Dean Horton announces changes in Health Services
In a poll conducted by Health Services, many students expressed dissatisfaction with the current Health Services scheduling system. The poll found that more than 80 percent of the respondents would prefer online scheduling as opposed to scheduling an appointment by phone or going in during walk-in hours. In response to the overwhelming opinion of the students, Health Services has announced that it will launch online appointment scheduling through the Student Wellness Portal, starting from Dec. 11, 2018. Dean Horton explained that this will ensure increased availability of medical personnel for students and reduce waitlist times. However, this will mean that the Health Service will eliminate walk-in hours. Instead students can schedule same-day appointments through their Student Wellness Portals.
Assistant Vice President of Facilities Management and Planning explains the College’s five-year plan for renovation and construction
Assistant VP of Facilities Management and Planning Dave Chakraborty informed Wellesley senators of the college’s plan to renovate residential halls and academic buildings around campus. For three years now, the Facilities Management and Planning Department has been accessing any and all maintenance issues in each campus building, and have come up with a five-year plan to address them. The construction will roughly follow like this: each summer the department will fix high-priority maintenance issues in three to four residential halls, and also change or fix the elevators at the same time. Due to the limited timeframe available for construction and a limited budget the department will only focus on high-priority issues such as pipe leaks, broken roofs and water leaks. The estimated cost of this renovation and maintenance will come out to be around $100 – 150 million. This does not include the further costs of elevator maintenance, which will come out to be around $29 – 35 million. For further information, Assistant VP Chakraborty directs students to their department website to understand the five-year plan in more intricate detail.
SOFC passes overhaul of the organizations’ budgeting system
The Senate voted almost unanimously to pass the new budgeting allocation system, proposed by SOFC. The budgets gives organizations a chance to focus more on their internal events, rather than having to reapply for budgets every spring and fall. It also seeks to streamline the funds allocation system in order for extraneous funds to be given to organizations that might be underfunded. The passed policy includes a Reallocation Appeal for organizations that want to change their budgeted events. Organizations can also apply to have extra funding anytime if their membership goes up and have the option to apply for Price Appeal if their budgets suddenly rise due to any reason.
