Thelomathesian Society s3

Thelomathesian Society September 23, 2009 Called to Order at 7:03 PM

Unanimous approval of minutes from September 16, 2009.

I. Roll Call

SENATOR PRESENT Mary Baucom Y Caroline Bishop Y Ben Burds Y Nicole Carnevale Y Martha Civitillo Y Caroline Cody Y Igor Dabik Excused Zachary Dale Y Cassandra Dudar Excused Thomas Frank Y Caity Hamilton Y Shelby Haras Y Shannon Hughs Y Matt Iacano Y Samantha Joudoin Excused Marcelle Justison Y Meaghan Koeller Y Joshua Lashway Y Chris McDonald Y Wyatt McKibben Y Robert Meacham Y Brittany Moten Y Kristen Newton Y Ahmad Nofal Y Alexandra Palmisano Y Corey Parent Y Raymond Price Y Sarah Puckhaber Y Alex Reinmen Y Nina Rhim Y Ashley Rivers Y Allison Shea Y Alexander Stone Y Paul Tranby Y Zlata Unerkova Y Levon Vardanyan Y Claire Washer Y Leah Webster Y Dixon Weld Y Chloe Whalen Y Alessandra Wingerter Y

CHAIRS PRESENT Wesley Webb (Public Relations) Y Brittney Fredette (Academic Affairs) Y Beth Kessenich (Student Life) Y Zach Graham (Campus Entertainment) Y Wes Norton (Environmental Conservation) Y

SENIOR EXECUTIVE BOARD PRESENT

President Hassan Raza Y VP of University Relations Brian Brownell Excused VP of Senate Affairs Bridget Lennon Y Secretary Steffi Chappell Y SLUSAF Central Treasurer Alina Miska Y Student Delegate Simon Lynch Y

II. Officer Reports

Vice President of Senate Affairs Bridget Lennon

Hi everyone. We have a short meeting tonight. There is just one item of Old Business and two items of New Business; a presentation from Carol Bate from Career Services, and a presentation from Hassan and Simon.

Secretary Steffi Chappell

Please just remember to state your name before you talk, and speak clearly.

Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees Simon Lynch

As Bridget said, we’re going to give a presentation tonight, so pay attention to that. We’ll do a little Q and A afterwards, so you can ask questions if you want.

SLUSAF Central Treasurer Alina Miska I have nothing new to report.

III. Committee Reports

Campus Entertainment Chair Zach Graham

I am working on helping out on some inauguration events, and also on a mission statement for this committee. I would like to with my committee after this for a short time.

Public Relations Chair Wes Webb

Tomorrow I’ve got a SLUWire meeting. We’re still working on short and long term improvements for SLUWire, mainly trying to promote it as much as possible. So I’m in the process of promoting both SLUWire and next Wednesday’s Thelmo meeting, which will be in the Winston room with people that will discuss SLU’s judicial process. I’d like to meet with my committee after this meeting.

Environmental Conservation Chair Wes Norton

We’re starting to look into getting the environmental monitoring system, so we’re exploring that more. I’d also like to meet with my committee after this meeting.

Academic Affairs Chair Brittney Fredette

I don’t have much new to report. We are going to try and meet with the Academic Honor Council soon, and discuss some concerns they and students have about the Honor Code and making it known among students. Can I meet with my committee after this, please?

Student Life Chair Beth Kessnich

Right now we have a tentative date for Club Win, which is the first weekend in November. I’m not going to meet with my committee tonight, but you guys should look for an e-mail from me.

President Hassan Raza

The most important thing I can say now is about next week’s meeting. We will not meet here in the Hannon Room, but in the Winston Room. We will be talking about safety and security and the judicial system on campus, and also in the town of Canton if we can. There is no dress code, and please invite folks that you know to come to this meeting. If you have any questions regarding the judicial process, this is an important meeting for you to attend. The week after that, we are hoping we have the Winston Room available again. That week we have Tom Coakley, who is the VP of Operations and Facilities, scheduled to come in and talk about residential buildings on campus and campus master plan for the next few years.

