Attendance

Brighton

Evan Bubniak

Jack Batson

Rebecca (Omar)

Emily

Carena Toy

Ariana Freitag

Ali Rahman

Dilara (Josh)

Sanjeev??

Michael Lange

Gabi G.
Jeremiah Pratt

Jacob Maarek

Brian Frost

Marianne (Jenna)

Anton??

Agenda:

Representative Elections

Self Study

Posting Committee Notes

Post-party Reflection

Committee Updates

Assistant Elections

Wots!

1. Rep Elections

1. All elections except freshman happen in the spring

2. Bulkmail tonight with nomination forms

3. Nominate by this Friday April 13th

4. Elections run for a week, next week

5. Jeremiah will send out election rules in bulkmail

2. Self Study

1. The Ad Chairs met last Thursday and propose that we send out a self study form to gather feedback about how we run ESC at the end of the semester

1. Every rep is supposed to give meaningful feedback

2. This would inform conversation for next semester

3. Communication about events needs to improve

4. Our conversations are very circular and we could make better use of our time. We need to create action items and actually return to them

5. Move from Facebook to Slack

6. Meeting times

7. Accountability--is there a better way than just commenting on a post to verify you’ve seen it?

1. Could fit into using Slack

8. Ban Laptops

1. It disengages people, can create circular discussion

9. What measures productivity? What does that mean for us?

1. We’re slow to produce responses--we discussed contact hours a lot but didn’t produce a resolution until a few weeks after the change

10. Elections

1. The new structure works well for board positions, but won’t work for committees

2. Can we create room for nomination on the spot for board positions?

3. Need to rethink committee elections

4. JSC elections were really long last year, so we could do a blurb-style election for this and not for smaller committees

1. Maybe we don’t need this to be so structured and we could decide reps before each meeting

11. Do we need this many committees?

1. Some stuff only happens once a year and just ends up being an action item, we don’t need a whole committee for this

12. Will provide food for everyone on the last meeting (usually Kosher Indian)

3. Committee Notes

1. This ties into moving off Facebook

2. Establish standard practice of posting committee notes so we have a history of what happens during meetings

3. Increase amount of knowledge available to council

4. Could do Google Group and not Slack

1. We all have gmails so it’s easy to get on board with

2. Or could do ESC Google Drive (is this already part of google groups tho?)

5. Hard copy notebook could work to, have it open to council members

6. Could make a Wiki

4. Post Party Reflection

1. Happened last Saturday

2. Some view it as successful

3. DJ wasn’t great until later in the night

4. Lack of communication surrounding planning

1. Should keep it internal because the original reason for having the party got totally twisted

5. We dropped the ball on this party halfway through, which is why the event changed in nature

1. We don’t have a right to pull funding after pledging it

6. Need to be more diplomatic about communicating with other groups

7. More ESC people should have shown up to support it, since it was partly our project

8. Would we want to do this again?

1. Yes, keep it internal or do JSC party. Draw on wisdom of Arch and Art

2. Or, let art and arch throw the parties and put money more into midnight breakfast and our usual successful events

9. People like the masks

5. Committee Updates

1. Dean Search Committee

1. One candidate last Tuesday, one last Friday

2. The candidate on Tuesday seemed average, did not get a sense of how he is as a person

1. Not as well spoken as expected, not necessarily related to the job

2. Can’t see him having an argument with faculty

3. Didn’t seem to understand contact hour cut problems

3. Friday candidate

1. Seemed pretty good, EE from West Point (he’s a Colonel)

2. Wants to engage with student government

3. LIkes engaging with students

4. Would want to continue teaching

5. Has experiencing managing faculty

6. His “why cooper” seemed off

1. He wants Cooper engineering to engage with local industry, get local industry donations and local jobs

2. Said “innovation” 25 times

7. Aside from that, he was an impressive candidate

8. Likes to break down titles of superiority to connect with students

9. When asked about diversity, he said if they are only looking for diversity they should not hire him

10. Search committee does like this candidate

4. Could have an acting Dean next semester if not a permanent Dean

1. BoT did not yet approve new governance of Search Committee, the chair of the Search committee becomes acting Dean under the new governance

1. The old governance says most senior member becomes acting Dean

2. HSS Curriculum committee can’t figure out how to make a meeting, and it’s Wed 12-2

1. Can anyone make it? It appears not

3. Middle States

1. Former Ad chairs met with Middle State Committee that is coming to accredit us

2. 6 ppl from all the schools were there

3. Casual conversation, gave them an appropriate level of criticism about the school

4. Asked Middle States to compile grievances in the report but not be harsh enough to fail Cooper

5. Complained about how the data services here are poor

4. Dean Meeting last week

1. Meeting on Thursday 5-6 about credit hour cut

2. Stock and Laura

3. A decision is not coming out of this, because a decision has been made

4. Room to ask questions

5. Curriculum Committee did not submit the motion against contact hour cuts to the Dean because it did not ask something specific of the administration, so the Dean did not issue a response

