Colors, a new student group composed of the presidents and vice-presidents of eight minority groups, will meet this weekend to ratify its constitution and discuss possible goals for the Spring term.
"We're going to meet sometime this weekend. Then things will be more firm," said Jay Park '98, the vice-president of the Korean American Students Association. Park said he helped to write the constitution along with Afro-American Society President John Barros '96 and Native Americans at Dartmouth President Josh Winterhalt '97.
Colors member Patricia Frausto '97 said the constitution will be released once it is ratified by the organization.
After its creation in Winter term, Colors sponsored a rally attended by more than 400 students and faculty to protest recent racist incidents.
Winterhalt said members have not decided on any specific actions for the group in spring.
"The nature of Colors is very fluid and adaptable to the needs of the [minority] organizations at that particular time," he said. "Last term there was racial tension, and that is what we addressed."
Winterhalt said Colors will meet weekly.
Frausto said she is pleased with the constitution.
"We seem satisfied with most of it," she said. "We're ironing out the wrinkles and presenting it to our representative organizations to have them ratify it."
Frausto said Colors will remain dependent on the minority organizations it represents.
Winterhalt said few people understand the purpose of Colors.
"The College is flooded with misinformation about who we are," he said.
The group's statement of purpose reads, "Colors is a forum for leaders of students of colors' organizations to come together, discuss issues, support each other, promote interaction between our respective organizations and communities, find direction and join in one voice."
Frausto said many students incorrectly believe Colors came into being in response to the intolerant acts that culminated in Winter term. Rather, she said, Colors' seed was sewn in meetings between minority leaders during fall.
"Colors, in concept, in some form, has existed since Fall term," she said. "In a sense the people who came in in winter were new members."
According to Park, many members of Colors will be stepping down once the constitution is ratified. They will be replaced by the newly-elected presidents and vice-presidents of the minority groups.
Frausto, who is a member but not an officer of La Alianza Latina, the College's Latino students organization, said she remained a member of the group "for continuity."
"The main reason why Ernesto [Cuevas '98] and myself and Danielle [Doctor '98] stayed on was for continuity," she said. "And if we need to have that in spring, we may stay on."
But Frausto said once new members "establish themselves the old members will be petering out."
Old members will help new members acclimate to the group in a sort of "staff training," she said.
