Notes from the Student Round Table on the State of the College

Notes on state of the campus meeting—october 7th 2009 taken by Will Romey. Matan Cohen—the student representative on the board of trustees—didn't want to have this videotaped.


 * All names most likely misheard and misspelled—apologies**

This is my attempt at notes of the student discussion on the state of the campus. For the most part, these notes are all very stream of conscious, with me trying to convey what the speakers were saying. If anyone has any questions, corrections, comments, or additions to put in here, please email me at wkr08@hampshire.edu.

7:50—Aiden: No agenda, no attempt to form a coalition; objective to share information and discuss problems Corey will be keeping track of who wants to talk, will call for people. People will speak with their name, and any parts of hampshire they feel they represent or identify with. Deedee and aidin will be facilitating. Seray will be taking notes.
 * 7:40—Introductions of organizers of meeting **
 * Maya
 * Britteny
 * Aiden
 * seray
 * Dee Dee Desir
 * corey

7:53—Rules—proposed by attendees Maya: open mindedness ?: assume good intentions ?: be conscious of space you're taking up (“step up step back”) deedee: when speaking of administration, speak to office (i.e., I assume, be specific) Alejandra: establish rules about awareness—no hearsay or rumors, only say things that are true ?: everyone speak up ?: reference actual documents (deedee: “cite your sources”) maya: be respectful ?: what does that mean? -don't be an ass -don't interupt people ?: ask lots of questions aiden: avoid preaching sage: clarify questions--”it's okay to ask questions that might be 'dumb' in your mind”.

7:59—Things open up jaime (4th year) codirecter of EMT, involved on campus “here to find out a little more clarity on what other students think is going on on campus” “general climate of people talking apocolyptic shit” “hear other's concerns” “biggest fear is that everywhere I go...I want to leave it a better place” “worst I've ever felt at Hampshire” scared I won't be able to say I left Hampshire a better place britney: what are your concerns? Jaime: People are quick to jump to conclusions, at NS meeting faculty were talking 	about proposed changes to faculty handbook. Hesitative noises, someone said that there were 	secrets. Faculty having the same suspicion students have—to much paranoia. I don't 	know if fears are 	grounded. Others on campus have the same feelings.

