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 09/19
Friday, September 19, 2025; 4:15 – 5:15 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: N/A
Next Meeting: Friday, September 26; 4:15 – 5:15 p.m., – GEST 102
“Our goal? Survive” – Sophia Goss & Ben PF & Caroline
- Call to order
- Roll Call
- Adoption of Agenda
- Welcome back; personal introductions, updates
- Ford’s Form Responses
- Old Business:
- Updates regarding roles for plenary
- Capital projects update from treasurers
- Other budgeting updates
- CSCAR Updates
- Discuss attempts to speak to college legal team
- Updates with Amy Miller Re: Community Housing Issues
- First dinner September 26th!!
- New Business 1: FAPC Concerns re: the Honor Code
- Teaching constraints (ability to teach controversial material)
- Honor code concerns especially in chemistry department
- Reminder of the faculty governing code of conduct; how can this tie into the Honor Code?
- New Business 2: Conversation about Varsity Athletics and Club Athletics Dynamic
- Tyler Outreach has been made
- Updates on most recent happenings on the field
- Varsity coaches to discuss things with
- New Business 3: Outside of Plenary what are our goals for exec board departments for this year?
- Progress on these goals so far?
- How can the rest of exec board or gen bod assist
- Adjournment
Call to Order
Ben: I call this meeting to order at 4:19pm.
Victoria: More than half of Exec board is in attendance. Quorum has been met.
Victoria: I move to adopt the agenda. I also move to approve the minutes. Any concerns? The agenda is adopted and the minutes are approved.
Fords Form
Victoria: We have a Fords form comment.
I was low key disappointed to read this comment from one of the co-presidents in the minutes: “That will be good to get the council together. Bonding is best done over food!” Disappointed because Student Council enforces very stringent restrictions on the role that food can (and more often can not) play in club gatherings. A justification like the one Ben quite rightly invokes (that food can often be an ideal opportunity to create a sense of club community) would doubtless be rejected by the co-treasurers were I to offer it in a budget request. I don’t have problems with the food event itself; I am sure gathering(s) at Dean McKnight’s house would do wonders for StuCo’s professional development. However, I sincerely hope that the funding for these meals will not come from the general pot of StuCo money funded by the Student Activities Fee that is ordinarily subjected to heightened restrictions on food. If it does, then I’m sorry but it does feel a little hypocritical to me to give you all access to food for bonding but not other student organizations. In Quaker fashion, there should not be a hierarchy of student organizations, and we should all be subjected to the same rules and policies.
Ben PF: You are right, we agree. We do not have any hierarchy of student orgs. Money for the retreats has never come out of the Student Activities Fund. It comes from the Dean’s Office.
Ben Flig: Traditionally, Students’ Council has gone to Pendle Hill, which has cost the Dean’s Office more money.
Sarah: This will be more low-cost so that money can be put elsewhere to benefit the student body.
Sophia: It’s also worth noting that this student is correct in saying that the justification that Ben (Flig) offered in that meeting would likely not be sufficient on its own to receive funding from the Student Activities Fund. There’s a reason it’s being pulled out of a different funding source Students and student orgs also have access to other funding sources aside from budgeting through the Student’s Activity Fund, such as Religious Life, IDEA, academic departments, and more, which generally have less stringent regulations on food purchases. The regulations and policies we have on the Student Activities Fund are there for a reason.
Ben PF: To have a consistent standard to apply to all groups/clubs and also to save money, because there’s a limited pot.
Sophia: It’s also evaluated on an individual basis; we consistently approve food for clubs and cultural groups like ISA, MSA, and Shabbat (JSU and Chabad), BSL, KCC, GCC, PARC and more.
Sarah: Is there any more commentary?
Ben PF: Also, thank you for your concern! (to the individual who wrote the Fords Form).
Old Business
Sarah: Update regarding Plenary roles—we still have empty roles. Ben and I will handle the day of logistics if need be. We’ll see what happens at the Gen Bod meeting. Julie will be in charge of the merch team as our Officer of Arts. Everything else will be fleshed out soon. It’s just day of set up logistics if no one else signs up for that.
I’d love to hear an update about the capital project as well.
Sophia: I know we wanted to talk about it with the larger community before we move forward, so I’m not sure if we have a ton to add yet. We’ll figure that out after regular budgeting. I think you can expect to see updates soon around October.
