[HSU-CoordBoardInternal] Student Concerns - Town Meeting Smoking Framing

[Accountability Board]

Dear Coordinating Board, 

We are writing to you about your advertising and framing of the
1/28/2014 Town Meeting. We have received concerns (you can see our reply
to those concerns below) about the way that the issues of smoking are
being framed. Students are concerned that the way Town Meeting is being
framed allows only for raising punitive action and not leaving room for
other solutions. They also are concerned with how the HSU Townmeeting FB
page is being run. We wrote to you about the HSU Townmeting FB earlier
and you did not reply. We also are concerned by the fact that the
posters for Town Meeting were printed in color. The current SAF
guidelines state that the SAF cannot be used to fund color posters. In
addition, half of the posters had an image of the United States flag. We
do not think that this is inclusive behavior as expected by the values
in Purpose, Values, & Scope. The United States flag, as we observed over
the course of the last year, has different connotations for each
student, and we do not think it is appropriate to use it to represent
the Hampshire Student Union. The HSU is technically comprised of all
students, including international students. We also think that you could
have done better to advertise, since there was not a post on the
intranet or daily digest; and there was not a Facebook event as there
has been in the past. A post made by the Student Leadership Facebook
page lead some members of Accountability Board to believe that the next
Town Meeting was in February. 

We suggest that you issue a public apology at the beginning of Town
Meeting this Tuesday, or on the daily digest if you do not see this
email in time. (Or both, if you want to make us especially happy.) We
also suggest that you take more careful consideration with your posters,
and see to it that they do not violate SAF guidelines and meet our
expectations of inclusivity as outlined in Purpose, Values, & Scope. We
also advise that you be more aware with how you frame Town Meetings in
the future. Another suggestion, is that you always make a daily digest
post and facebook event for each and every Town Meeting in addition to
posters. 

We understand that this comes right after the recent HSU retreat, and we
assure you that we have only the best intentions. We want the HSU to
work just as much as you do. We understand that it is difficult to keep
up with so much work, but we still believe in the important of following
the values we all affirmed the other day at the retreat. 

Thank you for the work you do, 

Accountability Board 

P.S 

We would like to remind you that since Ethan Warshow resigned at your
last meeting, that you should make a daily digest post calling for
self-nominations to replace him. Also, when you finalize your meeting
times for this semester, you should post them to the daily digest, and
make posts about your meeting times on the
HSU-CoordinatingBoard at lists.hampshire.edu listserv, so that non-members
who do not wish to receive internal communications can still be notified
about meeting times. 

-------- Original Message -------- 

Dear _Anonymized Student Name A, & Anonymized Student Name B_, 

We really appreciate your letter and we see the issues you raise as
valid concerns. Unfortunately, at this time, we cannot take direct
action about this issue. We will write a letter to Coordinating Board
about your concerns and advise that they issue an apology at the start
of Town Meeting this Tuesday, and that they make efforts to not do this
again in the future. We encourage you nonetheless to attend Town Meeting
on Tuesday and raise your concerns there as well. 

Hopefully, in the future Accountability Board will have more actions we
are allowed to take, and we appreciate your understanding. 

Thank you very much, 

Accountability Board 

(You can see our 1/26/2014 minutes on Hampedia to see who specifically
was involved in writing this reply 

 
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