ASCMC’s Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Sullivan ’12 noted that the original target, set in September, was a $4000 expense.  A few weeks before the party, in late February, party planners realized it was going to cost more than expected and adjusted target expenses to around $8000.

To account for the unexpected extra $12,000 in expenses, Sullivan explained that the lighting for AN21’s set cost $6000 more than anticipated and that the artist fees to bring AN21 were $2,000 more than originally expected. Additionally, ticket revenues were $6000 lower than expected, with about 400 fewer tickets sold than initially intended.

Overall, the White Party resulted in a $20,000 net expense: roughly $36,200 in total expenses while the total revenue was $16,200.

Last year’s ASCMC sponsored concert featuring LMFAO resulted in a $25,000 expenditure, and the year before that Lupe Fiasco’s performance ended in a $50,000 expense. Though each year marks a decrease in expense, the high annual cost raises the question of whether or not this type of event should continue on or, at the very least, be scaled back.  “The White Party was a very expensive success,” said ASCMC President Aditya Pai ’13.  ”It provided great benefit to students, but at great cost. The question going forward for everyone to consider is whether the benefit justifies the cost – or whether we should pursue other options.”

ASCMC conducted a poll to gauge student body’s response that indicated that over 60% of all respondents considered White Party among their top two favorite parties of the year.

“Undoubtedly the White Party was a success,” said Steven Limandibhratha ’14, Social Affairs Chair (SAC), “According to the responses on the survey, over 30% placed the White Party as their favorite party of the year, and over 60% placed the party in their top two parties.

A Breakdown of the White Party Expenses, Totaling Around $36,2000, Provided to the Forum by ASCMC

“Regarding the significant expense of the party, I believe working with the new board, we will be able to reduce these expenses in the future,” Limandibhratha commented,

When asked if the party was worth the money, freshman Liza Farr responded, that depends on what one’s priorities are. “White Party was really fun, a bunch of people went out for it and danced like crazy in a cool location with awesome lights and a fantastic DJ,” she said. “However, it did cost [ASCMC] a lot of money while it didn’t seem all that different from any of other, much cheaper parties.  I don’t think it was worth the immense amount of money spent on it.”

He started by mentioning that his primary role is to elevate the quality of faculty and academic programs at CMC. He then stated that over the last six or seven years, in his role as the Dean of Faculty, he has hired roughly 40% of the current faculty members as the college has experienced high faculty turnover. For the upcoming academic year, Hess mentioned that the college engaged in a strong amount of hiring. (See below for a list of the departments with new hires.) He stressed that he is looking to hire faculty to encourage margins of development in areas where the college is not particularly strong, such as languages and sciences.

Hess then discussed the external review process for the academic departments and the various programs the college is looking to expand. The external review process occurs for each department every six or seven years and highlights specific improvements which should be made to advance that particular department.

According to Hess, the external review process of the Philosophy department determined that CMC currently has the best Philosophy department in comparison to any liberal arts institution.

Furthermore, CMC is extending the Yonsei-CMC summer program for another six years, with the hope to place students in internships in Korea in another two years. This summer, the college is also hosting a travel trip to Rome. Hess also noted that CMC wants to ensure the Silicon Valley Program is a 5C program. Four Pomona Students participating in addition to the 14 CMCers for next year; Pomona and other 5C alumni are helping out with the program.

He also mentioned that CMC is looking to add another ITAB networking trip, in addition to the current trip, to provide more students with opportunities in Silicon Valley.

In the near future, the college plans to establish a South Asia presence, particularly in India. CMC has been recruiting Indian students heavily, and President Gann visited India over winter break with the hope of establishing internships and course offerings for CMCers.

For the summer, the college has paired up with several NGO’s in India to offer social entrepreneurship internships. In the future, Cynthia Humes, a Religious Studies professor who has lived in India, may possibly teach a half-credit course. This opportunity will be subsidized heavily; the college is raising funds in South Asia to make the price modest for CMCers.