IV. Old Business

Second Approval of Men’s Club Lacrosse

Have you guys had any female interest in the club?

Billy McNamara

No, we haven’t.

Senator Price

Have you advertised to female participants?

Billy McNamara

Motion passes with unanimous approval.

V. New Business

Career Services Presentation

The purpose of us bringing in important aspects of SLU life is not just to have you have the opportunity to ask questions, but to have at least 50 well informed students on this campus to know what is going on, and know the resources that students have. This gives you more of an ability to find answers to an issue a question that arises.

Carol Bate

Good evening. Thank you for having me at your meeting. I just have some informal remarks to make. Hassan asked me to tell you what services we have available, and what we can do for you in our office. One of the most important things I can tell you about Career Services is that we serve students of all four class years, first-years through seniors. We actually have programming that targets each class year. For first-years, we target them in their FYPs if the professor of that FYP asks us to come. We come to the class, and basically give them an introduction to the Career Services office. This year we’ll hit a little over half of the FYPs. If we don’t and you want to meet us, please stop by our office to talk. We have ten peer advisors in our office, one who is here right now; she is a member of Thelmo. For sophomores, we offer a class called Charting Your Career Path. We have two sections this fall. Basically, it helps you with personal exploration, which should help you choose a major. It’s a six week course and we feed you! You don’t get credit for it, but you get food. For juniors, we’re trying a new program called Internship Boot Camp, which happens on a Saturday morning/afternoon. It is designed for students who haven’t started the internship process at all, to walk in with nothing and walk out with everything they need to apply for an internship. For seniors we do two things. We catch them at the beginning and at the end of the year. We do senior appointments in the fall, which are about 20 minute appointments with every single senior on campus. We’re still working our way through those because there are so many. It’s designed as a way to start your senior year and get you thinking about how we can help. At the end of the year we do the “senior transition series,” which is designed to basically help you realize you are leaving SLU and helps you deal with all the things you need to think about when you graduate, such as taxes, apartments, etc. In addition to the class year programs, we do other major programming. We have the Etiquette Dinner, which is in November every year, with one for athletes in February. We do Laurentions in Residence twice a year, one per semester. They are a great opportunity to go to and learn about careers from people first-hand. This semester’s theme is entertainment and media, so we’ll have people from film, publishing, video games, and other areas; it’s an exciting panel of alumni that we’ve got coming. We do other programs like Shadow a Saint, in January and in the summer. It’s a great opportunity for first-years and sophomores to see what the job world is like. We do three major workshop series throughout the year: “job search,” “graduate school,” and “global graduate” that targets people who want to do things internationally. We do all the standard rank and file for a Career Services office. We help with cover letters, resumes, etc. If you are a first-year student and don’t have a resume yet, I highly suggest you start one. Keeping track of all the things you’ve done throughout the year is really helpful by the time you are a senior. Start that early and update it every year. You never want to be in a situation where you have a meeting with someone who can connect you with an internship you are really interested in, and then not have a resume ready to send them. We also do internships, job postings, and all the things you would expect a Career Services office to do. We help you with interviews, off and on campus, and we can have you do mock-interviews here if you want. We have about 300 employers you can meet off campus and about 20 on campus. The mock interview is designed to help you be a better interviewer over-all. We do both on and off campus networking events. There is a big one on in February with alumni, and then a lot off campus ones throughout the year. All of that information is or will be posted on SLUWire.

Senator Price

How often are the Laurentions in Residence?

Carol Bate

Once a semester, and we never repeat the same topic in four years.

Senator Bishop

I know that every year there are great statistics that come out from your office about the previous graduating class; is there a place we can look to find those numbers?

Carol Bate

Yes, you can find that information on our website. If you look in the parents section on the toolbar on the left side, you see something that says “what happened to the class of…” That will give you the general statistics. About 25% go on to graduate school, about 73% go on to jobs, and the other 2% do… other things.

