SCOR General Body Meeting MINUTES

Friday, September 9, 2005

Angell Hall, Auditorium B

Hosted by the Program in American Culture

WELCOME – (Sharon Lee) Thank you for coming out to the first SCOR meeting of the year.  You should have received an agenda, newsletter, and survey.

SPECIAL GUESTS

· Phil Deloria (Director of American Culture) – it’s a pleasure to host and support SCOR; the organization has supported many causes like the repatriation of human remains at UM; we could also rely on SCOR to help us out; undergrads think there is no ethnic studies at UM but, it takes different forms like CAAS and all the ethnic studies in American Culture; if you are looking for a fun class check out our graduate offerings; it is a pleasure to support SCOR and whatever we can do we have your back as well

· Dean Janet Weiss- out of town emergency

· Darlene Ray Johnson (Director of Graduate Student Affairs) - work with all aspects of graduate student life in Rackham; work w/ Rackham student government, social events, orientation, awards; pleasure to attend a SCOR meeting; background is in student affairs, so I’m very student oriented.  Look forward to working with you.  We are currently interested in developing new initiatives around graduate student issues centered around mental and physical health.  What kind of programs and services that would be supportive of graduate students?  We would love to have a rep (or two) to work with Rackham.  Come by and stop to see me or Jayne London in Rackham, among the many services we provide to students we specialize in handling academic grievances and academic integrity

· Evans Young (Assistant Dean LS&A)- created the Black Studies Conference, SCOR has changed substantially, the solidarity across lines has been remarkable, grad student in the 70’s the demographic has changed; its all about putting faces to names; SCOR is remarkable for support

· Al Young (Faculty advisor to SCOR, Associate Professor in CAAS) - encourage faculty to connect with your interests, formalize relationships that matter, SCOR is a space and opportunity to connect particularly around professional development; wish you success

Sharon calls Brighid to the front of the room.  For those of you who know that Brighid was the president last year and due to her presidency she pushed SCOR into many new directions.  In thinking of my own presidency, I look up and admire here.  So, thank you for your presidency and your friendship.  Sharon presents Brighid with a gift.

OPENING ACTIVITY – talk to others and discover what you share in common

SCOR poem

When we first came to Ann Arbor… we saw so many new faces SCOR became our safe harbor,

The first week of school was… caliente, hectic, overwhelming, never-ending, boring, anxious, confusing, fine, so long ago, smooth

Driving … was hard

My professors and classes are… quite interesting…

            … dropping my lashes

            … kickin our assess

            … goin right past us

            … tryin to outlast us

            … tryin to prove they’re the baddest

Getting a graduate degree is… expensive, time consuming, exciting, hopeful, productive, no-joke, crucial, eye-opening, better than the real world, pleasing to parents, not all its cracked up to be, fun so far

Sex … makes us happy!

The theme for this year is community building: within and outside of the university.  Each e-boarder will now talk about their positions

EXECUTIVE BOARD INTRODUCTIONS & COMMITTEE REPORTS

Vice President (Lloyd Grieger) - 2^nd year student no committee, floater, help out put together a constitution, getting the food for meetings… the food will be good

Treasurer (Shaton Sanderson)- hi everyone 2^nd year school, no committee, taking donations for hurricane relief, we want to serve members first, give to charitable causes here, raised $228.20 at the SCOR BBQ

Secretary (Tony Perez) - not present

Rackham E-board Rep (Brighid Dwyer) - serve as Rackham board, acting as a liaison between Rackham and SCOR

At-Large Rep (Josie Sirineo) – 2^nd year doctoral student in the School of Ed, two main responsibilities, one is to serve as the liaison between the SCOR E-board and the caucuses and second is to document the history of SCOR; let me know if you are interested in helping out

Community Service (Courtney Cogburn) - 2^nd year, approach to make it SCOR wide events, community within SCOR and outside of SCOR, start special issues committee, commit to long term community service commitments, SCOR service for the end of a year like AIDS walk or Habitat for Humanity, look out for monthly service events, tutoring, community service for evacuees; I’ll send out an email for babysitting, supplies and additional community service information

Conference (Paul Burns 4^th year & Angela Locks3^rd year) - mini flier, first meeting this Sunday, ERC on south U, overview of conference, 17 years of conference history, sign up for committee, everyone is welcome, check out the conference in your packet