Dean Hess ended his talk focusing on entrepreneurship and the manner in which the college is trying to increase the academic presence in this field. CMC wants students of all majors to have some experience in entrepreneurial programming in the future. The college is trying to compliment the work done by the KLI and the RDS to extend entrepreneurship education to all students.

New hires:

Robert Day School: Hired two now professors. One of the professors will teach a course on economic development, and the other professor will offer a course on finance.

Literature Department: Hired a professor from Harvard to teach a course on British Literature.

History Department: Hired two new faculty members to teach courses on 19th century western history and environmental history, respectively.

Keck Science Center: Hired three faculty members to teach courses on Environmental Science, Chemistry and Biology respectively.

Furthermore, a professor from the University of Munich has been hired to teach Holocaust Studies in the John Roth Chair, which alumni of the college provided funding for. The college has also established the Cook Chair in honor of Scott Cook, the co-founder of Intuit, which will be filled by a new faculty member from Cal Tech to teach behavioral psychology and economic decision-making. Next year, the college is looking to hire faculty to teach Korean Politics, Brazilian History and Portuguese at the 5C’s, which will allow students to learn Portuguese after Spanish, if they so desire.

The final vote was 10-1.  The lone dissenter was Vice-President Miles T. Bird, who took to his personal Twitter account to voice his complaints – tweeting “#teammiley.”

The concert will be held on Saturday May 5, the last Saturday before finals week. ASCMC President Aditya Pai ’12 justified the scheduling decision as being “beneficial to everyone. Finals week is stressful, and we feel that 115 decibels of pure, unadulterated teen pop would help ease tensions.” In order to reach the maximum number of listeners, the concert will be held on Pomona’s Walker Beach, with all speakers facing towards Honnold-Mudd Library.

In order to subsidize the cost of tickets to CMC students, ASCMC will be hosting the first annual Henry Kravis Leadership Auction, which will feature priceless CMC artifacts. Items up for auction include Jim Nauls’ caps lock key, Professor Brock Blomberg’s aviators, and Professor Ward Elliott’s fishing hat. The auction will be held at the Athenaeum this coming April 4, in lieu of the Robert Gates event.

What brought about the decision to open-up TNC to the other colleges, as TNC has traditionally always been a CMC-only event?

Cooke: Over the past year, there has been a decrease in attendance at TNC’s, as Campus Security would not allow non-CMC students to attend the parties without a guest pass. The process was such that CMC students would have to register their friends in time for the party. TNC has always been a CMC only event; however, this rule was never strictly enforced until about the past year. Clare Riva ’13, the last DAC, had been working with the Dean of Students to make it easier for other 5C students to attend TNC’s and they were in the process of formulating a new system which allowed for greater attendance at TNC’s. In the past, such decisions have been mainly under the jurisdiction of the social chairs and have been supported by the rest of the ASCMC Executive Board. While we want to preserve the tradition of TNC being a mostly CMC party, we recognize that CMC students all have friends at other colleges that we want to be able to come and enjoy the party with us.

What is the new system of the guest list policy?

Cooke: One TNC a month will be opened up to the 5C’s, where any Claremont College student will get in with their school ID. At the CMC only TNC’s, a guest list policy will be implemented.  A Google form will open up every Monday to Thursday (noon) where CMC students can register guests from another 5C by submitting their name and student ID number. This will add the Claremont student to the guest list and the student will be able to check in with Campus Security at TNC to gain admittance.

What are the main concerns of the administration regarding this change?

Cooke: The Dean of Students Office is unwilling to make TNC a 5C event every week. The main reason is that we do not have large enough spaces to hold 500+ events every Thursday night. Dean Spellman is allowing one 5C TNC per month with 2 kegs, which is an increase from the single keg allowed at CMC only TNC’s.

In your new role as the DAC Chair, what other changes would you like to see for the forthcoming year?

Cooke: This year one of my main goals in terms of party planning will be to revive TNC. Alumni and upperclassmen always talk about how TNC was well attended, had great music or bands, was held at diverse locations, and rivaled the Saturday night party. I will be talking to past social chairs and looking into how they structured their events to figure out how to make TNC more epic, so to speak. I want to make sure that the CMC party and social culture from the past is preserved and not lost.

