Hello everyone,
I have two positional announcements to share with you all this week: Firstly, a big congratulations to our newly elected Senate Policy and Ethics Committee (SPEC) Chair, Ariel Cohen ’18, and Senate Parliamentarian, Sophia Zupanc ’19, both of whom began serving their year-long tenures in Senate just this past Monday. It’s important to note that although these positions exist separately from College Government (CG) Cabinet, they are absolutely critical to the functioning of Senate. Our SPEC Chair acts as a check on CG’s executive branch, ensuring not only that the campus-elected Cabinet and our Senators remain accountable to the folks who elected them to office but also that they continue to honor the spirit and core provisions of our CG Constitution. Our Parliamentarian has a similar importance in that she serves as our point-person for all matters related to Parliamentary procedure in the Senate chamber. Her role involves keeping agenda time, a precious currency for all students and community-members-at-large, and ensuring that our Senate chamber maintains its orderly and mutually respectful tone. Because every elected Senate representative’s voice carries weight and immeasurable value, interruptions are only permitted on the basis of immediately necessary clarifying questions or serious breaches in Robert’s Rules of Order. We’re excited that CG’s fundamental values can be upheld and represented in such a stellar way by this new crop of elected officers.
A sincere thank you to all who applied to the College Government President’s Council (CGPC) over these last two weeks. A group of ten committee members has been chosen, and we’ll be having our first meeting this coming Monday, October 5 to kick off what will hopefully be a packed but dynamic year of advocacy, initiative realization, and community dialogue. Although throughout these next few months I’ll be popping in frequently via President’s Corner to fill you in on the happenings of this very targeted, bustling committee, I’d like to take this week’s column as an opportunity to speak in broad strokes about what kind of work I hope CGPC can immediately tackle this Fall Semester:
Picking up where last year’s CGPC left off with work on (1) expanding access to mental health support, (2) establishing an on-campus Alcoholics Anonymous group, (3) facilitating Community Hoop lending, and (4) planning our College’s second ever Ideafest;
Continuing to think on ways to dismantle the myth of perfection — collaborating with student groups, faculty, alums and administrators to create a week highlighting the omnipresence of failure. I truly hope that this level of conscious programming can continue to remind us of how failure is almost always necessarily and naturally intertwined with the lives of those in our immediate community and our famed extended W network;
Identifying better avenues for students’ socioeconomic support; this might involve but certainly isn’t limited to (1) expanded access to physical and electronic course material as well as (2) access to dining and mental health support over breaks;
and Sparking discussions on community dialogue, mental health, and socioeconomic status that will ideally involve and bring all members of our College community to the table.
And finally, two event announcements to keep in mind for the week:. Today from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., President Bottomly will be welcoming students to her office in Green Hall as part of open office hours. We’ve already encouraged our Senators to take a selfie with President Bottomly and share it with CG’s Instagram, and we hope you’ll approach meeting President Bottomly with just as much enthusiasm.
Members of the Dean of Students search consultant group, Isaacson Miller, will be on campus tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. in Alumnae Hall Ballroom and Friday at 12:30 p.m. in our Houghton Chapel Multifaith Center to meet and survey opinions on what students need in a new Dean of Students. Because the search is on to not only develop a fitting job description for the position but also to identify some ideal candidates, it is so important that we have as large of a turnout at one or both of these events as possible. This Dean of Students position is one of the few at Wellesley that takes an active role in shaping student life in addition to administrative support for student life at the College; our previous Deans have regularly attended Senate, advised us on student-driven initiatives and acted as crucial administrative links between staff, faculty and students. These two days are therefore an opportunity for students to speak directly and candidly to the visiting search consultants before they begin their task of matching prospective Deans to the distinct spirit, vibrancy and pulse that is Wellesley. Food will be served at both events, and we look forward to seeing you there.
Until next time,
Adeline