Sarah: No problem.
Ben PF: We have figured out based on conversations with the head of the DAC (Grant), a soft serve machine is not viable and will not be happening though.
Grant: It’s prohibitively expensive and long-term maintenance wise is not viable to keep in line with health policy.
Sarah: This is McDonald’s core.
Ben Flig: Do one of our CSCAR Co-Chairs want to talk about updates?
Ben PF: We had a productive first meeting with high attendance, same for our dinner. Those will be weekly in the DC Sunken Lounge from 6-7:30pm on Wednesday. They’re open to everybody.
Grant: When are we doing appointments for people to that committee?
Ben PF: Whenever you decide.
Grant: This Sunday will be our next appointments committee meeting. Who should we be appointing?
Ben PF: 10 other people beside Sofie and I.
Oliver: Is it okay if we bleed into Gen Bod?
Ben Flig: Yes, that’s fine.
Oliver: Did you talk to the college legal team?
Ben Flig: Sarah and I have been working on that. We met with Dean McKnight and he said he’s wrangling them. We’ll be able to discuss with them whenever they’re not reviewing our documents for the current ongoing investigation.
Sarah: We’ll chat more about legal resources with FAPC.
Ben PF: Also with CSCAR, at the end of the meeting, we made a Slack for everyone to be in, and it will be open to all interested in having conversations about the Honor Code or keeping up to date on the rewrite process. Here’s the link to join!
Grant: If people are getting onto Slack, what’s the difference between those who are appointed and those who are just joining?
Ben PF: The idea is that it’s a democratic process that anyone can join. There are no opportunities available to members that aren’t available to anyone else. However, members will be responsible for getting work done. They’re the people who will be officially acting as liaisons.
Sarah: Let’s talk about updates with Amy Miller.
Victoria: I can schedule a time for her to meet with us.
Students’ Council Dinner/Retreat
Ben Flig: The first dinner will be at Dean McKnight’s house Friday, September 26th, from 5:30-7:30pm.
Oliver: Should we prepare anything?
Ben Flig: No.
Oliver: If we’re meeting with everyone though, should we move the Exec Board?
Ben Flig and Sarah: We’ll talk.
*executive board brief scheduling talk*
New Business 1: FAPC Concerns Re: the Honor Code
Sarah: We had an interesting discussion with Maud about the Honor Code and academics. Faculty are definitely concerned about the state of the Code. There’s a lack of trust regarding AI and faculty want concrete policies with AI. There’s a sort of distrust from the students too. How does this new rewrite rebuild that trust between communities? We need to think about how the new Honor Code will improve relationships with that. Outside of the Honor Code concerns in specific departments, there’s also concerns that may come with teaching constraints to teach controversial content. Now professors are worried, something may be deemed offensive, and they wouldn’t be able to teach that content. Not that they think this would happen but they want those rewriting to be aware of what language could imply. They also think it’s important that students don’t know that faculty are governed by a code of conduct, so reinforcing that is important.
Ben Flig: I can’t imagine an Honor Code that would prevent the teaching of any content for the professors.
Oliver: Was there a specific reason or thing they were concerned on the student side that brought up this concern?
Sarah: Nothing specific, but every couple of years the Honor Code’s language can make it confusing for faculty trying to teach something that could be deemed controversial.
Grant: Faculty are also concerned about what is required in the Honor Code and Faculty Handbook. Make sure to keep that in mind when writing the new code. Also, normally we have a regular meeting with them once a month. Who is on the committee?
Sarah: I’m not sure.
Oliver: It includes the Officer of Academics.
Caroline: It wasn’t on the Google Form for people to sign up for.
Grant: It’s an internal committee so we send Students’ Council people specifically.
Caroline: An HC Co-Chair should attend. Michael is handing the AI policy work this year, so it’d be nice for him to be on it.
Sarah: Regarding the legal stuff, I know we’re having trouble contacting our college’s legal team, so Maud has offered to put us in contact with civil rights lawyers who are Haverford alums to look at the Code. So while they have a legal team, so will we. We will have other people’s eyes to look at what we’re doing. Alumni have influence too.
Caroline: *this made my day*
Club Athletics
Ben Flig: In terms of the varsity and club athletics issues, we’ve reached out to Tyler.