Senator Reinmen

If we want to get in touch with you other than coming to the office, how do we do that?

Carol Bate

My e-mail is [email protected]. Martha Civitillo, who works in our office, is also a Thelmo Senator! If you want her to come to your organization and do a presentation on Career Services, she would love to!

Presentation on ISAC and University Governance

President Hassan Raza Why are we talking to you about these things? It’s not a surprise that since we have a new President, we’re doing a lot of things differently. It’s a tough time, as far as money issues go.

Our goal here is to have you know what we can do, and what we will do, and to use us as a resource.

First, what is ISAC? We both serve as your representatives to the Board of Trustees and to ISAC. ISAC stands for Institutional Strategic Assessment Committee. We talk about strategic issues, ranging all over the place. Some of the current issues we’re talking about now are a Recession Response Committee, the university’s finances, what SLU will look like in 2020, optimum size of the university, facilities, market analysis, and tuition. The Recession Response Taskforce reports to ISAC, but it is a whole separate committee dealing with issues of money. It is a temporary committee that can focus more solely on something of importance.

University finances are a huge subject right now. Our operating budget is usually about $110 million. Our endowment has gone from $260 million to $170 million. That is a huge drop. That affects us because our endowment pays for some of our operating budget. Our tuition is paying for more of our operating budget now because of the drop, which is both good and bad. When the recession hit, that helped us because we were still able to function as a school. This means that the university is now looking for ways to save money and tighten the belt as much as possible. We need to save 5% of our budget, which is about $5 million. Many schools are doing it, so we’re not alone.

For the record, SLU hasn’t made any direct layoffs or frozen any salaries, which is something that has happened across the country. What will the SLU of 2020 look like? Whenever there is a huge leadership change, the question of what the institution will look like in the future will be asked. I cannot tell you how interconnected that process is. It goes from academia to optimum size. What would you like SLU to look like in 2020?

What is SLU’s optimum size? Is it 1800, or 3000? We struggle with it as our future plan. More students means more revenue, and more alumni. Less students means traditional face-to-face interaction with professors, something SLU prides itself on. There are limitations, because we only have a certain amount of space to put people. Facilities ties into this; there are a lot of projects we are undertaking during this recession, things are cheaper now, so we’re trying to take advantage of that. We’ve had Pub 56, and now the Arts Phase III. Something we’ve put on hold is a new location for Java. Basically, it’s a battle between having enough money to fund projects. Now I’ll talk about the depreciation of buildings; they depreciate over time. The more time a building is not fixed, the quicker it will depreciate. For example, if we spend $11 mill a year to fix buildings, our depreciation level will not change, it will stay the same. But it’s pretty high right now. If we wanted to make a dent in that, we would have to spend more money a year to fix buildings.

There has been some talk about writing a value statement for St. Lawrence. How do we define ourselves? What is a Laurention, not in a paragraph or an essay, but in a short sentence? What is the value in creating this value statement? We need an overarching mission statement that is easy to process and easy to remember. Other small liberal arts schools have done exactly this; they have created a value statement. They’ve posted it in hallways and classrooms. We sign one statement about not plagiarizing our freshmen year, and that’s it. We never talk about it again. That is a problem. Approximately 60-70% of renovation requirements come from destructive behavior indoors. If you have a value statement posted right next to you, will you think again about breaking an exit sign? I argue that yes, you will.

Market analysis is important now in ISAC. Fox wants to get a good idea on how healthy we are as far as academics, alumni, and the surrounding area go. We’re using the environmental scan to create questions that we can eventually answer.

