[HSU-CoordBoardInternal] "Retreat" and fixing the union

Sun Oct 20 16:33:53 EDT 2013

Jesse,

While I understand where you're coming from, I can't say that I agree. I
think that trying to address the issue of poor communication by
communicating in smaller groups is going around the problem, not straight
at it. I agree with Mitch that we'll never get to the heart of our issues
that way. We need to learn to communicate as a whole group.

I think as Mitch pointed out, one of our biggest difficulties is the group
dynamic. When we're in meetings together I often feel like we're not
listening to each other, and even that we don't trust each other with this
work sometimes. We have not had/taken the opportunity to work out our group
dynamic and come together as a cohesive, united community.

I don't have anything to add to what Mitch has already said about document
writing, except that I think we need to separate it from this "retreat" or
whatever it ends up being. It seems like we've talked before about taking a
step back from business for a moment to discuss how we're working together,
but it doesn't seem like we're making many strides in that area. I strongly
feel that this is what we need. I feel we need to get very explicit about
how we all come together from our separate scope group to form coordboard,
and what that means for us. How do we communicate? How do we work together?
How do we support each other? How do we hold meetings in a stress-free,
respectful way? This is what I think we need to focus on, and very soon.

Adrianna and I have discussed both facilitation training and restorative
practices. I think both of these would be greatly to our benefit. I imagine
that having Jordan(?) work with us on restorative practices, and sort of
mediating, during this retreat would be a huge help as we work through some
of the problems we're having. I think that would also help to keep the
stress level at a minimum, and offer an outside perspective. After laying a
foundation for working with each other in that way, I think it would be
beneficial to bring the UACT folks back to train us in facilitation. I'll
send a separate email with more details on that, but they feel they can
really help us work together better and create a more intentional space for
the work we're doing.

I hope we can talk more about all of this soon. I think this we should
discuss this in depth during Thursday's meeting.

Take care,
Brittany

On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 2:18 AM, Mitchell Krieger <miak11 at hampshire.edu>wrote:

