Last Thursday SG held its last Presidential Discussion. Over the last two quarters, we had around 100 people RSVP and roughly 80 were invited to attend the discussion (we don’t count who shows up, so of that I’m not sure who actually attended). That’s a pretty good record.

A quick review:

• Last Winter’s Discussion was this year’s first, with nearly 80 students RSVPing for 25 spots. We selected people based on division, year, and interests to make it as diverse of group as possible. Maroon coverage here and a blog post with comments here.
• A couple of weeks earlier we had around 40 or so people RSVP. Everyone who had tried to attend an earlier meeting, or was a Graduate Student, was able to attend. Maroon article here.
• Last Thursday we had 27 people RSVP to attend and only 18 or so show up, making it the lowest attendance of the year. Nevertheless it was a really good discussion, see the Maroon article here.

It took a while but I think we’ve finally found President Zimmer’s venue. Last Thursday’s meeting was especially nice because fewer people meant more questions per person. The only thing I would change in the future is to have people come with more prepared comments versus questions. President Zimmer enjoys hearing from students and while some questions have obvious embedded comments (”What are you going to do about do about the large college class sizes in the Physical and Biological Sciences?” was one last week), direct comments are also really nice.

Ideally we will do one of these each quarter next year, but we’ll have to see what the President’s schedule allows. There’s been some concern about the RSVPing system, but I think that this works better than the old brown bag model for a couple of reasons.

First, when people RSVP they feel bad about skipping. In the previous system, where the President sat in the McCormick Tribune Lounge with some lunch, attendance was hard to predict. By having people RSVP, it helps guarantee that they’ll show.

Second, the RSVP system means that people show up prepared with questions. This makes the discussion much more productive and usually gets us through that awkward period where attendees are warming up to the President (it lasts roughly 40 minutes, in my experience).

Finally, it keeps the discussion productive. This is my own personal opinion, and many people on SG don’t agree with me. But above ~25 people, the discussion turns into a lecture, defeating the real goal of these meetings, for the President to hear from students. By limiting the number of people, we’re able to keep the discussion productive. I’m proud to say anyone who couldn’t attend an earlier discussion and tried to attend a later discussion were able to, so its not a function of suppressing anyone’s voice. And if last Thursday’s discussion was any indication, anyone who signs up in the future will be able to come.

This format doesn’t mean Senior Administrators will never face a large, angry crowd: the Provost took questions on Grad Aid in Max Palevsky Cinema last Winter. But that’s a different type of discussion with a different purpose, and I think its important not to confuse the two. I’m sure whenever there’s again cause to protest President Zimmer, there will be ample opportunities beyond outside of these Discussions.

Thoughts on the format or my rundown? Is there something we need to change for next time? Use your fingers and let us know.

-Scott

College Council Meeting
April 30th, 2008

I. SGFC Recommendations
A. ASU Appeal
1. $640 to subsidize a trip to Korean Town
2. Held similar events in winter and fall
3. There is more to it than food – 2 hours to explore neighborhood
4. The area is not feasibly accessible by public transportation
B. Questions
1. Why sponsored by SGFC rather than a group of friends going together?
-expense + cultural nature of event
2. Funded events can’t be RSO-exclusive – are you advertising?
-word of mouth, listhost, flyers possibly
-these events usually fill up before word can get out
3. Any programming designed other than going to the restaurant?
-no, but there will be 2 hours of time to explore
4. Is unstructured wandering the best way to experience the neighborhood? What makes this different than, say, a CUSA trip to Chinatown?
-Korean town is not easily accessible by public transit
-the experience would be much more unfamiliar and new to ASU members than Chinatown might be to CUSA members
-food is an important cultural experience in itself
C Discussion
1. It still just seems like a group of friends having dinner
2. They probably won’t do outside advertising
3. UChicago students are notoriously unadventurous, need more opportunities/incentive to get off campus
4. A $10/head subsidy for 40 people is way above SGFC guidelines; have denied funding to similar events for similar reasons
5. Korean Town is pretty far and it would definitely be a cultural experience
6. Maybe we could just fund transportation, if not the dinner
7. They could charge $5 a person for transportation and use it to subsidize the dinner itself, which is what has happened at past such events
D. Motion to fund $240 for transportation costs: (7-8,0) FAILED
Motion to deny appeal and approve SGFC recommendations: (8-5,1) PASSED
Motion to reopen for discussion (requires 2/3 vote): (7-7,0) FAILED

