<st Monday to discuss several upcoming issues. The meeting began by approving the budget committee's requests: $9,022 to implement a better sound system in The Cave; $1,184 to pay for an instructor to teach a course for CANOE; $1,500 for Eclipse; and $2,500 for The Manuscript to pay for two poets to perform and hold workshop at Carleton.
Following the approval, Jonathan Hillis of the Admissions and Financial Aid Committee (AFAC) held a discussion regarding a new revision in place. AFAC must revise financial aid statements for current students due to three trends: the increase of the comprehensive fee, increases in financial aid, and the unpredictability of the financial aid budget.
AFAC must decide how to control those trends while simultaneously staying within Carleton’s principles of need-blind admission and meeting the full demonstrated need of all students. The old policy allowed 85% need-blind admission, while 15% was need-sensitive, Hillis’s report stated.
A discussion ensued regarding the Star Foundation, which is caused by the increase in international students. The Star Foundation proposes to reduce student loans by replacing them with scholarships, but due to Carleton’s budget, the Star Foundation may be eliminated or reduced. According to Hillis, this ties into the larger inadequacy of financial aid budget and throws off our marketing. Furthermore, Hillis stated, this is about to become a big issue at this school; we’re reaching some of the caps set by AFAC before.
Betsy Cannon of Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) presented Project Pericles to the CSA to enlighten them on what ACE has been doing. The presentation was simply an update, and ACE was asking for nothing but support. ACE has been at Carleton for two years, and aims to accomplish community-based learning fostered by students who project their academic knowledge to the community. ACE works with 517 students, 27 courses, and 14 departments and is working on extending their work out of Northfield and into Faribault.
A few quick updates were made. The first was a quick note made about the Haiti Relief efforts: for every meal a student donates, Bon Appetite will donate $2. CSA approves of this. Furthermore, a Trayless Tuesday survey will be administered asking every 15th person at random to fill out a 30-second survey about his or her thoughts on the matter.
A debate regarding the Latin Honors Policy changes ensued after John O’Neill presented the topic. CSA does not want to pass Latin Honors, and instead wants the qualifications to be a set cutoff, not contingent upon how others are doing. Everyone agreed they did not want a cut-throat environment. The CSA agreed to suspend the debate until next meeting.
Finally, new charters were all approved for the following groups: Carleton Graphic, Role-Playing Association, Salsa and Latin Club, Inquiry into Human Flourishing.