5. Math Candidate

1. The top candidate presented a few weeks ago and came back to visit today

2. She brought her family for a tour

6. Finals week

1. Stock sent an official request to Laura to get rid of finals week, since its still up in the air

7. Common hours

1. Potential for more common/club hours with the new contact hour cuts

8. Charging for overloading or summer courses

1. This happens every now and then, most if not all student oppose this

2. Stock heard this from other administrators

3. Other faculty have said that they heard wind from above about changes like contact hour cuts and charging for overloading

9. Contact Hour Cut

1. Litigation--the union can file a motion or a grievance

2. Could take to labor court (by filing a motion or grievance)

1. A stay has been threatened, meaning the situation is frozen until the court decides what to do

2. There’s no such thing as a “stay” in this case, so contact hour cuts will go through in the fall

3. In 8+ months this could get overturned

3. Each process can take 8-12 months

4. Administration says that a legal ruling would not change anything

5. Think about why the Campus Safety Director would send out a bulkmail regarding contact hour cut litigation

1. It appeared he sent it in his capacity as the Safety Director not as Chem Prof

2. Members of faculty seem pretty confident that legal action is happening

6. Math department did a similar action to the Chem dept; they published emails with the administration in the Pioneer

7. Faculty are trying to improve our education, this just takes a different form than what the Dean wants

1. They are not choosing to make do with what is being given to them, they are trying to fight to save the way things are

8. An Engineering prof said he is disappointed that students aren’t asking about the contact hour cut

10. Fun Comm

1. Midnight breakfast soon! WE NEED VOLUNTEERS since Gabi is now ad chair

6. Assistant Elections

1. Jenna is new asst secretary

2. Jack Batson is asst treasurer

7. WOTS

1. Lockers

1. Past students still have lockers that they don’t need

2. People have stuff stolen

2. Can change members on ESC website for your section (rep portal)

3. Email registrar about any problems, Brenda F. in Dean’s office can help you

4. Some opinions were added to the stack during conversation by the ad chairs, they should only interrupt for points of information

5. Kiersten sent out an email, its long, but please read it! The meat of it is: Admitted student day is on Sunday, Kiersten is making a zine to distribute at it

1. If you have thoughts or ideas or feelings to share with the incoming class, please submit to Kiersten so she can share it with them

2. “Disorientations”

3. Won’t be as politically charged, just an unfiltered representation of student experiences

4. Admissions needs volunteers for ASD

6. EE dept is having a student panel just for students, w/o faculty and admin. ChemE is doing this as well. Other depts should do this too if they aren’t already.

Attendance

Rebecca (Jenna is alt.)

Emily

Brighton

Evan

Carena Toy

Ali Rahman

Sanjeev

Dilara

Jeremiah Pratt

Michael L.

Jacob M.

Gabriela G.

Brian Frost

Toby Stein

Daniel Galperin

Anton Luz

Marianna (Matt. G is alt.)

Agenda:

1) Student trustee process

2) Contact hours info doc

3) Contact hours resolution

4) Committee updates

5) Executive board elections

1. Student Trustee Process

1. Encourage people to vote!

2. Dean Chamberlin sent out email with this information

3. Apr 4th interest session 9 am room 201A (ask trustee Q’s directly)

4. Nomination forms due Apr 13th

5. Monday Apr 16th student candidate forum, moderated by Pioneer LL101 9pm

1. May have to push off meeting

6. Voting starts on Apr 17th for 10 days

7. Friday Apr 27th voting closes and results go to BoT

8. It is an issue if not enough candidates run, the trustees could technically reject the outcome of the vote

9. Talk to your friends about the trustee position and events, encourage participation

2. Contact Hours Info Doc

1. Request from students for more information on the contact hour cut, compiled by ad chairs

2. Will be posted for ESC to review, then released to student body at large

3. Some feel that ad chairs guard information and aren’t completely transparent, so this document is their attempt to fix that (these people wanted to deal with the issue over writing, not in person, with Ad Chairs)

4. A sophomore EE thought that ESC made the contact hour cut--shows failure of ESC to disseminate information effectively

1. Anton sends out well organized emails after each meeting and makes announcements during breaks in class--be like Anton

5. Note to BSEs: David Chenkin will have a list of who is currently a BSE for the BSE reps to contact their section

6. Some think that misinformation is a fault of administration, not ESC, since they did not directly take ownership of this decision

7. Stock and Laura are meeting today, will have a meeting with students later in the week. Stock has been convinced to put down his position in writing.

