Subject: Special Task Force
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2000 12:14:18 -0800
From: Cindy Messler
Greetings to all of you who have agreed to be a part of the Special Task Force to the Campus Ministry Council. Thanks to everyone for your commitment to this project. I hope that you will find it worthy of your time and energy. I just wanted to let you all know that our first meeting is coming up. It is going to be Tuesday, March 14th from 3:15 to 4:15. There were a couple people I know who could only make it for part of the meeting and I apologize for that but taking into account everyone's schedule this is the best I could do. I haven't set a place for us to meet yet but as soon as I do I will send out another message. In the meantime if you have questions you can reach me at x8576 or email me at messlecj@plu.edu
Thanks again,
Cindy Messler
Campus Ministry Council Chair
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Subject: Group List and Meeting Times
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 17:32:57 -0800
From: Cindy Messler
Thanks everyone for coming today. Here is the group list I said I send out. Also, I am including a little recap of the days and times we said we were going to meet for our next gatherings. Hope you all have an excellent spring break and I will see you when we get back.
In Christ,
Cindy Messler
Cindy Messler, Dennis Sepper, Nancy Connor, Laura Majovski [spelling as corrected in a later message], Keith Cooper, Patricia Killen, Glenn Van Wyhe [spelling as corrected in a later message], Dave Urban, Evan Thomas, Lindsay Daehlin, Ari Mattson,
Meeting Times: Thursday, March 30 8:00 a.m., Tuesday, April 11 8:00 a.m., Thursday, April 27 8:00 a.m.
*(I will send out a message as soon as I figure out what rooms they will be in.)
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Subject: recap meeting 3/30
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:24:45 -0800
From: Cindy Messler
Hi everyone,
A couple of things. First, thanks for all of your hard work and your dedication to the point of getting up so early in the morning. I would ask that you all be thinking about the tasks that we have to accomplish and to take the time to send out emails with your thoughts like Glenn suggested. Remember, the more we get done outside of our meetings the more efficient our meetings will be and the more we can accomplish. I also would like to ask that everyone read the overview of the documents that Keith handed out at the beginning of our meeting as well as PLU 2000 and feel free to respond through email to the group. I think those will be good resources to understanding the mission of the University. If you haven't for some reason received PLU 2000 yet, let me know. And finally, here are the changes we talked about that I said I would get out to everyone:
1. ALC to ELCA
Article V, Section 2: The responsibilities and privileges of the office of the University Pastor(s) shall be developed mutually by the council, the University President and with the assistance of the Southwestern Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Article V, Section 4: shall remain the same
By-Laws, Article I, Section 4b: insure that at least one of the University Pastors be an ordained Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America for the purpose of serving as University Lutheran Congregation Pastor of Record.
2. Membership
We decided we wanted to keep the same ratio (9 voting members, 4 faculty, 5 students)
Concerning Students: we decided to replace Chapel Planning Committee with RHA Christian Activities Leader and keep ASPLU Christian Relations and University Congregation and one of the leaders of the organized religious groups on campus and the Chair shall also be a student.
Concerning Faculty: we decided on one religion faculty, one faculty recommended by Campus Life, a Faculty at Large (which we were considering opening up to staff as well), and the last one we had a couple of options on -- either appointing one of the advisors to the clubs or else making VP of student life a voting member or someone appointed by the VP.
So here are the different options we are looking at:
Option 1: (appointing VP)
ARTICLE III - MEMBERSHIP
Section 1 - The Council shall be composed of nine voting members: five (5) students, one of whom is the chair, three (3) faculty and/or staff, and Vice-President and Dean of Student Life.
Section 2 - Four (4) students shall be selected by the following PLU organizations to serve a one (1) year term: ASPLU, University Congregation, RHA, and the leaders of the organized religious groups on campus.
Section 3 - remains same
Section 4 - One faculty representative shall be elected from the Faculty Campus Life Committee. One member of the religion faculty shall be selected by the religion department. One faculty or staff shall be selected by the Council for the position of Faculty or Staff at Large. And the Vice President of Student Life shall serve on the Council *(do we want to include here, "or appoint a representative"?)
Section 5 - Advisory members of the council shall include: the University Pastor(s), and the University President.
Option 2: (appointing club advisor)
ARTICLE III - MEMBERSHIP
Section 1 - The Council shall be composed of nine (9) voting members: five (5) students, one of whom is the Chair, and four (4) faculty and/or staff.
Section 2 - Four (4) students shall be selected by the following PLU organizations to serve a one (1) year term: ASPLU, University Congregation, RHA, and the leaders of the organized religious groups on campus.
Section 3 - remain same
Section 4 - One faculty representative shall be elected from the Faculty Campus Life Committee. One member of the religion faculty shall be selected by the religion department. One faculty shall be selected by the Council for the position of Faculty at Large. And one (1) of the faculty or staff advisors to the clubs shall be selected by the Council.
Section 5 - remain same
Now I am not well versed in Constitutional jargon so if I have made mistakes and capitalized things I shouldn't have, or given the wrong titles to positions or worded things incorrectly, I hope one of you will correct me. These were the two options as I understood them being discussed today. If there are any different understandings or corrections to be made feel free to send out group emails. My plan is that we will vote on these corrections at the start of the next meeting but we won't spend any more meeting time discussing these unless there is an absolute need to do so. So the rest of this conversation if there needs be more should take place through email. Thanks everyone for your hard work. Talk to you soon.
God Bless,
Cindy Messler
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Subject: Membership
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2000 12:14:34 -0700
From: "Keith J. Cooper"
Thanks to Cindy for sending along that summary of our meeting last Thursday. Here is my feedback on the issue of CMC
membership.
