General Assembly

Minutes from October 11, 2007

Topics: ITS - RIAA, Website Migrations

Associated Students of Occidental College

General Assembly Minutes

October 11, 2007

12:00-1:30, Fowler 302

Minutes by Chelsey Brack

Senate Members Present: Andrew DeBlock, Tilak Gupta, Denise Loera, Patrick McCredie, Rob Calderon, Ken Smutny, Ryan Bowen, Santiago Mendez, Xochiltl Ramos.

Guests Present: Ben Dalgetty, James Taber, Meagan Colvin, Richie DeMaria, Daniel Landesman, Sara Fulton-Koerbling, Ethan Bearman, Pam McQuesten, Chelsey Brack (9).

Laura Knuttenen and Jessica Simes opened the meeting at 12:04 PM. They said that the General Assembly is the official student forum of ASOC and is a place where all students are welcome to address campus policies, raise student issues, and begin the process of developing comprehensive solutions to student concerns. It is also a place that recognizes that the student body is one of many groups that help to form the community of Occidental College. In this respect the General Assembly is a tool of the entire community to begin dialogue and the collective process of working together to solve problems. In other words, it is a forum for students to communicate and work with students; it is a forum for students to communicate and work with the administration; and it is a forum for the administration to communicate and work with the student body. Finally, the General Assembly is a place that recognizes that the people who make up the Occidental community vary greatly in perspectives and ideals. For this reason the General Assembly will operate as a forum that encourages dialogue and debate, but will under no circumstances become a forum for personal attacks, hate speech or disrespectful conduct.

1. Information Technology Services –

Ethan Bearman - Director of Networking, Operations, and Systems

His role is in making the campus run and has been in this position for about a year and a half. His focus is trying to improve existing systems. He said they are trying to get detailed information about what students need. They are trying to figure what will help students get their work done, and since Oxy is a residential college, they are trying to pay special attention to amenities that are IT related in the res halls. He said they would like to create a committee with a purpose to get feedback on things that IT has been planning to do. Their focus is student needs. They would like to have at least twelve to fifteen volunteers who would meet every month or so. He thought it would be nice to have some students from RHA on the committee as well. If students have any thoughts on how the committee should be organized, etc., he encouraged students to come talk to him. Email him at ebearman@oxy.edu.

Pam McQuesten, Vice president for communications and Information Technology Services

She said that this year they are no longer charging students for printing, and said that they need the help of students to help figure out how to conserve paper. She said she will be conducting a survey of students about their technology services. They are also trying to figure out an emergency notification system in case something like what happened at Virginia Tech were to happen here. They are trying to work with the constantly changing times. ITS is also trying to help us make sure we aren't downloading illegal music, don't want us to end up facing a $220,000 bill from the RIAA, and they need input from students on how best to do this.

Ryan Bowen said he received an email this summer from an individual that has a legal music-sharing network, he thought maybe he could forward that information to her to they could figure out what was going on with it. He said that he thinks its something that students need to know could effect them. Pam said there was an article in the Oxy Weekly, and she appreciated the information from Ryan and said she would like to meet with him to talk more about the email he received.

Patrick McCredie asked if they could elaborate on website migrations, and also on different parts of the campus there is different quality of wireless connection – he asked if there were any plans to improve that service. Ethan said that the website migrations are nearly completed, and was a situation where they had a server that was imploding, it was made more difficult because there was a hodge-podge of stuff on there that works individually, so it took time to figure out clever ways of moving things with breaking as few of them as possible. Part of the reason that Ethan sent out so many mails was because there are lot of websites on there, being used by students, edited daily, so students needed to know about that. There is a plan in place about pulling out better policy about spam and other new from other departments. He said that wireless at Oxy has an interesting history - as it stands, they have coverage in all of the residence halls, (not excellent 100% coverage), and coverage in basic teaching spaces. The last time it was looked at to see if its meeting our needs was probably a few years ago. At UCSB they have found that 80% of their students are connecting to a wireless network but not through their port, for example. They are working on having 100% coverage in every room of every building, as well as outdoor areas - ex. the Quad. the plan is being put together right now. Wireless will be in the new res hall, and they're working on making it available all over campus.

Ken Smutny said that RHA meetings and ASOC meetings are long enough as they are, maybe if topics were given to them about ITS to address at their meetings, they could cover that in discussion, rather than ITS utilizing a random committee of students. Pam said that the most appropriate way to work they thought was through ASOC, but they want more of the students time, not just a meeting of student government - they want to have their own committee. They're seeing that means of communicating and technology are changing, and want to get a good representation so they can move forward with it. Ethan said he thinks people might be more apt to read an email from ASOC rather than from ITS, which is a reason they want to work with RHA, and Pam said they'd like to have half a dozen or a dozen people at their meetings. Kenna said that it now will be passed onto the ASOC to form a committee, we should be commending ITS for coming to talk to ASOC, using the student forums in place to do what they'd like to do. Jess said that they should send a list to ASOC saying what they would like in a committee and how they would like it formed. Jess and Laura thanked Ethan and Pam for speaking.

Laura said that the GA is looking for a Student Publicity Coordinator, it would be up to three hours a week, the compensation would be $8 an hour and the responsibilities would be for creating and implementing GA publicity for the academic year 2007-2008. Laura said to contact Kenna Cottrill at kcottrill@oxy.edu, or contact at (323) 259-2918.

They then asked if there were anymore questions at this GA, and Ryan Bowen asked if any contacts have been made to the point people who signed the resolution addressed last week about Graduate Student Hall Coordinators, Jess said that she and Laura are in the process of planning the next GA. Laura corrected her that the next GA was for Emmons, but that they will still be working on the resolution and it will come up in the next couple of weeks. Ryan asked if there was a point person currently, and Jess said that she is talking to Rosny Daniel, but he is just one of the people who signed the resolution.

Meagan Colvin said that RHA brought up the resolution at their last meeting, and feels that its something that RHA should address seeing as it involves housing services, and they have already started forming a committee.

Ben Dalgetty asked if the GA had long term plans for increasing its publicity, and Jess said that they are interested in having more hot topics, but that not just those bring people, the publicity is the main attraction, and they are working on it, including hiring a person specifically to work on publicity for the GA. Ben asked if the meeting time would continue to be during lunch, and Jess said yes but they were open to suggestions. Laura said also they are working on publicizing the GA itself more, the concept, the procedures, etc.

Jess said that if anyone has any questions or comments, for students to contact them at asocga@oxy.edu. Their next meeting will be two weeks from now, not next week, which will be about Emmons - October 25th. Laura said also if students contact them with things they would like to present at the GA to let them know at least a week in advance. They will address the resolution concerning residence hall coordinators in a few weeks because they need some time to work on it and contact people.

Meeting adjourned at 12:34 pm.