1. This forum will probably happen next week, but this is definitely coming later than it should have

2. The planning of the forum hasn’t been inclusive either; how is the admin making sure that the max amount of students can attend?

3. Not clear if Laura will be there--and if she was what would she do there? (No harm in her being there)

4. Ad chairs are telling Dean Stock Thurs Apr 12th 5-6 club hours will work

8. Stock presented with the petition against the contact hour cut, has about 150 signatures

9. Brian emailed Laura, Stock and both their secretaries last Wed and did NOT get a response! No accountability on the administration’s end here, no communication

10. It is mainly Dean Stock’s responsibility, not directly Laura’s, but b/c Laura is the chief academic officer, she is technically involved

1. Laura did not have any role in making this decision, but she did meet with faculty and followed up with a generic email

11. It needs to be easier to meet with admin since they are actively ignoring student’s requests to meet

12. There is a systematic problem with getting a response from Laura or her office via email, many students are getting ignored (not even an automated message recognizing the email was received)

1. Can the Ad Chairs please share this concern with Laura

13. Ariana specifically calls upon Brian to write something to present at the forum that calls out the administration because he is very well spoken

14. Some are worried that they are perceived differently by Laura than others since they have been able to get a meeting with her

15. The new Dean could technically reverse this contact hour cut with the Curriculum Committee’s help

1. Why hasn’t the curriculum committee resolution been recognized?

2. Curriculum Comm can decide how many credits and hours a course is worth, so they could increase credit hours to effectively reverse the contact hour cut

16. How do we tell professors what is helpful to teach? (As in, how to make the most of the contact hour cuts by teaching certain courses?)

1. Some say we don’t have the right to tell professors our opinions on what they should teach

2. Some think we do

3. Maybe adjuncts can create new sections of electives so that the fundamentals can be taught by tenured “heavy-hitting” faculty

1. But then we lose out on tenured faculty teaching their specialty

4. We need to compromise and find a way to optimize our “heavy-hitting” faculty’s ability to teach fundamentals and electives

3. Contact Hour Resolution

1. Some people have mixed opinions on the contact hour cut, see benefits in it for some departments and damage done to others

2. In response to these opinions, some people think that having mixed opinions is problematic and gives the administration ammo to impose the cuts

3. Passes 16-0-2

4. How do disseminate? Everything! Facebook, JAC, posters, emails

4. Committee Updates

1. Dean search is meeting with a candidate next week and are collecting questions from all students! Please ask your sections for questions

2. Faculty Auction raised over $2600, in process of getting this donated

3. Party this Saturday night!

5. Elections

1. Gab Jeremiah are Ad chairs

2. Ariana is asst ad chair

3. Michael is secretary

4. Dilara is Treasurer

5. Assistant Treasurer and Assistant Secretary will be voted on next meeting

6. WOTS

1. Finals schedule as listed is still the finals schedule

2. Safety issue with steel bridge team supervision, they need time to practice but don’t have the supervision in lab necessary to do so when they want to

Attendance

Brighton

Emily (Jenna is alt)

Rebecca

Jack Batson

Evan

Jacob Maarek

Jeremiah Pratt

Gabriela G.

Brian Frost (Matt Grattan is alt)

Sanjeev Menon

Dilara S.

Carena Toy

Ali Rahman

Daniel Galperin

Marianne Tymocz

Anton Luz

Toby Stein

1. Faculty auction

2. Committee updates

3. Board FEC conversation

4. Alumni mentorship

5. Budget

6. Ad-chair voting (see comment)

7. Wots

1. Faculty Auction

1. Contact your professors this week! And follow up with professors

2. PUBLICIZE

3. Make view only share of book fair sheet

4. Money from faculty auction could be used to set up a project fund--support research projects and perhaps present student work

1. This a complex idea because students awarding other students money is complicated

2. Could be very powerful

5. ALL PROCEEDS ARE GOING TO COOPER LIBRARY

2. Budget

1. Slam Poetry $60

2. Extra party funding $500 (in addition to 1000)

3. Furniture footies instead of felt pads (more permanent) $2500

1. Neutral colors, size of golf balls

2. We can make this back in one semester (book fair, faculty auction)

3. Would people mess with these furniture footies?

1. Risky investment if people mess with it or they degrade

4. Need about 100 to demo a classroom, is a possibility

5. The tables won’t be made quiet, so the issue will persist even with silent chairs

1. Not a big issue since nobody moves tables during lectures

6. Feels a little juvenile to use tennis balls

7. We can use faculty auction funds to provide for the upkeep of this--use student money to improve student experience in the classroom