Media & Publicity (Shanesha R. F. Brooks 2^nd year & Travis Tatum 2^nd year) - newsletter, make sure you pick up a copy, email addresses are on it, on page 8, blurb of SCOR events calendar, anything you want the general SCOR body let Tony know; there are new rules of netiquette for the SCOR listserv, different categories for email, different prefixes BIZ, SOC, SERVICE, RESOURCE (academic workshop, lectures), NEWS, 4SALE; contest for new SCOR logo, send it to Travis (travist) or Shanesha (srfb).  If you win, you’ll get a gift certificate.  If you are a writer or would like to submit an article to the newsletter, send it to Shanesha.  Everyone is always welcome to submit something.

Political Action (Hugo Shi)- Help mobilize grad students on multiple causes; MCRI Michigan civil rights initiative will end affirmative action; join the committee please, we will also work with GEO.

-(GEO representative) Thanks for SCOR last year for the fight for the contract, brought planners and handbook to help understand the terminology of the contract; we also plan to raise aid for hurricane victims; and help the American Federation of State and Municipal employees, an organization that we need to help win a fair and just contract

Professional Development (Heather Brink) - 2 events per year, Take My Advice Mixer,

Graduate student and faculty mixer, if you want to be on the committee then sign up, if you want to contact the Native American caucus, talk to me because I’m the chair

Scholarship (Sanjaya Thakur) - 5^th year, needs help to review applications after students are admitted, contact me if you have ideas or want to do outreach to high schools in general

Social (Devin Horton) - 3^rd year candidate, no committee last year but this year it helps that some of the events are already planned, on the SCOR website there is a calendar, my goal is to have events that you are actually interested in doing and more events that have events that are geared for families; some possible upcoming events are Arab American museum, ski trip in the winter instead of whitewater rafting, Scormal, GYB –Got Your Back mentor program with new and veteran members of SCOR; please sign by Thursday, Sept 22^nd

CAUCUS INTRODUCTIONS & REPORTS

AABC (Menna Demessie) - lots of great ideas, next meeting Sept 16^th, 4-6pm, on the agenda is potlucks, New Orleans, and open to ideas, location is TBA

APIA (Isa Quintana & Brian Chung) - fun last year and this year, start some of networking, support, short and long term ideas, look forward to people coming out, September 16^th 5-7 in East Hall

Latino/a (Desi Rios & Francine Segovia) – goals for this year are networking/socializing within the Latino community, broadening to include MSU; mentor undergrads, if you are interested contact us, our emails are on the blue sheet

LGBT (Paul Burns, last year’s chair) - we wanted to get together but there was a lack of support on campus, no space for people to come together, Ishtar is a wonderful, dynamic person, last year we developed a series of programs to increase gay visibility, we encourage all to help out.

Mixed Posse (John Paul Stephens & Chris Shults) – caucus designed for multiracial folks, redefine what it means to be a member of mixed posse, discussions about changing the definition according to physical identities, many identities that form, first meeting has not been set; one idea is to put together a SCOR cookbook

Native American (Heather Brink) – it’s a small caucus but we take on great causes like repatriation, first meeting on Tuesday, potluck, sign up

ANNOUNCEMENTS

-All programming is on the website

-IM sports flag football, softball, women, men co-ed signups

-Current investigation going on regarding the signatures for MCRI; some BAMN organizes visited homes in Detroit and Flint and people who signed it said they were told it was because it was for affirmative action, they also hired Black circulators and were told that it was for affirmative action.  Once the Black circulators read the proposal they stopped collecting signatures; currently filing a legal suit against MCRI; we’re filing to be interveners on the case; we have a petition, meeting Monday 7pm, Michigan League; we need different organizations to sign up

-SCOR & Muslim Grad student association: Sept 19 Rackham 6-8pm, Niger fundraiser, contact Hugo Shi for more info

Black Medical Association fundraiser, Friday, September, 16^th at Studio 4

-UM post doc who lives a mile away from where the New Orleans evacuees are housed in Southfield; she has agreed to bring any donations to the evacuees

GOOD NEWS

CLOSING

Time to eat!

Food provided by Hawkin’s Place, 97 Spring Street, Ypsilanti, 734.483.8360

Musical entertainment provided by dj fuzzylogic (Brian Chung – brchung)