The overarching value of the Fox Administration is that the last ten years, known as the Sullivan Renaissance (created by higher graduation rates, improved academic programs, and other things) were about getting better. His administration will be about getting smarter. One of those things will be tuition. We cost a lot; we give ample financial aid, but we cost a lot. We’re in the top 20 ranking as far as tuition goes. It saved us in the recession, but often the question asked is if SLU is worth the price tag? Currently SLU has been operating on the fear of constraints. You don’t go in and invest $20 thousand when you don’t have it. We’ve gotten good at it, but when you have too many of those, you worry. Last February when we made a decision about tuition, Adam Kyamatare and I were adamant about not increasing tuition as much as it has in the past. We only increased 4% in tuition, and that was an achievement, because the year before it rose 8%. That is going to be a key challenge, a student challenge. What are some of the student issues? For different students, student issues vary. It might be Greek life for you, or abroad programs, but fundamentally, you cannot be here if you can’t afford the experience. We really need to make sure we have enough of your input regarding decisions made about financial aid and tuition. Our office works on a case by case basis for financial aid, which is good. But eventually the price tag and discount rate are going to be a challenge.

Those are areas we need your input. As for housing, what is the possibility of renovating older dorms, or building another one? Hassan and I really think it’s going to be a future item to build a new dorm, in about two or three years. We’ll be talking about working with the room draw system later on.

In terms of housing and facilities, my estimate after knowing our financial situation is that we might think about a townhouse or suite style living building in about five years. During the first conversation I had with President Fox over the summer, he said he would try and make that happen in two or three years. For those of you that have been part of Thelmo for a while, you know that the Pub started in Thelmo about two and a half years ago, and now we have one. It’s a process, but there is progress that happens. When College Board judges us, they look at the number of majors offered and abroad programs. We have added as many as eleven abroad programs since I was a freshman, and those are important to us in ways we don’t think about. Our housing depends on how many kids go abroad. You might not hear about where you are living until three weeks before school, because that depends on who ends up going abroad.

Improving Greek and theme life is something we have accomplished in the past year or two. We have Beta retuning, and a new Residential Coordinator; that was derived from your input and Hassan’s and Adam’s hard work.

Tripartite governance is a huge part of life at SLU; that is something we have already talked about here. SLUWire was a conversation that started in tripartite committees, like the pub programming did. When we talk about the needs of students within these committees, things get done. They are unbelievably helpful. As far as Pub 56 goes, we’re done. We’ve got the license and the building is operational. We’ve talked about Sunday hours for football events, and those conversations will continue.

If you haven’t been to Pub 56, you should really go. Accessories are something we are working on now; this is about banners for SLU teams, and generally making the bar more “SLU.” We are going to try and get those accomplished in the next month or two. The price of drinks is something we’re debating about. Originally prices were going to be higher than they are now. We’ve come down to $2.50 a pint, which is comparable to local places. Wine is at $4.00 a glass; a lot of that came from Shoshanna James.

We haven’t closed our doors to the Phase II to Pub 56, which is the addition of a Party Barn. That won’t take place for a while, but it’s still being talked about, and is in the plans.

We need all of you and the rest of the campus to make that spot a party spot. It’s like the SLUWire topic; it’s something that everyone needs to work on together to make it a blast. We’ve had some ideas to generate more interest. For example, we would love for people to celebrate their 21st birthday at Pub 56. We were thinking that if you did, you would get a free Pub 56 or St. Lawrence mug, and a free pizza.

As Simon mentioned, we will be having a meeting with people regarding an assessment of our residence facilities, and the master plan for the campus for the next five to ten years. For theme and Greek houses, the new Residential Coordinator is wonderful, and will provide support for theme houses to be successful. Lastly, before we take questions, I’d just like to tell you that anyone and everyone is welcome to come out our office hours. They are on Sundays from 8:00 to 10:00 in the Thelmo office.

Senator Stone

You mentioned something about the Environmental Scan. Can we come and talk to you about that, and can you share that with us? President Hassan Raza

We can share some specific information and the general purpose of the scan with you, but not the whole thing.

Senator McDonald

I’ve heard a lot about this Environmental Scan, and a lot of rumors; are we really getting monitoring systems in different buildings, and what exactly are they? How will this affect us?

It doesn’t have anything to do with environmental sustainability. The scan is about the environment around us, the economy, the job market in the area; those things that affect the university. The monitoring system is different.

