Big props to new College Council Secretary Emily Deans ’09 for passing along the minutes of last week’s CC  meeting. See below. They are positively Landsmanian in their excellence. Well done! Readers are welcome to offer thoughts on the discussion about the Social Honor Code. Or on the even more pressing issue of too many puddles on campus!

College Council:
The Second Meeting

Wednesday February
28, 2008, 7:30-9 PM

Meeting Held
in Hopkins Hall, 1964 Classroom

All College
Council Meetings are open to the Williams Community. Anyone who wishes
to speak before Council should contact Peter and Jeremy (09psn and 09jmg_2).

Appointments:

CC
forgot to appoint someone to represent College Council to ACE. Janay
Clyde (Currier At-Large) volunteered and is now the new CC representative
to ACE.

Group Swaps:

After
one week, CC members are doing well in contacting groups and setting
up times to attend group meetings. At this point, no one needs to switch
groups. Group visits are a way for CC to interact with other organizations
on campus, and meetings can be scheduled outside of group meeting times
if there are scheduling conflicts.

Budgets:

Rachel
Levy (Treasurer) presented three budgets this week. The Glassblowing
Club wanted $295.00 for startup costs. The Debate Club requested $1623.90
for registration fees and transportation to tournaments. The recommended
amount was $1330.90. The third budget was for an alternative spring
break trip to Jamaica, which requested $3,100. The amount recommended
to give them is $1,400.00. Janay (Currier At-Large) asked why the amount
recommended was so much lower than the amount requested by the group.
Rachel (Treasurer) responded that CC does not want to set a precedent
for funding spring break trips.

CJ
Flournoy (Minority Concerns) motioned to vote on the slate. Caroline
Henry (Currier Board Rep) seconded the motion. The budgets
passed.

Dining Services

Lately
CC members have been hearing complaints about the policies in Paresky
and that was the motivation for putting this on the agenda. Peter Nurnberg
(Co-President) asked if there was anything that Council members were
concerned about. Many students questioned policies concerning portion
sizes. Emmanuel Yekutiel (Class of 2011 Rep) talked to the manager of
Snack bar and Paresky about portion sizes in Whitman’s and why they
were enforcing more restrictive policies now? The response was that
they are trying to enforce the number of sides and drinks students can
get so that there is no gorging. Brian Shepherd (Pratt) wanted clarity
about the philosophy behind limiting the number of drinks because they
don’t cost much. Caroline Henry (Currier Board Rep) wanted at least
unlimited refills on water. Narae Park (Dodd Board Rep) didn’t understand
the justification for limiting portion size. Emmanuel (Class of 2011
Rep) said that they haven’t restricted them. Narae (Dodd Board Rep)
responded that salads have definitely gotten smaller.

Peter
(Co-President) wondered why the fundamental philosophy of Whitman’s
is so different from the other dining halls that are all-you-can-eat.
Rachel Ko (Wood At-Large) brought up the fact that Whitman’s was intended
to be different from the other dining halls; in fact, is it not like
a dining hall and it should not be treated that way. Petya Miteva (Dodd
At-Large) said that more people go to Paresky because of its central
location on campus and not because it has better food. Whitman’s
is not all-you-can-eat because they can have better materials for foods
than perhaps in the dining halls. Petya (Dodd At-Large) thinks more
people go to Paresky because it is central and not because it has better
food. Thomas Rubinsky (Class of 2010 Rep) said that Paresky was designed
for 300 people a meal and now they have 600 and if they made it all
you can eat they’d have at least 1000.

KK
Durante (Williams Hall) brought up the issue about wasting food at Williams.
She agreed with the restrictive philosophy because she believed that
Dining Services and students should focus on restricting the waste of
food. Some suggestions for reducing waste were:

• Ask for a smaller
  portion side
• Say whether or not
  you want sides

Caroline (Currier Board Rep)
thinks the campus should be better about wasting food, but added that
athletes might need more food than Whitman’s offers. Emmanuel (Class
of 2011 Rep) said that there can be a balance—students shouldn’t
feel hungry but also shouldn’t feel like they are being policed. There
should be breathing room. Lane Wang (Armstrong) thought there should
be leeway in between so there is not too much waste and not too little
to eat.

Time
for this discussion was quickly running out, so CC held a few “straw
polls.”

