updates!!

Notices



Every Monday

6pm IISC meetings in Room 20 @ 741 Valencia. All students welcome.



Every Wednesday

1-3pm New College Community Pot-luck and Info-share in the Cultural Center



This Friday, October 26th

4-7pm School-wide Meeting (& Coffee). Information session with the Acting President.



November 14th (although possibly sooner)

WASC Visit. Expect to find WASC informants sitting in on classes, evaluating and interviewing. A complete audit of files and credit-awarding procedures will be conducted.



Interim Independent Student Council (IISC) Meeting Notes from 10.22.07


Present:

Clayton, Law School

Zak, Undergrad Wkday Humanities

Kirsten, Undergrad Wkday Humanities

Tony, Undergrad Wkday Humanities

Matt, Undergrad Wkday Humanities



*Last Monday those present decided that the IISC should hold meetings every Monday in this time of rapid changes and in response to the need to involve more students.



*New IISC posters were made by Matt, who works with the school’s letterpress. They look really great.



*We spent some time going over what’s been happening lately. Clayton gave us a update on the state of the law school. He said they had a meeting on Thursday. Teachers possibly still have not been paid. At least one class was cancelled. Molina reported that there is a struggle to submit financial aid documents on time. They are dealing with missing information and poor organization of files.



*We talked about the role of the student body in the midst of the struggle between WASC and the Administration. Kirsten voiced opinion that the student council should work to keep the school’s authenticity in the face of changes coming from the school’s need to meet WASC demands. Clayton agreed, stressing the importance of meeting WASC requirements. Zak conferred saying that we should support all efforts to satisfy WASC requirements, but not at the expense of the students, the school’s mission statement, the radical freedom of expression and exploration, nor the goals of social and institutional change.

Instead, we should all (students, faculty, staff, administration, board) work together to find solutions that both satisfy WASC demands but sustain the New College that brought us all here, the New College that is so vitally important in our age.



*This brought us to discussion about the need to voice positive feedback to WASC. “Why is New College essential?” might be a good conversation to have, and then report the findings to WASC.



*Also discussed was the need to garner support for the school from the students themselves. Zak commented on the general sense of apathy and disdain amongst students nowadays toward New College. There is little student faith/confidence in the institution at this point, a fact that could severely harm us during the upcoming WASC visit.



*Then, we talked about the need to communicate freely about all meetings that occur between students and administration and to communicate to more students about IISC meetings.

Proposal for Process of communications:

Report-back to Student Council listserv
Summarize for Communiqués to be handed out to students around campus
Send to Animal to post to the website www.newcollegestude ntcouncil. blogspot. com


*Outreach – Student Council should seek to provide information and communication about what we learn (about what’s going on at new college) to as many students as possible. We should also outreach about our organizing efforts and publicize more broadly about weekly meetings.

-flyers

-posters

-communiqués/ leaflets

-emails

-encourage program directors to take a more active role in communicating



*Then we talked about Board Meetings. Many feel that students and faculty need to be present at these meetings. Keeping us out until after the major, controversial decisions have already been made defeats the point of us being there. Proposed was a plan to again request admission to these meetings: two seats for faculty, two seats for students. As we’ve stated before, we will be content with merely advisory seats for now. If no response is awarded to this request, a plan to occupy the meeting was proposed.



*Finally, we talked about the need for understanding the plight of teachers. We could all be forming alliances with faculty, building strength through solidarity. Please invite your teachers to the meeting this Friday.



*Since many of you were not present at this meeting, we invite continued discussion of any of the points raised in these notes at the next meeting.

Tasks bottom-lined:

Zak- 1st communiqué from the IISC

Kirsten- finding out about upcoming board meetings

Clayton- researching policies about and seeking access to school’s financial statements

Each of us- spreading the word about this Friday’s meeting to fellow students and teachers

meeting tomorrow

MEETING AT 6pm in the art room

tomorrow, october 15th - all are welcome!