8. Keep extras around for replacement

9. If someone removes one tennis ball, the chair will be off balance and will not comfortable to sit in; will be distracting

10. Conclusion: will order sample pack for roughly $140 (25 chairs)

4. Every budget item passes

5. How much to spend on food for faculty auction: $150

6. Volunteers for faculty auction: Dan G. Jenna Brighton Marianne, Sanjeev Jacob Ali Gab Toby Evan Ariana

3. Committee Updates

1. Ariana is currently working to set up a group to evaluate the efficacy of JSC: looking at governance and constitution (contact Ariana freitag@cooper.edu)

1. More informal than Constitution review committee

2. Average student doesn’t know about JSC meetings and functions

2. HSS Curriculum

1. Approved number of courses to add to catalog; new courses will be voted on

2. Usually there is only 1 student from each school on the committee, so only Ariana will be involved down the line

3. HSS want to hold a course that teaches art students how to curate an exhibition

4. HSS minor was supposed to be discussed at Eng Curriculum committee, but it wasn’t yet because of the contact hour cut

1. Engineering curriculum committee generally opposes the minor, arguing that it is asking too much of students

3. Engineering Curriculum Comm

1. Approved multiple new courses

2. Faculty opposes contact hour cuts via a motion

1. Dept heads wanted more time to make these changes (specifically for math chemistry and physics)

3. Restructuring CS102

1. Fontaine wants a 2-3 credit hybrid plan

2. CS102-EID101 hybrid specialized to their own major

4. Alumni Committee

1. Website to connect everyone doesn’t exist yet

2. Paul Nikulin will continue brainstorming and will find someone to build the site

3. Hopefully done by end of semester

4. Arch and Eng are communicating with Paul, but not the art school (yet)

1. Art students might rather put effort into other school-related issues, but Kiersten will ask what artists are interested in

5. Party Committee

1. Half prom half party

2. No tickets

3. Masquerade

4. Brighton and Toby represent ESC

5. LL101 April 7th

6. Finals Committee update

1. We need to forward questions to guido and stock to finalize the previous resolution

4. Alumni Mentorship

1. Paul Nikelin and CUAA want to set up a laid back way for students to interface with alumni

2. If you are interested in hanging with an alumni, let Toby know

5. FEC Vote Conversation

1. Some feel like the Board did take student opinion into consideration

2. They will gradually decrease the graduate tuition starting in FY 2020

3. Board assessment will be on reputation, not on academic quality

1. Diversity task force and community planning collaborative addresses academic quality, anyone can get involved

4. These changes will ask us how can we improve our education

5. Mary is doing a project on quality of engineering education and is meeting with individuals this week

6. The Board and Admin want to make sure future communication occurs in a style that people are happy with

6. Ad Chair Voting Procedure

1. Will we have the opportunity to discuss candidates without them hearing? With them hearing?

1. We can do both a discussion w/o candidates and a discussion with

2. Having a discussion w/o candidates can cause an opinion to dominate that doesn’t reflect the whole council if a lot of people run and have to leave the room

2. Voting should definitely include everyone

3. Some believe that having candidates leave allows for people to slander them and deprives candidates the right to defend themselves; we should use our own judgement and not have other people’s biases affect our vote

1. We should be able to sit as adults and criticize each other respectfully, but some are worried that things would get too personal and this would compromise future relationships w/in the council

2. The council should have the space to air out concerns about a candidate, so we can have candidates step out of the room then come back in and have a chance to defend themselves

3. This could be an opportunity for us to learn how to crit, detach ourselves from the personal aspect of the election

1. Because it’s an election, people might focus more on the negatives than the positives that are touched upon in an artistic crit

2. A crit is designed to help people learn; a crit here would be to learn about a person but ultimately decide an election

3. Still unhealthy to talk about people when they are out of the room

4. What about having a discussion w/o candidates, then having one person phrase concerns as a constructive question to the candidates? Could dissipate tension

4. Some say we should give candidates the chance to speak in front of the council--we don’t know how much effort people put into their written proposals

5. Should written and oral blurb be optional?

1. Require people to submit a written blurb

2. Oral is optional

6. What does an ad chair do?

1. Facilitate discussion b/w admin and students and among students; set agenda for meeting--not a presidential role

7. Can’t know people as well as some other people might know them, so unsupervised discussion is necessary

8. Criticism could be constructive for candidates, especially those running for re-election

9. Candidates put forward a bio; sent out one week ahead of vote; 60 seconds of oral blurb optional; option to leave the room or not; someone can collect critical questions for you to rebut after you come back in the room

10. Please reach out to adchairs about what they do

Jack Batson

Rebecca

Evan Bubniak

Emily Frank

Brighton

Carena Toy

Ali Rahman

Sanjeev

Dilara Absent

Brian Frost

Jacob Maarek

Gabby G.

