thelomathesian societyit.stlawu.edu/~thelmo/minutes/fall 09/november 11 2009.… · web...

Thelomathesian SocietyNovember 11, 2009

Called to Order at 7:03 PM

Unanimous approval of minutes from November 4, 2009.

I. Roll Call

SENATOR PRESENTMary Baucom YBen Burds ExcusedNicole Carnevale YMartha Civitillo YCaroline Cody YIgor Dabik UnexcusedZachary Dale YCassandra Dudar YThomas Frank YCaity Hamilton ExcusedShelby Haras UnexcusedShannon Hughs YMatt Iacano YSamantha Joudoin YMarcelle Justison YMeaghan Koeller YJoshua Lashway ExcusedChris McDonald UnexcusedWyatt McKibben YRobert Meacham YBrittany Moten YKristen Newton YAhmad Nofal YAlexandra Palmisano YCorey Parent ExcusedRaymond Price YSarah Puckhaber YAlex Reinmen YNina Rhim YAshley Rivers YAllison Shea YAlexander Stone YPaul Tranby YZlata Unerkova UnexcusedLevon Vardanyan YClaire Washer Y

Leah Webster YDixon Weld YChloe Whalen YAlessandra Wingerter Y

CHAIRS PRESENTWesley Webb (Public Relations) YBrittney Fredette (Academic Affairs) YBeth Kessenich (Student Life) YZach Graham (Campus Entertainment) YWes Norton (Environmental Conservation) YCaroline Bishop (Elections) Y

SENIOR EXECUTIVE BOARD PRESENT

President Hassan Raza YVP of University Relations Brian Brownell YVP of Senate Affairs Bridget Lennon YSecretary Steffi Chappell YSLUSAF Central Treasurer Alina Miska YStudent Delegate Simon Lynch Y

II. Officer Reports

Vice President of Senate Affairs Bridget Lennon

Hi everyone. I’m glad to see a good turnout tonight. I wish we could have the meeting in the Winston Room, but we’ll make do up here. We’ve got the debates tonight, and Caroline will go over the format of them before they begin. Just remember to speak clearly and state your name before you talk.

Secretary Steffi Chappell

Please remember to state your name before you talk, and speak clearly, as Bridget said.

Vice President of University Relations Brian Brownell

I am preparing my little report for whoever will take over this office. That’s all I’ve got.

SLUSAF Central Treasurer Alina Miska

We don’t have any new contingency requests, but we did pass a contingency in the Executive Board meeting which will give each candidate up to 20 dollars to spend on their campaigning for elections.

III. Committee Reports

Student Life Chair Beth Kessenich

Hi everyone. All I’ve got it to tell everyone to go to Club Win at 12:00 this Friday!

Academic Affairs Chair Brittney Fredette

Hi everyone. I would like to meet with my committee after the meeting for a couple of minutes. Thanks.

Campus Entertainment Chair Zach Graham

Hi everyone. If you are interested in helping out with Winter Weekend, there is going to be a meeting this Friday in room 333 at 3:00. If you are a part of any organization and are interested in participating, please come. Also, Cluck Farkson shirts will be on sale tomorrow, starting around 11:45.

Environmental Conservation Chair Wes Norton

Hi guys. The only thing I have to report this week is that the Conservation Council is doing a fundraiser. The firewood down in front of fire place is a part of it, and it was all cut by SLU students. They are raffling it off and the money will go to support projects on campus. Tell everyone to buy a raffle ticket; they are only a couple bucks.

Public Relations Chair Wes Webb

Hey everyone. We’ve got some little voting reminder slips coming in the mailboxes at the end of this week. Club Win is this weekend, right after the mustache ride party. SLUWire will be putting out a weekly list of all the week’s events into one e-mail, so look for that soon.