Sarah: I wanna ask YOU a question. *wags finger at Grant* Are you free to meet on Monday with Tyler, Ben and I? 🙂
Grant: Yes.
*scheduling conversation ensues*
Sarah: Now we have that arranged!
Ben Flig: We also need to reach out to the people in athletics. Ultimately, they will most likely be the ones who will make decisions about varsity.
Grant: I have a variety of things to say. First, before we meet with athletics, I would be inclined to meet with the heads of all club sports. And honestly I would prefer to do that before we meet with Tyler, but if it’s not possible that’s okay. It’s important to get their perspective on what the exact issues are before we try to present a cohesive case to athletics. I don’t want it to be where one group voices their concerns only; for example, I can only speak to the issues of Intramural Futsal. It’s a broader concern between futsal, frisbee, badminton, volleyball, club soccer, etc, so not just one group.
I’m concerned about meeting with Tyler in the sense that he doesn’t have a lot of influence to push for significant changes in athletics. I have a feeling we may relay our concerns, but will be told that there isn’t a lot that can be done, as the same issues have been persistent or worsening for the past 3 years.
The last point is that in the likely case that no headway is made, Oliver, Kabir, and I are working on a plenary resolution so that the administration must concede or publicly ignore our concerns. I don’t know how broad we want the resolution to be regarding the disconnect between athletics and the broader community. At least one of the “whereases” will be about how the sufferings of club sports directly impacts the relationship the border student community has with varsity athletics. And how that perpetuates the issue. This is something that if athletics doesn’t resolve by the time Plenary comes, I plan to be at the Plenary workshop on Tuesday if it will come to that.
Ben PF: Do you know who’s on senior staff who’s in charge of athletics?
Oliver: It’s under the Dean of the College. There’s the head of athletics, Danielle Lynch. I think Dean McKnight budgets for them.
Ben PF: I wonder if instead of upward pressure, we can exert downward pressure if necessary.
Grant: Talking with Dean McKnight might not be a bad idea. We should probably invite all the heads of club sports to the next Executive Board.
New Business 3: Outside of Plenary, Exec Board Goals
Ben Flig: Outside of Plenary, what are our goals this year?
Sarah: Meow
Tori: Goals as in individually?
Ben Flig: Yes.
Oliver: Wage wage wage!!! The college is changing a lot of how it does budgeting. Some are technicalities, but they’re moving into a long term budgeting system. That means that for this semester, we will need to get any proposal into the budget very quickly, whereas in the last, we could get it in before the start of spring semester.
Unfortunately there were only two people who applied to join the wage committee. In the meantime of recruiting more I’ll try to get a proposal put together. We’ll see, but this is still going to be a difficult year for the college’s budget. We’ll have something on paper at least. Beyond that, there will be a structure at the end of the year for how we do wage changes.
Grant: In terms of broader appointments, once we have appointments on Sunday, we’re pretty much done until the end of spring. And then maybe a couple of things here and there. We made rapid progress compared to in the past. I haven’t seen Yasmin around but I’ll ask her if she has the report ready from the past year.
Other goals include club sports and getting DAC started. We had sixteen people apply, and that’s a great number of people. I also had the first nest committee meeting today and so we’ll also be working on that for the foreseeable future.
Caroline: I can help with wage work.
Oliver: Sounds good.
Ben Flig: I have a question for you Caroline. You’re the only person tasked with writing the Clearness report. Do you need help?
Ben PF: I’m sure someone can help on CSCAR.
Caroline: I thought about this a little bit. I would prefer to have someone who has been here for that survey, but thank you Ben and I’ll let you know if I need anyone from CSCAR. My needs are really for people who can do quantitative analysis – so math/stats.
Oliver: I can help.
Caroline: Thanks Oliver. We’ll talk! Yeah, I’m mainly looking for someone familiar with Qualtrics.
Oliver: I’ve been working with the elections coordinators on that so I can help you.
Tori: In terms of other Co-Secretary updates, I’ve been playing around with the Weekly Consensus and made it more colorful. ADS also reached out to us about how to make the Consensus more accessible for the hyperlinks. We need to make sure the hyperlinks people send us are also including descriptive language.
Sarah: Another thing is potential collabs with librarians to see if you want their assistance working on the instagram account, or if we want the officer of the arts to work with the webmaster library to run that.
Tori: Now that we have the Officer of Arts and Librarians, we can also talk about working on the board in the Dining Center.
