Hoping to start the year with an accolade of approval, the Student Assembly's Executive Committee last night planned a broad and ambitious agenda that includes initiating many long-term projects looking at social issues on campus.
Assembly Vice-President Rukmini Sichitiu '95 said the Assembly hopes to create task forces investigating the abuse of alcohol, the first-year experience, gay and lesbian issues, gender issues, sexual assault and weaknesses in the current academic curriculum.
Sichitiu said the gay and lesbian task force will examine the Officers' Reserve Training Corps and the Gay, Lesbian Bisexual Survey conducted by Auguste Goldman '94 last year.
Assembly President Danielle Moore '95 said the task force on alcohol will examine the findings of a campus survey conducted last spring by Gabrielle Lucke, the College's health educator.
"We want to bring some focus to the topic using the survey as a starting point," she said.
The Assembly also plans on launching a speaker series on women leadership and activism and possibly creating a new week-long conference tentatively called the "First-Year Symposium, " said Sichitiu.
The "First-Year Symposium" will resemble the Senior Symposium, a lecture series sponsored by the senior class that takes place annually in the spring, but it will be funded by the Assembly and held Fall term.
"A lot of these issues are very topical to what we feel is happening on campus," Moore said.
An ad-hoc committee to plan November's Ivy League Conference hosted by Dartmouth is also on the Assembly's agenda.
Moore said the agenda set last night came primarily from herself and Sichitiu, but will need the input and work of the general assembly.
"The topics may shift depending on students' concerns," Moore said.
Earlier in the week the Assembly selected chairs for two of its standing committees. Tim Young '96 will chair the committee on intellectual life and Grace Chionuma '96, summer Assembly president, will chair the committee on social issues.
The committee on intellectual life plans to examine the Korean language and Latinos Studies program as well as the gay and lesbian studies program, which has been tentatively sidelined because of insufficient funding, Sichitiu said.
Sichitiu also said she hopes the Assembly will be able to create an Assembly fellowship to fund undergraduate research over the summer terms.
Using Assembly money, Sichitiu said the research grant will be "a gift to students from students."
The social issues committee will look at recruitment and retention of minority faculty, the campus crime report and finding additional funding for Asgard, a substance-free social group based in Butterfield Hall.
Because Asgard does not really fall under the category of an undergraduate society or an affinity house, it does not receive its own separate budget or representation on the Undergraduate Finance Committee.
"It's an old issue that has been talked about in the Assembly for a year or two," Sichitiu said.
The chairs of the committees on administrative affairs and communication are still to be determined.
Sichitiu said the administrative affairs committee will look at the housing and enrollment crunch, specifically to examine how the Dean's Office could have played in a more important role in avoiding the problems of this fall.
The administrative affairs committee also plans on surveying other colleges to find out how the College can improve its dining and telephone services and discussing fundraising possibilities to acquire another StairMaster for the gym.
