Campus Center Room 204
Thursday, October 19, 2006 7:00pm
Members Present: Meg Ambrus, Jillian Flynn, Kamille King, Molly McCadden, Jan Arbaugh,
Adrienne Lee, Margaret MacRae, Ayesha Siddiqui, Michele Chapdelaine, Devin Burke, RaeAnne Butera, Mary Opler, Ali Woodruff, McKay LeBlanc
Members Absent: Monique Robinson
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Call to Order: Meg
A. Meg called the meeting to order at 7:04pm
Opening Activity – Devin
Minutes – Adrienne/ All
A. Motion to approve the minutes from 10-12-06 passes 9-0-2
Seven Sisters Leadership Conference Updates
A. Kristen Cole has drafted a press release
B. Food
1. Can’t have lunch in Alumnae House because another event is booked
2. Lunch in Chapin House
3. Dinner – Pizzeria Paradiso, accommodate everyone?
C. Gift
1. Laminate cards, put on top of padfolio
2. Alma Mater book signing by Helen Horowitz after her talk, books given at tea
Guest Speaker – Audrey Smith, Dean of Enrollment
A. Background
1. Been here for 6 years, came as director of admission, financial aid and office
of admission were separate, now brought them together under enrollment
management
2. Deb Shaver
3. Financial aid – they hear student concerns, customer service and administer
policies fair and equitably
4. Student recruitment and student selection; recruitment is more important, but
to most people, student selection is
5. From an admissions perspective, it’s not easy being a women’s college
B. Rankings
1. Matters in the world of admission
2. US News and World Report favors wealthy institutions with many resources
3. Institutions that rank higher than Smith tend to be wealthier and co-ed, except
Wellesley
4. 25% of rankings – Only 3 people get to fill out surveys – president, provost,
and chief enrollment officer
5. Set of selectivity criteria – SAT score, class rank, admission ratio, predict
retention rate and compare with actual
6. Other set of rankings – faculty resources 19 students, more than 50 , faculty
salaries, resources in library
7. Percentage of alumnae giving – this is where smith is most out of line
8. SAT scores
9. Retention rate – straight retention rate and predicted graduation rate based on
admissions statistics
10. SAT scores – before Smith, spent 10 years at Hampshire, ability to select
students was not hampered in any way
11. Smith has a lot of international applicants
12. Agnostic – helpful and not, Smith uses appropriately as a small factor in
admissions decision
13. Matters more in PR implications and USNWR
14. Change the formula every year so that you can’t play to the results
15. Would help us, more applicants, SAT score would go up (US News might
adjust for this)
16. Keep SATs: institutions with this are most prestigious
17. Highly able students have questioned Smith’s quality because don’t require
SAT IIs
18. Leaning toward getting rid of them, Deb Shaver is very much for dumping
them
19. Mt. Holyoke; when they went optional 6 year ago, 37 points below Smith,
now are pretty equal
20. Smith – 100 points lower, because Smith has very diverse student body
(socioeconomic status)
21. Bowdoin and Middlebury – SAT optional, trying to catch up to Amherst and
Williams; located in very rural areas and have incredibly homogeneous
population
22. Holy Cross – last year dropped SAT, and 40% increase in applications
23. Standards movement in US is pretty strong – grade inflation, international
applicant pool – understanding education systems across the globe is
challenging
24. It’s a faculty policy decision to drop SAT I
a. Faculty committee “Board of Admission”; student representative since
2004
b. Even changing question on app is something that they have to decide
on
25. Common app exclusive – this is our second year; we have a supplement
26. 6 years ago – large faculty study group convened, decided to deemphasize
SATs
27. Correlation of how well reader ratings predicted Smith GPA
a. Less correlation of reader ratings and SATs than before
C. Recruit students
1. Wellesley and Smith – compete for same students; Mt. Holyoke and Bryn
Mawr
2. 3 out of 4 times, will choose Wellesley over Smith, and Smith over Mt.
