Student Assembly Discusses Slope Day, Faculty Replacement

Over 50 people attended Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting to find out who the performers for Slope Day will be this year. Slope Day Programming Board Chair Liz Rapoport ’09 and Selections Director Mike Chua ’08 announced the Gym Class Heroes and Hot Hot Heat, while acknowledging that the SDPB “trie[d] its best to gauge the musical pulse of the Cornell community.”
After the announcement was made, the majority of the audience left, with approximately a dozen people staying to hear the continuation of the S.A.­­ meeting.
Christopher Sarra, engineering representative, informed the group that three members of Cornell’s faculty have been nominated to replace Dean of University Faulty Charles Walcott Ph.D ’59 after he retires at the end of this year. Sarra also said that the College of Engineering would throw a “Nerd-iators” celebration in April to celebrate engineers.
Sanjiv Tata ’09, residential student congress liaison, gave an update on the gender-neutral housing resolution that was passed by the S. A. last fall. The resolution will allow certain suites and dorm rooms on West Campus to be gender neutral to residents who choose them. 10 students will begin using gender-neutral housing in Fall 2009. They will make up one suite each in two of the West Campus houses.
The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing Director of Elections Mark Coombs’s ’08, letter to the S.A. regarding eight of the S.A.’s at-large chairs. Four are given each year to representatives from the LGBTQ, minority and international communities. Coombs realized, however, that these groups are not specified in the S.A.’s charter, and presented a letter to the S.A. encouraging them to consider dropping the restrictions of the chairs.
After several minutes of argument, S.A. President CJ Slicklen ’09 cut off discussion saying that the letter needed to be in resolution format before the issue could be further discussed.
The meeting concluded with a statement by Rapoport asking for more time from the S.A. in determining how to handle the S.A.’s decision that the SDPB must charge graduate students an entry fee for Slope Day. The request was tabled for the time being since members of the administration are meeting today to discuss the possibilities.