The campus monitory system is a capital project and completely separate from the Scan. The Environmental Scan is a 100 or so page document. It says all sorts of things about liberal arts university life.

Environmental Conservation Chair Wes Norton

There is an ongoing energy audit happening on campus. That will go along with the monitoring system.

Senator Bishop

I’ve noticed that the SOUL board down on the first floor of the Student Center one of the questions is, “What do you think about Pub 56?” Someone wrote, “This was such a waste of money, Thelmo is not allocating their money in an appropriate way.” This was a project that started two and a half years ago, and now we’ve seen it come to life, and it’s great. I’m just wondering what we can do as Senators to promote this space, and make sure students use this space, and also to make sure that students are informed correctly as to how money is used.

I would first say to tell them that the whole Pub 56 project was completely funded by donations; we had nothing to do with funding. It’s a bonus to students. It wasn’t out of their tuition. I would also want to know why they think it’s a waste of money. President Hassan Raza

You win some, you loose some. We hope to and have in the past not only represented the voice of those in the majority but also those in the minority. It’s a self-sustaining space, for profit. There is no student money going to it to pay for it. The nuances of some of the rumors I sometimes hear need to be corrected.

Senator Rhim

As a member of SOUL, I can tell you that we do a lot of SOUL Board questions related to financial things. I think you have a really good point on how people don’t really know how the school uses money in general. A lot of the time students think their money specifically is going to something, like Johnson or Pub 56, when it actually is not. As Senators I think we need to educate students on how money is actually used.

On a note of how we could educate the student body on Pub 56, financial issues, the e-mail system, and everything else… word of mouth is still the hands- down best form of communication students have. It’s our responsibility as Thelmo to just talk about these things. If we all put the effort in to talking about these things we should hopefully see a payoff.

Senator Price

On your slide show, you listed that one of your powers as president was veto power. Have Thelmo President’s used that power in the past?

I don’t know of the last time that was used; I know that the last three of my predecessors haven’t done that.

Senator Bishop

I actually do know of one President that vetoed one thing in the past. Going into all these meetings, other than being the representatives of the students, do you guys have any specific goals you are interested in achieving with the Board and with ISAC?

We do. The residential plan is key, and we are always about improving the state of life and academic possibilities for students. Another thing we’ve seen the Board show interest in is to increase or just improve the status of our campus entertainment; now we have the Campus Entertainment Chair, so we’re on our way for that.

Our input is based on your input. It’s mostly up to what you guys want.

VI. Member’s Time

Senator Meacham

I met with the Education Technologies Committee; there were some faculty and staff members in that committee that were really concerned with Pay for Print. People hare already reached their limit, or are really close to it. Has this been addressed, or is this an issue we can talk about here?

We have already considered this, and we will have an update for you guys as soon as possible.

Student Life Chair Beth Kessnich

I’d just like to remind whoever signed up for the Student Life Tripartite Committee that it is tomorrow at 3:00.

Vice President of Senate Affairs Bridget Lennon

Just a reminder that next week’s meeting will be in the Winston Room. Please invite your friends, and tell everyone about it.

Campus Entertainment Chair Zach Grahm

If you’re interested in SLU’s Got Talent talk to me and I can put you in contact with the right people. If you’re a senior and interested in being on Class Council, we meet Tuesdays at 8:30 in the alumni living room.

Senator Price

We talked about Pub 56 tonight. If you’re interested, Pub 56 is having a karaoke night on Friday. Go and check it out.

Senator Palmisano Tonight is APO’s induction. If you’re interested in joining, come tonight at 9:00 to Herring Cole. We meet once a week on Wednesdays at 9:00. Ask me if you have any questions; I’m the President.

Peak Weekend is happening this weekend, on the 26th. The Outing Club is heading that up. We’re having a Peak Weekend celebration Saturday night. It is a registered party, and will be a lot of fun.

Meeting adjourned at 8:05 PM.

Respectfully Submitted By:

Secretary Steffi Chappell