> I'm not sure if the accountability board is ready to tackle such things,
> as they are trying to figure out what their role is themselves, in addition
> to how they function. Plus I think receiving a "verdict" from the
> accountability body was not what was envisioned for the body. They were
> supposed to be facilitators of accountability, assessment and improvement
> of the HSU. Maybe I'm wrong, and they are ready, but from what Josiah told
> me today, it didn't sound like it. I do like the idea of having shorter
> meetings spread out, but I think without having us all in a room together,
> we will never get at the heart of our problems. It might be good to have
> those smaller meetings (which are definitely important), but I think we
> definitely will eventually need a larger meeting with the entire coordboard
> as well.
>
> I think that our problems aren't that things aren't being accomplished or
> getting done, our problem is that the process of getting things done is
> unpleasant, long and frustrating. I think our problems stem from the fact
> that we are all passionate and involved leaders in the hampshire community,
> who all are very opinionated. Honestly I think it purely comes down to our
> group dynamic and how we work together. I love you all and consider you my
> friends, and its nothing personal but it's just that in our current state
> we as a group don't work well together. However, I am optimistic and do
> believe that we can and will be able to work well in the future.
>
> In terms of document writing, I strongly believe that it is the purview of
> coordboard to write *their own *documents for themselves. Not for other
> scope groups, not for committee of ten, not for the larger HSU, but
> documents for our own functioning as coordboard. This is an important idea
> of self-governance and shared governance process. Every entity of the HSU
> should have the right to create their own mission and operating documents.
> Who else knows their needs better than themselves? A larger committee can
> be made to tie all of these together with one larger overall HSU document,
> but I strongly believe that coordboard should write documents about
> coordboard, Student Community about Student Community, Academics about
> Academics and so on.
>
> Lastly, I would really advise against getting alumni involved. While they
> are all great people and contributed a lot to this process, they have not
> been immersed with the current issues at hand, and have never actually
> experienced HSU. They are all personal friends of mine, and their worked
> combined with our own for the past two years have been critical in where we
> are today, but I would feel very uncomfortable having alumni participate in
> this process.
>
> --Mitch
>
> On Oct 18, 2013, at 1:27 AM, Jesse Ide <jci12 at hampshire.edu> wrote:
>
> I work two jobs and so unless we have it on a Friday night, which I'm not
> against, then I can't really do a "retreat" thing with my work schedule.
> I'm totally totally great with giving up a Friday night, my Fridays are
> entirely free, I just doubt everyone else would be up for that.
>
> Anyway, I want to preface the rest of my email from this point on by
> saying that I intend this to be a calm discussion of ideas via email, not
> an urgent call to action, or anything about coming to make a decision via
> email. You can respond by clicking "reply all" under webmail or by making
> sure your reply is going to hsu-coordboardinfo at lists.hampshire.edu, and
> if it's coming from your Hampshire email then it will be sent back out to
> everyone for a consistent email thread. Get to this when you get to it,
> take your time, etc.
>
> I do want to remind those of you from the summer work group who were in
> our attempted 3 hour meeting from orientation about how that went. I agree
> that we need to fix stuff and that that involves talking about stuff, but I
> feel like we'd just run into all the same problems we ran into before.
>
> I went to a CS School talk about "brainstorming" versus "brainswarming",
> about how having everyone in one room trying to tackle a tough issue
> doesn't work as well as having people go off, do their own work, and come
> back together.
>
> I'm thinking that what might work better is if we have a bunch of smaller,
> shorter meetings spread across a week or a few days. We'd work with the
> Accountability Board/Committee of Ten and have say, two people from the
> Accountability Board and two people from CoordBoard in each meeting (or
> whatever odd number works out), and we'll sort them based on who's
> schedules work well together. Then just try and talk about what we see as
> problems as honestly as possible without worrying about as much backlash,
> and then Committee of Ten would come back together and talk amongst
> themselves about the problems we've described and would issue a verdict to
> us.
>
> I think that since a huge issue is our inability to communicate with each
> other, we can instead communicate in small groups to Committee of Ten, who
> could then decide on something and issue it back to us.
>
> It's also just a much less stressful setting to have four people in a room
> for an hour than eleven in a room for four hours, and maybe we'll be able
> to better express ourselves that way. For personal health reasons I would
> like to try and deal with this in as low stress a way as possible.
>
>
> Also I remember Ethan mentioning the possibility that this "retreat" would
> possibly include document writing. I think that if we try to write
> documents we should try and involve the alumni who had been working on this
> system for the years leading up to this. Even if they aren't in the area
> like Devin Morse, we could still probably interview Sarah Gordon, Nelson
> Hernandez, Mandy Theissen, or any other alumni via email or Skype.
>
> I also feel strongly that it is not the purview of CoordBoard to write
> those documents. Assisting with them, sure, but this is totally something
> more meta and above the structure. It would probably make sense to assemble
> a task force, organized by Committee of Ten and Josiah and which would
> report back to Committee of Ten and Josiah, which would do things like
> interviewing alumni, reviewing all the materials already produced (I still
> have my big red binder collecting the entire history) and basically trying
> to piece together a solid image of how things were supposed to be. It's a
> big task and I don't think it should be our group trying to do it on our
> own in a single day or alongside our regular work.
>
> Also, in the meantime, until we have documents, we might want to try
> referring to those big red binders and see if something was talked about
> before in how things were supposed to be.
>
> So yeah, take your time rolling these ideas around in your head, talk
> about them if you want to. I'm trying to think both laterally and with
> continuity from last semester.
>
>
> -Jesse
>
> On 2013-10-18 00:03, Ethan Warshow wrote:
>
>  Hey CoordBoard,
>
> I made a doodle for the rest of the weekends in october/early november. I
> think we need atleast 2 hours, but it might (almost certainly will) be 4
> hours.
>
> This is in no way binding, But I wanted it sent out ASAP and I wasn't sure
> if anyone else would.
>
> http://doodle.com/ygifk4wwcqt32ida
>
>
> Ethan Warshow, At-large member
> erw11 at hampshire.edu
>
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-- 
Brittany Wilson
609.351.9173
@brittwilson24
www.fallingwhistles.com

"Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a
living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable." – Kurt
Vonnegut
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