Holyoke; Barnard is a little different
3. Cornell’s PR movement led by students – Why not Smith too?
4. Maximize the positive and build on it, minimize negative impact to mitigate
negative trends
2
VI.
5. Take Smith Home – take Smith back to high schools
6. Some prospective students say that Smith seems more intense than and not as
friendly as Mt. Holyoke
7. Interested in a lot of things and engaged in conversation – we are more intense
8. CA – #1 school for Wellesley
a. Smith – this year NY, MA, CT, CA
9. States not represented in class of 2010: Upper Midwest – ND, SD, ID, WY?,
WV
10. South and Southwest are where American population is growing, and this is
the fewest 50% - New England and Mid-Atlantic States
11. 2009: fewer high school graduates, and fewer in northeast
12. Deb Shaver – advocating for larger admissions staff
13. 38% this year and last year (~%40) – admitted higher 48 last year, 53 this
year, 674 accepted
14. Would like to keep population stable right now
15. Have to hit the population mark
16. Harvard dropped early action in order to hit diversity mark
17. When people apply early to Smith, it’s thought through (admit %20 of class
early)
18. What we can do to help: donate billions of dollars to endowment, why does
Smith have such a low percentage of alumnae giving
19. We do well with amount donated
20. We are not at the highest tier, we are the envy of so many private liberal arts
colleges in the US, and we’re every bit as good as the other schools
21. Smith is #1 in bachelor’s institutions with Fulbright winners
22. Center College in Kentucky – 2nd highest giving rate in college after
Dartmouth, then became number one
23. Don’t want Smith to make curricular and important decisions for the rankings
a. “Washington Monthly” magazine – service and activism Bryn Mawr #1,
this year we made it just after Wellesley
24. Cabinet – something to support for Strategic Planning/ SAT
25. Faculty role in admission – they can really make a difference
D. Debrief
1. Send out postcards
2. Get Advancement to come (we’re booked until mid-November)
3. Attitude of Smith students toward Smith
4. Student PR group – raise general attitude toward Smith; reflect on what’s good
about Smith
5. Senate Spirit Club
6. Chalk outside of Seelye – “Good luck on your exams!”
Committee Updates
A. McKay
1. Need a first-year or a sophomore who is not going abroad
2. Meeting with Provost Bourque
3. Need people on Celebrating Collaborations Committee
3
a. Meets once a month in Mary Maples Dunn room, talk about how to
publicize Collaborations, programming, serve lunch, cookies, which
rooms to use
V.
B. Devin
1. Finally have 15 people
2. Want more rollover to discretionary fund, makes more sense to give money
back to orgs, but SGA fund: SGA vans, Resource Center for Sexuality and
Gender
3. Reserve: rollover, where the SAF goes and gets allocated from there (e.g.
PVTA check)
C. Michele
1. No cases this week
D. Adrienne
1. Elections are over, and new members will come next week
E. Mary
1. Senate picked some goals: social life, how the SGA works (transparency), and
safety
F. Ayesha
1. Have a full cabinet
G. Molly
1. Cabinet came to HPA on Tuesday
2. Halloween event Sunday 29 2-3:30 in Quad
3. Advertise through e-digest
4. Questions about Bias Complaint; Ad hoc committee released a report, but
faculty panel thought it might impinge on freedom of speech, currently no
committee and thus no procedure
5. To get an active committee, faculty has to vote on it, but they have issues with
things in it
6. Ask the Provost, and get her to come to Cabinet whenever she’s available
(McKay)
7. Bill Brandt – house renovations
H. Ali
1. Senior Appreciation Program Committee met – need more people (seniors)
2. Seniors interested in tabling in CC, selling senior class shirt and parents’ shirts
3. Senior Wine and cheese Saturday 7-8:30 in Art atrium
I. Jill
1. Nov. 8 4-6pm (day before Otelia Cromwell Day)
2. Friday and Saturday selling t-shirts for parents
College Updates – Meg
A. Board of Trustees
1. President is excited
B. Strategic Planning Recommendations
1. President is disappointed at attendance of students at Strategic Planning events
2. Easel sign in the CC
C. Civil Discourse SGA events
4
VII.
