Martha-Helene forwarded me the e-mail that was sent out by Robin Mayes to the members of Dabney House, and I felt I should respond to their concerns.

First, I would like to thank the members of Dabney House for taking time to think about ASCIT and for compiling this list of concerns. Even though I'm the President of the Associated Students, I often have find myself operating in a vacuum. I've tried asking for suggestions and input in letters to the Tech and in e-mail's to the student body, but I rarely get more than a handful of responses. I am often forced to use my own personal judgment in determining what the student body wants, but it is much easier and I much prefer it when students just tell me.

Now, I would like to respond to the Darbs' list:

"Wants to raise dues while sitting on tens of thousands of dollars in surplus" - Although Professor Bellan is strongly encouraging it, the ASCIT Board has not made any formal decision on raising dues. Any changes that will affect the near future will likely be focused on funding particular aspects of ASCIT, such as the publications. Regarding the ASCIT surplus, I have felt it unfair to splurge on the leftover surplus from many years ago because current students have no more right to that money than future students. Thus, we will be placing that money in an endowment that will earn interest to benefit students for years to come.

"Inconsistant reports to student body actions of the Faculty Board that directly affect students" - A lack of a reliable avenue of communication has been a concern of mine for a long time. I have tried to inform the Tech about important issues like the Library Task Force report, the new ME option, and the new grade of "W" but the newspaper has space constraints and the announcements often get delayed. That is part of the motivation behind the development of newsgroups on donut. They should be a place where information can be disseminated reliably and students can voice complaints like these.

"[lack of] easily accessable budget" - The budget is available online at http://donut.caltech.edu/about/budget/0203budget.php and I have instructed the ASCIT Secretary to place a copy in the display case on the Olive Walk.

"Martha Helane Stapleton = Richard Millhouse Nixon" - No comment.

"Piss poor student faculty conference" - There was definitely not as much put into the SFC as there could have been, but much of that had to do with the fact that it was the first one in five years and there was nobody around with any experience. The ASCIT Board will start earlier and recruit more help in organizing the next conference.

"BoD members push their own agendas" - Unfortunately, those are the only agendas the BoD knows. If students voice their concerns to me, I promise to help push those agendas as well. You can also talk with any other BoD member as well - each member of the ASCIT Board represents the entire student body and should be receptive to your concerns.

"Not everyone benefits from donuts - student government should concern itself with representing the students, not quibble about when to provide donuts (or even provide them at all)" - This is basically the only issue where a significant number of people have actually complained to me. The only reason this is an issue is because the student body has presented it to me as a very large concern. The number of e-mail's I have received concerning donuts far exceeds the number of e-mail's I have received concerning student depression, alcohol, or fire policy.

"interhouse funding was only provided once a term when a house had two well-attended interhouse events that term (NOTE: This policy has been changed since this fall when Dabney was denied funding for the drag show)" - As noted, this policy has been revised

"most of the budget goes toward a few people, the government does not provide services for the majority of the students" - Out of a $67,106 budget this year, $13,206 (19.7%) is going directly to clubs and student organizations independent of ASCIT, $13,700 (20.4%) is going towards publications distributed to all ASCIT members, $6,200 (9.2%) is going directly to Houses for social events, $15,700 (23.4%) is going towards social events open to the entire undergraduate population, and $7,250 (10.8%) is going towards public resources like DVD's, the Screening Room, and ASCIT Lights. This leaves only $11,050 (16.4%) that is specifically earmarked for particular groups like the IHC, BoC, Web Development Team, and Varsity athletes. There are no barriers to taking advantage of any of the public services that ASCIT offers; all you need to do is show up. If what you want to do falls outside of everything ASCIT has funded, you can start a club and it's very likely that ASCIT will provide financial support. If you don't like the ASCIT social events, please suggest ones that you would like to see. Please feel free to complain to me about any part of the budget that you feel is unfair.

"Today we say we are here: We are rebel dignity" No comment.

"Should not be a member by default. Easy to add/drop" - Freshman need to be automatically enrolled in ASCIT as they are automatically enrolled in a House. Otherwise, this would result in much fewer people voluntarily joining ASCIT simply because of apathy, and the student government would not function when it represents a small fraction of the population. Adding and dropping membership all goes through the Bursar's office and I don't know that ASCIT has direct control over that process.

"Should not appoint offices" - I'm not sure exactly what this refers to, but most of the offices that ASCIT appoints are associated with publications, some aspect of social functions, or the bureaucratic function of ASCIT. These positions are generally appointed for one of two reasons: either they receive a salary, or the job is small enough that an election would be superfluous.

"Unnecessary hierarchy. No reason to exist" - ASCIT has exactly two levels of hierarchy: There is the student body and the Board of Directors that represents them.

