ESA Meeting

May 9, 2016, 5:00pm

Room 5489

Present:

Esther Bernstein, Meira Levinson (Co-chairs); Jason Nielsen, Liz Goetz, Becky Fullan, Bradley Nelson, Catherine Engh, Elissa Meyers, Rose Tomassi, Sean Kennedy

Meeting Minutes:

• Approved minutes from April ESA meeting
• Committee Reports (below)
• Discussion:

• Open Exec Meeting & Revels (Friday May 13)

• Called for Revels volunteers to help with food &/or decorations.
• Announced: At the open Executive Committee Meeting (3:00pm), the students who received Provost and English Program Dissertation Year Fellowships and Dissertation Prizes will be announced.  Please join us in celebrating your fellow students!
• Announced: poetry reading will double as student safety-net fundraiser; will pass hat around for donations. All students are encouraged to vote – as part of the GC chapter – regardless of where you stand.
• Outgoing-incoming committee meetings: incoming ESA committee members will be announced shortly.  Reminder to all current/outgoing committee members to meet with the incoming members of your committee, and to discuss your committee narratives & recommendations with them.
• Elections Committee: feedback regarding electoral processes & ideas for the future. Questions from current Elections Committee based on this year’s election process include:
  • Should we prioritize nominee’s preferences (i.e. their ranking of committee preferences) or filling the committee spots? (i.e. what if, due to prioritizing nominees’ preferences, some committees are left with fewer members than there are seats?)
  • Should we, in the future, omit the preferences altogether, & just say that nominees can accept up to 2 committee nominations?
  • After deciding how to improve the process, should we set down any rules in the by-laws (regarding questions such as these)?
  • Discussion ensued on these questions; points were made such as:
    • Limiting nomination acceptances to 2 committees (as vs. the current system, which allows students to accept as many nominations as they wish – & thus run for as many committees as they wish – but then only allows them to serve on 2 actual committees) may both simplify the election process and encourage more students to run.
    • Limiting nomination acceptance to 2 committees also might shift awareness of any problems (e.g. understaffed committees) to earlier in the process – if some committees have many students running, while others have fewer candidates than seats, we would see that earlier in the process, and could extend the nomination window for understaffed committees. Limits of 2 may also encourage students to run for things they are truly passionate about – i.e. the committees they would actually serve on – as vs. running for committees they’re ranking 3rd or 4th in their preference lists.
    • Perhaps, in the future, Elections Committee can encourage more students to run, in general; perhaps current committees can also do more to publicize their work, what they find rewarding, & encourage students to run.
    • Is it necessarily a problem if committees have fewer members than seats some years? Does each committee need the full number of members it currently has?
    • Would it be useful to consider the idea of term limits? Especially for more popular committees.
• Student-led workshop feedback: report on & feedback from Jason Nielsen’s workshop “Conference Organizing – A Roundtable Discussion and Information Session”; take-aways for future students workshops and resources:
  • Main take-aways: was success; was value to informal, and student-only, atmosphere of workshop that led to questions & discussions that may not have occurred in more formal/typical Friday Forum-type panels. This model is transferable: students can initiate similar workshops on any topics they wish (e.g. scaffolded job-market related workshops), especially during the Friday 2pm slots.
• The DSC provides money for student use every semester, and (per DSC bylaws) the program DSC reps are responsible for overseeing use of that allocation. The English program students have historically depended on ESA meetings and votes to determine how that money will be spent. Discussion: Is there an alternative system possible where the DSC reps are more involved in decision-making and in managing the budget for the English program students? Discussion points included:
  • Increase future communication between ESA Co-Chairs & DSC Representatives ; co-chairs can make point of asking DSC reps for monthly reports (just like ESA committees) & inviting them to meetings
  • Given how large and established the English program is, we need to think about ways we can engage more students in participating in the process of deciding monetary spending, rather than just rubber-stamping things done in past years, such as Revels & the ESA conference. Can open the process more to student initiatives/ideas. Perhaps at ESA meeting early in the year, raise this topic & ask for student feedback.
  • Helpful to have, at beginning of year, guestimates of monetary allocations for things students agree on (e.g. Revels, conference), in order to see how much money is left over for other student initiatives. Yet, also helpful to not over-structure the budget, to have buffer for future expenses.

