The June firing of Associate Dean of Residential Life and Services Deborah McNish has created an open position.
According to Dean of Student Life and Services Charlene Cole-Newkirk, steps are now being taken to find McNish's replacement.
A six-person search committee consisting of one Residential Coordinator (RC), one person of color, one Conservatory student and three administrators is currently being formed.
"We hope to pull the search committee together after fall break," Cole-Newkirk said. "It's not politicized."
A job description of the position has also been sent out and is being advertised. Once the applicant pool is screened down to a "manageable number," the search committee will be presented with possible candidates, according to Cole-Newkirk.
Student members of the Health Plan Board are planning a series of public forums for students to voice their opinions on the future of student health at Oberlin. The forums are slated to begin after fall break and will coincide with a survey that will be distributed to students in an attempt to solicit input on the health plan.
Four planning forums, including open meetings on women's health and minority student health concerns as well as open meetings on North and South campus, will be used to obtain input concerning what Oberlin students want in their new health care plan. The suggestions will be used by the Health Plan Board in decided on a health care provider for the College.
In its Wednesday meeting, the Health Plan Board took a closer look at the Request for Proposal (RFP) that was drafted by the College and an outside firm this summer and distributed to health care providers around the region last month. In an attempt to reduce health costs but improve service, the College is fielding proposals by these health care providers until November 1. The proposals will then be studied and discussed with students.
Students who voted in favor of student senators receiving stipends from the Student Finance Committee (SFC) in last spring's election surprised both senators and SFC officials and resulted in the need for an increase in Senate's annual budget.
According to SFC Treasurer senior Becca Barnes, SFC now allots $12,540 to Senate for stipends. This money is partially generated from the student activity fee of $156 per student per year. Two-thirds of the senators are part of the College's work-study program, and the SFC allocations make up 25 percent of each senator's total salary of $1705 per year. The rest is paid from the work-study budget.
The $12,540 came from the SFC's $50,000 emergency ad hoc budget. According to Barnes senators did not think the student body would vote in favor of paying the stipends, so they did not approach SFC about the possibility of allotting stipend funds as part of their budget. SFC was therefore forced to use ad hoc funds to pay the difference.
"We didn't plan for it to happen; money had already been allocated for the budget," Barnes said.
Copyright © 1997, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 6, October 10, 1997
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