AN21, the younger brother of Steve Angello of Swedish House Mafia, will DJ at CMC’s White Party this year on Saturday, March 31.

More information about AN21 can be found on his website.

Tickets for the White Party  are $15, a $5 increase from last year, and go on sale this Saturday at noon.

While ticket sales were supposed to begin tonight, technical difficulties with Google Checkout pushed the sales date back. Tickets can be purchased online starting Saturday via Google Checkout.

There is no limit to how many tickets a student can buy, and Steven Limandibhratha, the current Social Affairs Chair (SAC) mentioned that buying in bulk helps reduce purchasing cost. “Google Checkout charges a small transaction fee, so having one person buy multiple tickets saves us money. The money we save goes to ASCMC and could be used for party funds in the future.”

As for the ticket price increase, Limandibhratha noted: “The growing popularity of electronic dance music as well as the higher quality of the event this year account for the price increase. If we were to bring in Glitch Mob (who performed at the White Party last year) the event would cost twice as much.”

Tickets can be purchased here. 

Tickets for the 2012 White Party will go on sale tonight on The Forum. 

The party is a yearly tradition held in the Scripps Parking Garage.  Last year’s event featured electronic music artist Glitch Mob.

This year’s event will be held next Saturday, March 31st.

Check back here at 8pm for the artist announcement. 

After a little over a day of deliberation, the Election Committee, which consists of Jessica Mao ’12, Miles Lifson ’13, Aditya Pai ’13, Prashant Fonseka ’12, David Hirsch ’13, Katherine Rodihan ’14, and Rachel Vinson ’13, finally settled on the Board’s newest additions.

Before announcing the results, ASCMC President Jessica Mao explained the committee’s decision to postpone choosing an Editor-in-Chief for the Ayer, Claremont McKenna’s yearbook, until after spring break. She noted, “There doesn’t have to be a changeover of editors over Spring Break because the yearbook is an academic year-long project.”

She then added, “We want to ensure that the applicants know exactly how big of a project they are taking on. It is not only a crucial project in the physical yearbook-making sense, but also in the financial sense, a huge project to take on and make budget-neutral by selling yearbooks and negotiating contracts.”

Though a new leader for the Ayer has yet to be chosen, without further ado, here are the Committee’s choices for ASCMC appointed positions:

Campus Organizations Chair: Aseem Chipalkatti ’15

Executive Secretary: Stephanie Haft ’15

Forum Editor-in-Chief: Caroline Nyce ’13

Chief Financial Officer: Kevin Sullivan ’13

Student Security Director: Alex de Avila ’13

While at the meeting, Huang wanted to get a basic understanding of student priorities for extra funding. Huang asked students if they were in favor of installing more Brita Hydration stations (Yes), changing the laundry system so students could see in real time which machines were in use for a small fee (No), adding Blue Light Emergency Phones (No), increasing the number of bulletin boards and kiosks (No), and creating more on-campus jobs (Mixed). He also asked about priorities for the post-renovation Hub, to which most students advocated increasing the emphasis on food and recreation. He concluded by asking about the elimination of the 8-meal dining hall plan (No), prohibiting indoor smoking in all dorms (No) and preferences for future big-name speakers at the college (political commentators such as Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart beat out presidential speakers). As Dean Huang noted, the results were in no way binding promises but merely intended as yardsticks to gauge student opinion for the Dean of Students Office.

Several Senators were excited by the potential support to freedom of expression that the clicker system might provide, especially when it comes to voting on contentious issues. Senate Campus Life Committee Chair Carly Lenderts ’14 expressed her support, saying, “I liked the clickers and am excited to try them for voting procedures in Senate. It’s sometimes awkward for a Senator who wants to vote against a popular budget proposal, for example, so it will be great to have a quick and anonymous way to vote.”

