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

[smd11 at hampshire.edu]

----- Forwarded message from smd11 at hampshire.edu -----
    Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:26:37 -0500
    From: smd11 at hampshire.edu
Subject: Re: [HSU-CoordBoardInternal] Student Concerns - Town Meeting  
Smoking Framing
      To: Accountability Board <committee10 at hampshire.edu>
      Cc: Coordinating Board <coordboard at hampshire.edu>, "Josiah S.  
Litant" <jlitant at hampshire.edu>

I would like to personally apologies to the Accountability Board for  
the highly regrettable design used on one of the two upcoming Town  
Meeting fliers. While I now see the extreme folly in our ways, I can  
assure you that no CoordBoard members meant any sort of ill will when  
we decided to feature the Liberian flag so prominently in our  
advertising.

I suppose we all believed that it was finally appropriate. After all,  
it has been  11 years since Charles Taylor's ouster from power. Should  
it not now be suitable to once more fly the proud star and stripes of  
Liberia again?

Sadly, it is now clear that we were mistaken. While we were certainly  
thrilled with Ellen Johnson's election to the presidency (as was  
Accountability Board I'm sure), it is now clear that aspects of her  
Truth and Reconciliation Commission have fallen far short, and in some  
ways bring to mind the old days of Afro-American minority domination.  
We expect more from a Nobel laureate, and clearly judging by your  
email, you do as well.

I for one am deeply sorry, and promise to never allow a catastrophe  
such as this to ever occur again.

Accountability Board's humble servant,
-Samuel M. Dean, At-Large Member of CoordBoard


Quoting Accountability Board <committee10 at hampshire.edu>:

> 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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