Minutes from the DAC Senate Meeting

Question and answer session

Why is the VP of programming, not vote

Apart of the structure of that was agreed upon

Why do we need this ?

We have groups like "senate"

In what capacity can you do more than senate

Senators graduate and loose interest in what they do

Need something more consistent

Need some thing to be sustained

Senate deals with more with various projects

Not trying to do "more" with senate

Working more with senate to work on what ever will fall in the realm of diverslity on campus

Student groups cannot really sustain excitement for diversity on campus

Student groups doing other thing

For this racial profiling example, how would the DAC react?

Ther is no single committee that works specifically with diversity

People want to do something in the community, but don't know the resources

Can direct students to other resources on campus

About the relationships

Senate is more policy oriented, the DAC

Hard for senate because it is individually project based

Clarify, how is the DAC different than Connect 4?

• Take a look at the spare slide!
• Dac is more policy oriented than programming
• Dac is student union body, pres and treas. Training
• Helps with overprogramming
• C4 is events focus,a nd programming focused
• DAC is more policy recommendation oriented
• Connect 4 is still anew organization
• Project based with individual members

Opinion of Roundtable

• Very successful
• Talking about how to further relay our end ideas/mission
• Really helpful perspectives

Thoughts on how Diversity training is not  a programming body?

Dac members would go to another members event

We would Privide the training, not plan the "event" (that will be planned by the student group)

Jill Carneghi

1. Great thing- institutionalizes ideals of what
2. 2
3. Why restrict yourself to no budget?
1. Might need that one day
2. Put your money where your mouth is and where your
3. Look at the OTHER spare slide
4. If a budget is needed, we could appeal under the executive budget/appeal
5. Annual operating budget would be 0 for the
6. In theory: why not have a line item budget

Could Connect 4 be considered a subsidiary comitte?

-dac coprogramming with other individual groups

Senate Discussion

• Very well presented
• Having a body which is able to communicate wtievery body on campus
• Concerns
• Is there conflictt with DAC providing resources.  Isn't that a VP Programming job
• Is it more than an advising body
• Vp programming- is for coordinating non overprogramming
• Vp programming will advise in the overprogrammming sense
• Dac is ultimately trying to facilitate programming amongst student groups

• Just because this isnt a programming boad doesn’t mean that they cannot do anything
• Can work with student groups
• Putting on non-budgetary programms
• Who will continue monitoring the email address for racial profiling incidences
• Does this legislation reflect what is presented  in the legislation
• Encourage more programming by other student groups
• Collaboration
• That’s why it is in student union

Advertising to the ENTIRE Wash U community

Concerns:

Downside: add more complexity to SU's complex organizational structure

Don’t see what the DAC will be doing  on a week to week basis

A lot of overlap with other organizations

Are there other ways of creating these goals OUTSIDE of the DAC

Purpose slide freaked her out, reads like programming group; should focus mission statement on policy

Ammendment proposed-committee that will address issues and coprogramming

Vote of the ammendment: raising of placards:

See NEW legislation: ammendment has been made

DAC gives a positie vibe

Motion to vote now:7 for voting, opposed:

Vailed

Back in discussion

Why isn't VP Programming doing this?

Diversity in unclear

This is NOT just about PROGRAMMING

Dac is there for students who will want to start initiatives

More hesitant because it is so simiilar to connect 4

It should be better thought out and do more

Point of clarification

Senate can amend the legislation at any ppoint

There is a lot of oversight between the legislative bodies

How can we (international grad students) program with undergraduates?

Great to have an authority figure to go to

Programming takes a lot of energy

Not having that as a priority will allow that council to focus on reaching out to other graduate students

STL community wants to reach out to Washington University studsents

Will  be able to connect the STL entities, as well as Wash U community

Having a roll call vote on the vote to vote (confusing right)- failed

Actual vote to vote- 13 for, 10 opposed

Abstain 2

Failed

MOVE BACK TO DISCUSSION

Opinions  on dac making its own constitution

Not important to have weekly meetings

Interest in other groups

Cs 40 supports this and want too use this a s a resource (Pat)

Membership question: point of clarification: must have attended one previous meeting

Motion to ammend: change f.1- voting members present instead of entire voting membership (friendly ammendment)

Alex: Concern: too large to have a budget

Rather see the vp  programming appoint a diversity initiatives chair before establishing the DAC

Alof of change

Analogous to the green commitees

Takes time to have this organization to grow

Not hard to twak along the way

Should really pass this,and make sure it passes in tresury

We can tweak this and make this better

DAC is not a passive resource

Question: not enough for the DAC to do

e.g. WU/fused does constant things, even though there is nothing required for big programming each week

Is the dac active or passive?