I agree on four of the five students Cindy listed: UCong, ASPLU, RHA, and a Chair. My one remaining question is whether we want a leader of one of the student religious groups, or someone selected by the leaders of the organized student religious groups. What Cindy sent us seems to say each of those. I could see where the latter could be beneficial, if there was someone other than a leader highly agreeable to most of the leaders. (By the way, will it be clear who is each group's leader? Do we have in mind one per group?)
As for faculty: I agree with having someone from the Religion department and someone from Campus Life – not just recommended by that committee but a member of it, right? I don't much care, at this point, whether we have the V.P. for Student Life as a member, or someone appointed by the V.P. (She could always appoint herself.) I myself would prefer that the fourth member be a faculty member at large, appointed by the president and campus pastors, but I can see the attractiveness of its being faculty or staff.
Part of me likes the idea of having one of the club advisors be a member, either selected by those advisors or by the rest of the Council, but that might work best if the V.P. remained an advisory member and we had both an at-large faculty (or faculty/staff) and an advisor. If we did that, then the V.P. could be one of those selecting the at-large member.
As for other matters, I think Glenn's suggestion of having as much back-and-forth as possible through e-mail is a wise one. I had hoped to have sent you my comments regarding the concern I had heard about levels and non-Christian clubs several days before our meeting, but it just didn't happen. Hope you'll find what I handed out at the meeting to be helpful.
Here is how I understand the point Patricia was trying to make: a good part of the idea behind the CMC's recognizing student religious groups (and thus having some oversight over them) is to have both some accountability for their campus activities and a way of improving dialogue and cooperation among the groups. (That the campus pastors are right in the middle of the conversation seems very important.) And yet a significant amount of the religious (in fact, Christian) activities on campus come out of RHA and ASPLU. So one question for us to consider, in providing our recommendations to the Council, might be how to arrange for similar dialogue and accountability for RHA and ASPLU activities. (Are there committees for Christian Relations in ASPLU and Christian Activities in RHA?)
And on we go!
- Keith
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Subject: Membership
Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 16:32:36 -0700
From: Cindy Messler
This email is a reminder that we have less than a week until our next meeting. This has several implications. First, I hope that you all have been reading the materials that have been passed out at the meeting (particularly PLU 2000). Second, we will be voting on membership at the beginning of the next meeting without any more discussion so if you have any input to contribute go ahead and speak now via email or forever hold your peace. Thanks, Keith, for your email getting us started on the discussion. I will send out a final copy of the revised membership options to everyone via email (more specific then the first one I sent out regarding the reflections of our meeting) before the next meeting so that everyone is absolutely clear what we are voting on. Also, I plan to send out an email in the next day or two regarding some things to look for concerning the three levels. Remember, our discussion for next Tuesday is going to be centered on making the three current levels of religious clubs on campus more concise. So, I hope everyone takes the opportunity to write and give their own ideas about the subjects we will be talking about and especially the ones we will be voting on coming Tuesday. I took great care to make sure there were a variety of people on this task force who were all passionate about campus ministry and had unique visions for it. Everyone's perspective is important so let's hear them. And finally, having said all this, I will take the opportunity to give my own reflections regarding membership in such a way that I am responding to some of the comments/questions Keith raised:
For the students, I am in agreement with the five we decided on (Chair, ASPLU, RHA, UCong, and someone from the organized religious groups. I think that rather than necessarily being a leader of one of the clubs it should be open to someone selected by the leaders of the clubs in case someone with good leadership skills shows interest but is not a leader. As far as your question, Keith, about whether or not it will be clear who the leaders are, each club requesting recognition by campus ministry has to have a president who is a student named in their application. These are who I was considering the leaders to be.
For Faculty, I like keeping the religion department and campus life (I'm not sure, Keith, whether this was necessarily someone from campus life or just someone selected by them, but I did not concern myself with that question because CMC is not involved in the selection process, they appoint someone according to their own terms. I could find out though by next Tuesday if you think it is a worthy matter to investigate.) I am also in favor of keeping the faculty at large position -- which would be open to faculty and not staff. For the fourth position, I am somewhat open to either having someone appointed by the VP (including the option of appointing herself) and thus not having the position of VP as an advisor anymore, or else having one of the advisors of the clubs (which could be either a faculty or staff member). I think I am leaning at this point toward having one of the advisors and keeping the VP as an advisor to the CMC instead of a voting member.
As far as what Patricia has been talking about, I guess I am starting to understand that the concern is that Campus Ministry Council was established to promote religious activities on campus and communication between religious clubs while at the same time making sure that these activities that are taking place are in accordance with university policies. The question then is to whom do ASPLU and RHA owe their accountability. Who is it that makes sure their activities are in accordance with university policies. I think a concern that I have also is that in the minds of most of the students ASPLU, RHA, and Campus Ministry are all connected where as structurally that is not very accurate. So perhaps there needs to be a more clear structural connection between the groups, better communication and dialogue, and the same measure of accountability between ASPLU and RHA to Campus Ministry Council as the rest of the religious clubs are expected to follow. For instance, if one of requirements for religious clubs to be recognized on campus is that they are open to all types of people who wish to participate, who makes sure that these same standards are followed by RHA and ASPLU in their sponsored activities. This is an interesting issue that Patricia has raised and one which I hope we will have time to discuss more.
I look forward to hearing all of your comments. You can be expecting another email or two from me before our next meeting. Have a great day.
In Christ,
Cindy Messler