II. Rod Edwards on the CC and GC Liaison positions
A. Discussion
1. Should there be a definition for ‘home’ and ‘host’ councils?
-home council is the one to which you are elected
2. What are the rights/privileges given to the liaisons?
-requirement to attend meetings, right to speak, etc
3. How will liaisons be chosen?
-it was left vague on purpose, to be determined by each council
4. Would a liaison serving on a host council committee have a vote?
-that would be up to the committee’s discretion
5. Is is there a rule against administrators serving on councils?
-if you pay student activity fees, you can serve
6. Are there proxy rules for the liaison position?
-same proxy rules as in each council’s bylaws
B. Motion to approve for discussion by Assembly: (14-0,0) PASSED

III. Other business
A. Chair announcements
1. Assembly meeting next Thursday
2. There will be food at the next CC meeting
B. Jarrod’s announcements
1. CCC Meeting on Friday the 9th at the Gleacher Center
2. End of year reports are due in 2 weeks
3. New initiative: to investigate how much money SGFC allocates to food, and perhaps creating a capped fund just for food so that money can be spent on more crucial things
4. New initiative: researching the expansion of the 173 as a downtown bus, to be incorporated into the 09-10 transportation budget
5. The Metra
-will try to rewrite the discount to include 10-ride passes
-come lobby on Wednesday!
C. Matt Kennedy on consulting about student activities fee
-please forward survey to as many people as possible

Graduate Council Meeting
April 28th, 2008
Minutes

Attending: Rod Edwards, Anthony Green, Matt McFeeley, Jenn Gregory, Frank Bednarz, Kent Qian, Leso Munala, Jeff Schneider, Suzanne Sellers

I. GC Open Forum with Julie Peterson, VP of Communications
A. Overview of Communications
1. UChicago has less investment in communications than other universities – perhaps due to a mindset of emphasis on scholarship over publicity
2. However, the academic world is an increasingly competitive place; communication is important for supporting funding efforts and attracting new students and faculty

B. Goals/Projects
1. To develop a communications strategy – what messages to broadcast about the University, to whom and how
2. To re-structure and pull together the communications office, which until recently was small and decentralized
3. To create a new, modern website (first update in 10 years)
-web content with an emphasis on storytelling, communicating to people outside the university, relationship to the community/city of Chicago
4. To improve internal communications
5. To equip University students to be ‘brand ambassadors’
6. To expand communications in various areas – diversity, the arts, sciences, the new lobbying office in DC, international presence

C. Questions & Comments
1. Jenn: It’s somewhat confusing to navigate from the homepage to division pages
-NSIT is still working on shortcuts, academic index, etc
2. How do we motivate University people to be ‘brand ambassadors’?
-tying it to fundraising would be great incentive for grad students
3. How could communications support recruitment of students?
-dispel the image that all students do is study – sell other aspects such as life in Chicago, campus activities
-improve ease of access/visibility of student groups and programming for grad students
4. Matt: How do you find stories for the website’s front page?
-network of 200+ communications staff in charge of finding such stories
-five news writers on staff to cover different areas
-also just by asking students, organizations, staff
-people can submit ideas through the website
5. Matt: How do you work with department/division websites?
-NSIT is starting to work on re-designing those sites as requested, though resources are finite
6. Anthony: Do you have communications network include people involved with RSOs or ORCSA?
-not presently, but staff members and students can be added

II. GC Reports
A. Minutes
B. Board of Trustees
-Erica will be meeting with the board next week
C. Finance Committee
D. Activities
E. Issues

III. Old Business
A. White Sox Game
1. Ticket price was $5, sold via UBazaar
2. Had 29 leftover tickets; $145 lost
3. Net gain/loss for both games
+$500 for Cubs
-$295 for White Sox
total: +$205

