Some of life’s greatest mysteries are beautiful. What the WSA has been up to all year doesn’t count as one of life’s greatest mysteries, but it’s still pretty awesome, in my humble opinion. Check out the greatest hits version above (or as a PDF). If you want to know what else, check out the WSA End of Year Report, which gives a comprehensive overview of our activities for the year. Broken down by committee, the report outlines what each has been working on. For the SBC report, for example, you can see every single allocation given this year. The document also includes every resolution the WSA has passed this year, from changing the sign at 190 High in the fall to advocating for a changed financial aid policy for music lessons in the spring.
If you have any questions, email us at wsa[at]wesleyan[dot]edu, comment on our blog, post on our Facebook, send us a tweet, or stop us in the street.
xvi. elected an incompetent SBC chair who squandered all the funds by march.
Squandered? Where do you think it all went? It funded student groups. There were a lot of requests early in the year. Maybe you missed them all because you were busy complaining on the internet.
Yeah, it could have been better saved throughout the year – but then different student groups who wanted things first semester would be bitching, just like you.
things the WSA has NOT done:
– anything to prevent the ever-increasing cost of attendance
– anything to bring awareness to the fact the Wesleyan is no longer need-blind
– stopped the defunding of programs like Upward Bound
– stood with students who are constantly under attack by institutional racism
– taken decisive action to change our unjust sexual assault judicial process
– challenged the administration on its unprecedented surveillance/punishment of participants in Tour de Franzia
– made information about how Wesleyan spends its money on useless things more public
and a whole lot more!
wsa held meetings with roth on affordability.
no clue what upward bound is, guess it wasnt that great.
institutional racism? seriously?
its not “unprecedented surveillance” when students are breaking rules. thats all it is.
get over yourself, these people did hard work, they don’t deserve your scorn.
what’s usDEN?
“UsDen is a new space for students to hang out together on the weekends in a relaxed and pressure-free environment, and will be open most Friday and Saturday nights for the rest of the year.”
http://wesleying.org/2012/02/23/usden-launch/
Some of these things are really great. Some things I’m not sure why they invested any effort in them (Laundry view……). But in any case I feel as if they, just like the administration that they seem to always cave to before they even begin to negotiate anything, are just tinkering around the edges of Wesleyan as it falls apart in some fundamental ways. There are seriously terrible things going on with this University (mostly financial aid and tuition, but also some other things) that aren’t getting addressed in any kind of a sufficient way. And whenever I’ve gone to WSA meetings on these topics (if they have them…I can’t seem to remember any WSA meetings this year about workers’ rights, as an example of a major issue on campus that seems to not get much attention from them), there is more skirting around the issues than actually addressing them. I can’t tell you exactly what the answer would be, but the general superficiality of the WSA’s actions are deeply troubling.
The tuition issue is not exclusive to Wesleyan – most of Wesleyan’s “peer schools” are experiencing the same thing, with annual charges approaching $60,000 at Vassar, Middlebury, Bowdoin, etc. I have absolutely no idea how to address it, but it’s not like Wesleyan alone is jacking up tuition. It’s a market system, and as long as other schools are going to, Wesleyan will, too.
As for financial aid, it’s very simple. Wesleyan spent it’s endowment in the 60’s and 70’s, and didn’t fundraise/invest properly in the 80’s and early 90’s. Wesleyan had an endowment equal to Williams in 1982. Williams now has 3x the money Wes has. It’s not that Wes wasted its money, it simply spent instead of investing, and did not solicit a lot of donations before the big stock market run up of the 90’s.
Wesleyan doesn’t offer more financial aid for one reason – it can’t afford it. The best thing you can do is, and don’t laugh or think I’m joking, is donate to the school. The only way Wesleyan has better financial aid is to donate to that cause. Wesleyan has gotten a lot better about investing more of and being smart about the money it receives, with the idea being that in the future, there will be more money for financial aid (as the endowment grows). Wesleyan is in the first phase of its next capital campaign that’s aiming to put $200+ million into the endowment, a majority of which is for financial aid. It’s not that the school isn’t trying, it’s that Wes gave itself a competitive disadvantage 20 years ago and now has to try and catch up.
I realize that this does nothing to address tuition increases, but again, that’s an issues that’s larger than Wesleyan alone (though perhaps Wes could follow Middlebury’s lead and link tuition increase to inflation or set its own precedent?)
what is laundryview?
-been abroad
http://wesleying.org/2012/03/04/wesleyan-comes-to-laundryview/
Spent large amounts of student activity money on dinners to Mikado. Go WSA! Thieves til the end!
The poster is about what the WSA did THIS year.
Between this list, the WSA weekly newsletter, and some recent all-campus emails, the WSA is spending a little too much time talking about the WSA lately.
The alternative seems to be that no one knows what the WSA is doing, and complains that it doesn’t do shit. I can’t blame them for advertising.
No. The alternative is that everyone politely ignores the WSA as usual until it’s time to vote Giant Joint again.
pr and outreach is someone’s specific job on the wsa, so that everyone can be informed about what they’re doing and can weigh in, help out or at have some sort of idea about what’s going on. it actually seems like a pretty good service to me.
xvi. approved the (ridiculous) 25 cent bag charge at wesshop.
omg so ricidiculous your life is so hard
Yo, back the fuck off. When a school is extorting me for 60 grand a year they can damn well tear down a tree if I need a fucking bag.
you don’t think much about where things come from, do you? entitled bastard.
I fully support the bag charge. Also, would like to voice my support for Laundryview. Have no affiliations with the WSA, but think they’re a really dedicated, hardworking group that deserve more respect.
I AM STAUNCHLY AGAINST LAUNDRYVIEW
STFU and get a reusable bag, dimwit.
I mean, I’m probably more of an Anti-WSA partisan than most, but shouldn’t we also get a “things the WSA has screwed up (or failed to do) this year” list?
Also, a couple other comments:
1. Didn’t NYT comes from an anonymous alumni donation? That was how we got it back two years ago at least…
2. While I’m sure some students really work the laundryview, this list seems kinda sad after the first point. Which is, you know, awesome (good job Academics Affairs Committee), but …
3. Shouldn’t it be in a format like What the F*** has Obama done so far? http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
you should make one and post it on the acb.
NYT is currently funded entirely by the WSA.
There’s also WTF has Obama done’s way edgier cousin, “What in the fuck has Obama done so far?”: http://whatinthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
Genius.