NOTE: These are ALL the emails I have gotten from ANY member of the BoE.
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FIRST EMAIL
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Hey,
Are we actually planning on meeting? What is going on? Where are the emails?
Thanks,
Jack
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FIRST REPLY
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Jack,
We met on Friday, but didnt do anything. At this point, I am only going to call the Board for this election if we have any issues to discuss. I am hoping to call the Board together sometime in late October or early November to help us acquaint ourselves with each other and begin work on the next election in March.
Michael
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SECOND EMAIL
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Hey,
Can we be doing more things as a board, like having things decided as a group. When are we getting possessino of the website back?
Thanks,
Jack
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SECOND REPLY
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Dear Jack,
That is my goal for this next semester, however, I also do not know of anything that the board could have done before the election began. I have given everyone as much information that I can think of, and will be asking for a meeting for this election if the need arises. However, due to my particularly hectic schedule for these few weeks, I have been unable to do any more. I will keep anyone apraised of any changes in the election.
Michael
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THIRD EMAIL
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Can more be done then just simply keeping everyone appraised of changes in the elections?
Why can’t we all get the emails going in and out of boe@jhu.edu, I think everyone in the BOE should have the same information so that we know everything from the beginning to the end.
BTW, What are the contact inforamtion for the rest of the BOE?
Thanks,
Jack
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THIRD REPLY
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Dear Jack,
At this point in the election, no not really. All board members do not have access to the boe email account to insure a consistant message from the BoE. This is the same message that only the co-chairs are supposed to talk to any press groups. I will send you everyone’s email addresses when I find them. Sorry, they are in my backpack which I left at a friend’s. I should have it sometime on Monday.
Michael
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FOURTH MESSAGE
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A consistent message can be reached if all of us knows exactly what is going on and all of us are making decisions as a group.
Having only the co-chairs kept abreast of the situation and no communication between the members defeat the point of having a board completely.
Thanks,
Jack
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FOURTH MESSAGE REPLY
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Hello everyone,
OK, we have our first vote for the new year, take that as a good thing or bad at your discretion. The rules currently state that all complaints/protests to the election must be submitted within 48 hours after the election. The problem with this is that we cannot announce the results at the StuCo meeting tomorrow. In the interest of speeding the election process along and to allow student council to function fully, I would like to propose to move the deadline up 6 hours. This would give 42 hours instead of 48 for complaints to be filed. This shouldn’t cause any strain on any parties interested in disputing the election in any way.
Please vote by replying to this email by midnight tonight. Decisions of the board require five votes to pass, so please vote as soon as possible. I am currently missing two email addresses. One board member I have called with information about the vote and the other I have no information for, but a request has been made to get the information from COLA.
Michael
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FIFTH MESSAGE
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Hi Everyone,
I don’t believe that the dispute period should be moved up.
The dispute period has been set before the election, and the rules were known to everyone.
It is not right simply to move this date for convenience.
STUCO seems to be functioning just fine right now and I don’t see how a few more days would delay much.
Thanks,
Jack
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FIFTH MESSAGE REPLY
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Dear Board Members,
By a vote of 4 to 2 to 1 (yes/no/abstain-no reply) the board has agreed to move the deadline for complaints to 6pm Tuesday and to release the votes at that time pending complaints. This early release will the newly elected stuco members to begin their duties at the Tuesday stuco meeting. If you have any additional comments or questions please send them to me.
Sincerely,
Mike Siebert
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SIXTH MESSAGE
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Now since I don’t believe my concerns have actually been addressed, I am going to air my grievances to the entire board.
The function of a “board” is for people to discuss things, to share their opinions and then make an informed decision together.
The function of a “board” is NOT for someone to hoard information (denying the rest of us from having the same information going through BOE@JHU.EDU) and for nobody to be talking to each other.
Why can’t a mailing list be setup (quite trivially for there are at least 2 CS inclined people in this group) and have ALL COMMUNICATION between members of the board be completely OPEN and ARCHIVED for all to see.
How exactly will communication between the board and the student body be improved if the board doesn’t even communicate with itself?
Cheers,
Jack
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SIXTH MESSAGE REPLY
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Dear Jack,
I am unsure why you believe that your concerns have not been addressed. Another board member agreed with your reservations and four members did not. Just because people disagree with you does not mean that they didnt hear your argueement, which I am quite sure that they did since you mailed it to the entire board. The logic for the change in the BoE rules was given in the email requesting a vote, thus, the board had as much information as the chairs did. It is the function of a board member to listen to and make proposals and to vote on them. I regret to inform you that there is not a vast amount of information on the boe@jhu.edu account, so I am unaware as to what information that I or Jae are supposed to be attempting to hoard from the rest of the board. In my personal leadership style I attempt to keep discussions that I feel are private or not to be pertinent to other people just that, private. If you want to receive every email that boe@jhu.edu receives, I could set that up, pending approval from the Board and the Director of Student Involvement, since people emailing the account are under the impression that they are contacting the chairs, not the board in general. The responsibility of the chairs is much greater than that of a board member and the chairs strive to make the responsibilities undertaken by the members to be as light as possible. For that reason, the election results have not been released to the board in general to allow for the greatest amount of objectivity possible. Please feel free to explain what information that the chairs have witheld from you, and why you feel that you need access to that information.
Michael
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SEVENTH MESSAGE (REPLY PENDING)
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Dear Michael,
You have misunderstood the reason for my email.
I have absolutely no problem with the fact that one person agreed and 4 person disagreed. The problem that I have is that there was no DISCUSSION prior to this vote. What did other people THINK, what was their rationale for the reason behind their vote.
At the current time, I have absolutely no idea of the volume of information that flows through boe@jhu.edu nor do I particularly care, as long as everyone gets them. There is no reason why we need you to provide summaries for us, for a group of only 7 students, we can read emails on our own.
I don’t see how the approval of the director of student involvement is needed.
I propose a system in which a mailing list is setup for the entire BoE and all concerns and inquiries for the BoE is emailed to the entire list. All concerns are then debated upon OPENLY, and a decision reached
at 11 PM of that night when everyone will vote (via email or any other mechanism) and the chairs can then act with the support of the consensus of the entire board. How can you ask a board to act as a board if selective information is getting “funnelled” to us?
The responsibilities of the chairs are NOT to make sure the responsibilities undertaken by the members to be as light as possible. Rather, responsibilities and blame should be passed around equally on the entire board. What the chairs should be responsible for is to keep us on task. More faith should be placed on the board members, we don’t need the election results held from us to have objectivity, we have our good senses thank you very much.
I understand your reluctance to place more faith on the rest of the board due to the mess that the BoE has been in the past. However, in my experience from industry, a synchronized group of people will produce far better results than a few people working their asses off.
Cheers,
Jack
