The Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) committee held a second open forum on Feb. 24 in room 130 of Demergasso-Bava Hall in response to the first open forum which was held on Jan. 30.
The meeting was a shock to Dennis Shimek, Vice President of Faculty Affairs and Human Resources, as not one single person attended the meeting.
“Maybe a test of no-one coming is that we satisfied their needs. Put that in your story,” Shimek said.
This was especially strange to Shimek who had said that the previous meeting was held to an, “absolutely full house.”
“The first open forum was the first time a lot of folk had the opportunity to see the guidelines, so we had a lot of people come who had not only an interest in [the draft], but who had recommendations, so we then took the recommendations that we heard, and we updated the guidelines,” Shimek said.
One important update that was made in the revised draft was a change to an unclear phrase in the Award Selection Criteria which stated, “degree to which proposed funding would benefit a large number of students.”
“Rather than using the term large, which connoted for some people that we were counting numbers to make a determination with regard to the award criteria, we anted to make it clear that it’s really intended for the general student population,” said Shimek.
“So we’re not defining numbers. We’re saying it’s intended for the student population and those that then have an interest can come and participate so that we’re not saying that they have to demonstrate that there’s x number of students who are going to benefit. So we’ve taken that away absolutely.”
When asked about how the IRA decides on the allocation of money, Shimek responded by saying that the IRA offers no preference of one activity over another.
“Everybody has the opportunity if they’re otherwise eligible, pursuant to the guidelines, to in fact file an application,” Shimek said.
“Each application is then reviewed by the entire committee. The entire committee then makes a judgment based upon the merit of the proposal, and whether or not it meets the IRA guidelines. If somebody is interested in, and has got an important project that they would like to sponsor, they have the same standing as anyone else on the campus.”
