From the Editors:
Each week, The Bi-College News will be publishing the Students’ Council meeting minutes released in the Students’ Council Newsletter. These meeting minutes come directly to the inboxes of all Haverford students; in the interests of making the minutes and the activities of the College’s student government as accessible and transparent as possible, they are likewise published here, where the Bryn Mawr community, along with Bi-Co faculty, staff, alumni, and others can see the Council‘s discourse. The Haverford Clerk has been publishing these minutes in a series since 2019; head to their website to read past releases.
Executive Board Meeting 09/05
Friday, September 5, 2025; 4:00 – 5:00 p.m., – GEST 102
Members Present: Ben Fligelman, Sarah Weill-Jones, Oliver Wilson, Grant DeVries, Ben Perez-Flesler, Sophia Goss, Victoria Haber, Caroline Yao
Members Absent: N/A
Guests: Sofie Quirk, Jessica Schott-Rosenfield
Next Meeting: Friday, September 12; 4:15 – 5:15 p.m., – GEST 102
“My purpose is to go ‘woop woop!’ whenever someone mentions the Honor Code” – Sofie Quirk
- Call to order
- Roll Call
- Adoption of Agenda
- Welcome back; personal introductions, updates
- Old Business:
- Appointments & Elections Schedule
- Librarian and CSCAR Appointments
- New website?
- New Business 1: Students’ Council Retreat
- New Business 2: Plans for the Year
- Co-position goals for the year
- Revisit prospective goals paper written over the summer
- Co-position goals for the year
- New Business 3: Honor Code & Plenary
- Creation of form for students to add questions comments and concerns
- Set up town hall dates/themes
- Discussion of timeline for Honor Code editing, planning, and then distribution of new prospective code before plenary
- Discuss collaboration with student groups to create a Wonderously fun plenary
- Plenary theme!
- New Business 4: Communication and Transparency
- Replacement for the “Fords Form”
- Wider sharing of Minutes & Students’ Council Summaries
- Thoughts on allowing people to watch Stu-Co gen bod meetings / providing zoom option
- Potential paper leaflets of student council updates to be distributed on tbd basis
- Putting meetings on Squirrel Space
New Business 5: Capital Surplus & Facilities Fund(Pushed to GenBod meeting)List small projects throughout campus that surplus can be put towards ie: let’s put up more hammocks etc.
- Extraordinary Budget Requests (over $5,000)
- Adjournment
Call to Order
Sarah: I call this meeting to order at 4:09pm.
Victoria: More than half of Exec board is in attendance. Quorum has been met.
Ben: I move to adopt the agenda. I also move to approve the minutes. Any concerns? The agenda is adopted and the minutes are approved.
Community Comment
Victoria: Guests please say your names for the minutes.
Sofie: My name is Sofie Quirk, I am one of the Honor Council Co-Chairs
Jessica: Hi I’m Jessica, and I’m one of the Co-Editors in chief of the Bi-Co News.
Welcome Back; Personal Introductions, Updates
Ben Flig: What have we done this summer? What have you all been up to? What are we hoping for for the coming year? For the minutes, I’m Ben, Co-President, I spent the summer researching the Haverford Honor Code.
Sarah: I’m Sarah, Co-President, I use they/them pronouns; I spent this summer working for the Delaware County Legal Aid Society helping people get benefits.
Oliver: Co-VP; I spent the summer at University Toulouse studying astrophysics.
Grant: Co-VP; I spent the summer doing research on campus and studying for the LSAT.
Sofie: Honor Council Co-Chair; I spent the summer researching cases of forced disappearance with Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo.
Ben PF: Co-Treasurer; I spent the summer doing neuroscience research at JHU.
Sophia: Co-Treasurer; she/they, I spent the summer at an internship with the PA geological survey studying rocks.
Victoria: Co-Secretary; I spent the summer doing biomedical research in the city.
Caroline: Co-Secretary; I spent the summer in Indonesia doing peace and justice education work.
Jess: Bi-Co News; I spent the summer working in the libraries in research and instruction.
Old Business
Sarah: Welcome back to the Students’ Council. First we’ll go over old business. Oliver and Grant please fill us in about appointments and elections.
Oliver: Do we know the schedule yet?
Ben Flig: Not yet, but I do know that we have some positions that are going to appointments and some going to elections.
Grant: I have updates about the elections, after meeting with Conner. Nominations will open this week. Elections will open the following week. The appointments are in the process for internal positions–the librarians and Officer of the Arts. We’ll know by the end of next week. We have nominations for all of the positions. For broader committee reps, those apps will go out next week. It took about three months before to get this up and running, so now we’ve gone much quicker.
Caroline: I was also in that meeting with Conner.
Ben Flig: Sounds great. I’m excited to have the librarians so we can get the new website up and running.
Students’ Council Retreat
Sarah: Jodi emailed us about Pendle Hill. There are potential dates including Oct 10th through 11th, or Oct 17th and 18th. Those are the two options. They have limited availability. If anyone has preferences then let us know.
Oliver: I believe both those dates are during fall break. I think that makes it easier for some and harder for others in terms of attendance.
Ben Flig: I think this year we’d like to try something different for the Students’ Council Retreat.
Grant: Camping could be fun.
Ben Flig: Do the Co-Secs have thoughts?
Caroline: Is there a reason why the timeline is different?