?: question about letter about services—omission of EMTs, clarification? ?-misunderstanding, legitimitely forgot about the EMTs on the list. Also, hours wrong. Dawn 	Ellinwood has a meeting to “probably apologize”. Chris-third year: immidiate fear that he isn't aware of the central body doing the research and following up on the things hampshire is panicing about. Not community council, task force? Invited to the same facebook groups with very us vs. them mentality. Greatest fear is that things are going on, but who's leading, what's happening? ?-agree with that, sees too many divisions. Feels like people will divide into seperate groups 	after different goals. deedee—what task force? Chris: governance task force. Deedee: rerad's election for people to sit on the task force, they're not recognized by board of 	trustees. Seray: what happened to action awareness week task force? Dot: are there students on the governance task force? Is it only deedee? Deedee-yes. Dot-is rerad trying to add more? Deedee-yes. Matan Cohen—student trustee: I'd like everone to bring points together so that I can respond to it all together. Sometimes things have substance, sometimes they don't. Wants to be a point person during and after event for questions and concerns. ?-public safety merging? What's up with this? Allen berman who was tackled and maced—I'm a 	witness. Thought these were rumors, wants to know what's actually going on. Dot-can you clarify? ?-(leaving off details) two pepole fighting outside of merrill, someone called in for abuse, pub safety came around, expecting the worst. Drunk kid outside, saying they didn't have to go in there to protect his friend. Pub safety said they did. Handcuffed him, he said he didn't do anything. Pub safety tackled him, and then matt ???? maced him, they then entered the building. ?-I can speak to that. Allen's girlfriend called her over, went to police station. Can't speak about 	details. Wouldn't mind talking later. He--allen-- might be coming later tonight. Dialogue last week that I attended. Ten students came, some pub safety officers discussed what we can do as a community to help them. Thought it was ridiculous. Jaime—To add to that list...I don't understand why pub safety was merged? There was a notice in summer 08 when it happened. Don't recall reasons. Why did this happen over the summer when students and faculty couldn't be a part of it? Chris—last week I was at a lunch where ralph addressed the students. He said the merger had 			been in planning for some time, but didn't say why. Couldn't say if pub safety sensitivity 		trainings were mandatory. Why does the incident blog be more clear, have ommissions, 			and have different claims—order of events. First year—who did pub safety merge with? Matan Cohen—merge of public safety happened with smith and holyoke, due to fiscal reasons—cheaper for hampshire. Also, there was a problem with the former head of public safety, from incidents that weren't handled well, and missuse of funds. Main reason was fiscal. Sensitivity training is mandatory, as far as I know. Weather it's effective or not is something else. All this has gotten to me before. Statistically there's been no increase in incidents. At the beginning of semester, community has more sensitivity to these things. As to clarity of reporting of events, pub safety isn't at liberty to discuss publicly. Partys involved don't want incidents disclosed. Only once events are concluded. Offers to set up new dialogue with pub safety. ?-Layoffs—what's the number? Physplant people are as much a part of the community, do other people see that as a concern? This meeting isn't structured to include these people—who's thinking about this? Andrew—For me, it's really—I can't believe the president had the gall to write a letter about layoffs, and how they thought about cutting the top earner's salleries. They just hired someone with a 140000 dollar budget. Add new positions and cut salleries—be realistic. This isn't radical. AIG is dong this—this is them being selfish. Slap in the face to even say they thought about it. Ira—Making new jobs after layoffs? Calling off searches that the school's commited to? --speak to action awareness week for first years? Ira—administration makes promises, then doesn't follow through. Also, the international student 	advisor search has been put on hold. Maya: action awareness' demands? Seray: Queer hall, identity based housing, divestment from the occupation of palistine, not cutting financial aid over the course of ten years, moving health service from the “butt fuck of cumpus”, hiring queer faculty. Promised most of these, many haven't happened. Also, the ID centers become wheelchair accesible, didn't happen. Deedee: Ficom has funded the cultural centers. ?-there're many challenges about these deedee: it's student funding that's at risk, not administration. Seray: ID Based groups not based around recognation policy. ?-Do they have resources? Retention? Financial aid? Jaime—who's new? Matan Cohen: VP of communications, no niche for hampshire, needs publicity. Result of report, done by outside firm. Result was a new hire for a VP. It's actually 153,900. Cost of position approved by board. Jaime—the report showed no niche...? Matan Cohen—hampshrie did not have a survay of it's constituency. It concluded that hampshrie needs to identify better with seniors who would apply to hampshire and would be suitible. Hampshire's name doesn't reach as wide an audience. Only reaches to a certain constuency. Only reaches those who don't pay full cost. Would shift way hampshire was percieved of nationally. ?-Cutting of faculty—my tutorial last night, cotaught by two people, they were talking about rumors people were hearing. At one point they presented a concern that student to faculty ratio was changing, they were assured there would be no new cuts. Saleries are on freeze, but no new cuts. ?-I heard from some staff that there weren't going to be anymore faculty cuts this year, but that next year there most definitely would be. deedee—when they say that there aren't going to be faculty cuts, look at who's retiring or going on sebadical—look at the big picture.

Maya—as part of the whole budge, I know that in NS meeting, that the ns faculty got together and said they'd be willing to take a certain % cut to salery and that all different deans present to ralph and mark kind of the head and offer how they plan to fix their own school budget. Allt hese things were denied. It was said that this was unsustainible. In the past, this has been accepted. The entire quantitatvie resource center. ?-The people in the top taking a paycut—the way I interpret that is as across the faculty. He said why that was unsustainible. This might have been the rejection. --who decided? ?-ralph, mark -Matan Cohen: I have the info, so I'm speaking. There are no firings at hampshire—they're offereing incentives for retirements. Improving conditions of retirements. Hampshire can't fire faculty. -Staff? -different stolry. Matan Cohen-As for freeze of hiring, 100% true. Ratio: supposed to be 1:20, not it's 1:11.7. They're saying we should go to 1:16. 22 Staff members have been layed off. We need to have cross constituency here, they get shit. Seray: forcing retirement? Lost the most influential member last year, worked at library since 1970. No one knows why she retired, she had said that she wanted to stay at hampshire. How much do they do? Matan Cohen: she's staff, staff is getting fucked over.

Britney: Transparency huge issue. Multiple levels, gov task force, student council, confusing, remote. A lot of the reason is due to a lack of transparency on many levels. People trying to change it, that's something that's a big concern of mine. Will—Staff saleries? Josh—2008 presidential sallery: took 20 minutes of googling, hard to find. Ralph made $328,139, and given 60,000 in expense compensation. Comparison: Hampshire spent 63 million and made 69 million. Hartwick's pres made 276,530. Hartwick spent 62 and made 65—simillar to hampshire. -other four colleges? ?-people need to be more clear. ?-If you don't know somehting, be able to ask. Quincy, fourth year—Ralph's sallary. New position of marketing is 1/3rd ralph's salery—isn't that his job? In trustee's notes; and they hired ralph as a “fundraiser”. This is why he has a big travel budget. This is evidence that ralph isn't doing his job. Contract is up this year—make the demand! This should be a part of it. -Adien—No demands, this is an analysis. Dulcy—I want to talk about the talk about admissions. Many rumors. It affected me pretty directly, professor's sending emails to her from karen parker saying that many rumors aren't true. I was involved in the beginning. Her situation that started some rumors: admissions hires div 3 students to interview prospective students, they've done this for several years. I applied, thought interview went well, I didn't get hired, and assumed that it was very competative. A friend said that this was because the environment has changed, and that there has been much more focus on marketability, and the way that interns talk and act, phrases being “weisler look, appropriate”. A trend of people saying they're not acceptiblt to work there. Shows direction that folks are going in, weisler hired to market college. People have varying stories. Rumors about sidelining people interested in social justice. Lots of hearsay.