Michael Lange

Jeremiah Pratt (Ariana Freitag)

Dan Galperin (Matt Grattan)

Toby Stein

Anton Luz

Marianna

Agenda:

1) Budget

2) Committee updates

3) Finals week

4) Party

5) Faculty auction, chair silencing and other volunteering

6) wots

1. Party

1. Confirming date, location

2. Staffing needed, advertising

1. Need security, student volunteers, photographers perhaps

3. LL101 and Gelman Foyer for April 7th (Sat)

4. Large budget, office of student affairs

5. Masquerade theme!

2. Budget

1. Gabby made a budget breakdown on a spreadsheet for the Council

2. Charging for party tickets:

1. Doesn’t make sense to make students pay for this b/c we’re using student money already

2. Could set the tone and prevent people from just stealing food

1. All prior formals have been ticketed

3. Consensus in room that we should NOT charge for tickets

4. Money raised from ticket sales won’t necessarily go to ESC, could be donated back to Cooper. The idea is being proposed as a kind of insurance

5. Could ESC just forfeit profit from this and cut down the ticket price accordingly

6. Don’t want to diminish the work that people put into it

7. How much of an incentive is there for people to come if we ticket?

8. Money could discriminate against students on a tight budget

9. Charging for this event goes against what we voted for on this budget in 2017

10. Paying for this ticket could also prevent students from other schools from coming

11. What would this money be used for? Is it a fundraiser for the professional societies?

1. No, it isn’t, this event is already fully funded.  Selling tickets is purely for the vibe of selling tickets.

12. Enforce dress code instead of tickets!!

13. Planning Committee is made of students not represented normally in ESC, thus we should listen to their idea

14. Put it on the table to withdraw ESC support if the tickets are just an image, the event is funded well already without us

15. Just do RSVP instead of tickets

16. Can we sell masks instead of tickets?

17. Council should vote on whether to ticket event or not

18. The event as its currently structured seems to discourage Art and Arch from coming b/c it is ticketed and its sponsored by prof. Engineering clubs

19. This event is out of our control but we’re still giving money to it--we should have the party planning committee come to this meeting or vice versa?

1. Who is on this committee?

2. Gabby and Marianna are on it; it meets Monday nights at 8 pm. It’s only met twice. They’re not putting the professional societies names on the advertisement for the event

3. We lost control of how this money is being used when we pooled it

20. Pooling funding is a bad strategy for them: clubs designed their budget banking on the fact that ESC would support this

1. If we pull funding, we are crippling this event

2. Some would rather put more money into this to make it free than not

21. Do people want to throw our own party? A few members do want to do this.

22. We should see what our sections say

23. How do we plan this party successfully? We usually don’t throw parties as great as the other two schools

24. Why aren’t we doing this with the ASC and ArSC? B/c they plan their own party

25. Who would like to be more involved with Planning Committee?

1. Toby

2. Brighton

3. Carena

4. Emily

5. Evan

1. Toby will ask Jasmine for more info before we send more people

3. Committee Updates

1. Curriculum meeting tomorrow, MechE and CivE have poor representation tomorrow

2. HSS Committee Tomorrow

4. Finals Week

1. Make Up day is 6th day that professors can hold a final on.

2. Additional day added to calendar could have contractual conflicts, must go through Dean Lipton

3. Check current finals week schedule for conflicts

4. How do Professors fight over the 3 hour time slots?

1. Need to get feedback from faculty on feasibility (feedback from Fontaine already incorporated into proposal)

5. Do club hours actually run during finals week? Technically yes, but some professors run into that time.

6. Edits: Should be 102 and not 101 Astor Place

7. Anton will submit grammatical errors via Facebook

8. A student submitted a conflict but did not hear about any changes that were happening as a result.

9. Vote next week on this and budget proposal (including ticket sales)

5. Faculty Auction

1. Requests members to send schedule to Dilara

2. Help Gabby and budget committee put pads on chairs

1. Felt pads were stolen, Emily and Rebecca did volunteer

3. Very little volunteers have put time into this auction, doesn’t take a lot of time to do this

6. WOTS

1. Brighton will be an alternate for Brian Frost in Curriculum committee tomorrow

2. Microwave grievances: Can esc buy a new microwave for Frankies?

1. Marianna can get a free microwave

2. In EE lab the microwave is really gross, but that’s under their jurisdiction

3. Contact hour cut is not a curricular change; credit changes would be a curricular change

1. Forum for Freshmen Engineers to talk about contact hour cuts; freshmen reps have been talking to professors about their sentiment