Ben Flig: They’re booked in September for an anniversary.
Caroline: Can we book it somewhere else for a non-fall break date?
Ben Flig: Yes, that’s why I’m thinking about other ideas, like going camping.
Sarah: So we should ask Jodi for an alt space for the end of this month.
Ben Flig: That’ll be Sept 27-28.
Ben PF: The KINSC Research Symposium is during that time in the morning.
Sarah: We could maybe then start in the afternoon.
Oliver: Let me double check the timing; the symposium ends at 2:30pm on 27th.
Sarah: Sounds good.
Sophia: Do we want to invite the Bi-Co News?
Ben Flig: Why not?
Sophia: I think it’d be good to make sure students know what goes on.
Ben PF: We can also do interviews.
Plans for the Year
Ben Flig: Moving on, I want to go around and ask what all of your ideas are for Students’ Council this year. What are we hoping to do this year? I’m curious what we’d like to do individually in our roles.
Oliver: As Co-VPs we want to institutionalize committees and make them as accessible as possible. Personally I’m interested in student employment. We met with the dean to turn the SWTF (Student Wage Task Force) into a standing committee to evaluate wages every few years.
Grant: There’s a couple of committees, for example the Dining Center, that will continue to run; the CAVA station is amazing, and we would like to continue to improve aspects of dining.
It’s a slow process but stick with us. I’m on the committee working with The Nest, and we will meet in two weeks. Regarding appointments, in the past, we haven’t kept regular updates until the end of the semester. Technically it is required by the constitution to do so, but we should implement that this year. We should be able to do something better. I’m glad to announce there’s a committee report from last year that will be released soon. Yasmin has been working on that over summer. The Constitution Committee is up in the air right now, but we’ll look at that depending on other goals.
Ben PF: Do we know if the Nest committee formed?
Grant: That’s the committee I’m on.
Ben Flig: I was looking at the Master Committee Doc and did not see them there.
Grant: The limiting part of our power is that we can only appoint people to committees if we are asked. So people can just make committees on their own, even though they technically shouldn’t. This one wasn’t made with us, but we’re working with them.
Ben Flig: I think that will change this year.
Oliver: For future Plenary resolutions, we will push for that.
Ben Flig: I hope that committees that don’t go through the process are still publicized. There’s a Student Athlete Committee that I had not heard of until recently. I hope we can get a true master list of committees including ones that Students’ Council does not have purview over.
Sarah: More inclusion with “lowercase” student government.
Grant: I’m interested in following up with that. They have their own government, so I’d like to know how it works.
Ben Flig: Co-Treasurers?
Sophia: One of the big things we want to focus on is endowment transparency. We also have a fun goal of visiting every club at least once. We want to see how they spend their money and meet clubs. We also, keeping in line with Co-Treasurers in the past, we want to make sure clubs are keeping in line with standard student engagement policies. We also want to strengthen existing organizations like BLAST, Quaker Bouncers, and The Nest.
Victoria: We’ll be revisiting the Email and Poster Policy. We’re also in charge of the Facilities Fund; I already have ideas, but I want to hear what you all think too. We’re also overseeing some general institutional memory regarding minutes for Students’ Council, so I’ve personally been going through and cleaning and organizing the Drive.
Caroline: I also want to say I might have to write the entire Clearness Report by myself since everyone else who was a part of that last year is gone. The Clearness Report is supposed to come out in November, so it will come, but I will be busy with that.
Students’ Council note: you can read past Clearness Reports here!
Ben Flig: We can help with that.
Grant: I also wanted to mention that the DC Bulletin Board was primarily run by Victoria (as Co-President) and class reps.
Sarah: Did we want to talk about possibly shifting those roles to Librarians, or Students’ Council Secretaries?
Victoria: I definitely think that is necessary, and the Students’ Council Secretaries are also glad to do that. I don’t think it would make sense for Co-Presidents to do that. Once we have an Officer of the Arts, it also makes sense for them to help.
Sarah: I think it’s also a good opportunity to put information up about the people in the student body. It could be good for talking about things outside of Students’ Council. That is one of our goals; community building.
Ben Flig: Our hope in this role, and can incorporate that in the bulletin board, is to help students better coordinate and work together on larger goals. For example, oftentimes you’ll find students working on the same goal, but parallel.
Sarah: This even happens with faculty and staff, and they don’t realize that one department might work on something that would mesh with another department. Creating more outlets for people to bond with each other will strengthen connections.
Honor Code & Plenary
Ben Flig: Moving on to the Honor Code. For the Honor Code we’ll talk more in the general student body meeting on Sunday but today I want to hear from Sofie: What do you need from Students’ Council and what will CSCAR be doing?
Sofie: One of the central goals of CSCAR is getting a greater sense of student perception of the Honor Code. We would achieve that possibly by organizing town halls or discussion meetings similar to what was done last year by the Co-Presidents with Wendy and Dean McKnight. This makes Students’ Council the perfect place to go for planning and resource gathering, so having that support would be great.
Sarah: What we’re trying to figure out is the timeline before the new and edited Code is released to the student body. We want to set up those meetings for students, pick out dates for the town halls, and make a platform so that they can give their feedback. So when October comes we can hit the ground running with our new edits to the Code.
Sofie: Michael and I have yet to set up our office hour times, but that can also be a place for students to come and talk more in depth.
Ben Flig: I notice that attendance is low at office hours.
