ASWC held a Senate meeting and joint session last Sunday in order to confirm nominations to college committees and to change several by-laws dictating the way ASWC functions as a body.
In the Senate meeting, Nominations Chair John Stewart nominated students to serve on four different standing committees. Stewart filled the final spot on the Council on Student Affairs with senior Lauren Simpson.
Stewart nominated two first-years, Joel Wilson and Kiva Bell Ellenberg, to the Student Technology Advisory Committee. Additionally, he nominated Kramer Phillips and Andy Jobanek to the College Athletic Committee.
Finally, Stewart announced his nominations for the newly formed Student Diversity Committee. He nominated Nani Gilkerson, Veronica Prout, Will Canine, Jyotsna Shivinandan, Amanda Roberts, Estela Vasquez and Jaspreet Gill to serve on the committee, which will work in conjunction with the committee planning this year’s symposium.
“The Nominations Committee was seeking individuals who are exceedingly passionate in both an academic and personal sense about issues of diversity on campus,” Stewart explained to the Senate.
“All the nominees have good ideas for the symposium and also for other events reaching for similar goals.”
All of Stewart’s nominations passed in the Senate with minimal discussion.
Later in the evening, Oversight Chair Jordan Clark presented the joint session with his nominations for the Oversight Committee. Both the House and the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Kendra Vandre, Nigel Ramoz-Leslie and Paul Butler to the committee.
Most of the joint session was spent passing three by-law changes. The changes included the passage of one by-law that defined the purpose of ASWC resolutions, one that moved the nomination of ASWC programming chairs to fall semester and a third that centralized the description of all Senate and House representative duties into one concise section in the by-laws.
A third proposed by-law change, which would allow the ASWC communications director and secretary to split the duties on taking minutes for all ASWC meetings, failed to pass. The joint session voted instead to suspend the by-laws regarding minute taking until the next joint session, when a more comprehensive definition of these two positions will be presented for approval.
The Senate also approved a contingency request for $525 to bring an Iraq War Memorial to Whitman.
The installation, which is part of the Iraq War class, will be on campus from Nov. 25 to Dec. 3.
In ASWC programming this week, Ben Lee will be performing on Nov. 4. In addition, ASWC is co-sponsoring Salman Rushdie, who will be speaking on Nov. 7.
Winterim applications are due on Nov. 16. If you or someone you know would like to lead a workshop during this three day event, please contact Nadim Damluji.
Minutes from all ASWC Senate meetings, joint sessions and executive council meetings are available online in the archives section of the ASWC Web site.
Check it out at whitman.edu/content/aswc/archives.