Interesting point

Argument: fema: only really need for natural disaster and catastrophe, only needed when a catastrophe to happen

Important to have an established structure to step

Have to be planning and working with everyone

Point of clarification c.1-  cabinet can be defined by the constitution (size can change)

Senate was once apart of treasury, and it was brought up (would  senate have anything to do

Need is there!

Don't have a body

Need a figure head

Merits its own organization and inititiave

Vp of programming wouldn't relally focus on diversity and these needs ona daily basis

Helpful to have another group focused solely on this issue

Mike Saksvick

Paralysis by analysis

Need to stop talking about the braod stuff

Constitution wil l work out the details

Vote on the motion: legislation to create diversity affairs council:

Roll call vote 22:2:1

Non-voters: Alex Cooper and Pat Kelley

Treasury will be seeing this next week 

Call to Action Event

I received this email from my RA and friend who is the chairman for this event that will be hosted Friday, March 19^th at 6:30pm!

The Call to Action is a campus wide social justice based event that seeks to bring together Washington University students, faculty and community members to educate one another and spread the word about pressing issues of social justice.

There are two major components of this event and the first is a speaking competition in Graham Chapel for Washington University undergraduate students followed by a keynote speech from Bob Hansman! 

The students will be delivering speeches on various social justice topics of their choosing. The speeches will be judged by Risa Wrighton, Dr. Sharron Cannon and other notable faculty and community members. The winner of the competition will be granted the title “Orator of the Year” and will be granted in addition a $100 cash prize. I hope you will encourage your members to apply to compete in the speech competition or consider participating yourself! If you or any of your members are interested, I have attached the application to this e-mail, and they can send questions or applications to washucalltoaction@gmail.com and the sooner the better!

Here’s where Connect 4 comes in! 

A major component of the event will be a social justice fair that will take place in the Danforth University Center immediately after the speaking component of the event.  We are trying asking any groups interested in participating to choose any social justice issue, cause or charity that they find important and create a booth display to inform others about their issue, cause or charity and let them know how they too can get involved. This could mean creating a display board, handing out informative material, advertising upcoming events on campus relating to social justice etc. We encourage groups to be creative! If this sounds like something Connect 4 would be interested in, please respond to this e-mail and let us know and then we can tell you what the next steps are and how we can help you out!

You can also check out the event on Facebook!

(http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=287864635821&ref=mf)

I hope to see you there on March 19^th!

Thanks so much

An Opportunity to Collaborate with GlobeMed

Another cool opp that has come our way. We may discuss Thursday (pending results of tomorrow's legislation!) :D

My name is _____ and I am the current president of GlobeMed Wash U. A few years ago, the UN named February 20^th the “World Day of Social Justice”. In designating this day the World Day, the UN aimed to recognize the need to bring together the efforts of all members of the community in promoting access to social well-being and justice for all, no matter in what capacity. 

This year, GlobeMed Wash U is trying to bring World Day of Social Justice to the forefront of students’ minds here on campus. 

On Friday, February 19^th, we will host an on-going awareness event during the day and a slam/mixer event for all interested Social Action groups in the evening. The primary goal of these events will be to bring attention to World Social Justice Day on main campus. On Saturday, February 20^th, we will host a webinar, “Health and Social Justice” featuring Laura Turiano, a physician who currently serves on the global coordination group of People’s Health Movement (PHM) Right to Health and Health Care Campaign.

I wanted to invite Connect 4 to collaborate with us on this event. While GlobeMed primarily fights for global health equity, we recognize that health issues cannot be solved without solving many other social justice issues. This is a unique opportunity for various groups with different goals to band together and share our experiences with one another.

Please let me know if you would be interested in collaborating/participating. If you are interested, I will send more details and we can work together to make this an amazing event.

Thanks!

GlobeMed Wash U President

It Affects YOU

The DAC affects you.

It affects your student government.

It affects you student group. 

If passed in SU Senate and Treasury, the Diversity Affairs Council (DAC) will serve as a crucial landmark within the student body and greater WashU community. It will ground a larger, stronger, more concerted commitment to student diversity affairs on campus, and as a body within SU, it will provide 

centralized communication and coordination for involved student groups,
cohesive and streamlined training and workshops for leaders and individuals,
advocacy for the address and resolution of pertinent policy-based issues within the community,
... and a lot more.

The legislation for the implementation of the DAC within Student Union will occur tomorrow at 9pm in Simon 112. 

It is of crucial importance that a representative from your student group attends this meeting, for IT WILL INDEED AFFECT YOUR GROUP.

So come. Learn about the DAC. Voice your support. MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

For more info regarding the DAC, please visit http://connect4wu.blogspot.com/2010/01/regarding-diversity-affairs-on-campus.html

and view our video survey of students at WU http://thecatalysts.ning.com/video/what-does-it-mean

Thank you.