Sofie: Another conversation that we’ve been having with the Honor Council is to have a consistent Honor Council Consensus to talk about CSCAR, published abstracts, etc. so that people can discuss with each other what’s going on with the Code.
Sarah: I was at breakfast in the DC yesterday and first-years were talking about it even then; so people are talking about it even if they don’t come to office hours. I think a newsletter update would be useful but making office hours in a place that’s visible is really important. Ben and I are doing brunch with the students for office hours for example.
Caroline: Honor Council newsletters were sent consistently, so changing the space could be helpful. We had office hours in VCAM, but no one came. Hopefully there will be more interest since it’s an active year for the Code. We will also include your office hours in the Students’ Council newsletter.
Sofie: Another thing that has been an idea is having stickers for the Code and CSCAR to get people more interested.
Sarah: You can also make QR codes.
Sofie: The plenary stickers were adorable, and I think if we could have a cute sticker about coming to these dialogues about the Code that’d be cool.
Caroline: There could be a series that is exclusive to the event.
Sofie: Exclusive stickers to show you care about the college and the Code.
Caroline: Another thing, we will share the Clearness Committee results with you to help with knowing about student feedback about the Code and Honor Council.
Ben PF: The bookstore can also sell merch.
Sarah: It sounds like within the next week we will create platforms for students to raise their questions/comments/concerns, Sofie and Michael will set up their own office hours and we can get September filled out and so that we can start editing in October.
Oliver: Do we know yet how that will look like structurally?
Ben Flig: there’s two general ways it could work; one led primarily by Students’ Council, one led primarily by CSCAR. The two bodies must work together to write different sections of the code and present it at plenary in the fall. One of the big goals is getting CSCAR appointed ASAP. I think it’s important we have people involved in writing the Code who aren’t a part of Students’ Council and Honor Council.
Grant: Once the email gets sent out for appointments, we will have confirmations within a week.
Victoria: Can we edit the Honor Code in the fall?
Ben Flig: This is not a big roadblock. We can introduce an amendment at the beginning of Plenary allowing us to edit the Honor Code in the fall.
Sarah: We have our timeline planned out and now we can move on to talk about Plenary. I’ve talked to groups over the summer to create a fun plenary. We want as much student involvement including performers, zines, etc.
Grant: The more other activities we have the longer it takes and the less focused we could be.
Sarah: Should we only have plenary exclusive zines?
Oliver: The things that don’t add minutes to plenary are better than things that do.
Grant: If we have performances while we wait for quorum that allows us to engage students.
Oliver: Once we hit quorum, we should start immediately.
Victoria: Something that we have had at our Plenaries in the past is tabling for student groups on campus. During plenary itself, if people are getting a little bored, people can get up and have activities to do then. But yes, generally, we should really try not to add agenda items to the minutes to keep Plenary as short and efficient as possible.
Communication and Transparency
Ben Flig: Moving on to communication and transparency. This is an important note for the Co-Secretaries. Due to the loss of Engage we have lost the Fords Form. Can we get a Google Form replacement?
Caroline: Yeah.
Ben Flig: I’m hoping that we can get a wider sharing of Students’ Council minutes. We could try handing them up on bathroom stalls or in many of the doorways or halls of campus and buildings.
Victoria: It’s less of a good idea to print mass copies. First of all, for environmental reasons, but also, people generally still read the emails when the minutes come out. We see lots of students on the document during those times.
Jessica: The Bi-Co news is planning to publish meeting minutes online; we would also presumably have space for a Students’ Council meeting minutes highlight on printed versions of Bi-Co news.
Ben PF: Could we hang up posters that could take us to a page? Or have stickers with QR codes on them?
Caroline: When we get our librarians appointed, then that would be perfect for publicizing the minutes on the new website.
Sarah: It’s very important for the general student body to have access to the general council meetings. I think it’s important to be as transparent as possible. If we want students to care and engage they need to be able to see it. We should try to have at least two general council meetings be explicitly open per month.
Victoria: I want to mention that it’s important to reframe how people want to hear that the Students’ Council wants to be transparent. In the past, many Co-Presidents have always had this goal, but I don’t think we’ve been advertising it very well.
Ben PF: It’s hard to make the argument when people don’t want to hear it. I think when we create the narrative that the student body is disengaged, that makes them more disengaged or discouraged. So we should also work to make a new narrative so that the student body feels supported in being engaged.
Sophia: My freshman hall is definitely interested, so I think we’re experiencing a cultural shift.
Victoria: Okay perfect.
Grant: Ever since we’ve changed to a new structure of having agendas, we’ve opened the opportunities for students to come attend and add an agenda item. However, I think we’ve done a poor job telling people that they can indeed come. The public needs to know they can be here.
Oliver: I was going to add to that, in situations where the executive board and general student body meetings have a significant thing on the agenda, we should publicize the agenda a week in advance, so students know what that agenda item is. For example, if I picked a random meeting to attend, it might not be that interesting to me as a student, but if people know in advance what’s going on, I would come more prepared and engaged.
Victoria: I agree. The hardest thing was setting the agendas so far in advance, so being able to set that structure up earlier will help our Co-Presidents.
Extraordinary Budgeting Requests
Ben Flig: We are now on extraordinary budgeting requests. Thank you to our guests for attending!