2. Freshmen are completely in the dark about the effects of this contact hour cut and the reasons behind it

3. ESC never really disseminated information to their sections about the contact hour cut

4. And we’re giving the petition against the cuts over to Laura in a few days, could this be premature?

5. Two weeks ago, the council talked about writing up something regarding the potential outcomes, but we never realized anything past our discussion

6. Original vision for this discussion: Explain how this decision came to us, and how it’s going to affect them

7. Don’t introduce as political move, give facts about what will change and how profs feel (but remain anonymous)

8. Not a fight, but discussion, of For and Against arguments

9. Timeline: not sure, would like to do this on Friday

10. Outcome: to educate people

11. Outcome of petition: Originally to reverse cuts, now to gauge how strongly students feel about this and include students in the conversation about going forward

12. Professors don’t want this decision to be set in stone either, so maybe we can still fight this

4. MechE department has called in prospective admitted students a few weeks ago, and they had to do an assignment with candy to build things, and their admissions status was dependent upon their performance.

1. A very low percentage of these students got the prompt correct, other departments want to do this too (passing isn’t directly correlated with admissions)

2. Interview happened after prompt

3. Is it okay for students to see their competition to get into this school?

4. Something similar is done at Olin College

5. Was this only for local students? Mostly tri-state area students (how far was this then?)

5. Voting on faculty auction donations next time

6. Held off on sending the mental health letter until after inauguration, it was sent out saturday night

1. Professors are talking about it and responding to it

2. Universal consensus on this: professors taking such actions are unacceptable

3. Give Pioneer copy of letter

4. Some think it should be handled more specifically than broadly and the response to this (Laura Stock and Chris meeting over it) is too great for an issue that doesn’t need to be inflated

7. Give opinions on +/- to Jacob, Pioneer

Ariana

Gabby

Jacob

Brighton

Brian Frost

Toby

Joey (alternate for Jeremiah)

Brighton (alternate for Sanjeev)

Anton

Eva (alternate for Jake)

Kiersten

Kian

Austin Abistado

Evan

Dash

Zhenia

Taesha (alternate for Parker)

Tong Shu

1. Order of Events for Trustee Voting

1. 26th of March we start by having the BoT speak to students about position

2. Following week students gather signatures and submit candidacy form

3. Monday after that would have Pioneer forum

4. Following two weeks voting until April 27th, tally by April 29th

5. Final decision up to trustees

6. Could we get trustees in earlier? Or have a session beginning of March and one towards the end? This would be to increase turnout

1. In response: Would it actually increase turnout?

2. Could do one session with Mary and Julian and one with Rachel Warren + Trustees

3. Need to advertise better across all three schools

4. Inviting trustees twice would not be respectful of their time, dont want bad turnout both times

5. Our charge to advertise more

7. Two years ago we had way more candidates than last year, can this be attributed to an advertising difference?

1. Probably not

2. Recent trend that students are getting less involved in politics

3. Two years ago things were less settled, didn’t have Laura, so her presidency may have calmed the level of participation in politics

8. Low turnout to events recently is a reflection of people’s interest or that people dont know where to look when they want to seek out this info

1. If people don’t show up to events where input is desired, what does that say about our community?

2. We can bring back this conversation to our councils and classes

3. If ppl don’t show up they lose their say

9. Can students nominate other students for trustee?

1. Jess Marshall said before she graduated that the best person for the trustee job is someone who doesn’t want it

2. Someone can collect signatures on behalf of another person, but the nominee needs to sign the sheet and agree to run

3. This info is not in JSC constitution, isn’t written down

10. Anton will make poster for this

1. Ariana

2. AUstin

3. Brighton

4. Kiersten

5. Matt

6. Eva

7. Michael Lange

2. FEC Report

1. Community feedback session at 3 today

2. Different in format, Barry was displeased with previous format

3. More of a conversation and less of a presentation

4. Read materials beforehand

5. Detrimental to sell dorms or increase rent

1. Getting rid of dorms would be catastrophic, this is the place where people make friends

2. Works out to 17.5k per year

6. Masters program changes would be catastrophic

7. Increasing dorms two years before tuition decrease would burden students for two years

8. Mary will collect arguments about the FEC report and report to the board next Tuesday

1. Anton, Taesha, Ariana will help with this

9. Master’s Eng program scholarship decrease is also a problem,

1. Would hurt undergrad education b/c a small masters program wouldn't offer grad courses as electives to undergrads

2. In consent decree to not compromise quality of education, but this would

3. Scholarship is important to attract smart students and compete with other top graduate programs

10. Seems like the money is coming from students, just via a different revenue stream (not tuition)

11. EE dept can’t guarantee anyone a kind of money for incoming graduate students until middle of the summer (before they come in) and that’s going to prevent students from enrolling

