The Student Assembly addressed community at Dartmouth, the Academic Honor Principle and meeting attendance at last night's meeting. Director of Dining Services Pete Napolitano also attended the meeting to talk about the future of Full Fare and the Collis Cafe.
Assembly members Bill Kartalopoulos '97 and Unai Montes-Irueste '98 proposed a series of four resolutions on community at Dartmouth. The Assembly passed three of the four resolutions they presented last night.
The first resolution, which did not pass, required students to fulfill their World Culture requirements in their first five terms in residence.
Montes-Irueste said if this requirement were implemented, he could "foresee more enrollment" in courses in departments such as Asian-American studies and African and African American studies.
Kartalopoulos said the purpose of the World Culture requirement should be for students to "learn things in class to help them communicate while they are at Dartmouth," not to finish them off during Spring term of their senior year.
Laura Bennett '96 said she was concerned that pre-med students have many science courses they must take in their first few years, so being required to fulfill their World Culture distributives in that time could be difficult.
Calling for the Assembly to hold a mandatory town meeting this term as a forum for students to voice their concerns, the second resolution they proposed passed unanimously.
Many Assembly members said they thought a town meeting this term could be a "trial run" to see if the Assembly should incorporate a policy that would require the Assembly to hold a town meeting every term into its constitution.
The third resolution they proposed, which called for the Assembly to support and promote Sexual Assault Awareness Week, passed unanimously.
Their fourth resolution, which also passed, called for the Assembly to "encourage the Committee on Instruction, in conjunction with the Student Assembly liaison to that committee, to investigate student desires, faculty support and feasibility of expanding and diversifying current curricula."
The resolution states that the Assembly will send the results of this survey to the deans of the College and the faculty in addition to the Committees on Instruction, Organization and Policy and Student Life.
The Assembly unanimously passed a motion to send a set of recommendations concerning the honor principle to the Committee on Organization and Policy. Case Dorkey '99 presented the resolution.
Dorkey said the set of recommendations endorse another set of recommendations the COP released to students at the beginning of this term.
According to the recommendations, the Assembly endorses the COP's ideas that "instructors of Freshmen seminars and English 2,3 and 5 [classes] should augment their required discussion of proper citation methods and plagiarism" and that faculty should explain on course syllabi how the honor principle applies to their classes.
The COP's recommendations include students' educating peers about the honor principle, professors' making a greater distinction between misuse of sources and outright plagiarism and the College's incorporating the Academic Honor Principle into the Dartmouth application process.
Ben Hill '98 presented a constitutional amendment on membership attendance of Assembly and committee meetings. The resolution was brought to the floor last night for the third time, and after discussion and debate, was again tabled until next week.
Hill said the resolution was a compromise to keep much of the membership power within the membership and internal affairs committee while still increasing the accountability of members.
The resolution calls for members to lose their voting privileges for the remainder of the term after they missed a combination of three committee or Assembly meetings.
Kartalopoulos said he saw a possible constitutional problem with the resolution, and Della Bennett '96 said she thought the resolution was "too confusing to be implemented into the constitution."
After the Assembly tabled the attendance resolution, Napolitano addressed members about the new changes to Collis Cafe.
Napolitano said he is "well-connected with what is going on in college food service," and Dartmouth is behind in some areas. "Dining Services, on a whole, is losing $400,000 this year."
He said DDS is failing in its catering, Full Fare and the Collis Cafe.
He said as of Sept. 1, DDS will no longer have a catering service. He also said adjustments have been made so Full Fare will not have as much variety next year.
Napolitano said to tackle the problem with the Collis Cafe, he can look at labor problems and menu problems. He said he has dealt with the labor issue and plans to have Collis run by more student workers in the future.
He said the Collis Cafe will retain its sandwich and soup stations as well as the bagels. He said he plans to add a frozen dessert station, espresso drinks and a fruit smoothie bar.
Collis will still serve "savory baked goods" like calzones and focaccia, Napolitano said, but the cafe will no longer serve entrees.