Sofie and Jessica exit the meeting
BLAST
Ben PF: Here is the budgeting request. Do we know their usual requests?
Oliver: The historical funding for BLAST is up to $10,000 is for only wages. Anything on top of that is in addition from Students’ Council funding. Are they going to ask for more after this, because it’s not much over their regular amount?
Ben PF: We don’t know.
Caroline: I think they’re trying to replace a lot of items for the upcoming year and for future years.
Ben PF: It could be likely that they ask for more.
Oliver: I am in favor of giving them this and more, so that we don’t pay money to give other clubs equipment that BLAST could have. Other clubs can rent BLAST’s equipment. That way we save some funding.
Victoria: I agree.
Ben PF: Before we move to motion, I want to double check their wages. There has been an increase from previous years.
Caroline: They need to get more members, which is probably why they’re asking for more.
Victoria: I’m totally cool approving the increase in wages since they only access the money as hours are logged.
Oliver: I’d like to mention that there is a chance that they will end up needing more for wages, but theoretically they should know the number of hours they have left to log as the semester progresses.
Caroline: They’re also receiving RESE support to rebuild their club and ensure that BLAST is adequately prepared to serve student clubs and populations on campus.
Grant: I move to approve the budget in full.
Ben PF: I second.
Ben Flig: All in favor? All opposed? Abstain?
Passes unanimously
HavOC
Ben PF: Here’s their spreadsheet. There’s a fall break canoe trip, fall break camping trip, multiple day hikes, and canoe day trips. There are other various items as well like gear.
Sophia: Do we want to compare to what they’ve received historically?
Oliver: Typically, we approved some trips and denied others. It depends on the money you have. We denied canoeing last year.
Grant: Can clubs budget for Ubers?
Oliver: It’s not logistically possible.
Sophia: We don’t have a policy written yet, but we should talk about that.
Victoria: Based on the spreadsheet, I think some of the trips need to be cut.
Ben Flig: I agree. How about we cut a fall break trip and a day-time canoe trip?
Sophia: We can ask them to shorten the trips overall.
Ben PF: It gives them the option to choose what to prioritize too.
Victoria: If we want them to shorten the trip, that would mean that they have to go back and work on this budget, right? How would that work?
Sophia: We go back and forth with clubs. This is not an appeals process since that would involve them disagreeing with whatever decision we make and asking for us to look it over again.
Ben Flig: You should ask them how much they plan to submit in regular budgeting.
Victoria: I think what we can decide on right now is that they should rework their budget and come back.
Sophia: That might not cut enough money either.
Oliver: We can ask them to cut a specific dollar amount. I move to let the Co-Treasurers communicate with them to ask for a $3,000 cut from HavOC’s budget.
Grant: I second.
Ben Flig: All in favor? All opposed? Abstain?
Passes unanimously
Chabad
Ben PF: So this was submitted on September 3rd, the first event they request funding for is September 5th, the last is submitted for Rosh Hashanah, near the end of this month. Keeping consistent with our policies for other clubs,, they could only access money for catering 4 weeks after this submission, which would be in October.
Ben PF: We could direct them to the Office of Spiritual and Religious Life which could be less strict, but their funding is very limited and could be difficult to access because of the transition in leadership, we still need to meet with them.
Victoria: Because budgeting opened in mid-August, if we want to be fair to every club, we can’t make exceptions.
Ben PF: We’ve asked them to also meet to discuss budgeting with us and Student Engagement.
Sophia: We want to work with them in good faith too to help them with budgeting and make sure they understand and are working within the guidelines.
Grant: Do we want to reject this then?
Sophia: I don’t think there’s anything in this that we can approve without further information. There are other budgeting requests as well.
Victoria: Will they receive anything from Bryn Mawr?
Ben PF: They used to budget with both colleges, but also in a way that doesn’t align with policy either; they used to send us invoices after for the food cooked or catered, without much prior communication or details to be able to verify what we are paying for. Per the new Students’ Council and Bryn mawr SGA Budgeting Policy this year, we’ve requested that they budget with only Haverford.
Grant: I move to reject the budget so other details can be clarified.
Sophia: I second.
Ben Flig: All in favor? All opposed? Abstain?
Passes unanimously
Ben Flig: I adjourn this meeting at 5:37pm.
Some more fun from your Students’ Council Exec Board:
“Grant DeVries is thirsty” – Oliver Wilson
“Ben!! Your computer is FULL of viruses!” – Victoria Haber
“This storm is what we call progress” – Walter Benjamin
“Meow!” – Sarah Weill-Jones
General Body Meeting 09/07
Sunday, September 7, 2025; 2:00 – 3:00 p.m., – GEST 101
Members Present: Ben Fligelman, Sarah Weill-Jones, Oliver Wilson, Grant DeVries, Ben Perez-Flesler, Sophia Goss, Victoria Haber, Caroline Yao, Coco Liu, Isabela Azumatan Aceituno, Hannah Mattison, Elena Vol, Anjali Agarwal, Jack Weinstein, Jackson Cannon, Vivian Ross, Conner McWhan, Abigail Trapp, Ben Fitzgerald, Jonathan Lee,
Members Absent: Zora Kuehne, Issac Kemokai, Hettie Van Dyke
Guests: N/A
Next Meeting: Sunday, September 14; 2:00 – 3:00 p.m., – GEST 101
“Last night I downloaded Fizz to figure it out. You guys talk a lot about me!” – Ben Fligelman
- Call to order
- Roll Call
- Welcome back; personal introductions, updates
- New Business 1: Honor Code & Plenary
- Creation of form for students to add questions comments and concerns
- Set up town hall dates/themes
- Discussion of timeline for Honor Code editing, planning, and then distribution of new prospective code before Plenary
- Discuss collaboration with student groups to create a Wonderously fun Plenary (think zines, crafts, and tabling rather than too many performances)
- Plenary theme!
