Engineering
Gabriela Godlewski
Jeremiah Pratt
Michael Lange
Hannah Quirk (Brighton’s alt)
Alexa Jacob
Jack Batson
Ariana Freitag
Jenna Scot
Art
Austin Abistado
Andzelika Berestko
Ciana
Yumi
Architecture
Dylan DeWald
Chong Gu
Max (alt for Parker)
Taesha Aurora
Gabriella
Agenda:
41 Cooper Sq Flood/Closure
Campus Response/Memorial Service to Student Passing
Council on Shared Learning (CSL)
The Cooper Union Grant Program
Cross-Discipline Programs on Environmental Sustainability/Consciousness
NAB Closure
Frustrating experience, but nothing we can really change about the situation (ESC’s opinion)
Information was vague
Mike Essl told the art school about the status of the building before Laura sent out an email updating everyone
Art professors were not sympathetic to the situation, even when people’s work was trapped or damaged
Also additional work was assigned because “students had more time”
Profs want to make up for lost time and are testing students on material they didn’t teach and expected students to teach themselves
Dean Shoop encouraged providing makeup assignments and rescheduling class; this needs to be done in a way that gives students enough resources to succeed on such additional work
We could push for more information, more correspondence between students who were affected and those responsible for cleanup
Did B&G contact anybody back about the damage they suffered as promised? People say this did not happen.
Building is still really cold
Could we all have class in Foundation? No, not enough space.
B&G is supposed to help students fill out insurance claims, but they are insanely long and will take a while.
They need to be more transparent about big changes. Why is the staircase closed? When can we expect it to be open?
We can request a general timeline when repairs are gonna happen. When are shops and labs going to reopen?
Professors need to be aware of what spaces are available and take that into consideration. Some professors have done this very well already.
Could St. John’s house classes?
Engineering School Tours are still happening.
Campus Response and Memorial Service for Veronica Cho
The campus email was very stressful because it came in the morning before classes and prevented students from focusing and presenting/performing her art.
The email seemed dry and fake to some.
The format of a campus notice was troubling. If Laura wants to email the community about it, she should’ve used her personal email and not campus notice because it could get confused with run of the mill flood-related emails.
The Cooper Union instagram account did not acknowledge her death but did celebrate Peter Cooper’s birthday. They also did not need to lay out a spread of cupcakes in celebration given that Veronica had just died.
Cooper is still not good at handling student death. The email they send at this point is generic and copy-pasted from other mental health related emails.
Veronica’s HSS professor did handle the situation well, had a counselor available for those who wanted to step out of class.
Why are kids committing suicide each year?
We cannot put the burden of mental health on one school therapist (Cassandra); we all need to take responsibility and be there for each other
It’s hard for people to seek out help on their own
People don’t feel like there’s a sense of community here.
We need to tell administration to bring us together or just do it ourselves.
Admin is worried organizing around mental health issues will trigger people and won’t let students do it.
Art professors are complacent and not compassionate
A school of art professors said students have a toxic “Give me” culture and that can be valid
More people are struggling than we think, how do we get people to see that?
Admin should collect responses from people about how they’re handling this and what would be helpful for students to cope and honor Veronica.
Cassandra’s office handles mental health orientation poorly; activities like dogs and yoga aren’t sufficient
She may not know what we need but it’s also not our responsibility to tell someone how to do her job
Could we get outside people to come here and analyze Cooper and understand what mental health is like here specifically?
Res Hall does a good job of building community
Using the Bean as a 24 hr social space isn’t gonna happen; we might be able to use the first floor of NAB instead
Action items:
Discussing with Chris Chamberlin and Laura about creating a more comprehensive mental health plan that could involve an outside consultant
Bringing back Common Ground--activity to show off other students’ spaces
Push for student space, like the Bean or first floor NAB
Get in touch with people who were close to V (Veronica) and figure out how to come together to honor her
Also see if her friends think its a good idea to collect responses on how the admin handled this
Council on Shared Learning
2 people from school of Art have submitted their names to be on it. (3rd one pending)
People in Art are tired of “death by committee” phenomenon where the admin just keeps making groups to handle situations that don’t live up to their promises
If there’s not enough students who want to do it, are we gonna do it?
