it already was in the constitution. I recommend these changes to the language: “Within four weeks, AAS- recognized clubs can ask for as many vans as they want. Within three weeks, non-AAS recognized clubs can ask for as many vans as they want, and then no two-week rule.
Motion to change language of Noah’s proposal completely.
Chris: This solves nothing. Our problem is not so much delineating between groups. The real problem is the fact that one group who reserves vans four weeks early can reserve all three vans, leaving the other groups with a loss.
Amani Ahmed ‘15: The reason AAS recognition exists is for the club budgets: we need to make sure clubs allocate their money wisely. The clubs need to be inclusive because our policy as the AAS is that you are open to everyone. I don’t understand the point of having AAS recognized clubs.
John Yarchoan: The AAS pays for these vans. We should be more clearly overseeing what these clubs are doing for money.
Ian Hatch ’14: There are legitimate reasons for reliable clubs to reject AAS recognition. Investment Club does this, for instance.
Straw poll: Those in favor of keeping language as it is and those in favor of opening it up to all clubs.
Noah: I’m going to take this proposal back and make amendments.
George: This Wednesday is deadline for AAS recognition for the entire rest of the year.
VII.Arts Committee (George Tepe ‘14)
a.1 senator
Rama Hagos ’15 is elected.
VIII.Student Community Engagement Fund (George)
a.1 senator
Falone elected.
IX.Approve Minutes, 11-5-12 (George)
X.New Business
Matt deButts: AAS Teaching award? If any senators are interested in making that happen, contact me.
XI. Adjournment: 10:00 PM
Attendance policy: Members will be permitted 3 unexcused absences per semester. Arriving at the meeting 30 minutes after roll call or leaving 30 minutes before the end of the meeting counts as a half-absence. Leaving earlier than 30 minutes amounts to a full absence. Excused absences will only be available to students who cannot control the circumstances of their absence; this excludes having too much school work to do. This policy applies to the Executive Board and the Senate.