Wellesley College Government Blog

Dear Wellesley,

I’m writing to thank you for responding to our SBOG Spring Week Artists Poll. We received nearly 600 responses and the data we collected will be invaluable as we plan Spring Week 2012.

I also wanted to share with you some more information about how we book artists for our concerts. This year we determined how much we had to spend on each concert and event early in October as a part of SOFC’s required Guaranteed Percentage Budgeting. We budget for the cumulative cost of a concert including artist fee, production (sound, lights, etc), middle agency fee, promotional materials, and more. By knowing the constraints of our budget early on we were able to start researching Spring Week performers earlier. SBOG made a preliminary list of artists in September which we built on throughout the semester. We then sent that list to a middle agency specializing in college bookings, Pretty Polly Productions. Our agent at Pretty Polly sent us quotes for available artists and we began to narrow down our choices from there. In this process, SBOG discusses all options, combinations of artists, and eventually votes on our final choices. This year we narrowed down a list of 30+ artists to the 11 you saw on our poll last week. Now that we have student input we will make offer(s) on our top choices and work with the Office of Student Involvement to make these concerts happen.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments about SBOG and Spring Week please always feel free to email DOOCA@wellesley.edu.

Sincerely,

Emma Weinstein-Levey
Director of On-Campus Affairs

Dear Wellesley,

We had the last Senate of 2011 this past Monday in Tishman Commons. I want to take a moment to thank Senators and committee members for all the hard work they have done this semester for Wellesley. We couldn’t run without their dedication and commitment.
Our last Senate meeting was Town Hall style, and one of the major take-aways I had from this meeting is that Town Hall meetings provide a really wonderful forum for communication about issues on campus. Some things that we discussed are really advertising Senate as a space for all students to come and bring their issues to CG, or ask for help with causes or their organizations. Students who attended this Senate were interested in redefining space on campus, both physical space and how we organize, share and relate to one another. All in all, it was a really inspiring way to end the semester and I look forward to having more students attend Senate next year!
I want to wish you good luck with finals, and encourage you to stay rested and do what you can to make sure you take care of yourselves in this hectic time.
Good luck with finals and enjoy the winter break!

Sincerely,

Kirstin
CG President

Dear Wellesley,

We had our second to last Senate of the Fall Semester this past Monday, November 28th. It was a really great meeting, where we talked about some of the issues students face on campus, including Division of the Day as it relates to student athletes especially, dining hall hours and the Multicultural Requirement. The Multicultural Requirement has been a topic of much discussion in the last few years. This year, we would like to bring that discussion to the forefront and really work to define what we think the requirement should be, what Multicultural Competency is, and how we can best encourage a truly multicultural education at Wellesley that gives students the vocabulary to engage in multicultural world, and to flourish in a multicultural world.

At our meeting Monday we also developed some plans of action for moving forward with some of the recommendations that you made on the “What Can Senate Do For You?” posters earlier this month. These posters had some really fantastic recommendations. There were issues brought up that we hadn’t yet broached, as well as some that have been topics of discussion in Senate meetings over the course of the semester. One of the ways we will work on improving communication about issues that are already be worked on is by really utilizing our blog to push information sharing (https://blogs.wellesley.edu/collegegovernment/). We will start posting minutes there, as well as put paper copies up on the CG Bulletin Board in the Campus Center.

Additionally, Senate also voted to write a letter of solidarity to the students of UC-Davis in response to the UC-Davis Pepper-Spray incident. We believe that it is essential for students to speak out against police brutality against peaceful student protesters. We believe that students have the right to peacefully protest on their own campuses. We believe that it is important for students across the country to stand together in moments like these and denounce a policy that calls for an excessive use of force against nonviolent protestors. It’s increasingly important for students to realize that we do have agency, we do have rights, and we do have power. We can exercise our power in many ways, but one of the most poignant gestures we can make is to stand together with our siblings and show our support.