Sarah: Co-Treasurers?
Ben PF: We’ve been doing regular budgeting.
Sophia: In terms of our transparency goal, we’ve had a lot of office hours meetings which have been largely productive and good to connect with org leaders. Squirrel Space has been going reasonably well.
Ben PF: Yes and it will get better by the end of the year, this is just the foundation since it’s just launched and they’ve been very willing to hear our suggestions since it’s a small, new, local company. Our office hours have been successful and people come out with better budgets and requests after coming to those. Really, everyone who has a complex/large budget is heavily recommended to come to office hours. Link: https://calendar.app.google/zMDJaHj8XFxm6K8b6
Sohpia: If people have trouble budgeting, please come to our Office Hours for help!
Tori: Are there updates from our Co-Presidents?
Ben Flig: This week we onboarded the web master and the archivist (librarians) and Officer of Access and Disability Advocacy.
Sophia: And our treasurer librarian is also onboarded. Yay Zoe!
Sophia: Grant I want to check in, when is your DAC meeting?
Grant: I don’t know if we’ll meet with Tom this weekend but it is on the list.
Ben Flig: Do we have anything else? If not, I adjourn this meeting at 5:00pm.
Some more fun from your Students’ Council Exec Board:
“THE Grant DeVries!” – Ben Perez-Flesler
“Meow!” – Sarah Weill-Jones
“AWESOME!!!” – Caroline Yao
“Grant has a soul tie to this issue” – Grant DeVries
“Got way too drunk off a vodka cranberry” – Conan Gray
“Hungry Hungry Haverfordians” – Ben Fligelman
(one of these people isn’t on Exec Board. . .can you guess who?)
General Body Meeting 09/21
Sunday, September 21, 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, Elena Vol, Jack Weinstein, Jackson Cannon, Vivian Ross, Conner McWhan, Jonathan Lee, Zora Kuehne, Isaac Kemokai, Julie Edelstein, Esme Dorsey, Ian Trask, Zoe Hartmann, Pratyusha Katiyar, Hannah Mattison, Chris O’Conner, Abigail Trapp
Members Absent: Ben Fitzgerald, Hettie Van Dyke, Anjali Agarwal, Leo Ni, Michael Pyo, Sofie Quirk, Isabela Azumatan Aceituno
Guests: Charlie Moore
Next Meeting: Sunday, September 28; 2:00 – 3:00 p.m., – GEST 101
Because of the serious subject matter of this meeting, we’re foregoing the funny quotations.
Content Warning: sexual assault.
- Call to order
- Roll Call (+ welcome to our new members!)
- Ford’s Form
- Old Business:
- Plenary role allocations/general plenary planning
- Need DAY OF SET UP LOGISTICS
- Need STUDENT GROUP COLLABORATIONS
- Need ONE MORE VOLUNTEER FOR PHYSICAL LOGISTICS
- Plenary theme reveal! Which plenary theme did the student-body vote on?
CSCAR UpdatesDates for CSCAR TownhallsWho is interested in attending specific ones?
Capital projects updatesShould we make a form for students to vote on what large project they would want Stu-Co funds to go to?
- Plenary role allocations/general plenary planning
- New Business 1: Issues with hours in The Coop
New Business 2:How do we better involve Affinity Groups with Students’ Council?Should there be a meeting separate from Gen Bod once a month to get updates from affinity groups? Or an alternative? What is the best way to keep in contact?
- New Business 3: First StuCo Dinner with Dean McKnight this Friday at 5:30 p.m.!
- New Business 4: John Castrege email (CW: sexual assault)
- Adjournment
Call to Order & Roll Call
Ben Flig: I call this meeting to order at 2:05pm. Very excited you all could join us today. We have new members here today, so please introduce yourselves.
Only new introductions will be included in the minutes moving forward!
Isaac: I am a COML, sophomore, neuroscience prospective major, and child & family studies minor.
Pratyusha: I am the Freshman class representative, she/her, biology and psychology prospective major.
Julie: I am the Officer of the Arts, she/her, anthropology major.
Chris: I am the Officer of Athletics, he/him, economics and political science major.
Charlie: I’m a guest, they/them, sophomore, biology prospective major.
Fords Form
Ben Flig: Co-Secretaries, would you like to share the Fords Form response from our Executive Board meeting?