1. Easier for them to go to a program where they know in advance what they are paying

2. Would be valuable to talk to engineering department heads and graduate program heads in architecture so that Mary can give hard facts to the trustees

3. Mary and Dan will talk it offline, find people to help gather this data

12. There are a lot of undergrads in grad courses, so they could still get offered even with less graduate enrollment

1. People have taken 400 level classes in math dept, which doesn’t award any degrees, so it's definitely possible that the electives could still run

2. Propose to clarify in report what the difference between graduate courses and elective courses are--which 400 level courses would be affected?

3. Ask profs how reduced grad enrollment would affect their classes

4. Also don’t necessarily know if this is going to affect enrollment, but its likely

1. Less Cooper undergrads will attend, but hopefully outside grads would come

5. Competing with the research resources of other schools

6. Most people come here because its cheaper, not for facilities. Cutting down the affordability is hurting our selling point

7. There’s a thesis and a nonthesis option, depends on your major which track you should choose

8. ChemE graduate spoke in favor of how intimate and helpful the current grad program is

9. Is it valuable to raise money from graduate program to provide greater access to undergrads?

10. Enrollment in masters is school dependent, and in EE program there have only been 2 students from outside Cooper in the past 10 years in the masters program

1. Should not sacrifice standards for graduate admission just to raise money

2. Some profs think Cooper is becoming a degree mill, this change would do that

3. But could we prevent the undergraduate program from becoming a degree mill by using the graduate program to make money?

11. We need to sell the point that students can get 4 or 5 year masters here, cuz current underclassmen don’t know this, and it could raise our enrollment

12. We should not distinguish between masters and undergrad b/c our graduates still represent Cooper Union out in the workplace

13. MBA vs Executive MBA

1. Networking vs. MBA paid for by company, done on weekends

2. Schools that offer both types of MBA are not taken as seriously b/c it looks like they are going after money

14. Part of Cooper edu is the overlap b/w masters and bachelors

15. Comments made by people at FEC feedback with low turnout are recorded

1. How do we feel about lack of communication about these sessions? And lack of distribution of the FEC report?

2. Feels like opinions are not wanted b/c there was only one email sent out

3. Robert Tan said its on the students to recruit more students to the FEC feedback session, not the admin’s responsibility

1. Contrast this with amount of advertising for inauguration! More emphasis on inauguration

4. Document feels sealed already, not sure how much we could actually change by expressing opinions

5. Why hasn’t everyone had a physical copy of this text?

16. Design of document is unwelcoming, charts and graphs did not represent information clearly

17. Most people haven’t read it and didn’t print it out. People are too busy with their own thing. Goes back to concept of decreasing participation in Cooper politics

1. Sending ten emails wouldn’t have increased turnout

18. If BoT don’t pass it, what happens next?

19. There are many layers of bureaucracy and sometimes decisions just come down that we can’t get rid of, people are disillusioned about governance here

20. A lot of students missed the email about the FEC feedback sessions

1. Can’t FEC/admin make facebook events where students would see this?

2. Print more books and leave stack at Frankies

3. People have told Laura to distribute more posters and printed materials about community events

4. Admin may not understand that they need to do more than send an email

21. Consider audience for FEC feedback vs inauguration: students vs public

1. Do we care more about the public opinion then?

22. Rachel Warren wanted to celebrate Laura, Warren found fundraisers for it. That’s why there was a lot of publicity for inauguration, to give Laura thanks.

1. Only one initial email about inauguration

2. All other events were ticketed and thus advertised more heavily per usual

3. When you take this into account, the advertising was the same for FEC and inauguration

23. Some are frustrated that the FEC report wasn’t discussed in JSC earlier than now

24. Trustees are humans trying to work with us for the same goal, we need to recognize this

25. Whose job is it to care? Is it someone else’s job to make you care?  Is the admins job to shove this down our throats?