Arch has 5 names and the council has to decide how to narrow it down
Can Arch take the empty spots? Better to keep it open for future students
CSL will advise Pres on curricula and educational policy and pedagogy
CSL will also figure out its purpose when it forms
Start by analyzing the current state of affairs
To not have Deans on CSL is a disconnect
Wait until council meets for the first time and see how it goes, form any action around that
Compensation would be helpful for the students--getting one or two credits for participating
Cooper Union Grant Program
Roughly $100,000 available
Half for community dev and half for curriculum dev
Laura is talking to the Union about what the review board can look like for this, they want students to be involved
Very open to grant ideas
Deadline is March 1st, know by March 31st
Small application, 3 questions for 250 words
Laura wants this to be an annual grant cycle
Cross-Disciplinary Programs on Environmental Sustainability/Consciousness
Art school wants a full time faculty member whose expertise is in this area
Cooper Union sustainability club is coming soon and applying for the grant
Prof. Amanda Simson is focused on sustainability
School of Art still has zero sustainability education in their curriculum, not even in science classes
Art students were told to latch on to engineering sustainability initiatives
No recycling program in this school or composting; a third party sorts trash for us
We’re LEED certified even though we don’t satisfy those requirements (i.e. rooftop garden barely serves its function)
Curriculum Committee
Art Curr Comm is out of session this semester b/c there are only 3 full time faculty on site so there’s no quorum
Dwight McBride Trustee Orientation
He’s provost at Emory, prof. of Black and Queer studies, very impressive resume
Ad chairs met with him on Friday and they were very happy with him, he seems like a wonderful person.
He’s the only admin that’s ever said we should have a free education model and not just free tuition model (so covering other costs than just free tuition)
Very receptive to mental health issues
It’s great to have someone of his background on the board--diversity and mental health need to be campus wide conversations
Follow up
Bring Common Ground concept back to schools’ councils and Chris Chamberlin
Ad chairs will talk to Chris about mental health response
Art school students will handle how to honor V (Austin)
Attendance
Gabriela Godlewski (CE'19)
Ariana Freitag (EE'20)
Jack Batson (ChE'21)
Michael Lange (ChE'20)
Jenna Scott (CE'21)
Sanjna Rao (ChE)
Alexander Cho (CE)
Daniel Kim (EE)
Jinwook Lee (ME)
e Harper Clees-Baron (BSE)
Brighton Huynh (CE)
Omar Thenmalai (EE) absent
Harris Paspuleti (ME)
Emily Frank (BSE) (absent)
Peter Zhao (ChE)
Sanjeev Menon (CE)
Yingzhi Hao (EE)
Olivia Park (ME) late
Carena Toy (BSE)
Christina Byers (ChE)
Kirsten Ondris (CE) absent
Jacob Maarek (ME)
George Ho (BSE)
Dilara Seyman (ME) (absent)
Agenda:
Flood
Committee Updates
Effectiveness
Flooding
Petitioning NY State dept to have our semester only be 14 weeks, shouldn’t be a problem
Students were upset that they got generic responses to their emails, replies to emails about maintenance only had a link to the maintenance reporting form
B&G hasn’t finished tallying all the damage
There’s no timeline for things that impact student life, like the grand staircase being closed, so having information about when we can expect major things to be fixed would be really helpful
Committee Update
Faculty Auction
Will have signup sheet up by next meeting
JAC
Appeals is tomorrow (doodle poll is full now)
Come at 1:45 for appeals if you haven’t signed up
Club officers should have gotten emails for why their budget applications were insufficient, but these were not sent out
Effectiveness
We could be more effective and efficient, need to talk about how:
Starting meetings with more preparation would help
Post agenda 24 hrs in advance
Last meeting didn’t know what the agenda point was and had to spend time figuring it out
Also need notice of JSC meetings 24 hrs in advance
Clarify structure of leadership
Divide up who is responsible for what among the ad chairs
Ad chairs could take on different projects--supervising midnight breakfast, book fair, faculty auction
One ad chair could manage events, one committees, one meetings
Why do we have the current structure we do?
