Senate Report 03/15/2010

On Monday, March 8, faculty representative from the Minority Recruitment & Hiring Retention Committee Stanley Chang visited Senate to request student support for recent MRHRC initiatives. The committee is responsible for encouraging the maintenance of a high level of diversity in faculty ranks and recently sent a letter to the Dean of the College, Andrew Shennan, encouraging him to fill recently vacated associate dean positions with candidates who reflect the college's commitment to racial diversity. Chang requested that the student body write a similar letter to the Dean.

Committee on Educational Research and Development (CERD) presents to Senate

The student representative from CERD presented to Senate on Monday. The purpose of CERD is to give money to professors who want to develop new courses or go to conferences for pedagogical reasons. Three types of grants can be applied for through CERD. The first is for professors who want to develop their courses through field trips, the second is specified for travel to attend conferences related to pedagogy and the third is an experimental grant that is used to create an experimental or more interdisciplinary course.

Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) reports on meeting with Peter Pan representative

Perry Hodgkins and Rachel Mattson, TAC student representatives, presented to Senate with a report from their meeting last Thursday with a Peter Pan bus company representative. Topics discussed included:

Tokens: Issues with token machines not functioning should now be resolved. Peter Pan recently switched companies for token distribution, causing some confusion with the individual who repairs the machines and leaving machines out of order for an extended period of time. The situation has now been resolved and should not be an ongoing issue.

"Break Buses" at the Kendall stop: In order to decrease stress and increase mental health of drivers, Peter Pan has arranged to have buses at the Kendall stop available for drivers to use for their 15 minute breaks. The "Break Buses" are intended to be a private place in which drivers can make personal phone calls, eat and relax.

GPS tracking system: Peter Pan will soon be establishing a GPS tracking system so that students can use smart-phone technology or computer internet access to track where buses are on their routes. The tentative date of this technology's availability is around April 15.

Vomiting on the bus: This year vomiting on buses has gone up 400% from last year. Vomiting on buses is an issue because it's a health hazard, is costly to clean up and causes stress to both drivers and students riding the bus. Wellesley's Alcohol Advisory Committee will be meeting in April and the issue will be discussed there.

Student Policy and Ethics Committee (SPEC) drafts new spam policy

Kelly Walters, SPEC Chair presented to Senate Monday to review newly drafted spam policy. One change is the official addition of the policy stating that all electronic spam must have the text of images entered as text in the body of the e-mail, a policy that was unofficially instated last spring to accommodate individuals with disabilities who may have computer programs read text aloud for them. Other changes to the spam policy will make it easier to report violations and will outline punishment procedures for both on- and off-campus groups who violate spam policy. Senators were instructed to vote on the new spam policy in their house councils and return to the next Senate meeting to vote on the policy. For more information on the current spam policy and new changes, check the SPEC portion of the College Government Conference on FirstClass.