- New Business 2: Students’ Council Retreat
- Weekend of September 27th and 28th
- Alternatives to Pendle Hill (camping???)
- New Business 3: Capital Surplus & Facilities Fund
- List small projects throughout campus that surplus can be put towards ie: let’s put up more hammocks, benches, trash cans, water fountains etc.
- Medium-large ideas for student activity fee capital surplus: late-night student-run cafe, open air amphitheater, new dance practice space, club storage space, DC soft serve machine
- Productive ways to spend the money & engage the community on spending it.
- List small projects throughout campus that surplus can be put towards ie: let’s put up more hammocks, benches, trash cans, water fountains etc.
- New Business 4: Anonymity and Community
- Talking about Fizz!!
- Adjournment
Welcome Back
Ben Flig: We’ll get started. I call this meeting to order at 2:05pm. We’ll go around and say names and do introductions.
Vivian: I’m the Officer of Student Life. I’m a history and French double major. This summer I joined a museum studies program and opened an educational research department.
Elena: I’m the junior class rep. I use she/her pronouns, I’m a sociology major and Spanish minor. I did research with a sociology professor.
Ben Fitz: I use he/him pronouns, I’m the senior representative to the board of managers. I’m a philosophy major, and I did research with a professor in the comparative literature department.
Grant: I’m one of the Co-VPs, I’m a senior, he/him, physics major, and I spent time on campus doing research.
Oliver: I’m a Co-VP, senior, he/him, physics and French double major. I was at an astrophysics research internship at University of Toulouse.
Jackson: I’m on JSAAPP, sophomore, he/him, possible chemistry major. Over the summer I went home and worked at a geotechnical engineering and construction materials testing lab.
Victoria and Caroline are sweating trying to write that out and had to ask Jackson like three times to repeat himself.
Jack: I’m the Officer of Academics, junior, math major with an applied math concentration and Spanish concentration. I did computational biology research at Johns Hopkins University.
Isabela: I’m on JSAAPP, junior, she/her, biology major, chemistry and Spanish double minor, and biochemistry concentrator. I went home this summer and hung out on my farm.
Coco: I’m the International Student Representative, senior, linguistics major, she/her. I did psycholinguistics research.
Anjali: I’m the junior representative to the board of managers, political science and cities major. I did a research program at Johns Hopkins University.
Conner: I’m an Election’s Coordinator, he/him, junior, math and economics double major. I did political economy research during summer.
Jonathan: I’m the Officer of Multiculturalism, he/him, economics and math double major. I worked at my high school and traveled across Asia.
Michael: I’m one of the Honor Council Co-Chairs, senior, political science major, health studies minor, peace, justice and human rights concentration. This summer I worked at a community health clinic as a dental assistant.
Abigail: I’m the senior class representative, she/her, senior, biology major and health studies minor. I was a veterinary assistant in New York City.
Sofie: I’m one of the Honor Council Co-Chairs, sophomore, political science major. I spent the summer in Guatemala.
Hannah: I’m the sophomore representative, she/her, art history and political science prospective double major. I was a programs and communications intern in the city,
Sophia: I’m the Co-Treasurer, she/they, sophomore, geology major. This summer I had an internship at PAG biological association moving rocks.
Ben PF: I’m the other Co-Treasurer, he/him, this summer I was doing neuroscience research at Johns Hopkins University.
Victoria: I’m a Co-Secretary, senior, she/her, biology major and health studies minor. I spent the summer doing biomedical research at the Wistar Institute.
Caroline: I’m also a Co-Secretary, junior, I was in Indonesia doing peace and justice education work.
Ben Flig: I’m a Co-President, he/him, senior, religion major. I spent summer on campus researching the Honor Code reading The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin. You’ll hear a lot of that from me.
Sarah: I’m also a Co-President, they/them, classics major and health studies minor. This past summer, I worked at Delaware Community Legal Aid Society, and Accessibility and Disability Services at Haverford to improve braille on campus.
Ben Flig: Great! We have our members present. I’d like to gleefully welcome you all back to StuCo for this academic year. I’m so excited you’re all here.
Sarah: It’s great seeing some new and old faces. Let’s get started with some old and new business.
Honor Code & Plenary
Ben Flig: For those of you who have been following your emails you know that the Honor Code is under revision. It won’t revise itself though! There are two prongs. There’s the revision of the Code which our friends on CSCAR will be working on. And also, Plenary. Before Plenary, there needs to be a couple of town halls, so we need to set dates. One for the general timeline and for the Honor Code editing. Also we should set a theme for Fall Plenary.
Ben PF: The theme should be the Honor Code! (half-joking)
Ben Flig: That reminds me of when Bryn Mawr did a Haverford theme.
Anjali: Candyland!
Sarah: That’d make great merch.
Oliver: Space-themed.
Grant: We also might want to wait for an Officer of the Arts to be elected.
