Hello all!
The Seven Sisters Conference, which took place two weeks ago, was a massive success, largely thanks to the hard work of Seven Sisters representatives Kaitlyn Brady ’16, Jasmine Gums ’15, Diya Mo ’17 and Shivani Kuckreja ’16, who — along with Assistant Director of Student Involvement Eric Gudmundson — put in countless hours to make sure that the weekend went smoothly. Student governments and representatives from Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Barnard, Bryn Mawr and Vassar spent the weekend getting to know one another and share stories and lessons from our respective campuses. Attendees from the represented schools expressed how impressed they were with the event, our beautiful campus and our hard-working students.
We left the conference with a commitment to increased communication and collaboration throughout the year, and several of the student government presidents (myself included) will get together for a follow-up meeting during Wintersession to discuss opportunities for collaboration. Barnard is hosting the next Seven Sisters Conference in the fall of 2015. If you would like to be involved, reach out to the Student Organizations and Appointments Committee (SOAC) about appointment to the Seven Sisters representative board.
Cabinet is firing on all cylinders in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. SOAC recently launched its #doless campaign, an attempt to stem over-programming, which eats up students’ time and shared resources. In the last calendar year, 10,426 events were hosted on a campus of 2,400 people. College Government Vice President Charlotte Harris has asked student organizations to consider hosting one less event a year and to increase collaboration with other organizations in order to make student programming about quality over quantity. SOFC finished off its second funding deadline with a high dollar-per-student ratio, which may indicate that organizations are being increasingly conscientious about how and when they apply for programming funding.
In addition to recent work by SOAC and SOFC, the Communications Committee launched the CG fall fundraiser, the Schneider Board of Governors hosted their fall open meeting, the Community Action Network is hosting a series of conversations about class at Wellesley, and Honor Code Council is making rounds to residence halls to educate students about the Honor Code and demystify Honor Code proceedings. Chief Justice Katherine Tran ’15 is in the process of sitting down with academic departments as many faculty members also have questions about Honor Code proceedings.
On the Senate end of College Government, many senators are currently wrapping up projects and all of them have been engaging in thoughtful conversations about multicultural space and Campus Renewal with their constituents and fellow senators. Senators will also be performing a Cabinet review in the coming week to anonymously let Cabinet members know how they are doing as committee chairs and student leaders. Cabinet takes this feedback incredibly seriously and looks forward to hearing what we are doing well and where we need to improve.
On my end, I am currently following up with the results of the mental health survey. I sat down with the House Presidents to talk about what steps Residential Life can take in improving how student leaders handle mental health concerns and how we can erase the stigma surrounding mental illness within residence halls. I am plan to work closely with the HPs as this work continues. Additionally, College Government President’s Council has begun working with Ideafest project groups, so students can expect to see several of those proposals come to fruition early next semester.
As always, please feel free to reach out via email or in person with any questions or concerns. My office hours are cancelled this week but please do reach out if there’s anything on your mind. In particular, as this will be my last update before the end of the semester. I would love your feedback on this column and whether you have found it useful and interesting over the past few months.
Best,
Hana