Succession of leadership roles
Need to codify how we facilitate takeover of leadership position
Need to specify what each leader does and that they need to show up to meetings
Ex: Is a new treasurer voted in? Is acting treasurer just assuming the old one’s responsibilities?
Batson only found out he was filling those shoes a day before a meeting, and only b/c he asked twice
Attendance
We need to be more aware of how to deal with absence and with leadership missing meetings
Encourage speaking outside of the meetings so we could just come in for a vote (Robert’s rules-esque?)
We never choose alternative modes of communication aside from facebook
We voted in the ad chairs, so they should have the power to choose what medium we use to communicate outside of meetings
Outsiders either thought we were inefficient or didn’t know what we did.
Moderation
Use all ad chairs! It seems like one keeps a stack and the other two just speak; need all three to be active and not passive
Time moderation is haphazard
We miss the circles for discussion!
Require reps to attend ArchSC or ASC meetings; if we want to create interdisciplinary opportunities we need to visit them
Institute mid semester review--would prevent conversations like this in the future
Do people think that passing fewer resolutions is objectively a bad thing?
Passing no resolutions is a useless thing
What is our main function? To host student events or pass resolutions to bolster administrative accountability?
Best thing we could do is pass more resolutions to try to improve ESC
The council feels apathetic and the ad chairs cannot speak for the whole school by setting the agenda and proposing resolutions
ESC members are on committees where we participate and we use open floor time to participate
Brian resigned b/c he felt like he couldn’t participate in ESC for health reasons, and we only passed 3 resolutions, and it wasn’t worth his time to sacrifice his health because ESC wasn’t doing much
We discuss things but never reach a conclusion on them, and then don’t have deliverables to tell the student body
Some people also disregard dissenting viewpoints or deliberately tune out when people who disagree with them talk
Last year, debates went over time and our current ad chairs did a great job of correcting that
Maybe we need to relax the time management and let arguments run a bit longer
Tension from discussion can create passion and change people’s minds
Wants a problem ESC could solve right now?
One person said nothing
Another said trustee voting process
Let’s not attack each other
Self reflection is more difficult than asking reflection of others
Are there frustrations in the student body that aren’t being addressed in ESC? If we had more rep participation would more complaints make it to the agenda and make the council more effective?
“The council need not meet” is a valid, applicable phrase for this year
There’s less going on that requires action. That’s the way it’s been this semester.
Proposed: sitting constitutional review committee
Members of ESC come with one or two specific things that they wanted to change in this school. It doesn’t have to be a school wide problem to solve. Try to tap into what specific problems you’re passionate about.
Judging the effectiveness of our proactivity is not as good as judging our reactivity. We can be more reactive to events, like the flood or the midnight breakfast, and only plan meetings based around those.
Some say there’s actually a ton of issues with this school, but some of them are personal and can’t be dealt with well in the setting of ESC or they wouldn’t be listened to in ESC
We can’t represent the whole student body, so we need to reevaluate how we handle matters of the body
We need to encourage people to bring small things forward and stop shutting people down; people feel like they’re heard but nothing is done about it
Some say that we actually do a good job of NOT shutting people down
Anyone opposed to constitutional review group? No.
Could get a task force together to figure out how to improve ESC
This is literally what reps are supposed to do, we don’t need more bureaucracy surrounding this.
If reps adding agenda points is preferable to open floor, why do we have open floor?
Reach out to your sections more before meetings!
Post agendas a few days or a week in advance with descriptions of each agenda point so that we can talk to our sections about the current issues
Open call each week for agenda points on Facebook
Reform the stack--eliminate crosstalk and add time limits?
JSC has this discussion every time we meet, why does it exist?
Laura is open to hearing directly from students, so when people hear BS directly from the top, no one wants to go through bureaucracy to hear the same BS!
Council isn’t geared to solving things on a days to week long timescale
Action items:
Volunteers for constitution review: brighton, jack, harper, jenna, jinwook
ESC weekend retreat for self review and gain perspective after some time off.
Bring back circle as long as we have a group effort to reset room
Ad chairs need to meet just the three of them more consistently.