IV. New Business
A. Cathy Cohen, Deputy Provost for Graduate Education
1. Graduate Teaching Committee
-We have gathered a lot of info, both good and confusing
-Goal: to get at least some of the recommendations about compensation implemented by next year – time crunch to get recommendations in before the budget is set
-Goal: to monitor what happens in classrooms (i.e., making sure student teachers aren’t given unreasonable workloads)
-Goal: to review and improve pedagogical training for grad students
-We would like to get written accounts from grad students about their experiences, both positive and negative
-We would also like to get 4-5 students to talk to administrators about their teaching experiences – Mondays 3-4pm
2. Advanced Residency Committee
-The committee is formed, but has yet to meet (priority was on GTC)
-Recommendations would probably not happen until next winter
-Goal: to re-evaluate programs and find a way to decrease residency time
3. Questions
-Is health insurance for grad students being considered?
-yes, possibly tied to teaching compensation
-Is there going to be some kind of built-in yearly raise in teaching salaries to account for rising living costs?
-maybe not a fixed rate, but there should be recommendations about periodic review of salaries
-Are the stipend/compensation systems at other institutions being considered in comparison?
-yes, and also the differences between divisions themselves, plus the New Graduate Aid Initiative

B. Council Liaison By-Law Changes
1. Rod is working on the full by-law wording changes
2. Opinions about liaison approval/removal process?
-should the processes be uniform for both councils?
-approval via majority vote or appointment?
-should the liaison have to be approved by the other council, or would having a removal procedure be sufficient?
-does this have to be such a formal process? — any problems could be resolved through communication
3. Motion to approve amendment to go before the Assembly: (11-0,0) PASSED

C. Student Activities Fee Distribution (Sharlene Holly)
1. Overview
-2008-2009 fee will be $70/quarter for undergrads, $47/quarter for grads
-100% of the undergrad fee goes to central funding
-48% of grad fees will go to divisions, 52% to central funding
2. Questions to Consider
-Centralized funding vs. dividing by group type (ie separate funding process for publications, cultural groups)
-Central SG or divided by undergrad/grad?
-Where should ‘new’ fee money be allocated?
-Thoughts on the Uncommon Fund, big speakers fund, other new bodies?
3. Discussion
-We could lower the GC budget if there were a separate fund for groups that don’t qualify for SGFC
-Should we have funding set apart for central grad student activities?
-mixers for just 2-3 divisions at a time, as well as general ones
-Over-regulation of Uncommon Fund eligibility would probably kill it
-Why doesn’t CC have its own budget like GC?
-GC began as a ‘graduate coordinating council’ to distribute money allocated by Bill Michel
-SG committees/councils can actually ask for money from SGFC
-It would be good to have a general guide to campus funding bodies

D. SG Elections
1. Elected: One Campus (Slate), Brian Cody & Aliza Levine (Liaisons)
2. Higher turnout than usual, but still a very low percentage of student body
E. GC BBQ
1. We currently have about $6000 allocated
-it will cost about $5000 for food, $700-$900 for drinks, $300 for decorations and such – will be slightly over current budget
-last year we ran out of food early, should we get more?
-better attendance was the goal, which will require more food

F. Retail Committee presentation
1. Please review/consider before we meet with Bill Michel next time
2. Goals: to evaluate student perceptions of amenities/retail, make recommendations on supporting stronger student community/quality of life, recommend short and long-term retail/amenities improvements, and encourage active student participation in community
3. Feedback goes to Kim Goff-Crews, CFO & other VPs

V. For the Good of the Council
During the course of the SG Elections, a highly unprofessional incident occurred. Due to this incident, GC will be proposing an amendment to the bylaws concerning the professional standards of SG Officers and Members.

VI. Next Meeting
A. SG Assembly Meeting: May 8th
B. GC Meeting: May 12th

The minutes for the April 29th SGFC meeting are posted here.