• Discussion & Vote: Diversity Committee meeting updates & ESA vote

• Diversity Committee report (below) was read and discussed; main take-away was that the committee, and faculty, are on same page as ESA students regarding need of more coordination with other committees, and the usefulness of liaison model for that purpose.
• Therefore, there was a motion to amend the language of the vote to a recommendation for future restructuring of the Diversity Committee along the lines of the committee recommendation/report (below), especially item #7, which recommends a liaison format.
  • Motion was seconded and passed unanimously.
• Unanimous vote in favor of recommending a future restructuring of the Diversity Committee along the lines of the committee recommendation/report (below), especially item #7. [6 present at time of vote (not including the co-chairs), + 4 votes by proxy]

May 2016 ESA Committee Reports:

Diversity Committee

The Diversity Committee has reflected on the work of the committee, with an eye toward assessing the current state of diversity — and especially, of racial diversity — in the program, and in acknowledgement of the fact that the building and program administrators are changing in the coming year.  Much of our discussion focused on the extent to which the diversity committee was (un)able to work without greater connections with the other standing committees in the program, a sense echoed by the committee’s liaisons with the ESA.  We accordingly write with a snapshot of our sense of how things stand, and suggestions for maintaining and pursuing further diversification of the program both in its constituencies and its curricula.  These include restructuring of the DivComm, as described below.

First, in terms of admissions and recruitment, which had been a primary area of concern in the establishment of this committee in its ad hoc form several years ago, we note that close to half of the entering class will be constituted by underrepresented “PEF-eligible” students, and several international students will also be joining the program.  The program’s and especially Carrie’s concerted efforts to attend to student-body diversification have clearly been to good effect.  As indicated below, we want to encourage the program to continue the efforts that she has made to ensure a robustly diverse student body.

We identified in the course of our conversation the need for the DivComm to be working closely with the program’s other standing committees.  We discussed each of the seven objectives that were identified in the founding of the DivComm and crafted the following recommendations in relation to each, almost all of which attests to that need:

1.   The expansion of the numbers of minority students applying to the program.

[The DivComm strongly encourages the continuation of the efforts made and recruitment and admissions practices put into place by Carrie by the next DEO of Financial Aid and Admissions, and Admissions and Recruitment Committees in order that student body diversity remains a fundamental aspect of program life.  We successfully worked with Admissions and Recruitment in this current admissions cycle, and encourage such collaborations to continue.]

2.   The deepening of support for fields like African American and African Diaspora studies that have historically attracted minority applicants.

[The DivComm would ask that the Friday Forum Committee undertake to continue, in consultation with the appropriate area groups, the “New Directions in…” series inaugurated a few years ago focused on African American studies, and to extend its reach to bring work attending to scholarship emerging from a wide array of intellectual traditions, with a particular emphasis on those that elaborate the aesthetics and politics of subjugated peoples in intersectional ways.  The DivComm also notes that specific liaison between it and the Faculty Membership and Curriculum Committees would allow for the address of questions of field support and curricular design, in order to proliferate epistemological diversification.]

3.   The proliferation of racial diversity across fields/areas of study.

[Greater connection and collaboration between the DivComm and the Curriculum Committee would also be helpful in generating such practices as deriving thematic or textual foci across courses offered in a variety of fields and discourses, or making use of such opportunities as the Futures Initiative program that enables team-teaching.  This is also a matter for collaboration with the Admissions and Recruitment and Faculty Membership Committees as well.]

4.   The support of minority students in the program.

[The DivComm encourages the incoming Placement DEO to offer programming that attends to the specific experiences of racial minorities and teachers from other underrepresented groups as to pedagogy and professionalization, and to critical consideration of the work of teaching diverse student bodies.  Too, we would encourage the Friday Forum Committee to inaugurate an Alumna/i of Color lecture series.  And, the DivComm will restructure itself to function as an advisory group for minoritized students in the program.  Faculty members appointed to serve on the committee should be willing to be approached by students in the program for guidance in navigating the academy, and incoming students should be made aware that this advisory group exists for this purpose.  Such faculty appointments should be made by consultation with the ESA and other students in the program, as well as with current DivComm members.]