President Hassan Raza

Our role as delegates to the Board of Trustees involves us going to ISAC. In ISAC we talk about strategic planning and issues. This year, ISAC has been different in the sense that the financial aspect has been taken out of what we talk about and given to the Recession Response Planning Task Group. Because of this, we have been focusing on what the SLU of 2012 will look like. Today in ISAC we had a huge discussion on what the nature of this strategic planning is. It

is going to be a response to the external market and planning accordingly and dealing with big issues. Such a process was originally done by military and oil companies, but it was adopted by academic institutions in the 80s and that is what we are doing. This will help as we head into the future.

Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees Simon Lynch

Here’s an example of what we talked about: today we discussed strengths, weaknesses, and such of the university. One thing brought up was state schools, and how a lot of them are working their admissions policies to accept out-of-state students, because they get a lot more money that way. We talked about how that affects us. We talked about how they target affluent schools in the cities and get those students to apply for their schools. In doing this, they take away from our applicant pool.

We talked about how we need to advertise more aggressively. I don’t know if you feel like you see SLU around a lot; that needs to be improved. Something easy to do would be to update our websites, specifically the different department websites. By April we’re hoping to launch a comprehensive website that will give each department a format to use that they can update and maintain. That will be a solution for that problem.

So we start really broad, narrow it down, find a solution, and then start over. Another thing we touched upon is something called Dash Board. It’s for the Board of Trustees, and is a comprehensive PDF. It is one page, and has many boxes representing the different aspects of the school. The Trustees can go there and learn about a lot of things easily and conveniently.

IV. Old Business

No new Old Business.

V. New Business

Thelmo Debates

Elections Chair Caroline Bishop

This is an exciting time! Two years ago at this time John Pontius, who is sitting in the back, and I were up here doing what the candidates are about do. I’ll start off by giving a brief report on how the elections are going. This is their campaign week, and it will end Sunday night. We need to get 594 votes next week (voting week) for the Board of Trustees to recognize the candidate as the new Thelmo President. That is what we call the magic number. It’s based on a certain percentage of the student body.

Candidates, when you talk this evening, please stand up and speak clearly. The structure will go as follows: We will start with personal statements from the candidates. You have about three minutes to do this. Simon will be timing and he will give you a warning. When you are done, please sit down. After everyone gives their statement we will move into a question session. We will have the Vice President of University Relations and the Presidential candidates up here to answer questions. The responses to those questions will be two minutes.

Vice President of Senate Affairs Bridget Lennon

I’d just like to make a point of clarification: we passed a new amendment in Thelmo last semester that says that candidates can campaign into voting week.

Secretary Candidate Nicole Carnevale

Thanks Caroline and Bridget. I’m a sophomore here are SLU. This is my third semester serving as a Senator on Thelmo. I’m running for Secretary. As for my qualifications, I’m organized, cooperative, and easy to work with. I’ll bring fresh insight to the table. I’ve got lots of admiration for the school and student life. I feel that if I were elected I can not only sustain the greatness of SLU, but bring fresh ideas. I’d like to end with encouraging people to get out and vote. Tell your friends to vote!

Vice President of Senate Affairs Candidate Meg Crabtree

Hi everyone. I’m a junior here and running for Vice President of Senate Affairs. During my time on Thelmo I’ve seen two Vice Presidents of Senate Affairs with different goals for the position. The first, MCB, concentrated heavily on the expertise of the Thelmo Constitution and on organizing the constituents of other clubs and organizations on campus. Bridget, the current Vice President of Senate Affairs, focuses more on ensuring the cohesion of the executive board, as well as the Senate. I feel that both of these concentrations are important for the position of Vice President of Senate Affairs, and I would like to continue where they left off.

From what I’ve seen over the past three years, the role of this position has always been pretty defined by the Constitution, unlike the Vice President of University Relations, which is always left pretty open. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t accomplish goals that you think are necessary during your term. If elected, I already have a few ideas that I believe should be addressed during my time, but I would of course rely heavily on the Senate and the student body for further guidance.