Leaders of Connect 4, WUFUSED, and Student Union

Student Survey about the State of "Diversity" on Campus

Last night we hosted a roundtable event called "The State of 'Diversity' at WU" in efforts to assess students' current perception of both the term and how the cause is played out on campus as well as promote/garner support for the upcoming Diversity Affairs Council legislation that we are striving to institute within our student government. For the event, we performed a video survey of students to garner different perspectives prior to the event. Below is the first video compilation of some of the feedback.




This video can also be viewed at http://thecatalysts.ning.com/video/connect-4-video-survey-01 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkVHg981S7c&feature=player_embedded

StudLife Article about Connect 4, Op-Ed by Fernando Cutz

View this article at http://www.studlife.com/forum/2010/02/05/connect-4-provides-support-for-diversity-initiatives/

In response to an incident of Anti-Semitism that had occurred against my freshman year roommate and in response to four other events of hate, discrimination and prejudice that had occurred on our campus in the span of a few months, I founded the Student Diversity Initiative early in the fall of 2007. We soon went on to merge with Campus Week of Dialogue, a group that had been around on our campus for over a decade, and collectively we became known as Connect 4.

Connect 4 proved to have a strong purpose and need at our school. As we like to say, we are the only “non-cultural, cultural group” around. Instead of celebrating one specific culture or heritage, we strive to celebrate them all. Instead of focusing on what divides us, we strive to focus on what brings us together. Our programming has been hugely successful on campus and has taught students to better embrace and celebrate diversity, dialogue, understanding and change within our community.

Recently, however, we have seen that programming alone is not enough. With the Mother’s Bar incident, the discussions of racial profiling on campus and the dialogue dealing with WU/FUSED and socio-economic diversity issues all having been prominent this past semester, we have come to realize that policy aspects are equally important to truly addressing issues of diversity and discrimination at Wash. U. The University administration, understandably, tends to work with Student Union, not specific student groups, on issues of policy that affect the student body. That is why I plan to strongly advocate for the creation of the Diversity Affairs Council (DAC) within Student Union.

Compared to our sister schools, Washington University’s student government is one of the very few that doesn’t have a diversity position within it. It is imperative that we change this. The DAC would be responsible for working with the many student groups and with SU to have policy-level input on all kinds of issues of diversity. It would advise both SU Execs and Senate and would use SU’s legitimacy and infrastructure to facilitate dialogue and co-programming between the many diversity groups on our campus and between the appropriate diversity-oriented members of the University administration.

Connect 4 will continue to exist as a student group and will continue with its mission. But the DAC is an essential addition to the structure of SU that will allow diversity to be furthered on our campus, and issues of hate, discrimination and prejudice to be dealt with more effectively in the future. I strongly support the formation of the DAC and encourage you to express your support for it at an upcoming Senate meeting as well!

Fernando Cutz
Senior Class President, Class of 2010

From the African Students Association...

Hey Connect 4,

           My name is Ifeoluwa Salako and I'm the president of African Students Association and I just wanted to inform Connect 4 about this week and ask if you could send out this information to your group so that we can encourage people to learn more about the people and cultures right in our own neighborhood!

The annual African Students’ Association Africa Week will be held during the final week of February, the 22nd-27th 2010 on the campus of Washington University. This year’s focus is on myths about identity, art and legends and how they affect Africans both in and out of the continent.

Starting Monday the 22nd, the week kicks off with a spoken word night in Ursa’s Café at 7pm. Titled, The Warmth of the Human Voice, this intimate event includes performances by University students on topics related to Africa.

Tuesday February 23rd transitions the week of celebration from a performance on the motherland to an open discussion concerning myths about Africa, with the theme Myths of Identity. The moderators foster discussions on misconceived notions about Africa concerning media, music and charity. The discussion begins at 6pm in room 234 of the Danforth University Center.

Wednesday February 24th is the night of feasting and films. We will be watching a film that exposes the musics of Africa coupled with a feaste showing the diverse types of foods from restaurants around the St. Louis area.

Mode d’ Afrique Legendaire is the theme for Thursday night’s fashion show. It begins at 7pm on the 25th in the Tisch Commons of the Danforth University Center and highlights the hottest fashions and jewelry straight from the continent.

Afriky Lolo’s performance, Sundiata: The King of Mali, caps off this amazing week. The acclaimed dancers perform in Edison Theater both Friday February 26th and Saturday the 27th evenings at 8 pm. Sundiata founded the powerful Malian empire in 1235AD, overcoming a physical handicap.

Washington University’s student tickets can be purchased for $10 while outside tickets are available for $25. These can be purchased in person from the Edison Theater Box Office or by phone at (314) 935-6543.
 

by His grace alone,     

               Ifeoluwa  Salako