Macalester/Programming Summit 2003
from the Macalester Public Knowledge Base
This is an ¡Adelante! document from the 2003-2004 year.
cc: Brian wagner
In this meeting we talked about current headaches that haunt student orgs today such as programming and financing, and perspectives on what could be done about it, such as increased communication among chairs and closer cooperation with school academics. Long-range solutions such as demanding a more usable MCSG and FAC process that actually put trust in the orgs was also discussed. Finally, we drew a calendar of Spring 2004 events.
Minutes fro Programming summit Nov 23 (Su), 5:00-6:45pm. Kagin 003
Present: Anava, Anna (FIA), Isabelle Chan (ASA), Tara Stormoen, Jennifer Lui, Anita Doddi, Brian Wagner (Campus Programs), Jessie Buendía (PB), Andrew (Afrika!), Gretchen Solomon (Bridges), Sarah (E-funk), Michael Barnes, Christine (HFH, CSO), Matt Bosch (Reslife), Jessica Buendía, Yongho Kim (¡Adelante!)
Contents |
[edit] Introductions and statement of goals for today
[edit] What does it mean to celebrate a heritage month?
Brian: Please share what you think on this respect.
Anna: I see it on the one hand as a broad, consciousness raising stuff for the general populaion, and concrete events.
Gretchen: One important lesson from last semester's MIO event was that a big opening and closing events are important.
Tara: Could you talk more about the middle portion as well?
Gretchen: Also an active core of educated, "elite" that provides programming should be formed, and not expect the whole student body to help out in organizing.
Jessie: I think of HMs (Heritage Months) in the context of national celebration.
Gretchen: it is also something we do for ourselves - fun things!
Matt: it is a chance to show that you're an ally
Jessie: I think it is interesting.. because HMs as a concept mark an arbitrary boundary. We could make more collaborative work. Show diveristy within these already established boundaries.
Mike: HMs set a specific timeframe to highlight events. But there are HMs throughout the year. Its purpose is to bring attention during that specific time to the event.
Jessie: technically... last year there was miscommunications in programming, we should not organize at the same weekend.
Gretchen: MIO & adelante could have collaborated. Events are not mutually exclusive (there are ways of blending two events together)
Anna: we haven't made up the time periods [from within Macalester], so they may be hard to coordinate accordingly.
[edit] Responsibility
Brian: Who is responsible in organizing all these events?
Jessie: Cultural Orgs
Grecthen: individuals cannot bear indiv responsibility, because it goes against the idea of collaboration. not alone in this. Should strengthen ties with other schools.
Mike: a lot of orgs don't have a high sense of motivation for planning ahead and/or coordinating. And actually reaching out & collaborating can be daunting.
Gretchen: money giving should not be automatic. Event planning should be from ground up. Like when you go to PB, people assume you go there and get money.
Anna: That's what I heard
Brian: I'd like to let you know of resources. What other actores may coordinate? Karla and Anita. They would not do the planning per se, but may coordinate events, do PR, and let people know what's going on. And sometimes coordinating to do things together is hard work, like today's meeting for example.
Anna: programming could be articulated with curriculum, especially now that we have an AMS (American Studies) dept.
Jessie: Great idea, AMS and also WGS are putting effort into coordinating with preexisting student orgs. Often dept programming conflicts with org. programming. Profs should find orgs already doing the activities that they [profs] want to do.
Mike: in fact profs are often interested already. But on the one hand they do not have a set agenda of the things and on the other hand students do not come to the profs. more connections need to happen.
Matt: Why should students need incentives to come to events at all? Merely requiring attendance from a class is not a viable [long-term] option. More discussion needs to happen as to why students do not show up. like the MIO event, there was a core of students individually active, but not many people showed up.
Anna: By suggesting department cooperation, I meant taking off some burden from their shoulders.
[Tara and Gretchen said something while I ran out of paper and was pulling my notebook]
Mike: often schoolwork conflicts with programming. And sometimes it seems like it's either schoolwork or programming. Professors can aid the situation by simply saying in class "I believe in this program" and suggesting to students that programming actually blends into the learning experience [without necessarily having a mandatory attendance]
Gretchen: M.E. [Oops, I forgot what this acronym I wrote stands for]
Anna: Cultural orgs could do a better work of bridging together... but there are activities that already exist, and innovative work is often trampled in them. For example, I have a totally global vision of feminism, and would like to organize a panel discussion on sexual trafficking but we have to do the meal sharing activities.. and it gets us busy enough.
Gretchen: often social justice comes into play. STARSA (Students Against Rape and Sexual Assault), AI (Amnesty International) do work around those issues.
Mike: sometimes little steps can help a lot. Just having one person talk to PB, and talk to CSO, and to other pertinent departments can help sharing the workload.
Brian:
Jessie: for example because Latino HM was in September we had all these events happening and could not incorporate the first years.
Anita: even in the final stages, you should get personal connections to invite people. I often get people asking me "can you send this to ALL the cultural orgs", or "can you advertise this for the whole campus"? but often inviting friends you know can work best.