As you know, Senators are not elected, but are selected by the Executive Board. However, one major criticism from the student body is that the group of Senators selected for Thelmo do not always best represent the St. Lawrence student community. I participate on a wide range of clubs and organizations including being treasurer for the Junior Class Council, sitting on the Academic

Honor Council, as well as being a sister of Tri Delta. I have heard many times from different organizations that I have been a part of for the last three years that people want to have more of a voice in Thelmo and its decisions. Because of this, I believe the next Vice President of Senate Affairs needs to concentrate on these concerns and attempt to better socially diversify the Senate and ensure that all members of the student body have more of a voice. To do this, I would like to reevaluate the current selection process for Senators. I know about four years ago, when Jon Cardinal was President of Thelmo, the Vice President of Senate Affairs tried to change the selection process by having two representatives of every organization on campus be a part of Thelmo. From what I have researched, the reason it didn’t work was because there was little interest from the executive boards of clubs and organizations to submit representatives. I think it is now time to reconsider this approach. The executive boards of that time have all graduated and we should try again. This is how student governments at our comparative schools select their Senators. I’ve also thought about other options to increase involvement in Thelmo. I know that a few years ago, the Executive Board use to select Senators based on their residence halls. This didn’t work, though. They ended up turning away people who were actually interested in Thelmo based on where they lived.

As a former public relations chair, I agree that it would be a great idea for Thelmo to broadcast its meetings to the rest of the student body for those not involved with Thelmo. It will generate interest outside of the Hannon Room. However, although this is a great project, it should be head up by the Public Relations Chair. The Vice President of Senate Affairs should be more focused on the inner workings of the Senate in order to ensure cohesiveness.

Third, an issue that will certainly be on the agenda for Thelmo next semester is the economic crises facing our school and the country as a whole. Now, I understand that the President and the Student Delegate will be working most directly with the administration to address this issue, but there is a role for the Vice President of Senate Affairs to play in finding solutions to cut expenditures. While forfeiting one’s salary may be noble, it is not very significant if only one person ops to do it. So, I would propose reevaluating all the salaries for the Executive Board members for the duration of the economic downturn. Also, we need to be careful. From everything that I’ve learned in my economics courses, the economy is cyclical. We will recover eventually. We need to be careful not to cut any programs or positions that will not be able to come back once the economy recovers.

I have a lot of experience and ideas that I would like to bring to this position. I can work well with the other members up for the Executive Board positions, and I know the university from my involvement with clubs and organizations over the past three years, particularly with my involvement in Thelmo. I started as a Senator, and from there felt comfortable enough taking on the role of Public Relations Chair, and now I believe I am ready and have enough experience behind me to take on the role of Vice President of Senate Affairs.

Thank you.

Vice President of Senate Affairs Candidate Raymond Price

Good evening everyone. I’m a first year, so this is my first semester on Thelmo. I’d just like to tell a little bit about myself, and then go into a couple of my ideas for the Senate in the future. First off, I’ve experienced multiple positions, which is good, because you need to deal with a lot of different people as an Executive Board member. I have experience being a secretary, and experience managing thousands of dollars. As for goals, I plan to visit each and every organization twice each semester. That includes all 120. That seems like a lot, but I’m already a member of twelve, so I think I can manage. That way I can get a true feel of what is going on with each organization on campus. I would also like to move to online voting. I think that would be much more effective and environmentally friendly. I’d like to see SLUWire groups for each organization on the website. As you hear, each department has their own website. I would like each organization to have their own website that they need to update at least once a semester. I would like to see Thelmo meetings televised, as I think it would help generate ideas. Finally, we all know about the economic crisis. I will do my best to support that, by donating my paycheck to SLUSAF. Now I’d just like to end with a story. There were two corporations who were hiring for a high-up position. One company chose to hire within, and they are survived the recession. One company chose to hire outside of the company, and they are no longer around. Their company went under. Keep that in mind.

