Author: Soo Jin Kim
On Tuesday, Sept. 22, the Associated Students of Occidental College (ASOC) Senate held its weekly meeting to discuss individual committee projects, the possible elimination of the ASOC club-funding algorithm, and this year’s ASOC budget. President Veitch also attended the meeting to address the Senate and to answer senators’ questions.
In his speech to the Senate, Veitch revealed that he is planning a major effort to hire new professors, to strengthen ties between the college and Los Angeles and to attempt to help the college to build greater connections with President Obama.
According to President Veitch, most of Oxy’s professors will be retired in a decade, and deciding how to replace them in the future could be a problem. He suggested that a simple solution would be to replace them one by one.
However, Veitch explained that the hiring process is complicated by constant changes in student interests and academic fields. “Do you hire the same way, or differently? All that has to be thought through,” Veitch said. Emphasizing the quality of an education provided by the kind of professors that teach at small institutions, Veitch stressed the importance and difficulty of identifying and hiring future professors to continue this legacy.
“Taking classes with that special professor is an experience,” he said. “Our advantage is in the personalization of the education. That’s why you chose Occidental.”Veitch also emphasized Oxy’s location in a major metropolitan area. “Certain things are built into the DNA of Occidental College,” he said. “And we should strongly identify with Los Angeles and the community.”
He suggested treating L.A. as a source for students to use in studying social issues such as immigration and race relations. He also noted the prevalence of L.A.’s art and culture and the importance of establishing strong ties with leading cultural institutions such as museums. He praised Oxy’s strong history of service and encouraged the need to connect with community organizations.
President Veitch also pushed for a more active relationship between President Obama and Oxy. “We need to do something more than hope that he’ll come to graduation and put his image on t-shirts,” said Veitch. “We need something that makes the connection [to President Obama] more meaningful – from the most mundane to the most ambitious . . . We need to show [President Obama] that it’s not just him we want, but what he represents that matters to us.” He suggested marking places President Obama visited or lived at with plaques or artwork.
President Veitch wondered aloud to the Senate about the lack of political fervor on campus. “Why is there no discussion about health care at Oxy?” he asked. “This is Obama’s campus – we should be following the pros and cons of the health care proposal right now.”
However, President Veitch cautioned against having a solely liberal view and welcomed different types of political views on campus. He pointed to the late Jack Kemp (’57), a conservative who ran for Vice President and who cared deeply about poverty. “I think college should be a barely contained anarchy in regards to political minds,” Veitch said.
After President Veitch’s speech, the Senate allocated funds to clubs on campus and reviewed projects that the senators are working on. The Senate discussed the amount of funds to allocate to Student Services, student media and the Senate’s discretionary budget. The ASOC is funded through student body fees that students pay as part of their cost to attend Oxy.
Student Services includes Oxy’s yearbook La Encina, the Bengal Bus, Programming Board, the Occidental Agency (TOA) and the Student Activities Center (SAC). Student media consists of Oxy’s radio station, KOXY, and newspaper, The Occidental Weekly. The Senate’s discretionary budget is used primarily to fund clubs and all of the club sports.
The ASOC Senate usually sets the budget for the coming year at the end of the previous year, but this did not happen last year. As a result, the current ASOC president Andrew DeBlock (senior) has been working to allocate the budget this fall. Next year’s budget will be set at the end of the spring semester in 2010. This year, the ASOC has a budget of $611,390.
During the discussion of allocating money to clubs, the funding algorithm came up. The algorithm uses a funding request made by a club to compute a suggested sum to be allocated based on certain criteria such as the location of the event, the expected number of student attendance and whether the event is cultural, education or service-based. “What I’ve heard is that the mysterious algorithm was written by a math major a few years ago, and he wouldn’t tell anyone how it works, so nobody can cheat it,” said the ASOC Funding Chair Aliza Goldsmith (sophomore) in an e-mail interview. “I think in the past we saw this as something we should go with, but I’m trying to encourage senators to use this merely as a guide; the senators really have complete freedom in augmenting the allocations.”
Senators also gave presentations on ongoing projects. One presentation was by members of the Green committee Andreas Bloomquist (sophomore) and Anne Wolfstone (sophomore). This committee is looking to bring the Zip Car service to Oxy. The Zip Car service is a shared car service program that will provide students on campus with energy-efficient cars to use temporarily. Students will pay a nominal yearly fee and a relatively inexpensive hourly rate to borrow it.
“[Wolfstone and I] are devoted to contributing to a more sustainable campus,” said Bloomquist.
Clubs who would like to petition for more money to fund their events are encouraged to attend the weekly Senate meeting, held every Tuesday in the Galarza room in the library.
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