General Assembly

Minutes from October 25, 2007

Topics: Emmons Health and Counseling Center

Associated Students of Occidental College

General Assembly Minutes

October 25, 2007

12:00-1:30, Fowler 302

Minutes by Chelsey Brack

Senate Members Present: Patrick McCredie, Rob Calderon, Tilak Gupta, Nonda Hanneman, Xochiltl Ramos, Andrew DeBlock, Ken Smutny, Alison Dempsey, Santiago Mendez.

Guests Present: Richie DeMaria, Alyssa Higgs, Michael Darling, Richard Youngblood, Ruth Tavlin, Carri Grub, Cindy Chu, Julie Gordon, Corina Roules, Zara Ashikyan, April Garrison, Max Read, James Taber, Sandra Dekoum, Mark Hurtado, Ari Tiziani, Abe Cohen, Scott Jeffers, Max Abrams, Chelsey Brack (20).

Laura Knuttunen and Jessica Simes opened the meeting at 12:07 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. Emmons Health and Counseling Center Staff

Richard Youngblood

He said he is pleased to present at the GA to introduce staff of Emmons and to get their information out. He introduced Dr. Zara Ashikyan, (Ph.D. Full time Psychologist), Ruth Tavlin (LMFT Director, Counseling Services, licensed therapist), April Garrison (from USC here for a year doing graduate work), Julie Gordon - healthcare insurance coordinator, Cindy Chu, Carri Grub, Karina Roles (part-time administrator). There are other nurse practitioners and counselors at Emmons as well who weren’t present today.

He said that Emmons has been on the campus for years and years, used to be an outsource entity run by a separate enterprise. A year ago, Student Affairs decided to take it back in. Emmons is now a part of Occidental College. There has been a tremendous amount of work since then and still to be done, and in terms of them coming "under the umbrella of Student Affairs," they want to become greater and greater, want to integrate with Res Life, the ICC, etc., which is revolutionary.

Carri Grubb, CMA, Senior Administrative Assistant, said she would most likely be the first person talked to or seen by students at Emmons. She schedules appointments, and advised the GA on how to make appointments. Students are able to be completely confidential and Emmons is completely respectful of that. She advised students that coming in ten to fifteen minutes early to fill out paperwork is good, and she is there to assist in anything that is needed by students.

Julie Gordon - Student Insurance, Client Services Representative, United Healthcare, said she has been at Oxy for about three years, and actually works for United Health Care (student health insurance company). She is here part-time. If students have problems or questions, she encourages them to call, email or come by and see her for help. She said there are two different parts to student insurance – the first is accident insurance, covers students in accidents/injuries in any way, and the second is sickness coverage, if students are sick and need to go to a doctor or a hospital, it applies then. Students either have it or have waived it. There are some limitations, covers up to $25,000, not a catastrophic policy. She advises students to become familiar with the coverage beforehand so they aren't surprised later on. When students come to Emmons, they will receive a walk-out statement which is for your health insurance company, takes about four to five weeks to process claim, and they will send back to you "An Explanation of Benefits" which is how much they will cover on the claim, and what your patient balance will be. There is also a prescription drug card that students should have. If students have any questions, she encourages students to come talk to her at Emmons.

Cindy Chu, M.S. N., Family Nurse Practitioner, Medical Coordinator of Health Services. She said that Dr. Magdalena Arenas is always available for medical consultation. She gave general information on Emmons, and said that they cover study abroad and sports physicals. She said that they evaluate and treat minor illnesses and injuries, do STD screenings and treatment, refer to medical specialists in the area, and that consolations have no charge. She said that however, if there are any medications, laboratory tests, etc., there are fees.