Sarah: I am partial to a “gone fishing” Plenary. Like with your fishing hat and fishing rods. I think it’d be funny.
Ben Flig: The Haverford community has gone fishing, what have we gone fishing for? Community!
Anjali: Margaritaville?
Ben PF: Save it for the spring for when we ratify the Alcohol Policy!
Sarah: Any thoughts regarding dates? I think there should be several before Plenary. Does the constitution mandate how many town halls we have to have before Plenary?
Nos fill the room
Sarah: Okay, we should have three or four. Two in October and maybe one in late September.
Grant: Could you clarify what the purpose of the town halls should be? Is it about the Honor Code and the changes we plan to make or is it just advertising Plenary in general?
Ben Flig: I think it should be about both. However because this is such an Honor Code focused Plenary, we’ll mainly discuss the Honor Code. Going back to last year after Luke and Caroline’s statement at Spring 2025 Plenary, there’s a lot that needs to be done with the Honor Code. So both because of the current situation, and because of the current situation of the rewrite, we need to talk about it as it pertains to our community. Therefore it’ll primarily be Honor Code focused.
Sarah: We’ve talked about the revision process for the Honor Code and we want to make sure that all students have the opportunity to provide feedback on it, not just Students’ Council. That’s why we find the implementation of town halls important. We hope that during September we open up a form for students to add questions, comments, and/or concerns alongside these town halls so they can come to us directly with their thoughts. Do we have any dates in mind for the town hall?
Victoria: I would say, the dates are up to the Co-Presidents discretion, so it will mainly be you both coordinating it. Keep in mind the KINSC Symposium is September 27th.
Oliver: Do we have a timeline for the more typical Plenary stuff? Regarding those who want to bring resolutions to Plenary?
Ben Flig: Not yet.
Ben Fitz: Maybe starting September 28th we can do bi-weekly townhalls until we have Plenary. I think we should mix them up so they’re not always on Sunday afternoons.
Oliver: The 28th is penciled in for the retreat.
Grant: Technically the whole town hall thing is not mentioned in the constitution. The thing that is mentioned is writing workshops. My concern with town halls is getting people to show up to them. There hasn’t been a whole lot of attendance in the past, and if there are four, there could be the concern of lack of effectiveness.
Ben PF: We should schedule at least the ones pertaining to the academic code at times where professors can come.
Fitz: The professors are on our side to solve academic dishonesty. I could imagine a future where we each reach out to the professors in our major departments. We can get the professors to help advertise by giving them language to tell students to help fix the Honor Code.
Insert Caroline, who cannot speak while typing minutes, but internally has a moment because not all professors are in agreement with students on Honor Code issues.
Sofie: I can say to the attendance question, making sure each of the town halls are thematic could be really useful. I’ve had a lot of people ask questions about the efficacy of restorative justice, so if we have one about that then we can have people interested in that come.
Victoria: I wanted to mention that I think the consistency with those days might be really helpful. I think Sundays are when athletes don’t usually have games and events generally do not take place. I agree though with making sure faculty have an opportunity to come as well if they are curious, as long as they are not influencing any of the work.
Ben: We’ll save the rest of this conversation for later.
Students’ Council Retreat
Ben Flig: For those of you who are new to StuCo, its tradition that the members of StuCo go on a retreat together! Typically, we go to Pendle Hill on the weekend at the end of Sept. The only problem with that is that this year, that weekend is Pendle Hill’s 90th anniversary so there’s no room for us that weekend. So, I want to ask you guys what you might want to do for a StuCo retreat. Camping? Canoeing? Live in the Gest Center for a weekend???
Sarah: Gest Center slumber party! I’m in!
Jack: Can you go over the goals of the retreat? A lot of the ideas are fun but from last year there was a lot of learning about each others’ roles and bonding in that way.
Ben Flig: The goals are similar year to year. It’s getting people on StuCo acquainted with how student governance and college governance works. Last year Dean McKnight and Jodi talked to us about how the college works, how the board of managers works, and what shared governance is. Pendle Hill is fun because you can be off campus, sleeping in a different place, and meeting together.
Jack: I think it’s 100% doable by camping and bonding like that.
Sarah: I think camping would be delightful.
Victoria: I don’t know if I’m in a minority like this, but I personally don’t like camping. So I’m wondering if there should be some other options.
A couple of people agree in the room.
Ben Flig: I don’t like sleeping on the ground either, could a HavOC friend help us do something closer to glamping…? Other ideas?
Fitz: I found Honey Hollow Farm Rustic Retreat. I kind of love this place!
Sarah: It looks cute!
Oliver: What is the capacity? That could be a limiting factor.
Grant: I like camping, but I don’t know what Jodi and Dean McKnight would think. They are crucial to the process. Also we tend to do presentations so that we might need electronics and tech connection, so going camping might make that a little bit hard.
Sophia: I will say there are varieties of camping–staying in a cabin, lodge, tent. This idea isn’t just sleeping under a tent under the stars.
Victoria: I’d also like to mention, with the retreat, it’s only happened twice, Maria and Jorge did it, Yehyun and I did it, but we could also do something different. Jodi and Dean McKnight don’t have to be a limiting factor either. Accessibility to electricity is crucial though for those who have homework.
Sarah: We can talk to Jodi and Dean McKnight about it.
Ben Flig: Are we open to Sept 27 and 28? Or any other dates? I like this date, we can do it after the KINSC Symposium.