"Excomm is made of the President's friends" - Although a recent failed amendment tried to change this, the ExComm is appointed by the President himself and required to "assist the President in coordinating activities of the Corporation." This is certainly conducive to appointing your friends, but I hope that my ExComm, announced this week, will reflect a greater diversity.

"As a 900 person school, referendum is easy. Why have BoD have power?" - The BoD actually has very little legislative power. The main responsibility of each ASCIT officer is generally an administrative one, such as maintaining the finances or discussing academic affairs. The BoD simply follows the instructions laid out in the Bylaws, which were all approved by referendum.

"Carnival" - It would be nice to hear specific complaints about the carnival; a question will likely be placed on an upcoming survey.

"Should be no closed meetings" - Meetings are only closed in two cases. When the BoD discusses individual students, as happens during appointments, the door is closed to protect peoples' privacy. Also, meetings are closed during votes of the BoD to allow BoD members to vote honestly and without undue pressure.

"No U.S. energy drink/rock star" - If you elaborated on this, we might be able to do something about it.

"How does 1 person or group of people make decisions for others?" - Many things at Caltech are shared by the entire student body, and sometimes a single decision must be made for the entire population. There are many ways to try to attack this problem, but recent world history suggests that a representative democracy is one of the most successful solutions. One person or a group of persons, like the BoD, makes decisions for a larger population after being elected by that population to represent them. That person or group will take the entire populations' views into account because he/she will need to run for re-election and in ASCIT's case, is always under threat of a recall election.

"Joe Jewell - The fact that he was "elected" the way he was "elected"" - No Comment.

"Corporate structure is unnecessarily complicated" - Although I have not had much time to devote to this yet, the recent failed amendments were an attempted first step to simplifying the Bylaws. Over the summer, I will be devoting more time towards eliminating unnecessary complications.

"no accountability" - The requirements to have a recall election under the ASCIT Bylaws are not extremely difficult.

"Government controls the student paper - inherent conflict of interest" - Unfortunately, this is a compromise solution to the fact that it would be very difficult to sustain an independent student newspaper at a school this small and without any Journalism majors. ASCIT has recently been working to revise the finances of student publications, but has not attempted to affect editorial freedom. This should be rather clearly evidenced in the opinions reflected about ASCIT in many different issues of the Tech.

"ASCIT minutes inaccurate, biased, incomplete (See Joe Jewell above)" - With our meetings on Fridays and the deadline for the Tech on the same day, I rarely get a chance to read the minutes before they are sent in for publication. I will make an effort to do this more from now on.

"Does not effectively use our money" - Specific examples of ineffective use of ASCIT funds and suggestions for better uses would be greatly appreciated.

"Movies ain't no public goods, bitch" - No Comment. I don't understand this statement.

"Student government fails to take action against oppressive administration policies. The student body is clearly against the fire and alcohol policy, while ASCIT does little" - I was under the impression that there were many students taking action with administration on these policies, so I have stepped back and allowed House Presidents and other students take the lead on fire and alcohol policy. However, if the student body would like ASCIT to put more effort into these areas, I will do my best.

"The ASCIT bylaws do not reflect the collective will of the student body" - If there are problems with the Bylaws, I would like to hear suggestions for changes. Once put up for a vote, they should eventually reflect the collective will of the student body.

"Why do feature writers like Jialan and Abe Fettermen who write TERRIBLE columns get paid? Why do editors who write "Their Here" get 10% or whatever? This is a huge waste of money. I like reading a few things in the Tech but why is my money paying these people?" - These are mostly internal Tech issues, and I have no control over them. I would like to note that after the "Their Here" headline, the former editors hired a copy editor, who they paid out of their own salaries, to proofread the paper.

"Why doesn't the ASCIT copier EVER work? That's something that's actually useful" - This has never been my direct responsibility, but I will investigate this further.

"IHC is more representative of the student body than ASCIT" - This may be true, and I'm sure a vast majority of the students feels they can get more out of their House than they can out of ASCIT. This fact I think is reflected in the higher level of dues each student pays toward their house as compared to ASCIT. However, the IHC and the House governments are kept very busy by the issues closest to the current students: Housing, rotation, athletics, and residential life policies. ASCIT generally takes on the issues that will affect students for the future: health insurance, parking, the honor code, academics, and keeping relationships with outside organizations. Representing the students is not something over which any one body should have a monopoly. ASCIT and the IHC have shared this duty for many decades and I believe each body can play its own part and effectively serve the students without having to quibble over who is above the other.

I genuinely hope that this list will promote a campus-wide discussion as the members of Dabney House intended. The ASCIT online discussion groups should soon be functional, and I hope they will be a place for just this sort of dialogue. For now though, I encourage students to e-mail concerns directly to me (tjou@caltech.edu) and I will make an effort to respond to them promptly.

Sincerely,
-Ted Jou, ASCIT President