Our last meeting of the year will be a Town Hall Senate in Tishman, on Monday 12/5/11. We would love to see you there!

Good luck with this last full week of class. I know that we’re all going to do well on our final exams and papers. As long as we stay sane, stay hydrated and get some shuteye. Trust me.

Sincerely,
Kirstin

Dear Wellesley,

This past weekend, members of Cabinet and other representatives of Wellesley met at Mt. Holyoke for the annual Seven Sisters Conference for Student Government Associations. There were representatives from Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Barnard, Bryn Mawr and Vassar College. Some of the of the hot topics during the weekend were how to define the Seven Sisters council, how to determine membership, and the mission of the Seven Sisters Council. An obvious focus of this discussion was whether or not Vassar College should be considered a Seven Sisters school today. Vassar became coeducational in 1969. While the school is obviously one of the Historic Seven Sisters, can we consider it a Seven Sister school today? I will be meeting with members of the Seven Sisters council in Washington D.C. on Dec. 15 and we’ve decided that we will bring these questions back to our respective schools so that our student bodies can weigh in on the issue. Should we be the Seven Sisters? The Six Siblings? If Vassar is included, should Harvard be invited now that Radcliffe has been merged with Harvard (fully integrated since 1999)? As we continue to explore what it means to be an educational institution for women, it’s important to ask these questions. For myself, I personally consider Wellesley and other women’s colleges to be institutions whose express purpose is to educate and advance traditionally marginalized populations. This philosophy is more inclusive to our trans-identified student population. However, I understand that this opinion is simply my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of the great student body. I would love to hear your opinions on this—please email me or contact me directly.

A few others items to follow up on:

Fall Frenzy feedback surveys will go live later this week. Please fill one out; it’ll be a Google form!

Planning and executing Fall Frenzy has been a great pleasure for us while also offering us an invigorating challenge in attempting to serve the as many students as possible and appeal to a wide array of interests. It’s essential that we hear back from you about what you want FF to be in years to come – the event is for you!

Culture Shock is here! Brought to you by the Diversity Committee and the MAC, Culture Shock brings difficult dialogues about diversity into a public forum where they can be worked through face-to-face. The first program will be tonight (Wednesday 11/16) from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Library Lecture Room. The first discussion of the series this fall is Culture Shock: Believe It or Not, and it will be on the topic of religion. Believe it or not, there will be Truly’s Yogurt to enjoy!

Last but not least, there is no Senate until 11/28. This is our second to last meeting of the semester and all are welcome. Please enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday and take some time off, as this has been a very busy semester!

Sincerely,
Kirstin
CGP ’11-‘12

Dear Wellesley,

I have a number of things to update you on this week! There’s quite a bit going on, so I’ll provide everything in list form.
1.The CG Blog is live! Please visit it at https://blogs.wellesley.edu/collegegovernment/
2. LTS has created a script that will load all student events from Live25 into a Google calendar, which you will be able to subscribe to or view. We are still working out how to make this as user friendly as possible, such as making separate calendars for different events, having some Live25 events not show up and allowing users to add attachments to the calendar items. I will keep you updated about the status of this tool.
3. Along those lines- Lindsay Barnes, as MAC, has created a Multicultural Calendar, a google calendar that you can subscribe to. If you want an event added you may reach out to her about adding that event to the calendar by emailing mac@wellesley.edu. .
4. College Government has a new spam policy tailored for Google and Sakai which you should be seeing around soon. As the student events calendar develops and is implemented, some things will change such as eliminating gratuitous spam to Community and implementing the same model that is used for other groups—writing a brief explanation at the top of the spam as to why that event is of interest to the community.
5. CG Cabinet members and some senators will be attending a conference at Mt. Holyoke this weekend to meet with representatives with the other Seven Sisters schools and to discuss issues facing student governments, specifically at women’s institutions. If you have any specific questions you want me to ask while meeting with these other representatives, email me at cgpresident@wellesley and I will ask for you!

Sincerely,
Kirstin
CG President