5.   Finding ways of working with existing Graduate Center programs (like the MAGNET program) to further our aims; and, 6. The enhancement of our program’s efforts by the establishment of new structures of support/lines of resources from the Graduate Center.

[The establishment of The Learning Center and the Futures Initiative provides more avenues of institutional engagement, and the DivComm should continue to reach out to such units, in addition to working with the OEODP and the provost’s office, to enhance and buttress the program’s resources and efforts.]

7.   The establishment of structural means by which the program ensures that it continues to remain mindful of the problem that the absence of diversity pose

[In recognition of the fact that the DivComm’s work is best executed by working through and with the standing committees, we recommend that a faculty member of each standing committee be identified as the liaison to the DivComm.  If the ESA moves forward on a similar plan, the DivComm would in effect be constituted by these liaisons, in addition to those who have agreed to be part of the advisory group.  The standing committees include the committees of Placement, Alumna/i, Curriculum, Faculty Membership, Admissions, Recruitment, and Friday Forum, in addition to the Executive Committee.]

We believe that undertaking these kinds of activities, and changing the structure of the DivComm, will allow for the program to pursue diversification robustly while distributing the labor for doing such across the administrative structures of the program.

Friday Forum

The Friday Forum committee met on May 2. We had a small number of proposals and numerous slots available for Fall. All proposals were approved and there are still a few open slots. We encourage forum proposals from the spring that were not accepted due to the very limited number of slots then to reapply directly to Mario. There was discussion of trying to group a few forums (3) in a row around a particular topic. For fall, two of the topics are aesthetics and Modernism. There was also discussion of whether we need to continue to have a forum every Friday, and the consensus was that yes, we should continue this tradition.

Website

We have been reviewing sites similar to our in the commons to get a sense of how others build their student run websites. We have also accessed our site using various screen readers and devices. We have also been assessing our site for accessibility.

Recommendations:

Working with the knowledgeable and generous support staff for the commons and digital fellows, we need to collaboratively build an accessible infrastructure that will not be dependent upon who holds website committee positions. We ask the ESA to consider creating a position statement on access that will include the ESA commons.

If we had an accessible infrastructure, for example, when students and alumni upload profile pictures, we would also ask them to include image descriptions: descriptions that provide more access than text for an alt tag. No image should be on our website without an image description. When people include images, e.g., when they advertise or report on events, we would have image descriptions. The place for required image descriptions would be part of the image uploading/posting process. When we hold our annual conference, the stunning posters would have image descriptions and also text translations for text made inaccessible in a jpeg or other image file. When we post videos, such as those form important talks hosted by our program, they would be captioned before being uploaded.

What are we communicating when we do not make our content accessible? What would we communicate if we built an ethical infrastructure (See Margaret Price) that allowed (made and required) all content to be accessible?

Sean Zdenek’s Reading Sounds: Closed-Captioned Media and Popular Culture has helped us think about access for our site. As we talk about redesigning our website, we should start with access.  Zdenek’s work will continue to be useful as we go forward.

Executive Committee (Closed Meeting)

Budget:

Approximately 45 courses are scheduled for next year. No new news about the specifics of the previously announced $2.5 million GC budget cuts for next year.

Diversity:

Executive Committee discussed a recommendation on behalf of the Diversity Committee to restructure the Diversity Committee so that it works more closely with other program standing committees through a series of specific recommended objectives.

Carrie Hintz proposed that the chairs of the recruitment and diversity committee be permanent members of the Executive Committee. This necessitates a change in the program by-laws. Mario mentioned this proposed change at the department’s Open Meeting.

Admissions:

Carrie Hintz shared admissions data for 2016 with comparative analysis for each year since 2010.

First examination:

Executive Committee voted unanimously in favor of the latest revision to the First Exam. The Curriculum Committee’s revision to the exam addressed many of the concerns raised at the previous Executive Committee meeting. Minor edits were suggested and a new copy of the First Exam will be circulated.

Revisions included: greater emphasis for students preparing and writing the Exam over the course of the first year; a choice of three out of four parts (with greater emphasis on primary texts); revisions to the review essay portion of the exam; and a restructuring of the comprehensive stipulations.