53rd St. Vision Workshop Part II:

Bringing Hyde Park’s Downtown to Life

Saturday May 3, 2008

Kenwood Academy

8:30 – registration and coffee

9:00 am – 12: 00 pm workshop

RSVP:  773-536-8103 or email 53vision@hydeparkchiago.org

Learn what if will take from experts. Identify opportunities. Share your ideas. Join us. Spread the word.

Participating “experts” (team is still in formation):

· Andre Brumfeld, Director of Urban Design and Planning, EDAW

· Todd Cabanban, Executive Vice President and Principal of Zifkin Realty & Development, LLC (ZRD)

· Mary DeBacker, Parsons Brinckeroff and President Chicagoland Bicycle Federation

· Eleanor Gorski, AIA, Assistant Commissioner, Department of Planning and Development, Landmarks Division

· Kierstan Grove, Pedestrian Program Coordinator, Chicago Department of Transportation, City of Chicago

· G. Benjamin Ranney – Principal, Terra Firma Company

· Barry Schain- Broker and Principal, Next Realty

· Joanna Trotter, Manager, Community Building Initiative, Metropolitan Planning Council.

College Council Meeting
April 23rd, 2008
Minutes

I. SGFC Recommendation
A. Motion to approve recommendations: (15-0,0) PASSED

II. Sharlene Holly on the 08-09 Student Activities Fee
A. Overview
1. 2008-2009 fee will be $70/quarter for undergrads, $47/quarter for grads
2. 100% of the undergrad fee goes to central funding
3. 48% of grad fees will go to divisions, 52% to central funding
B. Discussion
1. What sort of data is behind claim that grad students don’t access central student activities as much as undergrads?
-all anecdotal, though participation is growing
2. Does the SAF increase every year?
-yes, because of inflation and increased activities
3. Maybe the grad student fee should be reduced instead of just putting the money back in the divisions
-scholarships often do not cover fees
4. What about the possibility of a big speakers fund? Could we put more of the grad student fee in central funding for speakers?
5. Inflation is at 3-4%, higher for food – the fee has to increase just to keep up with costs
C. Questions to Consider
1. Centralized funding vs. dividing by group type (ie separate funding process for publications, cultural groups)
2. Central SG or divided by undergrad/grad?
3. Concrete data on grad student participation?
4. Graduate-only funding body?
5. Where should ‘new’ fee money be allocated?
6. Thoughts on the Uncommon Fund, big speakers fund, other new bodies?
D. Comments
1. Separate funding bodies would just complicate things more
2. SG needs to make sure people are aware of the current system – for example, grad students might not know they can go to SGFC
3. A GCFC would have unused money, at the cost of undergrad groups
4. How would you then determine who can attend funded events? It would create even more of a rift between grads/undergrads
5. The benefit of the current system is that all student groups have equal access to central funding; though it is somewhat cumbersome, subdivisions would only further reduce flexibility
6. The silo model would also discourage collaboration between RSOs
7. Finding people to sit on more committees would probably also be difficult
8. Speakers can be a waste of money – extremely expensive for a very brief event that may be the same speech given elsewhere
9. Grad Council & Slate have their own budget, but College Council doesn’t – maybe there should be money allocated to CC for projects also
-do we do a lot of our own programming, or just assist others?
-it would just be creating yet another funding body
10. Maybe we should change the name of the Uncommon Fund, which might have deterred some applicants this year
-continual name changing might cause confusion though
E. Comments on central fee budgeting
1. CAT funding is stretched very thin, could use more funding
-Model UN, Mock Trial, Debate, Quiz Bowl, Chess
-will they be able to get endowments as they’re trying to?
2. $7000 discretionary fee for CC
-would need to create an itemized budget first
3. How much money should be put into the Uncommon Fund, since there probably won’t be an extra $20,000 from ORCSA?
-it’s probably going to be even more competitive next year, so decreasing the funding amount wouldn’t be a good idea, but increasing at the cost of RSO funding isn’t good either
4. More money to Annual Allocations is always good
5. Perhaps we should have a speakers fund instead of the Uncommon Fund
6. Is summer SGFC a good use of money?
-a few events do happen over the summer, but often money goes to things that happen at the very beginning of the academic year
7. Recommended increases:
-10% for Annual Allocations/SGFC
-10% for CAT
-5% or 8-9% for CSF
-0% for GC
-10% or 0% for PCC
-$10,000 for Sport Clubs
-10% or 5% for student org resource support,
-10% for SG administration
-$10,000 for New Initiatives/Uncommon Fund