Capital Surplus & Facilities Fund
Sarah: We have a lot of money to play with, including the Facilities Fund and surplus money. We’ve been thinking about using it towards small projects like trash cans, benches, water fountains, a student run amp, dance space, soft serve machine. There are a lot of productive ways to spend this money. We would love to know people’s ideas about how that money can be spent.
Oliver: I’m in favor of doing a lot of the smaller ideas and one medium to big size idea.
I think small ideas can improve student quality of life, and doing something big is a splashy way to show our abilities on campus. It can be something that becomes a part of the lived environment. I would say that takes more time and might not be finished this year, but we should get some ideas from the community on that.
Victoria: I agree with Oliver. Also, the Facilities Fund however is primarily student-led and facilitated by the Co-Secretaries so we will handle that separately for now. (Caroline and I were thinking of a mural.)
Sofie: Earlier this summer, we talked about hosting a birthday party for the Honor Code in January.
Sarah: I agree. It was my idea!
Sofie: Yes that’s why I was staring at you so intently while talking about it!
Ben PF: To clarify, we have this surplus because every year this money we get comes from the Student Activities Fee. This is used for student activities, like clubs, affinity groups, and club sports. Some of the money doesn’t get used, which is what happened during COVID especially, but also every year some clubs ask for money that they never actually spend. Over the years we built up $400,000 that we want to figure out how to use. Additionally, Bryn Mawr had this problem, but instead they started using this money for regular/yearly expenses, which unrealistically inflated their yearly budget. So they ran out of their surplus and had to slash their budgets last year back to normal. That’s why we’re only putting this towards one time capital projects because otherwise that could be irresponsible.
Victoria: I think the birthday party is cute, but also making sure it’s tangible would be nice. Some sort of landmark that will last for multiple years maybe.
Sarah: I feel like the Co-Treasurers are also doing a lot to make sure the things clubs are purchasing or requesting are reusable and long-lasting too. We can apply that same logic. My other idea is to have a Honor Code ducky day where rubber ducks are hidden around campus and students can find them to exchange for treats, and we can continue using the rubber ducks.
Oliver: The rubber ducks are a capital expense since we can’t guarantee that we can reuse them. Some traditional stuff would be fun but should be separate. The surplus is a one-time event. We’re trying to correct for the factors that could lead us to go under budget, so it’d be good to budget things that are a one time expense.
Anjali: I agree with that, it’s good to not allocate more money than we have. Club budgets do fluctuate, so where does the money exist right now?
Sophia: It’s in the Students Activities Fee account.
Ben PF: The amount that we have as our budget is based solely on how much we take in that year. It’s StuCo’s bank account so no one else can spend that money.
Anjali: Is there any way to put that in a high yield savings account?
Sophia: It’s not legal.
Ben PF: We could have people exchange the ducks for Suitable points!
Sophia: I don’t think that’s a good idea…
Everyone giggles
Sarah: Either way I want this to happen so we can talk about it later.
Sophia: We can talk about that outside the bounds of the capital surplus.
Ben Fitz: I don’t know the surplus we’re working with. It’d be interesting if we could use it for the Honor Code work we’re doing. If there’s advertising we’re doing, we could hire a student to do social media work or have some high quality promotional stuff. It seems like a one-time thing we could spend money on.
Ben Flig; We also already have a lot of people power.
Victoria (and Caroline): There are positions in StuCo (and Honor Council) that need to be filled that can do that too.
Oliver: The librarians are meant to do stuff like that, so if they are up for that and skilled enough, they get compensated via StuCo.
Ben: I can’t wait until we get our librarians!
Sarah: It will be a momentous occasion!
Coco: Regarding librarians and other positions, when are we getting appointments?
Grant: For most of the people in this room, you should be a part of the appointments committee on Slack. It looks like the meeting will be Thursday, and it’s important you read the info beforehand so we can have quick and productive meetings. We have a lot of applicants this time around.
Ben Flig: Thank you to the appointments committee! Is there anything else we want to talk about before we move on?
Anonymity and Community
Ben Flig: I want to talk about Fizz. Fizz is the anonymous Haverford and Bryn Mawr localized social media platform where people can post about anything. This includes parties, personal thoughts, and anything else. As a result, over the past year it’s been the source of no small amount of controversy. I want to know what you all think about how we should engage with anonymous conduct. I find it interesting how it’s impossible to engage with confrontation because it’s anonymous. What do we think about Fizz?
Oliver: How is Fizz created for a community? There’s a community specific website that’s just for Haverford. How is that created?
Sophia: It was petitioned for Haverford to be on Fizz by someone last year. I believe by a sophomore.
Ben Flig: The way that Fizz works is if you want to have Fizz for your community, you send them an email. There was an Instagram account from Fizz gathering names. When enough names are signed up, a Fizz admin creates a server for your institution. You have to put in your college email to verify yourself. Then you can engage freely on the app. I’d love to talk to the person who brought it to campus! Please reach out.
Sofie: I don’t believe it’s a specific personal request, because at the end of last year, I received a DM from the Fizz company that asked if I wanted to be a part of Fizz. I don’t think it was initiated by a student, but by the company trying to get our data.
Victoria: Regarding the app itself, I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s productive how people will use it as a space to avoid confronting others when someone says something that bothers them. It does not feel Haverfordian. We had to talk about it last year after spring Plenary 2025.