Ruth Tavlin, LMFT Director, Counseling Services, licensed therapist, said that Emmons also has counseling services, they wanted to clarify what the service is. Every student is eligible for five visits that are part of students' fees. They are for short-term problem-solving. These consultations are for students that feel stuck, not motivated, etc. They want students to come in and sort out some of those issues. If students have long-term issues, things they have been struggling with for awhile, they can refer students to off-campus help. There has been some concern about confidentiality, and they feel really strongly about protecting student confidentiality. Their major concern is about students' safety and health. If there is indication that student does not feel safe within the community, they have responsibility to let people know about that. Zara and two other counselors at Emmons in particular (male staff also). Emmons offers workshops and consults to RA's, students working at the ICC or OSL who have stress working on the job, work-related, they may receive a free consultation for that. They are available for discussion groups of particular topics, they can help students form that. For example, a student last year wanted to organize a group to discuss women's issues, so they put that together. Some students have come to Ruth this year who have had problems with drinking and wanted a support system here at Oxy, besides AA off-campus, so they are putting that together as well. Emmons has a psychiatrist that consults with them who they refer students to if his services are necessary.

Dr. Zara Ashikyan, Ph.D., Full time Psychologist, said she consults with other departments - for example, training the RA's at the beginning of the year, as well as the athletic teams. She has this subspecialty of her profession. She said that it is a passion of hers because she doesn't see therapy for just certain people in extreme cases of stressful symptoms, but its really for anyone. She provides workshops for students about anxiety, depression, stress, coping, etc. They are the most easily treatable concerns of college students. In workshops, its more of information given that they hope students will share with other students. she did an anxiety workshop last year that covered everything from what students eat and drink, sleep, coping skills, how students will know they are going to get anxious before it happens, that were very beneficial to students. They do feedback programs as follow up after the workshops as well to make them as effective as possible. Last year there was a de-stress fest, massages, healthy snacks, right before finals in the winter in spring, and are planning on doing them again this year as well. She told students to look at the oxydigest. Ruth added that Emmons is having another informational session on Time Management, its an hour long and will help students organize and manage their time. They would like to have student interest and information to be beneficial to students.

April Garrison, a grad student at USC, getting her masters and is doing her field work with Emmons - the Health and Wellness program. She said that Emmons is coming up with programs that are fun to get the word out about health and wellness issues, students can stop in on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to communicate with her. She wants to hear from students what they would like to do so she doesn't do uninteresting programming. coming up there will be workshops on nutrition as well as time- and stress- management. Some activities will be coming up in the spring about health and wellness, a whole week of programming. Oxy Elements is programming designed for first years, sophomores and juniors. She said that if students have any programming ideas to let her know.

Richard followed up saying that some of the health and wellness programming is in response to surveys they have conducted with students - asking them what they want to know about, what they are concerned about. Issues have been about health, wellness, issues about concentrating in class, etc. they are also conducting surveys about the use of Emmons so they can modify themselves for the needs of the students. They offer an array of medical and mental health services, and then this health and wellness piece will be like a thread throughout. They are forming a student advisory board to aid in this as well in the next few weeks. He then opened up the GA for questions

2. Emmons - Dialogue Q & A

Richie DeMaria asked what their goal is in integrating Emmons, and Richard said his vision is that it is integrated into Oxy community life with programming, etc., so that they're working together and adding elements of health and wellness. Educating students on being healthcare consumers. He said he doesn’t want Emmons to just be that place up on the hill. April said that they want to work with other programs on campus to consolidate and actually be all working together on the same program, working collaboratively, for example Alcohol Awareness Week.

Patrick McCredie asked about the student advisory board notifications because he applied, Richard said he would let him know by email by the end of next week. Zara added that it was a great opportunity to have a leadership opportunity for when students apply to graduate school or for jobs, to come in with more skills and things to offer. Also a great opportunity to make changes in the system whereas otherwise you might feel helpless.

Rob Calderon asked if the Emmons staff will go with students when they need to go off-campus to a hospital, and Ruth said last year they instituted an on-call rotation for the counseling staff. they do not go to the hospital after hours, but she and Zara alternate and are on call after hours. They make every effort if someone is having difficulty after hours. They have open hours at 9 am the next morning for students who feel that they really need to come in. Richard said that if it is a medical transportation, ex. broken bone, Emmons staff does not go to hospital, but they notify student affairs, and they dispatch someone on duty to go to the hospital. Depends on the situation, but Emmons staff may not drive students to hospital. Zara said if they are open, Emmons does everything to facilitate the transfer of student to hospital, calling campus safety for the student, making sure paramedics come, taxi comes for you, etc. If being transferred to the ER, they can call the ER and give them a heads up and also let paramedics take care of that as well. If there is a follow-up with physical therapy, Emmons can help with that too.