The clickers, said Dean Huang, not only ensure that every possible student voice be heard but also combine the benefits of a participatory process with the practicality of real-time results. Senate President pro tem Miles Lifson ’13 also reflected this view, saying he was “excited about the potential that they offer for ASCMC.” Lifson continued, “They seem to be a fast, accurate, and anonymous way for senate to vote.” Lifson also mentioned that he would be working with Aditya Pai ’13 and Adam Griffith ’14 to “look into the logistics concerning using [the clickers] for senate votes on a regular basis.”

Dean Huang had sourced the clickers free of cost that night from Honnold-Mudd Library. According to Sheree Fu, who works at the library, there are one hundred clickers in total, plus two base units and instructor units respectively. She indicated that they were purchased at the suggestion of Bob Walton, the CEO of the Claremont University Consortium, following his experience with them at a board meeting. She added that Harvey Mudd College and Pomona College had already been using their own clickers of the same make for instructional purposes.

However, there is a catch when it comes to students borrowing the clickers for organizations and clubs. As Fu revealed, the facility to borrow them is currently, “only open to faculty and staff.” She added that even at the library, the clickers are right now in “beta (testing) stage”, until they “figure out how [exactly] to use them.” Still, she added that in the future there is a possibility for students to rent the clickers if they are in high demand.

So what do you think CMC, time for a voting revolution?

Elections for the rest of America may be months away, but here at CMC, the results are in for the 2012-2013 ASCMC Executive Board!

Bolded names indicate winners.

ASCMC President

Aditya Pai: 68.7%

Connor Barclay: 30.2%

Write-In: 1.1%

Total Votes: 466

ASCMC Vice President

Miles Bird: 93.6%

Write-In: 6.4%

Total Votes: 466

ASCMC Social Affairs Council Chair

Steven Limandibratha: 95.0%

Write-In: 5.0%

Total Votes: 466

ASCMC Dorm Affairs Council Chair

Alexandra Cooke: 75.3%

Riley Thomlinson: 23.3%

Write-In: 1.4%

Total Votes: 466

ASCMC Student Life Chair

Stephanie Haft: 43.1%

Mohammad Abdul-Rahim: 56.0%

Write-In: 0.9%

Total Votes: 466

Class of 2013 President

Clare Riva: 74.6%

Jessica Dang: 25.4%

Write-In: 0.0%

Total Votes: 130

Class of 2014 President

Maddie Hall: 55.7%

Merriel Foster: 44.3%

Write-In: 0.0%

Total Votes: 115

Class of 2015 President

Demetrius Lalanne: 61.5%

Isabel Lane: 22.3%

Charlie Montgomery: 13.8%

Write-In: 2.3%

Total Votes: 127

Can’t make it to Snack tonight? The Forum will be live-blogging candidate speeches live from Snack tonight. Check back at 10:30 PM for  summaries of all candidate speeches!

ASCMC President

Connor Barclay

• Wants to represent us and our ideas
• President’s primary responsibility is to represent students to people not in Claremont
• Has a lot of experience through Senate, Board of Trustees, and as Class President
• Vote on future expectations, not past performance
• He wants ASCMC 2.0, where we can see where money is going, and have more governmental transparency
• Check out connorbarclay.com to learn more
• ASCMC Presidential stipend is too high – he will give all $7,000 of ASCMC funds back to ASCMC
• Wants to launch an endowment fund for ASCMC, providing ASCMC with the same capabilities as institutes and administration
• To sum up: more money means more everything!
• Wants to hear student ideas, more than just political pandering

Aditya Pai

• Was freshman and sophomore class president, as well as ASCMC VP
• Stipends et al. are important, but so is experience and background
• Has worked and fulfilled promises – brought more events as class president, and revamped Senate as VP
• Helped fix hours problems as Ducey
• Fought to make Reading Room study space on campus, next year it will be open 24 hours a day
• Worked to renovate the Hub to make it better and also open 24/7
• Did this all as VP, and can do that and more as President
• Will work to improve campus spaces, review ASCMC alcohol policies, and DOS policy on alcohol as well
• CMC has most trusted and autonomous social scene on campus, he will fight to preserve that
• Wants to make vision of freedom to enjoy ourselves a reality for everyone
• Past three years of service in ASCMC has been a lot of fun and a great honor