Sarah: I agree seeing how some students have responded to certain things on campus by perpetuating an environment of homophobia, and Fizz has assisted in that. An account that perpetuates cruelty through anonymity should not exist on campus.
Elena: Do we have the power to shut it down?
Ben Flig: That’s complicated. Some campuses have tried to do that. We can look into it. Following Tori’s comment, I thought most of the posts about me were funny, but what I’m more worried about is if what I said did hurt someone, I want them to come and talk to me about that. I think that in a community where anonymity is the norm rather than sociality, it makes it really unnatural to do that. I’m worried there are people who have unresolved feelings regarding what I meant and are still upset. I don’t want that to be the case.
Sofie: Could this be something to discuss in a town hall focused on confrontation?
Sarah: Absolutely!
Jackson: Does Fizz help our community then at all? I’m not on Fizz because I don’t have an iPhone. I’m struggling to find anything tangible or helpful that has come from it.
Ben Fitz: I can see people trying to accuse us of acting as a minority who are abandoning a product that everyone else likes. We would want to create a petition and collect student signatures.
Sarah: A Plenary resolution could also be an option.
Grant: My concern is that it might be a losing game. Before it was confessions pages on Instagram. There’s going to be something new to replace Fizz.
Elena: I think Fizz has outlasted these other ones.
Victoria: I think the difference is that Fizz makes money when people use it, and Instagram confession accounts are maintained by students who eventually don’t have time to keep up with the account.
Sarah: Haverford students are supposed to abide by the code and values of confrontation and restorative justice anyways. We could say that we don’t think Fizz abides by our code and discourage the use of the application that way.
Sophia: It’s our job to play wack-a-mole, so even if another pops up it’s our job to intervene. There was another platform comparable to Fizz years ago and StuCo came out strongly against it. The platform died because of that. I think you’re right Grant that there’s a danger that something else will pop up but that’s our responsibility to handle it. To Sarah’s point, because we abide by the Code if it gets bad we could figure out who that student is by going through a Social Code process.
Ben Flig: Even if we don’t ban Fizz, the most important aspect is focusing on why Fizz and anonymity is a problem. Plus you need an Apple product to use Fizz, so it’s not encompassing the Haverford community. I think for those who are reading the minutes–our Fizz warriors–let us know what you think the value of Fizz is to you. I do not see a lot of great value there to be honest.
Ben PF: I was wondering if we find what value there is, like connecting with someone and being able to ask questions and find out information in real time, I wonder if we can create some alternative platform for that where we can better manage the downsides by having actual oversight and it being run directly by Haverford students. Instead of just shutting down something that people like, find what they like and provide a better one.
Oliver: Do we have a Fords Form replacement yet? If people want to tell us what value they find in it that would be a good way.
Victoria: It’ll go in the newsletter. We haven’t been able to meet with Scott and Jodi yet, so we have yet to learn how Squirrel Space and Suitable work.
Sophia: Ben and I are supposed to get admin access to Squirrel Space sometime this week, so we will figure that out.
Caroline: Hopefully we can also get admin access! Additionally, I think if we have concerns about alternatives and so on, we need to create structure to change the culture on campus. Focus your attention here. We could still have Fizz and fix the culture at Haverford surrounding confrontation and respect.
Conner: I have some thoughts on the value. I’m not for it, but I think anonymity is good and bad. You can ask silly questions without giving your name–like if you’re a freshman who wants to know when parties are. You won’t feel like people are judging you if you are anonymous.
Ben Flig: We’re coming up at the end of the meeting. I know you all have things to do but is there anything else people would like to say?
Ben Fitz: A quick follow up on what Conner was saying, I see a lot of freshmen who feel lonely or isolated. It’s a venting space for people. I can see why people might react strongly to losing that space. I’m wondering if this replacement platform could mitigate any harm by having it be moderated in house while staying anonymous.
Sarah: Maybe a message about invoking the social code. We have methods we want people to use like restorative practices.
Caroline: But if we have the ability to flag those, are they still anonymous?
For purposes of time, conversations will continue in the next meeting.
Sarah: I promised a friend at Bryn Mawr to say this for the minutes. On September 17th at 6pm at Bryn Mawr, there will be food trucks and a jazz-funk band. There will be Jenga and giveaways too. This is a great way to build community! Go have fun! Thanks for coming!
Ben Flig: I adjourn the meeting at 3:02pm.
Some more fun from your Students’ Council General Body Meeting:
“You’ll be hearing a lot about Walter Benjamin this year.” – Ben Fligelman “Woop! Woop!” – Anjali and nobody else
“I guess the rubber ducks are something of a capital expense because you can get them and re-use them. . .” – Oliver Wilson
“Everyone just wants to Hop-Hop to Hopkins!” – Ben Fligelman
“I did not live with Jack and Ben [PF]” – Anjali Agarwal
“Do you take bribes?” – Oliver Wilson “I take Coconut Redbull” – Ben Fligelman
Haverford College Students’ Council, NOT sponsored by the Rauch Fruchtsäfte, the RedBull Corporation
“Shut up! (jokingly)” – Victoria “Put that in the minutes, that was very rude, Victoria” – Sarah
“Put out the light, and then put out the light.” – Othello; Act V, Scene 2
“StuCo, under the stars!!” – Anon