Have more detailed orientation meeting, clarify what we do
Have open agenda calls
Mid semester Review
Open Floor
JAC wants to amend its purpose away from just providing food and it will be discussed JSC
Diversity Task Force Report was not seen by almost everyone, despite it being released right before break. The ESC should review this document.
Laura has a set group of people that help run Cooper with her, some of them high profile, what do they do? We need a map outlining who does what in the admin, especially those who aren’t student facing.
Help elucidate who is making decisions from top down
For example, all of HR was fired and Natalie was hired as a consultant and a team formed around her. Sanjeev emailed Natalie about a faculty handbook four times and got no response
Should the admin build this “map” or “tree” for us? (They probably won’t do it). Resolution proposed to harass admin for this.
Toni does a ton in her current role, but she’s one example of a position that people don’t know exists or don’t understand
There were therapists that did talk to engineering profs after a previous student death.
attendance!
Jeremiah Pratt (EE'19) (absent)
Gabriela Godlewski (CE'19) (absent)
Ariana Freitag (EE'20)
Dilara Seyman (ME'20) (medical leave)
Jack Batson (ChE'21)
Michael Lange (ChE'20)
Jenna Scott (CE'21)
Sanjna Rao (ChE)
Alexander Cho (CE)
Daniel Kim (EE)
Jinwook Lee (ME)
e Harper Clees-Baron (BSE)
Brighton Huynh (CE)
Omar Thenmalai (EE) (absent)
Harris Paspuleti (ME)
Emily Frank (BSE) (absent)
Peter Zhao (ChE)
Sanjeev Menon (CE)
Yingzhi Hao (EE) (late)
Olivia Park (ME)
Carena Toy (BSE)
Christina Byers (ChE)
Kirsten Ondris (CE)
Jacob Maarek (ME)
George Ho (BSE)
agenda!
-CSL voting on Tuesday, process (everybody better show up!!!)
-Starting to think abt Student Trustee process
-How do administrators pick people for exclusive meetings and committees?
-committee updates
-open floor
notes!
csl
voting is tmrw!!! rm 104!!! club hours!!!!
everyone nominated has a 60 second speech
votes of confidence
will end around 1 for meet the dean ;)
in total 11 nominees
each year fairly well represented
student trustee process
two students with full voting privileges on board of trustees
once a student wins the election, their school cannot run the following semester
how do administrators pick people for exclusive meetings and committees?
this agenda point was added by someone who isn’t currently here, and did not provide elaboration.
seniors and student leaders have been asked to form advisory committee for dean??
external advisory transition team meeting
certain people were invited
included heads of swe, heads of esc, and paulo serodio
related to abet accreditation, possibly?
adchairs are meeting new trustee
dwight mcbride
wondering how he got to cooper?
committee updates
jac
met :)
deadline is wednesday
supposed to send out an email with better info
adchairs will ask david robbins for an official thing
carena will put up some bullet points, will also look over submissions if you want
submit by events
new banker is aidan smolar
new website?
not hopeful :(
looking into storage for clubs
now meeting twice a month
entire committee will review receipts and reimbursements
may be able to shift money between events if you hit them up in time
admissions
february 12th
hss curriculum meeting
meeting next week
budget
spring event -- probably casino night
$150
yes
midnight breakfast
$350
yes
new grill for midnight breakfast + surge protector
$40
yes
whiteboards
$547.73
yes
water bottle filling stations
$2138.31
9 -5 - 4
passes
concerns
⅔ budget relies on b&g
toaster oven?
open floor
are they charging tuition for summer classes?
unknown?
heard from a source within dean’s office
part of FEC -- bullpen maybe?
would DEFO like more info about /credit or /semester
merch?
have budget committee develop a plan
computer science minor?
