between students and faculty
Shannon Nelligan
News Writer
Saint Mary's President Marilou Eldred met Monday night with the Board of Governance to create an open line of communication between the administration and students.
Eldred expressed concern about the importance of relations between the two factions. Open communication between students and administrators is essential to deciding policies that affect everyone on campus.she said.
"The things I miss most that I do not receive with this job is regular contact with the students," Eldred said. "I try my best to increase contacts between students and the administration. I encourage the resident advisers, in the beginning of the year, to invite me to hall events."
Katie Best, off-campus commissioner, illustrated the need for a link between the students and administration when it comes to choosing new faculty. She said students desire professors who have a diverse background and encouraged Eldred to take this idea into consideration.
"We need a diverse faculty that will be a permanent fixture on campus," Best said.
Eldred agreed with this sentiment and explained that we are competing with larger universities who are also pushing for greater diversity. These universities are often located in larger cities that provide a greater outlet for creativity and activity.
"We often have difficulty drawing the younger and more diverse professors to
the college because they are more attracted to the large college and city setting," Eldred said.
Kristen Matha, student trustee, inquired about the impact of the Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership [CWIL] on promoting diversity in faculty.
She believes that this is an excellent resource for the college to tap into when attempting to draw diverse professors to campus.
Eldred said CWIL is responsible for the increased diversity among the faculty. It has brought in nine fellows that reflect various ethnic and national backgrounds.
"It [CWIL] is a good presence on campus," Eldred said. "Beyond bringing new faculty fellows to campus, it has made bringing speakers like Mary Robinson to campus more affordable," she said.
Although students do not regularly think of communicating and interacting with women outside the college community, Eldred said CWIL allows for an open relationship between the students and dynamic women in the community. It is these types of programs that will fulfill the students' needs when it comes to diversifying their educations, she said.
Eldred also said that the Lilly Endowment, the program that funds CWIL, has set up a donation matching program for the college. This fund-raiser will hopefully be finishing up at the end of this semester for the Board of Trustees, but she hopes that BOG will be able to help with this endeavor into the spring semester.
"It demonstrates a strong commitment and belief in the college when students participate in their own fundraising," said Kim Jensen, student body president. "Every little bit helps," she said.
In Other BOG news:
Elizabeth Jablonski-Diehl, student body vice-president announced a new proposal for the upcoming elections. She said most major elections will come under BOG.
New procedures were proposed to evade confusion in the event that a tie occurs in an election. This new look at the constitution is a result of the tie that occured in the spring 2000 presidential elections.
Jablonski-Diehl said that in the event of a tie this year the election will be decided by an appeals board composed of five seniors. This procedure allows for the student government to move towards a system that promotes a cofindential judicial branch.
"This is the best decision we could make when considering all the other options," Jablonski-Diehl said.
After some debate and an expressed concern over the legitimacy of this type of election system, BOG passed the new election procedure to go into effect for a trial basis for the next election.
The executive board decided that BOG will no longer fund senior comprehensives.
"It [funding for senior comprehensives] does not fit into what the board considers to be co-sponsorship," Jensen said.
According to Matha, this is merely a reinterpretation of the omprehensive funding policy by the new administration that will set a precedent for future funding of projects.
All News Stories for Tuesday, November 19, 2002