Straw Polls:

• • Flexibility versus
    rigidity (2 people wanted rigidity)
  • Increasing salad
    sizes (most people agreed)
  • Fruit shouldn’t
    be counted as a side (3 opposed)

Peter (Co-President) then asked
if there were any other complaints.

• • One student mentioned
    that landscaping needed to be addressed because there are too many puddles
    on campus.

Social Honor Code Committee

At this point
the meeting opened to other members of the Williams Community for the
discussion of whether College Council should support the creation of
a committee to oversee the possibility of a social honor code at Williams.

Peter set
some ground rules for the discussion:

1. Say your name, be
   respectful (no disrespect), raise your hand to be on speaking list and
   we are moving towards a vote at some time.
2. At 8:50 it will
   be closed to CC members.
3. This is a debate
   and discussion about the creation on a committee NOT the establishment
   of a social honor code and whether it is a good or bad thing.
4. Do not repeat comments.
5. Don’t talk out
   of turn.
6. Try to keep your
   comments shorter than a minute so that we can get to everyone.

Will
Slack (Freshman) spoke first and projected the potential composition
of the committee on the screen at the front of the room. He proposed
a committee called the “Exploratory Committee on Community Ethics”
(ECCE) of 15 voting members: 9 students, one of whom is Chair, three
faculty representatives, determined informally in consultation with
Wendy Raymond, and 3 staff: the Chaplain to the College, the Vice President
for Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity, and a representative
from the Dean’s Office, to be named by the Dean of the College. He
said that the possibility of a the creation of a committee started with
a group that split up after the first Stand With Us meeting that wanted
to work on a proposal for a new committee to solicit the opinions of
the entire student body. He referred to a WSO post and an op-ed in

The Record about their recommendation. The intention of the Committee
is that it will work through College Council and it will solicit the
opinions of student body. The Committee will produce something from
the opinions of student body, faculty, etc. and that document will be
produced and voted on.

Tim Geoffrion
(Senior) was then invited to respond. He thought that the committee
was problematic and so was idea of social honor code and that by CC
endorsing such a committee it was tacitly supporting the creation of
a social honor code. The second problem he saw was the structure of
the board itself, especially in reference to the process of appointment
of faculty and staff members to the Committee. Third, only 19% of the
student body had signed the Stand With Us pledge at the time of the
CC meeting. He added that in three days, 296 people had signed a petition
against hate but also against the idea of a social honor code. He said
that it is unacceptable for people not to feel safe, but also believed
that this is an opportunity for uncomfortable learning to occur.

At this point
Peter (Co-President) jumped in and reminded everyone that we were discussing
the possibility for the creation of a committee not social honor code.
First, he wanted to remind people that it is not a binary vote, and
that CC can form any kind of committee it wanted to. Second, he added
that CC setting up a Committee does not mean that CC automatically endorses
the work produced by the committee.

Madeleine
Jacobs (Freshman) said that the intentions for the committee could be
made perfectly clear in a public way. She said that by establishing
a group that CC is not endorsing the establishment of a social honor
code. If there are a lot of people against a social honor code it would
be represented in the committee because it will be representative of
how students feel on campus.

Remington
Shepard (Senior) said that he does not see the creation of a committee
as something that will establish a social honor code in the future.
He believed that students don’t hold each other accountable, but hoped
that the creation of a committee would hold students more accountable
to each other. Clearly something does need to change because of disrespect
for community norms.

Will Slack
(Freshman) read off the intentions for the proposed committee at this
point.

1. Review
the structures we have, both de jure and de facto, in regards to community
ethics

2. Analyze
the structures in place at other institutions,

3. Plan and
execute various methods of soliciting public opinion

4. Draft
a statement of community ethics in line with community consensus, if
found to be necessary at all, with a possible enforcement component
if needed

5. Present
its work to the campus community for a possible referendum, along with
supporting documents

He added
that there were options for faculty appointments and ended by saying
that support for committee did not mean support for social honor code.

Mirza Delibegovic
(Senior) said that the committee was intended to be exploratory and
thought that it was premature to put this particular committee proposal
(referring to Will Slack’s proposed committee composition and intentions)
at a vote without specific goals laid out because this committee could
come out with so many different things and thought this debate was premature
without actual information regarding the attitudes of the student body
towards both the creation of a committee and a social honor code.

Keith Butts
(Spencer At-Large) asked a question of clarification about how students
would be chosen to sit on the Committee if it were to be produced from
this meeting.