Jess and Laura thanked the Emmons professional staff for coming and closed the dialogue. Ruth passed out pamphlets on de-stressing tips.

3. Capital Improvement Request: KOXY

Jess debriefed on CIR's, saying that they allow departments to grow and develop. The CIR is no more than 10% of the total Savings each year. The fund provides for purchases outside of the range of the yearly operating budget.

Max Read discussed the KOXY CIR.

[ ASOC Capital Improvement Request Form

Name: Max Read	Department: KOXY
Date: 10/14/07	Total Amount: $1,782.83

Capital Improvements allow departments to grow and develop. The Capital Improvement fund is no more than 10% of the total Savings each year. The fund provides for purchases outside of the range of the yearly operating budget.

Capital Improvement Guidelines:

§ Item must last for at least 3 years without needing updates.

§ The minimum amount of a capital improvement expense must be $300 per item/system. A system is defined as a set of items that do not work alone, such as walkie talkies, or the items that will protect the purchase from damage, such as a bag for a camera.

§ Software is not included in this price because it changes rapidly. Software should come from the department’s operating budget.

§ All requests must be reviewed by the ASOC Advisor, the ASOC Finance Manager, and the Associate Dean of Students prior to being presented to the Senate to ensure that the items meet the guidelines and that the plans for protecting the investment are adequate. Should you have any questions, please contact Kenna Cottrill at kcottrill@oxy.edu.

Itemized list of purchases:

Item	Purchase From	Cost (be specific)
20” iMac, 2.0 GHz for KOXY Office	Apple Store	$1,199.00
Applecare 3-year Warranty	Apple Store	$169.00
Samsung Laser Printer for KOXY Office	Apple Store	$199.95
TOTAL		+$129.36 (tax)
		$1,697.31

Please explain why your department needs these items, including how they serve your department’s mission, and how they will benefit students.

KOXY is currently using in our office a Dell computer equipped with a Pentium III processor and Windows 2000. It takes around four minutes for the computer to start up from the time when the power button is pressed. The software is out-of-date and slow, and our printer has ceased working. Our office computer setup is, in effect, useless—I take my laptop into the office to work, and we print off of the Weekly’s printer (a fact of life that is understandably frustrating to them). We need our computer for a number of things: to process and catalog our music library, to update and maintain our website, and otherwise to do all the minutiae that goes into weekly maintenance of the radio station. We would rather not rely on the newspaper to print things, and I would like to allow my staff the opportunity to do work from an office computer, rather than from their personal laptops At the end of the last academic year, KOXY requested Capital Improvement funds to be used toward the purchase of an office computer and printer. We were approved, but the money was never spent, and in the time between then and now, Apple discontinued the iMac model we had been approved to purchase. Due to this, and due to the fact that minutes were apparently not kept for either the GA or Senate meetings where our requests were approved, Kenna and I have decided that the easiest and best course of action is to resubmit a revised version of the C. I. request. I have attached the correspondence that seems to be the only current record of our approval last semester, as well as the original C. I. request form. ]

Kenna said that part of the issue is that the official records cannot be found currently, and although she believes that Max's correspondence is correct, they can't just reallocate that money. They are waiting to hear from Gabriela. The reality of the situation is that since the savings wasn’t spent last year, there is more money is the account that still has to be spent. Inherently, the CIR is more than it would have been. Max added that nothing was bought because it was the last GA meeting of the year.

Jess and Laura thanked everyone for coming and encouraged everyone to contact them at asocga@oxy.edu with any questions, comments, or concerns.

Meeting adjourned at 12:55 pm.