1. Mentha Hynes and Kamala Kiem proposed an intergroup on civil discourse
that will meet for an extended period of time; 2 groups of different
backgrounds to promote dialogue on campus
2. Meg is meeting with Patrick Connelly
3. Jim Miller at Faculty Forum on Free Speech
D. Boston Globe/ Trans Issues
1. Can still use “she” in house constitutions
Board of Trustees Discussion – Amelia
A. Student rep with Ka’Neda
B. Long-term big idea decisions for the college
C. Financial stuff of the college
1. Manage endowments, investments
D. Mental health issues
1. Board needs to know student perspective, so that they perceive that they’re
helping
2. Anecdotal evidence can be very persuasive
E. Big concerns of the Board (Student Affairs Committee and open to the full Board)
1. Very focused on the student experience here at Smith
a. Mission of the college is to educate students
b. Very focused on financial aid, socioeconomic distribution of the class
we have, Pell grant recipients
2. Admissions
a. What type of people do we want at Smith
b. Provide the benefits of access that we can
c. No concern in selectivity – they’re proud of Smith and think it’s doing
well
d. Rankings, retention rate – Smith prides itself on being an elite
institution that admits the best students, but institution that provides
access to education
e. What type of students/sort of people we should be letting in, what kind
of person is a Smithie (applicant pool v. desired applicant pool)
3. Want to address wider systemic issues in the college
a. Provide suggestions, and mention the good things about Smith
b. Curriculum, suite-based housing and how to use the space
c. ResLife – ethnographer hired by Dean Mahoney to do an ethnographic
study of the houses, and certain houses were selected to participate in
the study from which a report was made, Smith experience as affected
by housing; people liked Smith because of close relationships, morale
loss and loss of community due to dining changes; expected results but
still interesting
d. How do you see the college in 10 years?
e. Board will tell staff what to work on, and they will work on it
4. Common Ground Initiative and Diversity Issues
5. Board (Ka’Neda, Amelia, Meg) getting back to Cabinet about what the Board
is going to do
6. Saturday morning – full Board meeting, make recommendations
5
IX.
X.
7. Divesting from Sudan
a. Which companies fit that criteria
8. Culture of stress
a. Consciously get away from talking about work and stress
b. Concrete programs will be decided by the staff
B. Cabinet presentations
1. How mental health and wellness plays into every aspect of student life
a. Intramurals (soccer)
b. More funding for Get Fit Smith
c. Health Services – hard to get appointment, personable
d. Dining – more nutrition information
e. Brunch and distress
f. NA and AA groups and Weight Watchers on campus – for Dean
Mahoney
g. Stress of finals and organization, reading period – for Provost Bourque
2. Quantitative Skills – faculty determines this
a. What are the core skills you want a student to leave with (includes
ability to handle stress and maintain balance in life, public speaking,
writing skills, research skills)
3. Free drop
a. When the deadline was the last day of classes, had put a lot of effort
into teaching students and it’s a waste of resource
4. First-year advising and teaching students how to manage stress
5. STRIDE students don’t leave Smith as much
6. Managing time, speaking to professors, learning not to over-schedule
7. Clearer meal period – distressing time
8. Molly – one of most productive place for community to be built is in houses
a. Lot of ideas in place but not necessarily the money
b. Renovations – taking a lot of time, and a lot of houses really do need
new carpet/wallpaper/furniture
c. Campus Center – used really well through Fashionably Late
d. Theme housing
e. Concern about parties being pushed out of houses into the Campus
Center
9. Trustee mentoring program
a. Trustees want to have more contact with students
10. SGA President will sit on the Student Affairs Committee
11. Contact Amelia, Ka’Neda, or Meg, and they will get it to the full Board
Review of BoT Presentations – All
Motion to Adjourn
A. Meg adjourned the meeting at 9:57pm
6