Jeremy Goldstein
(Co-President) responded that CC-campus body is responsible for appointments
and that the student body would be solicited for self-nominations and
those interested would be reviewed and appointed by CC-campus.

Chandler
Sherman (Freshman) said that the Stand With Us group opinion supports
the creation of this committee. She agreed with Tim that Williams needs
to have uncomfortable conversations, but this is bringing campus awareness
to the issue of respect and thought that there could be a dialogue about
how individuals on campus need to interact with each other. She believed
that the issue of respectful interaction had not been dealt with well
up to this point and believed that the creation of a committee would
provide a way to deal with this issue. She added that the answer might
not be a social honor code, but believed that something needed to be
done.

Matt Roach
(Senior) was unclear about what the issue that College Council wanted
to discuss. He said that he was opposed to a strict honor code but was
in favor of the formation of a committee.

Peter Nurnberg
(Co-President) said that we need a group to do a thorough analysis rather
than one that had discussions once a month, so a committee needed to
be created to deal with the specific issue at hand rather than other
issues or agendas that other groups or committees have currently.

Ana
Morron (Junior) talked about petitioning in Paresky and she said
that she spoke to a lot of people and heard from many that there is
a fear that made people not want to sign a petition against a social
honor code and, as a result, she had to make sure signatures would be
kept confidential. She proposed that we focus on two committees: keeping
the message alive and workshops. She suggested that we try these two
things and if that did not work then we would consider the third one.
She added that this was reflective of the general reaction from students
that she talked to.

Janay Clyde
(Currier At-Large) asked why there was fear of signing the petition.

Ana Morron
(Junior) replied that the question she asked was, “Are you uneasy
about the social honor code?” That was what the petition was about.

Thomas Rubinsky
(Class of 2010 Rep) said that one of the intentions for the potential
committee is to explore student body opinion. The committee would address
the possibility of people being uncomfortable with a social honor code
for Williams.

Tim Geoffrion
(Senior) reiterated that he thought the committee was problem as it
stands. He saw it as CC abnegating our duty. People in this committee
that Will proposed already had an interest in the existence of a social
honor code. He thought that people were not speaking out against it
because there is a fear of being perceived as racist. He thought it
was a major problem if people are afraid of not talking. He added that
the creation of the committee was already polarized and politicized,
and was not a fact finding committee. He saw the proposed committee
as “a farce of a committee” and added that disagreement with it
is taken as a racist attitude.

Peter Nurnberg
(Co-President) said that there was the potential to propose changes
to the structure of the committee.

Will Slack
(Freshman) said that it was a false comparison to draw between the committee
and a referendum about the group Stand With Us. He said that we should
confront that problem of people being scared to voice opposition to
a social honor code, but that didn’t mean that the committee shouldn’t
be formed.

Remington
Shepard (Senior) said that the two other times where students have really
come together in this way were in 1896 with the honor code and 1971
with revisions to the honor code. He saw a problem with having faculty
and staff on the committee. He saw it as an issue of student autonomy
that we should try to get back.

Sarah Moore
(Class of 2009 Rep) said that there seemed to be a consensus that some
sort of action needed to be taken on campus. Her question was what sort
of alternative options to an exploratory committee would be proposed?

Brian Shepherd
(Pratt) said that he thought Tim had a lot of good points about ways
people were selected but those issues could be resolved by people bringing
them up and proposing changes.

Matt
Roach (Senior) said that CC needed to be the one to deal with this or
at least some elected body. He said that College Council members are
the people that have been chosen to make these kinds of decisions so
if it isn’t important to CC members to spend time on figuring out
this issue then that is a problem for CC in general. He said that he
had concerns about faculty and staff and concerns about how to choose
students. He said that guidelines needed to be made to ensure it is
not a bureaucratic situation.

Peter
Nurnberg (Co-President) no one is talking about giving decision-making
powers to the committee and the general idea is that anything that a
committee comes up with has to be approved by a super majority of the
student body.

Mirza
Delibegovic (Senior) said that this was too general and needed to have
specific goals because it was too broad. Before CC voted on anything
he thought that someone had to come up with specific targets so that
information gathered by a committee would make sense.

Emanuel
Yekutiel (Class of 2011 Rep) said that the people not in favor of committee
had very strong opinions but this committee would not have deciding
power and his confidence was that this would be reflected in any polls
put out to student body.

