[Coca] End of Semester

[Rafferty U. Kenney]

Hello everyone,
   Thank you all so very much for your involvement in COCA for Fall 2007. I
would especially like to thank Tara for going out of her way to manage and put
together a very large section of Hampshire Halloween largely on her own. There
are some things that happen at Hampshire because of one or a few people who do
them outside of paper trails, something that someone once said to me as
"Hampshire has a lot of unsung heroes." Tara, you're one of those people, and
we really appreciate that you went out of your way to put all of that together.

   I also think a lot of people underestimate their input at Hampshire. Too
often it's a minority of students who attend all community meetings, and far
fewer who ever attend any COCD/COCA/FiCom/Council etc. meetings just to know
what's going on. This is important because those chance meetings in which a few
hours of time are sacrificed may turn into something far greater. Several years
ago I thought I did practically nothing my first semester on COCA beyond
standing next to a bouncy castle at SpringJam which, in retrospect, mattered
because not a lot of other people were willing to sacrifice a few hours (and
let us order more stuff instead of hiring more staff). Just to know what's
going on matters a lot because not a lot of people do.

   Part of the reason for saying this is to thank all of you for your time and
effort this Fall, but also because some of you who are first and second years
could be the future of COCA (and everything else at Hampshire). As you know,
Shane and I are Div III, which means that we will be far less involved this
Spring and wholly absent thereafter, so we need you to be prepared to take
charge in the future if you so choose. I remember sitting around watching
chairs like Ally Schweitzer(class 03) and Rachel Nagler(class 02) and feeling
like there wasn't a point to me sitting there. Had I not joined in S05, Shane
wouldn't have joined, SpringJam'07 may have been awful, and lord knows what
would've happened to previous Halloweens had Ally never joined when she was
younger. My point is that little things always add up, and Ally is currently
working/living in Washington DC for the Sierra Club and The Washington Post
(her first article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/23/AR2007112301643.html)

   Since it's finals week I don't expect everyone to show up this Thursday, but
it would be cool if you are able to come. We will mostly be wrapping things up
and talking about the following semester, how things will work during JanTerm,
recruiting new members, and the future of COCA. New bylaws are being drafted,
and should be edited and finalized by the Spring, which will create new officer
positions (among other things). Although these positions need to be filled,
doing no more than attending a few meetings is important in its own right. Many
things at Hampshire happen poorly/don't happen or cease to exist simply because
there are no new people to do it and no one knows about it anymore. Sometimes
entire branches of the school cease to exist, for Hampshire basically lost its
entire legislative and judicial branches, with only the quasi-executive branch
remaining in Council and its sub-committees. Many big things happen because of
the students (the Yurt was a Div III from 1988, became media center in 2001,
and is currently run by students), whereas many others do not (I know little
other than there once being a Judiciary wherein students had input on
disciplinary procedures, and that the senate voted itself out of existence.)
Although I have many personal gripes about Hampshire’s student freedom, the
students here have far more power than they realize--it’s just a matter of
responsibility in exercising it. Hope to see you in the future and thanks for
being there.

Good luck with finals,

-- 
Rafferty Kenney, co-chair
Committee on Community Activities
Hampshire College
P.O. box 0891
Amherst, MA 01002
(518) 928-7129