Victoria: Sure. This is what was stated:
“I was low key disappointed to read this comment from one of the co-presidents in the minutes: “That will be good to get the council together. Bonding is best done over food!” Disappointed because Student Council enforces very stringent restrictions on the role that food can (and more often can not) play in club gatherings. A justification like the one Ben quite rightly invokes (that food can often be an ideal opportunity to create a sense of club community) would doubtless be rejected by the co-treasurers were I to offer it in a budget request. I don’t have problems with the food event itself; I am sure gathering(s) at Dean McKnight’s house would do wonders for StuCo’s professional development. However, I sincerely hope that the funding for these meals will not come from the general pot of StuCo money funded by the Student Activities Fee that is ordinarily subjected to heightened restrictions on food. If it does, then I’m sorry but it does feel a little hypocritical to me to give you all access to food for bonding but not other student organizations. In Quaker fashion, there should not be a hierarchy of student organizations, and we should all be subjected to the same rules and policies.”
Victoria: We addressed this in Exec Board, as was said. For clarification, these events do not come out of the Students’ Council budget. Instead funding for the Retreat, or dinners for this year, comes from the Dean’s Office. We agree that it would be hypocritical were Students’ Council to fund food for itself, despite hosting a non-food-related event. Luckily that is not the case.
Sarah: To remind, the dinner series will begin Friday, September 26th, 5:30-7:30pm.
Victoria: Is there an agenda?
Sarah: Not set yet.
Old Business: Plenary
Sarah: If you see the agenda and the plenary roles, there’s still a spot missing for the day of logistics. If no one is interested then Ben Flig and I will work on that. If someone else is itching to do that, please let us know now. Sounds like we will do that. I also want to make a note that I also see empty spots besides a point person for some tasks, so if you want to help out, please do and fill in your name. It would really help to distribute the work more evenly if all members pitch in, so please do.
Victoria: When are we going to talk about the day-of plenary tasks?
Ben Flig: We’ll talk about it closer to the day of plenary. There’s a lot of tasks for planning, but on the day of plenary we’ll need all hands on deck. Everyone will need to be there to help with snacks, count quorum, and so on.
Zora: Regarding the day of set-up for the satellite rooms, how many representatives need to be in each room?
Ben Flig: One per room.
Sarah: If you have student groups that you think will be good for the collaboration let us know. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Caroline: Will BOUNCE still perform?
Sarah: Yes, but we’ll include other arts and other related clubs to pass out items and such.
Victoria: I have a suggestion. If you vote again by paper, CER will want to repurpose that paper. I believe they also create booklets of helpful information about environmental responsibility.
Sarah: That’s a great idea! Let us know other ideas. Lastly, regarding plenary, we have a chosen theme!
Ben PF: We received the most votes for IKEA. With 146 responses (people could vote for up to 3), we got 26 votes for cakepop, 57 for Margaritaville, 59 for Gone Fishing, 80 for Rainforest Cafe, and IKEA got 83.
Zora: I will say I have already made IKEA themed memes for plenary.
Sarah: The people have spoken!
Ben PF: Putting together the pieces of the Honor Code?
Grant: Will that be a feasible theme? Should we have a conversation about if we want to actually do an IKEA theme? Out of 120-some votes, we should take that as a suggestion, but also make a final vote here in Students’ Council.
Ben PF: There were other suggestions. There was medieval and royal court where we would all talk in British accents, “bird,” space, under the sea, snails, Candyland, and many others.
Ben Flig: This is a great cross section of what students are interested in. I’m curious about your comment Grant about an IKEA theme being feasible or not.
Grant: Maybe Julie could talk more on it, but I’m not sure if it’s feasible related to creating merch.
Julie: I usually design the shirts first, then outsource the stickers to other students. I’m sure the student body will respond with ideas.
Zora: As a vocal advocate of an IKEA themed plenary, it would be fairly easy to make plenary references in the IKEA logo, just make it say “plenary.” Ian actually has a concept. I think there are easy ways to make this work.
Grant: Thinking more towards the specifics of plenary, this will be one of the most important plenaries in four-five years. We probably want to pick a theme that people would be excited about. This doesn’t seem serious or something the broader community will connect with. I also don’t know if we want to make a theme about a company.