next curriculum committee meeting is in february
Attendance
Gabriela Godlewski (CE'19)
Ariana Freitag (EE'20)
Jack Batson (ChE'21)
Michael Lange (ChE'20)
Jenna Scott (CE'21)
Sanjna Rao (ChE)
Alexander Cho (CE) absent
Daniel Kim (EE)
Jinwook Lee (ME)
e Harper Clees-Baron (BSE)
Brighton Huynh (CE)
Omar Thenmalai (EE)
Harris Paspuleti (ME)
Emily Frank (BSE) (absent)
Peter Zhao (ChE)
Sanjeev Menon (CE)
Yingzhi Hao (EE)
Olivia Park (ME)
Carena Toy (BSE)
Christina Byers (ChE)
Kirsten Ondris (CE)
Brian Frost-LaPlante (EE) (resigned)
Jacob Maarek (ME)
George Ho (BSE)
Dilara Seyman (ME) (absent)
Book Fair
Process: bf.esc.cooper.edu and login w/ Cooper email and password
Deposit tab to add seller and book being sold
Seller’s contract if first time selling
Place stock ID and price on a sticky note in the inside cover of the book
Cart tab to sell--check paid after money is exchanged
When someone collects their money they have to collect all their unsold books at the same time
Price Change tab to change price
Can also set up text notifications, hold on books for 30 min
Old ESC Stock has high prices so books aren’t selling, will set low prices for these books ($5 for HSS books for ex) to offload stock
Make sure to charge people based on the price listed on the website, not the sticky notes
Make sure price isn’t too low so we undercut the student body
Can get rid of PChem books since so course uses these now
Lot’s of textbooks were left behind from the locker cleanout last semester and they’re just sitting in B&G, can we sell them? (The books are untagged so it’s tough to return them to their original orders)
If we sold them, can the money go to something specifically student oriented? Like whiteboards by the new couches?
Not all of these books are textbooks, can book fair volunteers organize these into relevant books and irrelevant books during their downtime to sell?
Could we just pass the books on to the library?
Let’s reach out to B&G about all these ideas and see what they say.
Council on Shared Learning Update
Need nominations (including self-noms) to sit on the council (3 eng reps)
Little information on this council, this is unfair to students. Need to poke Chris and Laura for concrete information
Faculty likely already selected
We get to decide how to select the reps from the noms
Debate is helpful to hear their ideas; have candidates submit a statement
If we have candidates write a statement, Laura and Chris should come up with a question for them to answer to ensure the statement is relevance.
Voting process similar to trustee? Turnout could be too low for that
Could set a voting time where candidates present and anyone who wants to show up, ESC or not, can cast a vote
That being said, what about a voting table with paper ballots?
If ESC reps just vote, it becomes too similar to an ESC committee and it might not reflect the variety of ideas students could bring
Have candidates come talk to ESC?
Have candidates present during club hours and have students vote in person?
People may have too many conflicts to come during club hours
Close noms by next meeting
Honor code style: have reps ask sections what they think, and represent their sections opinion
Feels too vague to proceed with election process, ask admin for more info
How would more information help the election process? Would it?
If nominees had more information on what they were getting into, the process will be more genuine
People can still withdraw nominees, so we can decide a process and pass along more info from admin and proceed with our process
Do ad chairs ask admin for more info and clarification? 17-2-0 YES
Do we proceed with given timeline (results at end of next meeting)? 12-0-4 YES
What election procedure? 1) Just ESC Votes 2) Everyone who can show up to a room at a date and time votes 3) Ranked Popular Vote open to the public
5 votes for option 1, 9 votes for option 2, 3 votes for option 3
Run off b/w opt 1 and 2
9 votes for opt 2; 8 votes for opt 1
OPTION 2 WINS
Will have voting meeting Jan 29th during Club Hours
Committee Updates
Informal HSS Curr change for HSS3
Adjuncts would teach for 3 hours, get more small class time and not big lecture
IDS style
Admissions is meeting Feb 5th or 12th
Floyd said anything about B&G? No, but Jenna wants to be on it!
Open Floor
People can’t access lockers b/c it’s covered by construction stuff
Petition to bring finals week back with a reading week
Can she leave it at book fair? Does ESC wanna back it?
