sunday feb 27, 10:45am-12:00pm
present: josh jorgensen, david boehnke, michael barnes, molly bowen, trudy rebert, ryan from MAPA (he takes spanish classes at the RCTA?), another guy from AFSCME, daniel schwartzman, elana wolowitz, me, a few others
discussed several ongoing campaigns (need-blind, center for global citizenship, institutioanl responsibility, etc)
okay, someone said “the diversity center”. now it’s called “Department of Multicultural Life”. that term is quite telling in what kind of space in your mental priority racial diversity occupies in the minds of young white liberal organizers.
institutioanl responsibility committee and the issue of proxi purchasing (investments) SRC was not given direct access to college’s investment records but they can request what they want and obtain it indirectly, which slows down the entire process.
in 1998 when SLAC was just getting started, a math professor who ran the investments was not willing to give out info but said that most of the investments go to mutual funds, which cannot be controlled, and only 25% today is through individual stocks (over which you can control social responsibility of the respective company policies), but it’s still not much
michael talked about establishing an archivist, i talked about getting alumns to just come and talk about their perspectives (was this too weak?) like federico helfgott did with his antiwar activism last fall.
told the group about SoC recruiting and how lorne robinson sucked at mulitcultural admissions, and particular local high schools, how they weren’t even getting applications, and how he got smashed during the alumni of color reunion but it was too anedotic, i didn’t work in the front lines in this issue, and my impression is that the people were listening to it just out of respect for the one (out of two) people of color in the room.
also commented a bit on the website and what these guys need is something a lot simpler than what civispace provides. even the facebook might accomplish their level of organizing, the only drawback being that they would need to go all the way back to the alumni office to get their mac alumni email addresses. (they just need to be able to CONTACT other students/alumns, for godssake)
the alternate funding project seems a bit divisive at htis point, several questions arising. what daniel points out is that we won’t ever really reach a level of funding at which the school administration will have to negotiate with us just in order to get the money. no real power. hmm
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