Senate appoints boards in dispute

A passion-filled and lengthy Senate meeting covered various topics as revising the Senate website, improving publicity and appointing Senators to different committees.

Moreover, a guest appearance by former Senator and current Forum Board member junior Liane Lau provoked strong opinions regarding the recent appointment of junior senators Chris Anton, Jane Glynn and senior Sarah Feinberg to the Director of Residential Search Committee and Senate's role in appointing students to various Senate-chartered organizations.

Lau, who was at the meeting to voice her own concerns and not those of the Forum Board as a whole, expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which Senate appoints students to various committees, namely Forum Board. Lau claims that Senate has failed to appoint five of the nine members of Forum Board in a timely fashion. Forum Board, an organization that receives funding from the Student Finance Committee and whose role is to provide on-campus groups with funds to bring speakers to campus, is a Senate chartere organization. This means that it is the obligation of Senate to appoint members to serve on the committee.

Lau felt that because Senate failed to appoint the remaining five members of the committee two months into the school year that Forum Board should have the right to appoint its own members. Glynn strongly was strongly opposed to this, citing page 19, article six of the Senate Constitution as grounds. The section essentially states that any charter that is in conflict with the Constitution is overridden by the Constitution. Sophomore Senator Dan Morganstein said, "It seems to me that if Forum Board is to give money to groups that aren't chartered that this is a way to breach the whole point of having Senate."

Glynn also stated that Senate was not at fault for the hiring decisions. "We conducted interviews for Forum Board one and a half months ago and only one student interviewed. Forum Board can function with at least four members-it does not need nine," said Glynn. Glynn also stated that the position was advertised sufficiently and that it is not the responsibility of Senate to personally invite each student to interview. A proposal made by Chris Anton was passed: Senate will heavily publicize the position for one week, then conduct interviews for one week, and if no conclusion is reached, forum board can deal with SFC.

Lau then expressed her dissatisfaction with Senate's hiring decision in the case of the 3 new members of the Search Committee. Lau claims that many minority and fringe groups on campus were not aware that interviews were being conducted for the positions, and had they known, would have interviewed. In order to deal with this problem, Lau has drafted a petition and will be meeting with Dean of Student Life Peter Goldsmith and Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman with the hopes of re-opening the interviews for these positions. An excerpt from the petition reads, "We feel the call for student participation was not adequately advertised in all communities. Consequently, the student body is not represented fully in its complexity. The appointed student representatives have no ties to any of the communities of color, nor do they represent our voices."

Anton, who is also a Search Committee member, stated that he felt resentment towards the fact that his leadership ability was being questioned on the basis of his skin color. Anton said, "[People feel that because] three members of the committee are white that they are not capable of representing minority students and this troubles me deeply. People need to be free from identity politics."

First-year Senator Miesha McClure, in regards to students of color who chose not to interview at the appropriate time and are now expressing dissatisfaction with the hiring decision said, "If students of color want to bitch after the fact, it's too late."

Other items on the agenda included more advisory council proposals, such as Junior Senator Katherine E. Roberts revised proposal for a financial aid and budget ad council. According to Roberts' proposal, the purpose of the council would be to "find the gaps in financial aid-administration; to find the weak links which force students to work more hours weekly than is reasonable in order to afford college and to find out what student priorities are in relation to how they want their tuition spent." Roberts' proposal passed approval. Morganstein proposed a committee that would focus on health issues, primarily on making it possible for students to receive the meningitis vaccine on-campus at an inexpensive cost.

Senate discussed such internal issues as revising office hours, adopting a new attendance policy and having exclusive officers meetings. The proposal for the officers' meetings, which will require an additional $27.75 in SFC funding passed, but the other two proposals were tabled due to a lack of clear guidelines for a plan of action.