8:49 Aiden: change discussion to topic based stacks? Then get into admissions and move on from there. List we've talked about: EMTS Services Staff Faculty Cuts Action Awareness Week Governance Task Force

Jess Wu—I've been doing my own admissions investigations, I work in Admissions, the environment has changed. First big change, which was an ex. Decision, ralph moved weisler to dean of enrolment. He wasn't voted on and he has no admissions experience. Because of that, the main focus has turned to the marketing, and ways to make admissions more effective. I've been affected by these practices, and the whole admitance process—it's very glossed over. Senior Ass. Director says that it's a new emphasis (dave wagner) asked why he hires alums, and they have no experience with what goes on at hampshire and they can sell the school the best. Interns and interviewees have hard that new hires that this girl might have to many piercings, “wrong look”. “We're trying to find best candidates”. Not making discrimination clear. -Jaime: you anwered most questions, but...they wanted to lower the acceptence rate, and obviously it does make sense so that it's more accessible, but how do upcoming classes affect the school and its atmosphere. -I went to last SOTC meeting, and ralph said that the rate of full pay to financial aid is wrong—huge discrepency in the budget, and they're going for making the school more appealing to full pay students. Yield needs to be higher. Deedee—fewre activist students, fewer confrontations with the administion. Seray—violation of the employment act—a bill that became a law that's designed to protect people with marginatlized statuses—race sex gender disabilities, etc. that they can't be not hired or fired for these things. I think this falls under these things. -Isn't sexuality included? Yes. Dulcy—I can understand to a degree, but if they had asked me to “take out piercings”, but how they approach the situation was vague and untrasparent. If you look at those who were hired, there's a specific asthetic, with emphasis as non activisty and apolitical. Key words that were interpreted in certain ways. ?- I don't think tatoos and piercings go into employment discirmination act, but def. Clear 			violations. Also, aren't you the only person of color who works there? Jess-yes.

Jess- I feel like it's a dificult situation, I've been working there for a long time and the staff that works there who are doing are the hirings are in a dificult position because their jobs are on the line and they're being threatened by weisler's position. Trying to figure more out.

Aiden: One thing I know that is concerning, a faculty member said there was a meeting of a group that has many faculty and in the blog ralph specifically mentions if hampshire is an advocacy school, and there is a trend where more and more hexter is making statements if this is a place where one is responsive to students at all, and the blog backs this up. His more recent presentation, he said in a private conversation with 12 students he said what we're coming up with is a translation issue “are we trying to translate for the audience who is'nt coming here?” “he said yes.” -the administration is saying ”social justice is taking away from academic excellence” ?-Hampshire is a bubble, and if there's going to be a shutdown of that and it threatens my GLBTQ identity, it's an imporatn identity issue. ?-along those lines, actual level of safety that visibly queer people have on this campus, homophobic incidents by pub safety and other students that I've seen. ?-Hexter's plan is a good one to change campus; we'll leave, and there'll be new students.

Aiden: what else do we want to talk about? Set a goal as no latter then 10 PM?


 * Will takes a break***

9:13 THE FARM:

Jaime—Developing relationship with those in charge, feisty, gives more work study then aloted, has the sense they can't do much to her, but farm is always on the choppping block. They feel threatened, but not sure about near near future. Nancy seems confident. Seray: Leslie seems worried—I was told that the farm was at risk, and at the end of last week we would know. But that hadn't happened—there's an answer out there about it's nearby fate. Maya: the farm's institutionally funded by hampshire, out of the budget—like lemelson and EMTs. What people have been trying to do is put the budget under NS, bt it's been unsuccesful to date, and has been one of the first thigns to offer up to cut. It costs two full pay student's tuition, so pretty minimal. Within next 2 years, they'll try to phase out the agricultural budget. The two agricultural advisors are very senior, and will retire soon—when that happens, the farm is “doomed”. Dot—looking over parents weekend schedule, there's a talk called “why a farm at a liberal arts college?”