Zora: Most of the themes I’ve seen in the past aren’t that serious. I think we want to encourage people to show up because it’s fun and silly, but also important. We may as well make it silly so everyone can enjoy it.
Sarah: It makes me very uncomfortable to let the student body vote on it and then not go with the theme they picked.
Elena: I see where Grant is coming from.
Julie: In terms of the theme, the theme is important for advertising and merch. The plenary merch I see is usually the shirts, so I think we can make the shirts more artsy. It’s always fun to have a bit with the stickers, a couple plenaries ago we had a brat sticker and a Wicked sticker. It’s mostly just for advertising and peaking interest. For example, I don’t think just about wizards when I think of spring 2025.
Caroline: Can we build around the theme? This is an important plenary, what if the theme is based on how we rebuild the Honor Code and such?
Ben PF: We can all get IKEA bucket hats !
Victoria: I have two things, firstly I’m incredibly disappointed that cakepop got the least votes (joke). More seriously, the theme is supplementary to the student experience overall at plenary. If we are handing ourselves with decorum and being professional, people will take us seriously. I don’t think it’s something that people will be concerned with. Did the Co-Presidents want to vote or something since there’s a lot of discussion?
Ben Flig: I think we should find consensus.
Sarah: I still don’t think asserting another vote over what the student body wanted is fair.
Chris: To Grant’s point, a small portion voted, so if we stepped in it wouldn’t be overstepping over the entire student body.
Sarah: I disagree, because this was an open vote. We would still be overriding just because we have positions of power.
Sophia: It is a small portion of the population, but it doesn’t incentivize people in the future if we make a decision on their behalf after a vote.
Grant: I don’t think we’ll reach a consensus, personally. I think we should vote just to move on. In any election, this vote did not reach quorum. It represents less than 10% of the population and it is not representative of the entire student body. As a side note, we are selected by the entire community to make decisions on behalf of the student body. This is a crucial component of our roles as student leaders. I would argue if the election reached quorum it’d be representative, but it’s not. I still think we should take a vote as a council.
Oliver: I voted for IKEA, but I will also say we opened it up to write in votes. We’re technically betraying the write-in by not considering them. I’m not sure if the forum was binding.
Ben PF: The vote wasn’t binding, especially considering what Oliver said about the fact that we took suggestions in it. I agree it makes sense to say it wasn’t final.
Zora: I have a couple of questions. In the recent past, was the plenary theme voted on in this manner?
Ben Flig: No. Traditionally, Students’ Council just picked a theme.
Zora: This time, if the plenary theme wasn’t voted on at all, then I feel like the fact we didn’t reach quorum is okay because this is a new system. If we did want to leave it up to the student body to decide, we should go with what the people voted for. I think it is both feasible and appropriate. It’s not crude or uncomfortable for anyone it sounds like.
Jackson: Is there any logistical reason we have to decide this today? We could alter the form to include the write-ins and try to get more students to vote?
Ben Flig: I want to ask Julie about that because she’s in charge of merch. Julie, if you think we can wait a week, we can do that.
Julie: The sooner the better. When we order stickers it only takes days for them to arrive. I was just creating the submissions form and will make it due two weeks before plenary.
Sarah: What about shirts?
Julie: I already reached out to the vendors. We have a budget and they know what date we need them by. For the designs I usually do it, unless there are huge objections to that. Long story short, it doesn’t matter. We’re in a good position to wait, and I wouldn’t be upset if we waited.
Ben Flig: If we re-open the form, that’s fine. But ultimately, whether or not the vote reaches quorum, it’s not binding. It’s up to us as Students’ Council to decide. Personally, I think this is a perfectly fine theme, and I think it’d be best to select the theme and move on.
The reason I ask for consensus rather than a vote wasn’t because I had any objection to StuCo deciding the theme; instead it is because I think we ought to do things by consensus so everyone feels included. Grant, do you feel that you’ve been heard?
Grant: I feel like I’ve said my piece and others have said their ideas. I feel like this is a discussion we would have had at any moment whether we decided this later on or now. I think it’s good to move on.
Esme: I was looking up into IKEA and intellectual property. We are representing Haverford, and IKEA might be pretty strict about copyright and intellectual property. IKEA apparently went after a small indie video game that altered IKEA’s logo under the notion of Fair Use.
Sarah: It means we also probably wouldn’t be able to do Rainforest Cafe.