Sarah:
Matt: some other colleges don't stick to the calendar. APA is in May, right before summer, so some adjust it.
Brian: I really do appreciate you haven't pulled this word out, but something that haunts us is "burden". we want to share in the celebration. Othe rdepts would like to share responsibility, not to meddle with it, but to make it happen. For example, if programming just happened a semester ahead... and you relegated the details of a conference to Campus Programs.. then you have time to treat yourself, your members. Because at the beginning of the semester, everybody is talking about programming, programming, programming.. and people stop showing up. Part of having an organization is the personal relationship among members.
Mike: that should be incorporated into the budgeting process, because when FAc asks us what we did in the semester, it's only about what we did for the entire campus, but they don't ask us what we did for our own members.
Brian: Yes. A big part of the problem is lack of continuity in MCSG.. more specifically in FAC. Rules change every year, and people simply cannot program ahead because it's unpredictable. This semester I will be present in all the audit sessions and try to convey these things to the org people. Because honestly, every year there's at least 35,000 or 85,000 dollars that roll over the next year. The problem is not lack of resources, but a problem of distirbution.
Anita: when during the auditing session you are asked "how do you educate the campus", you may turn the question around, respectfully, to the ways in which you educated and supported your own constituents.
Anna: but planning a year ahead... that would be pretty much the chairs saying "okay, let's do this", and expecting members to follow. I wouldn't be attracted by that.
Brian: peple need to be more creative in programming. Because if you change this now, it will leave a precedent. Another problem of FAC is lack of change. Every semester, orgs need to scramble all their human resources to pull a budget together. Budget should be assigned, with flexibility. First there should be some trust, giving an amount for the org even if they don't have the details. If org sticks to its task, then for the next semester that org should be given accountability.
Mike: these kind of things, like "what do you do for your constituents?" and "what will you do the semester after the next one?" should go into the forms. Actually making the empty spaces for these things will make orgs think about it. Gretchen: yes actually, the current FAc form has all these pages for monthly oevents and meetings. adn you feel like you should fill the form up. One meeting, and one event per week. and then at the end there is this little section on "what would you like for your own org?"
Mike: we also need to share responsibility with FAC, because they're so overworked too.
Brian: so do we agree that responsibility shouldbe shared?
Matt: Brian, doesn't the FAC request you specific dates when submitting budget? You could use that info to coordinate overlaps.
Brian: yeah, so that we don't get what happened last thursday, with 13 events on the same day.
Gretchen:
Brian: actually some years ago Anita and me requested copies of the budget request forms of the FAc, so that we could get a sense of what it was like, beecause we were not involved in the process. That way we could assist orgs.
Gretchen: yes about planning, when I look up the ITKW for next smeester to see if we could incorporate a ITKW in our event, I see them all reserved but don't know if there's already an event going on for that date or whether it's a pre-reserved ITKW spot.
Anita: we change the reservation names once we confirm with an org for the ITKW.
Anna: one of the things we all want, I think, is less meetings, less committees, less bureaucracy. We should develop better relationship among chairs so that they feel comfortable visiting each other and talking to constituents of other orgs.
Mike: we should push ourselves to go to others if we feel a task is too big. It is a lot easier when you do down to earth contacts, like just visitiung some faculty or some dept coordinator.
[edit] Communications
Brian: now that brings us to our next issue: communications. in theory we shouldbe planning for february programming now. Because in a week or so, it's going to be finals week, then go home, then holidays, and you're back again scrambling to have events.
Yongho: now that you talk of it, because september is all hectic with elections and stuff, September should be considered "spring" administratively. That is, people from the former year carrying it out, because there is a vacuum with the lack of FAc and such.
Gretchen:
Anita: having early elections would make things smoother. If you have your next year officers by march, you can mentor them so that they practice with april programming and feel more confident about next year.
Andrew: Sara's job on Campus Programs.
Gretchen: for example, there was Hunger & homelessness week and also Lakota Harden lecture. Maybe I'm stretching this out, but we couold have combined it to have a talk about hunger and homelessness among native americans, for example
[I totally burned out after this. There was about 30 more minutes of talk on how to do programming more efficiently and cooperatively without overburdening individual students]
[edit] Plans - what do we do now
Jessie: now that we got here, we would like to actually plan stuff before you leave, because we may not meet again until spring.
Mike: before we do the calednar thing, who is a first year here? I think we hsould bring first years because they are future leaders, they will carry these kind of long term planning out.
[Everybody went out to the board to write down events per month. April was most crowded with 15+ events. February and March had about 8 events. Our events were: José Esteban Muñoz lecture cosponsored by Adelante, PB and U of M (in February), and Latino Week (april 25-May 1) along with Central America Conference. I added a ITKW during that week (April 27). I wrote Spanish Poetry, but they will be sponsored by different depts.. Spanish (Feb 10), History (March 25), Lealtad-Suzuki (April 15)
Yongho Kim