Aiden—would it make a difference if what was being produced on the farm if sydexo agreed to take a certain amount of the farms budget, which would cut budgets all over? Seary: two part question, a connection of the farm board said that they're cutting certain forms of agriculture that don't make more money, and will be buying more pigs because it makes more money. Deedee: Soley asking sydexo to cut costs wouldn't bring enough cuts to save it, we need more composting, and buying soley form hampshire. But, I don't think sydexo will do this. ?-CSA has always sold out, and there's not much in storage (the root celler). Also, with compost, there would be a system—It can sell for 5 dollars a bag, but a private contracter did this for the 5 colleges. Maya—SAGA buys 25 CSA shares, so they do support it a fair amount. The CSA pays for itself, and people who but CSAs pay for themselves—it pays for the next season's CSA. We're not losing money on the CSA.

9:21 Academic Changes: Aiden requests that the student trustee adresses academic changes. “I'm on academic affairs committee, it wasn't even discussed, not on the table.” Dot: why did ralph mention it? “he phrased it in such a convoluted way that it was misconstrued, and it was his fault. We were discussing in a board meeting...if we didn't have evalls, faculty would work less”. This was basically ignored. “It's not being deliberated...I don't see a prospect of it happeneing.” ?-their endowment would be gone, no one would contribute. “Acadmeic affairs committee does this, it wasn't even on the agenda. I don't know where these ideas are coming from, but it's not happening.” Maya: what will be happening? “I didn't want this taped, because of confidentiality”. Please keep this to yourself: things that have been talked about pertain to retention and to have a better working relationship betweeen casa and advisors, so that any problems with advisors will e addressed quicly and efficiently. First semester red flagging process—a better indicator of folks in trouble for their first semester. The emphasis isn't on academic affairs. There's a meeting tomorrow morning, and I'll bring some points up. That's where it's at, academically, there's not much change going on or being discussed. Deedee: what does your committee adress? Anything that pertains to the academic structure of hampshier. One of the problems here is that there's no way for the student trustee to get student feedback. If folks have stuff going on and you want to bring it up, I'm more then open to hearing that. If someone wants to write a petition and bring it up, bring it to me. When I talk to the board, I'm only Matan, I represent no one. How to make board representatives, that's the problems. There's no way to get feedback to the student trustee. People talking to me would b ea great help. ?-in his speech to the community, hexter talked about a graduate program, general and thrown out. What's up with this? Chris: Weren't actually serious ideas, he was just throwing them out there. Poor communication. He's mostly just like “should we do this?”. It's not a complete thought, if you were to ask him, he'd say that he didn't put any thought into it. Will-how are student trustees done? Alternating years, for subs. Maya: on the gradschool piece of it, we're missing some key elements in NS, like a biochemistry teacher and some key health professionals and agricultural profs. One idea is to bring in grad students to give them an oppurtunity to get a graduate degree in the field that they study, and give undergrads an oppurunity to learn, and also ind. Research. They could sit on comittess, and fill slots we need filled. Increasing faculty and increasing research, without increasing budget. Alex van leer—I feel like a lot of what I've learned, from eharing him talk, is that he's all about confusing topics and smoke and mirrors, moving attention from what's going on and uses strange language to a point where the focus as to what's going on—admissions is doing a lot, and he throws out topics about education. People won't remember what's actually going on right now—ralph is using distraciton. ?-I think the grad program would be a bad idea. Although we have missing classes, now the profs will have to teach grad students. The tendency is to give grad students more attention then undergrads. Now the undergrads will only get grad attention. Deedee: I heard to allow for students to do a five year graduate program and transtition to a fifth year an get a graduate degree. This would allow students to receive a graduate degree from hampshire. Matan Cohen: this is a longterm program—it would also include getting new professors, and would shfit the way in which hampshire's grad school offers courses. It's such a preliminary idea out there, it's not being thought about and worked on, Hexter's rhetoric has no substance.

Aidin: it's 9:35, let's move on to the next topic.

?-Should we actually move on to a new meeting?

Aidin: should we end this session now and plan a new meeting? If there're any suggestions, feel free to tell any one and they will work it in. ESK07 CJJ07

“Faculty are coming out with a statement tomorrow”

“Tomorrow, there's a faculty only meeting to discuss the same things, faculty doesn't really know what's going on and they feel that it's intentional. They're most concerned with advocacy, staff ration, admissions, and governance task force. The faculty in general are coming together and uniting in a way in which they've never done together and are really moved by the way students are working. They're getting their act together to make sure students and faculty have a say. Right now, they want to work with us, but they need to build an analysis and consensus before any action. They feel like things are deliberately being muddled, and that the administration is trying to make a power grab.”