Ben Flig: We are not a for profit organization.
Zora: No one’s profiting off of the shirts and merch.
Victoria: The people making the shirts and stickers are profiting, is that a problem?
Sophia: They’re not getting sold so it should be fine.
Sarah: We should move on and follow-up on this issue later.
New Business: Issues with hours in The Coop
Sarah: Ben Fitzgerald brought up to me that there are some issues with The Coop hours. The Coop now closes at 5pm on weekdays and 2pm on Fridays. I’d love to hear people’s thoughts.
Chris: Athletes get out of practices way later than 2pm and 5pm. If you have other things to do you’re coming out of the GIAC and into The Coop to get a quick meal. Not having the space open is difficult. I have had to skip meals because The Coop is not accessible. A lot of other teams have been having the same problem. There are constant complaints of The Coop being closed. Why is it here if it’s constrained?
Grant: I run the Dining Advisory Committee (DAC), so we’ll definitely be talking about this. I’ve already been hearing this concern from different students across campus. Some context, last fall we sent out a survey to the student body regarding pressing concerns. We got 400 responses, which is impressive. 250 people said that getting food later was a huge issue, particularly that students can’t get food on campus after 8pm. When we brought that concern to Tom Mitchell, Director of Dining Services, there were a number of options constrained by budget and staffing concerns. To fix that issue of having hours later, he gave a couple of suggestions. We didn’t end up making a decision. Over the summer and/or the end of last semester, they decided that in order to keep the Dining Center (DC) open until 10pm, they’d close The Coop at 5. DAC did not make that decision but it was an option brought to us. We’ll definitely be addressing this soon.
Ian: I know that the DC is open until 10pm on 4 of the 7 days, however it seems they stop serving food at 8pm, so you can get cereal and other items. They didn’t exactly solve the issue of no food in the evenings on campus, because they’re not serving the main food.
Zora: One time I had a meeting and I showed up to the DC at 9pm and they had nothing open.
Additionally, The Coop is partially staffed by student workers between 9 and 5. These are less hours than last year. I can’t work there anymore because my schedule doesn’t fit with those hours. I worked at The Coop all of last year in different time slots and now there are fewer windows for students to work there.
Elena: Will Quizzo still be held?
Vivian: Quizzo will be moved to the DC Sunken Lounge. We’re working on that with Ciera.
Grant: We’ll bring up all of these concerns. None of us thought that was the solution they’d propose and implement. I’ve been to the DC during the late hours and it is depressing. They have items to make a quesadilla, but you have to eat it cold. It is kind of an awful solution, and I’m not sure how the administration reached that conclusion. We will hopefully address this as soon as we can.
Chris: Coming from a late practice, athletes look like scavengers in the DC at the later hours. They’re looking for anything to eat, and not just like processed foods and sugars. I don’t know if I’m gravitating to cereal or other empty calories after a practice. I want something that can repair my body and help me recover after a difficult practice.
Hannah: I went the other night and I’m vegetarian. I went to the salad bar, but they cut that before the hot food. Since they cut the alternative meal options first, it’s not making anything more accessible.
Grant: We’ll try to fix this as quickly as possible, specifically at our next Dining Center Committee meeting this upcoming weekend. We’ll bring forward issues with hours first.
New Business: John Castrege email (CW: Sexual assault)
Ben Flig: I want to move to talk about the email from John Castrege. He sent an email about a sexual assault on campus done by someone who was not a member of the student body or campus community. This raises questions about how we keep our entire student body safe, especially women and femmes. I want to ask our JSAAPP Co-Head Jackson his thoughts. What should we do in regards to alcohol policy and Quaker Bouncers?
John Castrege’s email
Jackson: I just found out about this earlier today. My initial thoughts are that Quaker Bouncers have not been mandated at all parties including Apartment 19, Apartment 22, and Drinker. There’s been difficulties getting them to certain parties; there hasn’t been the greatest relationship between Quaker Bouncers and those party hosts. It might be good to discuss whether some other body should be there. But first Quaker Bouncers should be mandatory to be there. Especially to document outside students who aren’t a part of our student body. I have a meeting this week so we’ll talk about this. Regarding the alcohol policy, we are also in the process of rewriting it. I’m not sure what specific changes there will be yet, but we’ll be thinking about it. Mandating some supervision should be the first change.