Vice President of University Relations Candidate Alex Reinmen

First and foremost, I think we can all give Caroline a round of applause because she’s done a phenomenal job with the elections process.. I’m a junior and I’ve been in Thelmo for a long time. I’m excited about a debate because it is unique; the two of us that will be answering questions are actually running for different positions. But we do have similarities. We both want the school to get better. I am not just a member of Thelmo. I am a member of Beta, I do community service (I teach old people how to use computers, it’s a program called Cyber Seniors). I am very excited about the incredible opportunities we have here at SLU in the coming months. Even though there is an economic crisis, we have great opportunities. Meg said something very smart earlier, that the Vice President of University Relations has the chance to mostly work on their own projects. That will let me do what you want me to do. I represent the silent majority, I think. That is kids that stay in their rooms rather than go and join clubs. There are a lot of kids that don’t feel their voice is heard. I want to represent them. I hope I can take their ideas and my ideas and move to a great future. It is imperative for us all to work together.

Presidential Candidate Beth Kessenich

Hi everyone, and thank you for coming tonight. I’m a sophomore here, and I’ve been a member of Thelmo for three semesters. I’m running for the

position of President because I understand the importance of getting involved in your school and making the school the best place it can be. I have a lot of great ideas for our school, and I think taking on this leadership roll would be a great thing for me and for all of you. I’m a member of the golf team, Kappa, and a Canton volunteer. I also work at the Information Desk. Being involved in so many different aspects has allowed me to form relationships with a lot of people. The roll of the President is to be a representative of the student body, and I think I can do that with the kind of person that I am. I’m extremely hard-working. I think it would beneficial to the school if I were elected to this position. The person needs to be dedicated, and I am certainly dedicated.

I also have been the Student Life chair for two semesters, so I understand how Thelmo works and how the meetings are run. As President, I want to continue to inform people how we run, and invite as many people as we can to the meetings. I’ll also extend that invitation to the faculty and staff. I want to create more communication between Thelmo and the student body. As Senators we learn a lot, and we need to give this information back to the student body.

With my experience, social skills, love for SLU, drive, and determination, I feel I would be great for this job. Thank you.


What will be your greatest challenge in the role of President/Vice President of University Relations? Give an example of another time in your life where you had to overcome a similar challenge.


I’ve always been someone who seems to put everything on his shoulders and try and do it himself. Taking on all that has always seemed to work for me, but my biggest weakness is my ability to delegate to other people. I think the best example is one I can use with all of you. I, with all many others, had planned to do the 9/11 memorial this year. I got up at 5:00 with 3000 flags and went out onto the Quad, and thought, “oh no, this is a ton of work.” But I had about 20 people there with me, and I was able to delegate to them, and we all worked together. What will my biggest challenge be? Saying, “I trust you with this.” I’ve made strides toward being better in that regard, and that would be one of my biggest goals.


I would have to agree with Alex. Being the Student Life Chair for two semesters, I’ve had a lot to do. I haven’t had an easy time delegating to my committee. One of the things I would have to work on would be trusting others and being able to share responsibilities. One of my weaknesses is that I am a people pleaser. I try to make everyone happy at the same time. This past week I decided who would DJ for Club Win. Right after that, a good friend of mine

asked if he could DJ. While I had already given the job to someone else, I wanted to make everyone happy, so for a while I tried to figure out a way that I could let the two of them DJ together. In the end, though, I realized I needed to just let the guy I hired do it.


One of your main responsibilities is to be one of the student representatives to the Board of Trustees: in a board situation how will you convince them that your word should be equally respected- in other words: give us a real life example of how you have had to prove to older and more seasoned peers that you are knowledgeable enough to be at the table.


That’s a good question. I can say first and foremost that I believe I’ve got a good handle on working with alumni. They work here to insure that what the student wants happens. They want us to be happy. Being a representative for everyone else, I would be positive that if I am going to a Board meeting, I’ve got all I need on a paper in front of me. I would be prepared. I think it is difficult in my life to find examples of that. I will say that this summer, I had the great opportunity and fortunate experience to work for Meryl Lynch. In that I was able to go to a bunch of different meetings and put my perspective on things. When you are dealing with people 60 years old that can literally buy you, you need to be really communicative and thoughtful with what you say. I like to think of myself as a confident speaker. Being able to communicate efficiently I was able to relate some ideas that people in that office used. I can guarantee I will always be prepared.