III. Announcements
1. College Council will be talking to retail committee, registrar, sustainability coordinator
2. CORSO is working on RSO awards, please join the judging committee if interested
3. Metra lobbying trip on May 7th, 7am to 10pm, let Jarrod know ASAP
4. New health insurance provider for next year: United Health
-switching to a co-pay system

Well its 2 AM and I’ve got my introduction written. Just need to get the conclusion done and I can put this BA Thesis (and myself) to bed. But why not unpack another aspect of tonight (or yesterday’s) election. So, fueled by old sushi from Bart Mart, here I go:

Record Setting Year

If you take a look at turnout(scroll down), you’ll see that this year, like the two years previously, set a record for most students voting at 2,755 voters.

One Campus also broke the record for most votes won by an Executive Slate (Outgoing Liaison Hollie Russon Gilman holds the record for most votes won by a Liaison at 1,097 votes). One Campus won by so much that they would’ve just barely lost to all of the other Slates combined votes (629+393+261= 1283). Brian Cody also garnered an enormous 1,728 votes, but I’m not going to really count this considering he was running unopposed.

There may have been some records set by College Council members, although I don’t have accurate records in front of me. Jarrod Wolf’s 241 votes must be getting close to an all time College Council record and Nicholas Rodman’s 191 vote victory blows away last year’s winner’s 99 vote victory by a fourth year (write-in Eve Ewing), and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the all time highest voting getting fourth year (again, pending numbers)

Who Voted?

A quick analysis shows that about 2/3rd of the voters were Undergrads and 1/3rd were Grads. While I don’t have the numbers now, I feel like this is a shift away from previous elections where it was closer to a 1/2 Grad and 1/2 Undergrad split. Of the Graduates that voted, over 1/3rd came from the Humanities and Social Sciences, which probably represents the level of mobilization among those cohorts due to Grad Aid. Support was otherwise pretty mixed, with each division contributing roughly 100-50 votes.

In this year’s College Council elections, there was a clear jump in voting participation. The Class of 2011 surpassed its record breaking Fall Election turnout numbers where over 1/3rd voted, to deliver near 50% participation. Incredible. The Class of 2010, also a high performer in terms of interest (they’ve always has a large number run for CC) had around 40% participation, which is also incredibly high.

But for me, the Cinderella story is the Class of 2009. In last year’s College Council election, only four people ran and each candidate won with around 70 or so votes (Edit from Kati). This year seven people ran and 40% of the class voted, what a shift! This performance, from the previously lackluster 2009 going into their FOURTH YEAR, is truly extraordinary. My own class of 2008 had 23% of students vote, not bad. But clearly nothing compared to the younger three classes that had active College Council races.

This data also clearly settles the question of whether we can have a successful College Council race that is concurrent to the Slate and Liaison races.

Edit:

I’m also going to go out on a limb and say we’re nearing saturation in terms of College voting patterns. I don’t think its realistic to expect more than 50% of any class to vote, and its incredibly unlikely that any outgoing class will vote higher than 25%. This would mean College votes would cap out at, roughly, 2,100 votes. That’s only 200 votes from this election, not a lot of room to grow and it wouldn’t push us over the 3,000 line.

I would say we’re not going to see growth in turnout until Graduate Students start voting in higher numbers (roughly 10% voted in this election). My guess is this wont happen till SG starts getting involved with the many Professional and Divisional Councils. Another way would be for Graduate Council to have competitive, division-wide elections which would be concurrent with these school wide elections. Until this happens, and Graduate Divisions start engaging directly with SG Elections, I doubt we will see turnout climb above 3,000.

/Edit

How They Voted

Using this sites built in hit tracking abilities, I was able to somewhat monitor voting trends. Now keep in mind, I cannot monitor the actually voting site which is hosted on ORCSA’s servers. But most candidates direct voters to sg.uchicago.edu, so I should see turnout.

