Discussion of Year’s Agenda

As this week’s meeting, Legislative Body (LB) members brainstormed ideas for the year’s agenda. Most of the proposed ideas focus on ways to publicize MCSG.

“We should be going to constituents and dorm storming, just generally making ourselves known,” Program Board chair Erin Miller ’05 said.

LB members suggested various ideas for expanding the student body’s knowledge of the LB and its roles and responsibilities. Members proposed showing clips of LB members speaking about MCSG before Mac Cinema films, airing LB meetings on Macalester closed circuit television—the Blakely Production Studio on channel 6—and publishing LB meeting minutes.

Aside from plans to advertise the LB, members also discussed possible MCSG sponsored campus events. “We are in a good position for funding and support. If we have a big fundraiser for some cause, like an overnight walk-a-thon, we would achieve the goal of social responsibility and community,” MCSG Vice President Cara Haberman ’06 said. Other ideas proposed at the meeting included hosting a midnight breakfast, getting cheap campus bus passes and distributing copies of The New York Times to students in the Campus Center on a daily basis.
 

New AAC Chair to be Elected

Haberman addressed the proceedings for electing a new Academic Affairs Committee (AAC) chair in place of Aroosa Saeed ’06, who recently resigned. Prospective AAC chairs will submit applications by this Friday and will speak before the LB at the meeting next Tuesday. The LB will discuss the speeches and applications and will elect a new candidate by e-mail. [See the article in the briefs section on page 2 for more information about the AAC chair’s situation.]

In this week’s Administrative and Faculty Spotlight, Biology professor and EPAG chair Mary Montgomery discussed curricular review. “It’s our job to examine the curriculum, and to see that things are up to snuff,” she said. “Are students emerging from Macalester learning the things that they should?” (See brief on page 2 for more information.)

The “Strategic Directions Report” of Spring 2001 called for the faculty to examine the structure of the college’s academic program and core curriculum. Last year, EPAG discussed academic restructuring and established curricular review as its highest priority. “We began to look at the idea comprehensively and push for total reform,” Montgomery said. The curricular reforms will only affect general requirements at the college and will not change the program of specific majors.

Montgomery said the renewal planning process is far from complete. “We still want guidance and feedback,” she said. “People want to see more flesh on the skeleton. This is hours and hours plus years of a process.”