Chris: Do we have any other info regarding where this happened, where it happened?
Jackson: The only parties that were on campus this weekend was Drinker, 19, 22. I’m not on the Quaker Bouncer board but I’m a Quaker Bouncer so I know about it. Last year they Quaker Bouncer established a relationship with 19 but it may have fallen through. Quaker Bouncers haven’t been at any of those party locations yet. This is a really pressing matter to address. There should not be an issue with requiring Quaker Bouncers to be at all parties.
Sarah: We’re trying to work with Student Life to incentivise people to have Quaker Bouncers present at parties. I do agree that it needs to happen. If I’m not mistaken, aren’t the peer health educators from the wellness office hosting party host training right now? Were these parties allowed to happen if these trainings haven’t fully finished? When do these party hosts go under the training?
Jackson: I’d have to ask RESE. We don’t have access to the portal where people are approved for parties or not after training for party hosts. I know that they are on top of it, since all of these are approved parties with approved hosts. Speaking of Quaker Bouncer, I guess the only problem with requiring them is that they’re a separate organization on campus, meaning they’re not a part of administration. It might not be totally fair to mandate them.
Ben PF: I think even though we don’t know the details, I think it’s clear to everybody when we see the different party environments that the ones without Quaker Bouncers, that are less monitored, are the ones that may be more likely to have this happen, where someone from outside comes in and creates an unsafe environment with no documentation of who they are. There should be no question about having Quaker Bouncers present at a party environment, it shouldn’t be a question of negotiating especially after something like this.
Victoria: Regarding party hosts, I’m not sure about renewals. I know people who went to a training last year will submit as the host even if they’re not actually the lead host for the party. It’s easier for one student to do it on behalf of a club or sports team, rather than have an entire group attend based on the policy. Additionally, regarding Quaker Bouncers, I’d also just like more support for that group in general too. There was a student who was just letting people into LCC without confirming that this was okay with residents. I think we need to put more support into that group. I believe the student wasn’t checking IDs either. The Quaker Bouncers are a crucial component of creating safe party environments so ensuring they are properly supported and able to communicate with house leaders/party hosts is crucial.
Zora: My first concern is, this didn’t state that it happened as a party last night. It leads me to believe it could have been anything, anywhere. We have no details and zero information on what happened. My first concern is actual safety on campus. This happens, but if it’s not a community member and it’s also not a student that leads me to question how this random person on campus was allowed to do that. Oftentimes people not a part of the student body who are visiting the campus at late hours are a friend of a student. I don’t know if this is something where someone dangerous walked onto campus and found a student alone. My concern is greater on that front than just maintaining safe party environments. The issue that I’m seeing is that it was someone who was on campus at night because we have no real protections at night. For example, Campus Safety doesn’t ask anyone what they’re doing when they’re walking alone at night. It’s not necessarily bad, but because we have no information that’s the main thing I’m thinking about.
Ian: Are Quaker Bouncers required at Lunt or other residential buildings? I wouldn’t love it if someone was hosting a party in my dorm where someone could just come upstairs into a party.
Victoria: I’ve been to Lunt parties in the past and they did that.
Ian: I’d like it to be required for those locations.
Chris: Zora’s point is powerful.We genuinely don’t know where this was. My main point is regarding party planning. I know the people scheduling 19 parties. They had one person sit down for three hours and schedule all of their parties in advance. It becomes difficult to schedule a Quaker Bouncer with that, but they’re trying to fit the schedule. Campus Safety requested them to figure out their party dates and plan ahead. So they’ve acted accordingly.
Ben Flig: We should talk to Campus Safety about this.
Sophia: I want to clarify I also live in Lunt and recently went to a party and said I was from there and they let me in without ID confirmation. I’m not sure if that’s a training issue or something else.
Zora: They don’t have Quaker Bouncers at one of the Lunt entrances right now. At a couple of the parties there, I’ve been let in by other people at the party. No one checked to see if I lived there. It is concerning as a resident that anyone can walk in if they ask.
Elena: I think that outside of parties, people let others into their dorm building all the time. I think that’s the trust we have here at Haverford, but once a non-resident/non-visitor slept in Gum last year.
Coco: The general advice from ISSO is also to never let people into residential dorms unless you know that they are students.
Ben Flig: I adjourn this meeting at 3:06pm. Thank you so much for participating.