1. People may be complacent b/c the admin is functioning well

2. Do you want every voice to be heard if people are forced?

3. We can disseminate info but not disseminate care

26. Ad chairs should talk to Laura about information dissemination at their next meeting

27. Some groups of students don’t care about politics in any way across the board (for example, senior EEs)

28. People in the art school care, they just miss information

29. Let’s resolve to figure out how to solve this

30. Art Student Council feels like they don’t have enough information to pass on to new students and it doesn’t carry the same weight

31. It’s unfair to say faculty and admin haven’t been disseminating information, they let people know and cancelled class for 2040 panel and inauguration

1. Most students took time to chill when classes weren’t cancelled

2. Students don’t have the self agency to come to FEC feedback/inauguration events

32. Ask questions on public forums (in person or on social media) more even if its scary

33. People need to know who to ask (ad chairs, who can point them to the right people that have the info you need)

34. The idea of having big TVs in the lobby advertising the day/week’s events has been brought up before, could be helpful to increase turnout

1. ESC discussed that this would be a waste of money, but making better use of poster space by taking down old posters would be effective

2. But if buildings and grounds/IT managed the TVs, we don’t have to pay or worry about it

35. If there are new thoughts on FEC send to Mary

3. CUAA and JSC mixer

1. Vic Sobel and Paul Nikelin and Kiersten Mercado want to host a mixer at the next CUAA meeting

2. Feb 27th at 6pm

3. Have a community roundup, talk about FEC report and history

4. It would be a potluck!! Bring food, drinks, whatever

5. Monday night Feb 26th prior to meeting we could all cook/bake together and hang out and make food for the 27th potluck

1. Taesha volunteers her kitchen

6. They usually have an alumni speaker at the CUAA event, but this would take the place of that

7. This meeting is in 101 41CS 6pm

8. Most people can show up

4. New Website

1. Chris Watkins proposes new website b/c JAC system sucks, we rely too heavily on having a skilled person like Chris or Nick Breeser (past banker) to do it

2. There’s a website service that acts like a dtss for clubs and is relatively inexpensive

3. 3 tiers of functionality, lowest is $6700/year, highest at $15000 per year

4. Useful move to centralize clubs and governance

5. URL must be accessible or people won’t go to it

6. JAC website back-end is trash, not retrofittable

7. Prof. Delagrammatikas is talking to Laura about reducing energy costs. He wants to get rid of the server on the 8th floor by switching over to Google classroom. This would let us get rid of moodle.

1. How much does Chris get paid? 15-20 dollars/hr, but we don't know how many hours he logs

8. Could also replace 25Live system, which is garbage, so we could actually save money by doing this

9. We have a history of having bad luck with switching systems

10. We shouldn’t have a system that depends on EEs to run institutional responsibilities, we need to beef up our IT dept

5. Commencement Speaker

1. If you have suggestions for it, give the recommendation to Dean Chamberlin

2. Student speaker is a competition, outside one is an invitation

3. Can also tell Chamberlin names of people you don’t want

4. Being a commencement speaker is rewarded with an honorary degree

6. Ombudsman Update

1. This is someone who resolves conflicts between faculty-faculty, faculty-student, student-student and is a neutral third party

2. Taking problems to the Dean isn’t fair b/c Deans are supposed to represent faculty

3. They are now tracking complaints and the resolution to those complaints

4. No progress on getting someone to work on the resolutions

5. Would it be a full time employee? Not clear

6. Applies to all 3 schools, hopefully someone who isn’t in any of the three schools could do it

7. Needs to be an academic officer (like Chris Chamberlin couldn’t fill this role)

8. Discussions on this haven’t moved passed getting Chamberlin to recognize the issue

9. Does the magnitude of complaints warrant a full time position or just upgrading a professor's role?

10. Could the ombudsman come from HSS? Well, your problem could be associated with an HSS prof, so no.

7. Diversity Task force questionnaire coming

1. VERY IMPORTANT TO FILL IT OUT

2. We MUST make an effort to get our peers to take the questionnaire seriously

8. WOTS

1. Arch curriculum also might change, make rooms for ID course

2. If anyone wants to speak to Arch committee about this, let Taesha know

3. No curriculum committee across all three schools, how can we plan an ID course w/o this?

1. Mike Essl says people from each committee should come together to do this

4. HSS Committee has a lot of red tape to get through b/c their courses have to approved by each school!

5. Can JSC ask the curriculum committees to meet across all three schools

6. If we can meet as students first and figure out what profs would be good to reach out to, we should do that

1. Taesha will spearhead this through Arch subcommittee

7. Eng Curriculum Committee would not want to make the ID course, they would just approve it (maybe)

8. How do we advertise what we do?

1. Instagram and Facebook page

2. Make Joint Student Councils instagram account where one person in each school owns it and posts through it

3. EVERYONE HAS TO DO WORD OF MOUTH