By Natalie Martin
After the obligatory approval of the previous week’s minutes, ComCil heard a petition from student Meghan Pergrem regarding the upcoming CG officer elections.
During its last session, Comcil decided to set October 26th as the application deadline, which Pergrem felt did not give potential candidates enough time to process the information from the October 25th Board of Trustees meeting. After some debate about whether or not to shorten the amount of time dedicated to campaigning or the time ComCil reserves to interview the candidates, it was generally agreed that the application deadline should be pushed back.
A long and somewhat heated discussion ensued regarding the deadline and whether it should be extended one week or if the whole election should be postponed until next term. Those who believed the election should be postponed until next term argued that the extended deadline will increase the pool of students who will apply. They stressed that some form of electronic voting could be used for students who graduate in December. Those Comcil members opposed to this idea argued that the level of participation will be much lower with an electronic vote and that holding the elections is a symoblic show of support for Antioch.
A motion was proposed to extend the application deadline and interview dates one week, to November 2nd and November 8th respectively, and not change the other agreed upon dates. Discussion continued for some time after the motion was made, until Comcil member Scott Warren made a motion to call the question. In doing so he moved the discussion to a vote. After some confusion over what ComCil members were voting for, the result was a rare split – five in favor of the motion, and five opposed – requiring that ComCil Chair Fela Pierrelouis cast a tie-breaking vote. Pierrelouis voted in favor of the motion, and the CG election deadlines were extended one week.
Tag: ComCil
JointCil Moves to Present Referendum to Community
“Unanimous.” AdCil chair Andrzej Bloch thus took note of the result of the vote taken by AdCil and ComCil members, united around the table of Main Building’s conference room on Tuesday morning. A special session of JointCil had been called to approve the submission of a referendum to the Antioch college community; a course of action not required by the Legislative Code, but that would add extra legitimacy to the process according to ComCil student member Sarah Buckingham. “We’re here out of good faith asking you to please be a part of this.”
Before bulking up into JointCil, the heavily agendized meeting had started as a traditional Administrative Council. Director of Business Operations Deb Caraway presented its members with the budget for the current academic year. College COO Andrzej Bloch specified that the budget had been drafted under the auspices of the suspension of operations, and that, in the case of a reversal of the board’s decision in late October, another budget would promptly be presented to AdCil. Union member Carol Braun asked why the budget was presented to AdCil so late, “It seems like it was postponed even before the decision to suspend operations,” she said.
Bloch responded that college president Steve Lawry had been working on the budget until the last minute–the end of April– because of the uncertainty in enrollment numbers for the upcoming year.“It was a moving target,’” he commented.
Several issues were raised in regards to the proposed budget. AdCil faculty member Hassan Rahmanian questioned the process of “eating the endowment,” a decision which, according to him, was not taken in consultation with AdCil. Several members also expressed concern at the consequences of the restructuring of the IT department. Faculty member Patricia Mische suggested that, if the college stayed open, it might be cheaper and more efficient to have an independent IT department rather that sharing it with the University. Finally, the question was raised as to whether it was fair to integrate depreciation into the budget under the assumption that the college would suspend its operations the following year; the deficit might be exaggerated if depreciation was not reassessed.
As no definitive answers were brought to these questions, AdCil resolved to postpone the vote to approve the budget to a subsequent meeting.
At 9:40 a.m. ComCil chair Fela Pierrelouis took over the chairing of the meeting as AdCil mutated into JointCil. The members were presented with the final drafts for a student-initiated community referendum to take place on Monday, October 8th. Two issues are addressed by the referendum; the first is a vote of no confidence against University Chancellor Toni Murdock; the second supports the independence of the college from the auspices of the University.
After the drafts were distributed around the table, a series of questions followed about the specifics of the documents; however ComCil member Sarah Buckingham, who was responsible for the language committee throughout the process of drafting the referendum, wished to make a clarification: “The initial draft was created by one student AdCil rep’ and one student ComCil rep’, and that initial draft went out in all faculty and staff mailboxes, it went out on FirstClass, and it was in the Caf’ both at lunch and dinner on Thursday and Friday, trying to get edits from the entire community, and we received very little input; so I just want that to be out there when people make suggestions like this.”
It was then clarified that JointCil would vote to support presenting the referendum to the community, not to support the actual content of the drafts.
Before voting on the motion to place the documents for a community-wide vote, Andrzej Bloch wished to elucidate who had authored the drafts. Community Events manager Rory Adams-Cheatham replied that the question was illegitimate, as the process involved was one of consensus; “It’s a student initiated community referendum, very much in line with the theories that we’re taught at Antioch,” she said, “it belongs to everybody.”
Dispatches From Community Meeting
This week in 113 there was a multi-media presentation that didn’t suck. Some kids whined about missing lunch so now they have to go to class at 8:45 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In the spirit of hygiene, Beth gave away soap to Eleanor Holmes-Norton fans and the kid who guessed that the pool is named after somebody named Poole. And of course Pulse blew up like a Blow-Pop.
Charms Community Meeting take one, action: a bunch of fruit flavored kids smoking on the outside, bubbly personalities on the inside, fabulous! Continue reading Dispatches From Community Meeting
Dispatches from ComCil
The Community Council of Antioch, or ComCil, convened for its first meeting of the fall term on Thursday, September 6th. Both new and old members familiarized themselves with the Legislative Code and introduced themselves.
The council discussed the fact that no members of the UE 767 had run for a seat. As a result, Virginia Garrett, president of the union, had asked Mary Willits to sit on the council in the union seat. In lieu of holding a separate election for this seat, the council moved to appoint Willits to the seat and suspend the relevant elements of the Legislative Code for the term.
Before entering into a closed session, the council nominated ComCil chair. Sarah Buckingham, Beth Goodney, and Fela Pierrelouis were nominated for the position. The council elected Fela as chair.
ComCil / AdCil Election Results