My alma mater for high school is a boarding school in Connecticut. I was elected to be class secretary, and we worked with a lot of alumni and trustees, similar to SLU. They would come during the weekend, and we would have to interact with them. I’ve had the experience of talking with trustees before, and I’ve attended the meetings before. As Alex said, I think just carrying the student voice and sticking to your point and knowing your audience is going to be important. Just being aware of who you’re speaking to and listening to what they have to say to you, and representing the students is important.


Before I ask my question, I would like to make one clarification on salaries for the Senior Executive Board. Salaries come out of SLUSAF. They are not a motivation to run. I do see, as a value statement, that there could be a reason to re-look at that.

Now, for the question: I want to get to your understanding of your position and student issues. What is your understanding, aside from what the constitution says about your role, and what are the key student issues that you see, and how do you want to work on those?


I think being on Thelmo for the past 3 semesters has been a huge help to me. I’ve seen John and Hassan both as President, and I’ve learned a lot from both. Being president, you’re representing the student body, but you’re also representing St. Lawrence. It’s definitely a big job and it’s a lot of responsibilities. You’re not just overseeing Thelmo meetings. You’re President 24/7. I think some of the biggest issues Thelmo will have to face in the next years will be the financial situation, and it will be important for us to all come together as a cohesive group and find solutions. I, as President, would be able to relay those solutions to the Board of Trustees. I also think that one of the main things students are concerned with now is SLUWire. I’ve seen it develop for a year now, and I want to continue to develop it. I think it would be great if e-mail and SLUWire were on one page, as a one stop shop deal. I also think that social events are important, and we need to continue to think of new ways that students can get together and have a good time.


Aside from what is stated in the constitution, I think the most important part of the Vice President of University Relations is that you need to be personable with the students. Brian is great at that; he talks to people. Being personable is very important, especially to this position. As far as student issues go, Beth mentioned the big ones. What we say here in Thelmo with respect to the financial situation is going to matter. There are two things I would talk about: social life, and the residential situation. As far as Res. Life goes, we’ve worked on theme houses, which I think still need work. I think a lot of people want to talk about off-campus housing, or alternative ways to fit more kids into the campus. That will be one of my top priorities. The other thing is the social aspect. Pub 56 is great space that we all need to utilize. As far as social events, we have the space and funds to throw great social events. It is our job to come up ideas.


We will now take questions now from the audience.


I was just wondering, a lot of your ideas for plans are things that any of us, within reason, could go about pursuing, like organizing social events. You guys

have a lot higher standing than most of us do and great connections with these positions. What do you want to use the positions for that you couldn’t do otherwise?


I would say that as President, I don’t think of the position as being one sole powerful person. I look at the Executive Board as a team. I think that what we want to hear is the students’ concerns, and the things important to you guys. SLUWire started out with student opinions on listserve e-mails. If you guys have specific goals, then students should be able to approach us and let us know, and we can do our best to work on those.


I think you’re exactly right. What I would argue is that it is not done enough. Organizations have the chance to do something, but they might not. Specific initiatives I have in mind, though? Let’s not cram three people into a double room. Let’s work on Res. Life. I’m the last person in this room, probably, who is environmentally friendly, but I think any initiative starts with personal responsibility. I think it would be great if people who came to Thelmo with projects and ideas for the betterment of campus should get some sort of reward. I think that it really will be random kids that come up to me on the sidewalk and say they have an idea, and then we will move from there. We are an outlet for everyone else. We’re nothing special; it’s your ideas that I want to hear. If you want something done, it’s my top priority.

SLUSAF Central Treasurer Alina Miska

As you have noticed this semester, the Sexual Violence Education Chair is no longer here. Where do you stand with that?


I am always in favor of people from other groups being here. I think Advocates is a great group, and they put on great events. Anything that the Senate wants to propose should be seen and heard. I do think that if this is a forum for students, then we should not be cutting chairs. We should be adding them.