As I posted via comments, we saw an influx to the website over the period when voting occurred. Traffic spiked on the main site up to nearly 5,000 hits on the 22nd, dropping to 4,000 and then 3,500 over the three days which the election was held (we get roughly 3,000-2,700 on any given weekday). The blog post telling people where to vote saw a similar pattern, spiking to 1,244 then falling to 812 and 523 over the next three days (2,588 page views all together, about 200 votes off). The statements page faired worse, accruing 1,641 page views over the course of the election (914,457, and 270).

This data tells us a couple of things:

• People tend to vote early, so campaigns should have their message well distributed by Tuesday. They also should plan to immediately start getting out the vote, lest their opponent is able to get to voters first.
• Voting drops off quickly. So if you think you can clinch the election by doing a lot on Thursday, think again. This thing was probably already over for the Slate race by then.
• A little over half of voters read the candidates statements, which means these aren’t as big of deal as one might think.
• People don’t really read All Campus emails. We sent one out on Tuesday and it arrived roughly on Wednesday (I get a lot of ‘Out of Office’ replies so this is how I’m able to time arrival). Yet despite the fact that ALL 15,000 students received the email, very few students decided to visit the SG page and vote (although we did see a spike in blog visits by about 50, which was specifically linked to from the email).

All and all it was a very record setting year.

Next: Facebook (maybe)

I’m trying to not write my political science senior thesis, which is due tomorrow. So instead I’ll digest some tidbit of tonight’s election results. I want to start with the Maroon Endorsement, which was different this year because they endorsed Liaison and College Council candidates.

Lets see if people listened to them. This year the Maroon endorsed:

• Connect Four for Executive Slate
• Louis Potok for Undergrad Liaison
• Nicholas Rodman, David Grossman, Kati Proctor, and Greg Gabrellas for CC 2009
• Aaron Goggans, Prerna Nadathur, Jarrod Wolf, and Jay Kim for CC 2010
• Frank Pucci, Julian Quintanilla, Archibald England, and Matthew Hartman for CC 2011

So how’d they do? Well, using the results we see that they were 6 for 14.

This isn’t great and would really make me question whether the Maroon’s endorsement has much of an effect at all, especially given the wide margins which their endorsed candidates were beaten by the actual winners in the Executive Slate and Liaison Categories (One Campus beat Connect Four by 600 votes and Aliza beat Louis by a little less than 500 votes).

But history tells a different story. In 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004 the Maroon was endorsed the winning Slate three out of four years. The recent changes puts them at 3 for 5 for Executive Slate, which isn’t bad.

In terms of CC and Liaison, they didn’t do as hot. With CC they did best with the class of 2010 then 2009 then 2011. Maybe first years aren’t reading the Maroon as they only elected one of the endorsed candidates. We’ll have to see whether these endorsements take on more importance over time.

Next Section: Turnout!

Kind of after the fact, but nonetheless an accurate representation of the chaos.

It is with great pleasure that I would like to announce that One Campus has been elected as your new Executive Slate, and Brian Cody and Aliza Levine have been elected your new Liaisons to the Board of Trustees. In this election we had record turnout with 2,755 Students voted for Executive Slate and both Liaisons, of these 1,916 were Undergrads and 839 were Graduate Students (see breakout of divisions and historic turnout at the bottom of the post).

• One Campus - 1266
• Connect 4 - 629
• YEP - 393
• Moose - 261

• Aliza Lavine - 854
• Tex Dozier - 672
• Louis Potok - 342
• Nick Zhou - 261

• Nick Rodman - 196
• Kati Proctor - 166
• Christina Melander - 176
• Gabriel Gaster - 135
• David Grossman - 133
• Greg Gabrellas - 120
• Akshay Birla - 97

• Jarrod Wolf - 241
• Prerna Nadathur - 227
• Aaron Goggans - 224
• Jay Kim - 209
• Sam Feldman - 195
• Alison Feenstra - 178
• Nick Zhao - 95