ESC can consider voting on it after it has signatures
Brian Frost resigned from rep status and sat on curriculum committee, new candidates must submit a simple majority petition to take the position,
Jacob Maarek and Sanjeev will serve on curriculum committee
Attendance
Gabriela Godlewski (CE'19)
Ariana Freitag (EE'20)
Jack Batson (ChE'21)
Michael Lange (ChE'20)
Jenna Scott (CE'21)
Sanjna Rao (ChE) (absent)
Alexander Cho (CE)
Daniel Kim (EE)
Jinwook Lee (ME)
e Harper Clees-Baron (BSE)
Brighton Huynh (CE)
Omar Thenmalai (EE)
Harris Paspuleti (ME)
Emily Frank (BSE) (absent)
Peter Zhao (ChE)
Sanjeev Menon (CE)
Yingzhi Hao (EE)
Olivia Park (ME)
Carena Toy (BSE)
Christina Byers (ChE)
Kirsten Ondris (CE)
Brian Frost-LaPlante (EE) (absent)
Jacob Maarek (ME)
George Ho (BSE)
Dilara Seyman (ME) (medical leave)
Agenda
1. Exam Archive
a. Dean Stock said to professors that students hold on to old exams
b. Should the Dean’s Office make a public archive to level the playing field? Should ESC take a position on this?
c. If professors don’t agree to this/think it is cheating openly, then we are contradicting our previous stance on cheating
d. It’s a great idea because the discrepancy between access to old exams is highly dependent on your social circle and that is unfair
i. Everyone has access to the CivE drive that shares old exams, so that is leveling the playing field
e. Would this be required of every class? The teachers that wouldn’t want students to have old exams are the ones that this would be the most hurtful for.
f. Seems very murky, can we get more info on what precisely we would be backing before taking a stance?
g. It is beneficial if professors can opt in/out of it, so if there are old exams that are already floating around, we can open up access to those exams
h. Even though this doesn’t get rid of the whole problem of certain students having access to exams, it will reduce the number of instances where this happens (there will always be professors who will not want to participate in this)
i. We could ask if the Dean has the power to mandate this from every professor
i. Continue discussion in the spring
2. Collective Council on Shared Learning
a. 9 Faculty, 3 students from each school, Kit Nicholls and Chris Chamberlin
b. They want student council to run selection process for this council
c. Each council would hold their own election
d. Unclear what position will be
e. Faculty are doing open nomination from other faculty and students, then they will choose from those nominated
f. Two deliverables: Interim report coming at end of spring 2019, final report coming at end of fall 2019
g. Co-chairs have not been chosen
h. Meet about once a month
i. Q&A form for people to nominate themselves? Require one rep from each year for age diversity?
j. Can we do an info session with admin so that students can get information and garner interest?
i. There’s no more info available than what was sent out in email
k. Will Laura incentive this? Faculty will need to be incentivized because of union rule, students might get credit or get paid
i. There could be students who go after this just because of the incentive
l. What about a debate for the candidates? That way we could see what ideas they have for shared learning. Also, we could have people vote at the debate.
m. Proposal: Open call at beginning of Spring, have people nominate/self-nominate, have ESC vote
n. What if put out open call for noms now and see how many we get? Then we can decide how to vote. **IT has been agreed we will do this**
3. Committee Updates
a. HSS Committee
i. New Committee: 3 Faculty and 1 student from each school
ii. ESC in charge of getting 1 student from each school
iii. Came from Curriculum meeting, want students to help revamp curriculum
iv. This three-committee model (Curriculum, Faculty, now new Curriculum) is inefficient, but structure of this committee is unclear and revamping the model would be helpful
b. Fun Committee
i. Midnight breakfast was great!
4. Open Floor
a. A professor was manipulative via email to students, the Dean has anonymized set of these emails
i. Professors should not play games with students
ii. The Dean was made aware of these complaints and we’ll see what happens
b. Meet the new Dean at Phebe’s tomorrow night at 6!
c. Buildings and grounds sent a demo team to knock down the Admissions office and remodel it without telling the admissions office
d. Students want a final week back; Toni and Laura are working on it with the Dean
i. They are also working on a reading week
ii. Carena said she’ll work on it herself with the students who want it if no one else will do anything
e. It’s really cold at night, and the night temperature schedule is different from the day schedule and allows the building to cool to save money. Also, thermostats don’t function properly.