VSA Council ends year of achievement, challenge

"Vassar faces significant financial constraints, but the VSA leadership sees the unique opportunity to act as innovators for change," wrote Vassar Student Association (VSA) President Caitlin Ly '10 in an e-mailed statement at the start of the semester. Since then, the VSA Council has worked to increase transparency, boost community involvement and reform Vassar's academics while tackling controversies along the way.

The year began on Sept. 6 with the Council adopting a strong stance in favor of getting students involved in the Poughkeepsie community by awarding $5,000 to the Community Shuttle program, a move which it repeated at the start of the spring semester. Continuing this goal, the VSA went on to hold a record-setting Meet Me in Poughkeepsie on Oct. 10, with more events and participants than ever before.

The VSA also began its yearlong quest to reform academics at Vassar at its first meeting, endorsing a proposal to give students an extra half credit for participating in any varsity sport. This proposal underwent numerous edits and several drafts over the next six months, but was eventually passed by the Committee on Curricular Policies and put to a vote before the faculty on March 24.

Due to this policy's success, there was a short-lived moment in which some students requested an additional half-credit for natural science courses with a lab component, but nothing has come of it yet, in part because the various science departments have not yet agreed that the credit would benefit students.

The next week, the VSA passed a new room entry policy designed to clarify when and under what circumstances Security and administrators can enter students' rooms, a policy that was recently adopted by the College along with a Security FAQ, which answers common questions about security protocol. For instance, Security cannot enter students' rooms if they cannot see the alcohol from the hall.

Due to the current economic crisis, the VSA spent a large portion of first semester dealing with cuts to the faculty and staff and trying to mediate solutions between the students and the administration. The Dean of the Faculty eventually adopted the proposal supported by the VSA to reduce course releases, meaning that faculty who chair departments or participate in committees will have to teach more classes in addition to their other responsibilities, thus ensuring that the total number of courses offered by the College stayed relatively stable. In the end, only ten courses had to be cut.

Of course, in the wake of faculty and staff layoffs, the Council often found itself working with and speaking to students from the Campus Solidarity Working Group, a group of students who worked with the staff and faculty unions to oppose all layoffs, which requested that the Council endorse a letter composed by Adjunct Associate Professor of English Judith Nichols condemning the cuts on Nov. 22.

While the Council agreed with the letter's sentiment, they were disturbed by the many inaccuracies in the letter, which alleged that Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette was forcing faculty members to retire and that Vassar was the only school out of the top 25 liberal arts colleges that does have professor of Islam.

The Council's main concern about the letter was it's operative clause, which read, "We are seeking your help in supporting our administrators in canceling lay-offs and canceling teacher contract termination"—an option which the VSA considered to be too extreme given the present fiscal climate.

However, the Working Group gave the VSA a deadline, which later proved to be false, preventing them from considering it further at their next meeting, so after four hours of devate the Council decided to endorse the letter.

Despite their discomfort with some of the letter's point, many Council members felt that their constituents would support the sentiment behind the letter and therefore supported it.

The next week, after many concerned e-mails from constituents, the VSA Council endorsed a memorandum drafted by the Academics Committee clarifying its opinion on the issue and separating itself from the more extreme aspects of Nichols' letter.

According to Class of 2013 President Ely Berns-Zeiv '13, at the time, "I think the VSA's greatest failing this semester was not consulting constituents before endorsing Judy Nichols' letter."

The VSA began the second semester with an attempt to ensure that it could never make such a mistake again, by passing a new amendment to the VSA constitution at their first meeting on Jan. 24, which mandates that the VSA wait one week before voting on letters brought to them by outside organizations.

The VSA also responded to the controversy caused when the administration decided to cancel all summer abroad programs, due to the six figure losses that the programs incur. The Council passed a resolution on Feb. 7 requesting that the administration examine alternatives for language students who need to go abroad but might not be able to do so during the academic year.

The rest of the semester was relatively quiet for the Council. They invited a series of guest speakers to discuss students' involvement in the community, bringing Education Outreach Coordinator Leslie Williams, Director of Field Work Peter Leonard and Director of Spiritual Life Samuel Speers to speak on their various areas of expertise over three weeks in late March.

However, the Council passed a number of resolutions towards the end of the year. It endorsed a resolution on April 11 requesting that the College hire a new Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention Coordinator—a position that has long gone unfilled. Unfortunately, given the College's current economic straits, the Council doubted that the administration will actually create a new full-time position.

At that same meeting, the VSA endorsed a proposal to the Environmental Research Institute to hire a firm to perform a carbon analysis for Vassar for the year 1996, so that the College can set a goal for reducing its carbon footprint.

Then, on April 25, Vice President for Academics Stephanie Damon-Moore '11 and Vice President for Operations Brian Farkas '10 announced a referendum to see whether or not students would be in favor of changing the term "correlate" to "minor." The vote came back with 94.3 percent of the 650 respondents voting in favor of "minor."

At the VSA's final meeting of the year, on May 3, the Council ran into a final controversy while passing the 2010-2011 budget. According to the VSA's bylaws, "The recommendation of the Executive Boards shall be posted for a petition process of 48 hours," but instead of publicly posting posting the entire budget, Vice President for Finance Scott Pascal '10 and Vice President for Activities Aaron Grober '11 e-mailed each group its individual budget.

According to Chair of the Judicial Board Daniel Salton '10, this decision was technically not against the bylaws, which do not specify how much of the budget has to be posted and to whom it must be made available. However, various organization leaders at the meeting protested this decision.

After passing the budget, the 25th VSA Council took the reigns under 2010-2011 VSA President Mathew Leonard '11, who was elected with unusually high voter turnout.

Looking back upon the year, Ly said that although the VSA has had large successes, such as passing the athletics proposal, she is disappointed that the Council failed to increase transparency at the College and did not collaborate on projects with the faculty. To next year's Council, Ly wrote in an e-mailed statement, "Set priorities/goals very early and get to work on them right away. The sooner the better! Many times, it takes months for progress to be made, so the VSA needs to voice their ideas as soon as the year is underway."

Although Leonard was impressed by this year's Council's efforts to preserve need-blind admission, he agreed with Ly that the Council did not do enough to increase transparency. "They ultimately fell into the same old trap of being inaccessible. This is what I would have changed the most, had I been president. I think that it is vital for the VSA to talk to students…We need to use the referenda more often on contentious issues," he wrote in an e-mailed statement.

"One of the first goals of the new Executive Board it to increase visibility, as well as transparency of the whole VSA process. We plan on restarting and maintaining the VSA blogs for each executive board member, as well as advertising committee times. In addition, we plan on creating task-forces involving non-elected students to help us tackle some of next year's biggest issues," he concluded.