I will be honest. I do not have much background with the Sexual Violence Education Chair position. I know they have a lot of great events like Alex said, and I think it would be a great idea if someone was interested in being that Chair

and wanted to bring it back. I think Chair positions are important because they are about issues that come up and people feel are important.

Senator Joudoin

I’m coming from an athletic perspective; I think there is a lack between athletes and Thelmo. Do you have any ideas or thoughts on how to build that relationship?

President Candidate Beth Kessenich

Being on the golf team, my team has always been supportive of Thelmo. I agree that we need to open up the relationship between athletes and Thelmo, because so many students are athletes. I think we need to have a better communication network with the student body and Thelmo in general. I want to work on advertising Thelmo more in the next semester. I want to work on that relationship.


I like this question because I have thought about athletics as important. I would welcome any athlete that wants to represent athletics as a whole, and intramurals. That is a great idea. One thing I will say that I do know is that the Board of Trustees cares highly about the reputation we have as a D1 and D3 institution. I learned from a tour guide that SLU has the 18th best athletic program in the country. That’s pretty cool.

As far as advertising goes, if I am going to be the Vice President of University Relations, I would do a radio show once a week. It would contain the goings on for Thelmo, and phenomenal music.


We will now move into closing remarks.


Thanks for coming tonight; I know it seems like a drag sometime, but Thelmo, despite a lot of criticism, does a lot. Pub 56 was a Thelmo idea. I think there are a bunch of great candidates here tonight, and I have no doubts about any of them. But what I said before hold true. The most important things about these positions are us doing what you guys want. I was hesitant to run because I wasn’t sure if I was excited about all the students coming to me and talking about what they wanted. In the past few weeks, I’ve talked to a lot of kids that want to get involved, and it’s been really fun. I can say that I will work as hard as I can in Thelmo to get you what you want.

We have obligations and a capacity to perform them. I think I can find solutions to these problems. So get out there and vote, and get your friends to vote. Make sure you understand that Thelmo has a bigger part on campus than they get credit for. Thanks.


Like Alex sad, thanks everyone for coming tonight. I just wanted to say that since I’ve been in Thelmo I’ve seen many student concerns and interests be addressed. It just proved to me that students are the most important thing at SLU. During my time as President, I would want to hear your concerns. I am very excited to work with whoever the next Executive Board will be. I know together we will all be a great team. If elected, I will be fully invested in my position. Please vote next week, and thank you for your time.


I really do appreciate the discourse we’ve had tonight and would like to thank our Elections Chair for all her hard work, and our Vice President of Senate Affairs, who has worked with her.

VI. Members’ Time

Student Delegate to the Board of Trustees Simon Lynch

Caroline still needs people to help her count ballots. Talk to her about this!

Amanda MoreauThe programming committee for Pub 56 has a subcommittee, the décor

committee. So I’ll give you an update on that. The theme of the décor is going to be SLU vintage and history, and an athletic kind of theme. We’re looking for the flowing items: a moose head (stuffed), a vintage canoe, vintage skis, snow shoes, hockey skates, and jerseys, a toboggan, and boat or canoe oars. If anyone has those, let me know! We would love if you could donate them. We’ll be using a lot of old photographs about SLU to tell a story of SLU’s past.


There is a dodgeball tourney this weekend, and the money will go to Literacy for Nepal. Also, it is wing night at the University Inn, so get some wings after the meeting!


I will be singing my little heart out again! There is a huge concert from the University Choir Friday night at 8, and Saturday at 3:30. Come to that!

Senator McKibben

ACE Special Events is putting on the second of four ski movies in the Winston Room soon.


The Mastachio Bashio is this Friday at 9:00. Mustaches and costumes are recommended.

Meeting adjourned at 8:14 PM.

Respectfully Submitted By:

Secretary Steffi Chappell

thelomathesian societyit.stlawu.edu/~thelmo/minutes/fall 09/november 11 2009.… · web...

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