Ana
Morron (Junior) returned to the point about student feelings
and a solution that a lot of people proposed when she was petitioning
was personal pledges about how individuals are going to behave.

Keith
Butts (Spencer At-Large) asked what would be the agenda of committee.
He said that there should be a specific set of questions it will address.
He thought that there should be more structure beyond just the formation
of a group.

Peter
Nurnberg (Co-President) redirected the discussion to talk about goals
and structure.

Will
Slack (Freshman) advocated that we needed some sort of policy in place
and disagreed with any sort of policy that governs student actions.
He said that the community needed to look at why this was happening
rather than scaring individuals into not saying things.

Tim
Geoffrion (Senior) said that the requirement of a super majority not
written anywhere in CC. He said that he would appreciate a clear standard
about how any decisions would be implemented. He proposed the approval
of ¾ of ¾ of the school. This way, it would not just a supermajority
of people that vote, it would be reflective of the entire student body.

Will
Slack (Freshman) said that we do need a policy and we have a problem.
We need to explore that. He then restated the intentions for the committee
that he proposed (see page 3).

Emily
Spine (Freshman) said that the logic of setting goals before even creating
a committee is circular because then what would the committee explore.

Ellen
Song (Freshman) said that this is not just a race of diversity issue,
it is also an issue of respect of property and personal respect. Property
damage is not a diversity issue.

Madeleine
Jacobs (Freshman) said that the reasoning behind the inclusion of faculty
and staff on the committee was because the faculty has experienced discrimination
among themselves. She thought that it was only fair to allow the whole
Williams community to have a say in the committee, but added that the
student majority was there for a purpose so that it would not be a top-down
process.

Caroline
Henry (Currier Board Rep) said that her issue with the committee was
the inclusion of faculty.

Remington
Shepard (Senior) suggested that faculty and staff have an advisory role
because this is a student initiative. He added that faculty and staff
have different relationships with the community. The goal of a committee
would be to resolve a problem that we all see.

Jeremy
Goldstein (Co-President) recapped what had been said thus far in the
meeting. The issues that came up in the discussion of the creation of
a committee thus far were the need to set clear goals, to ensure a clear
mechanism by which decisions would be voted on by campus, and to propose
that faculty take an advisory role.

CJ
Flournoy (Minority Concerns) motioned to vote on the proposed committee.

Narae
Park (Dodd Board Rep) proposed an unfriendly amendment to make faculty
and staff advisory so they wouldn’t have a voting power.

Caroline
Henry (Currier Board Rep) didn’t agree with the amendment. She thought
that it was not just a student issue, but an entire community issue
and argued that the faculty deserves to have a voice on the committee.

Brian
Shepherd (Pratt) said that he thought that faculty needed a voice on
the committee to give legitimacy to any changes that would affect the
faculty and staff.

Rachel
Ko (Wood Board Rep) reminded everyone that it was just students in the
movements that Remington had referred to (not faculty).

The
amendment failed and the motion to pass the committee as it stood failed.

At
this point, Brian Shepherd (Pratt) motioned to extend the meeting 15
minutes. CJ Flournoy (Minority Concerns) seconded the motion.

Motion
to extend meeting passed.

Rachel
Ko (Wood At-Large) recommended tabling the discussion for next meeting
rather than extending the meeting.

Caroline
Henry (Currier Board Rep) recommended creating committees outside the
CC meeting that would include outside people. The purpose of these meetings
would be to produce something concrete to bring to the next CC meeting
to be voted on.

Emmanuel
Yekutiel (Class of 2011 Rep) agreed that we needed something substantive
to come out of this meeting. He motioned to have a vote on the creation
of a committee with details to be determined at the next meeting.

Lane
Wang (Armstrong) seconded the motion.

Peter
Nurnberg (Co-President) said that it was not a good idea for CC to set
up a committee without defining it.

The
vote on the motion failed.

Rachel
Ko (Wood At-Large) motioned to table this discussion until the next
CC meeting. CJ Flournoy (Minority Concerns) seconded the motion.

Vote
passes to table the discussion for next meeting.

^{Absentees:
Two absences in a row or three in a term result in a member’s expulsion,
unless overridden by the secretary’s discretion or petition to the
Council.}

Not in attendance:
John Prigoff (Wood Board Rep), Gordon Atkins (Sage Hall).

Respectfully
Submitted,

Emily C. Deans

Secretary, College
Council