An Artists’ Dozen:
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VOLUME 96 ISSUE 17
ASMC funds poet, undergraduate projects Diana Arbas ASST NEWS EDITOR Powerhouse poet Andrea Gibson has performed on Free Speech TV, The BBC and CSPAN — and Mills is her next stop. Colleen Kimsey, the CoPresident of Team Awesome, a campus club, dreamed of getting Gibson — whom Kimsey gushingly describes as a “fabulous gender queer poet activist” and inspiration for Kimsey's own activism — to spit her gut-punching rhymes here at Mills for about a year now. Kimsey said she thinks Gibson would be a “fabulous” addition to the beginning of the next school year. But Gibson’s 70-minute program speaker fee is $3,000. “There was definitely a point in October where I was like, ‘Well, I could do a bake sale,’” Kimsey said. “By November, I was like, 'I'm not that good of a baker.’” The Associated Students of Mills College (ASMC) heard Kimsey’s idea at their meeting on March 28 and voted to give Team Awesome the $3,000 to cover Gibson's speaker fee. ASMC also voted to give the Indigenous Women's Alliance $2,529 to help fund the April 17 Mills College Powwow. “There is no way I would have been able to do this event — absolutely zip, zilch, zero — without ASMC’s special funding,” Kimsey said. ASMC Accountant Lakshmi Poti said that when every undergraduate pays the $140 ASMC fee each year, the total amount goes to the student government. ASMC then distributes some of that money to all student clubs and organizations; the leftover money is called special funding. This year ASMC special funding was $20,000, Poti said. Special funding is available to all undergraduates, but ASMC doesn’t give out handouts without good reason. If, for example, an undergraduate wanted to throw an event that her club didn’t have enough money for, then she would have to show ASMC that her event in some way gives back to the undergraduate student body. “This can include having guest speakers come in and talk or just throwing huge dances on campus—some kind of an activity that all Mills student are invited to,” Poti said. “In some cases, students do go outside for conferences, represent Mills and come back to have
panel discussions or a table at Adams Plaza with fliers for students to get to know more about what’s out there.” Poti said that three pillars guide ASMC's decision-making: supporting community building, rewarding student leaders and sustaining the intellectual life of the college. ASMC didn’t explicitly invoke these pillars when Kimsey made her March 28 special funding request, but the student government did not immediately vote in favor of granting Team Awesome $3,000. Kimsey originally requested $3,170 to fund the event. Soo Choi, Ege Residence Hall Senator, said she really liked the idea but didn’t feel that Kimsey’s event plans were developed enough yet. Choi suggested ASMC partially fund the event. Choi knew Gibson had performed at other colleges. “How did it work out with the colleges? How were those events formatted? I just want more information before we fully fund (Team Awesome’s event).” Sarah Lombardo, Social Sciences Senator, suggested Kimsey come back to ASMC after doing a little more legwork. “It actually has to be now,” said ASMC Advisor Courtney YoungLaw. “There’s only six academic weeks left (from today).” When undergraduates ask for more than $1,000, they have to do it five academic weeks before the event. ASMC President Amelia Lopez said that Kimsey’s event is planned for August 26, two days after Fall 2011 begins, which is before ASMC deals with special funding requests for the school year. A week after making her special funding request, Kimsey is rapidly moving forward with her event plans and getting ready to book Gibson. Kimsey doesn't think making her idea a reality was that hard. “I just assumed that it was all going to be okay, it was all going to be possible. I believe that Mills is an institution that wants to support its students ... I thought that if it was somewhat beneficial, the college would support it.”
To find out how to make special funding requests, email asmcfinance@mills.edu. For more about poet and activist Andrea Gibson, visit http://www.andreagibson.org.
See page 5 Tuesday | April 12, 2011
Signs tell smokers to stay 30 feet back For full story see page 7
ANNA CORSON
The Wellness Advisory Committee of Mills College has set up signs around campus reminding students that they must be 30 feet away from all campus buildings before lighting up.
Psychology professor, students study memories of Japan disaster Nicole Vermeer MANAGING EDITOR In response to the recent earthquakes and tsunami in Japan, Psychology Professor Christie Chung is conducting a study about peoples’ memories of the disaster. Psychology students Ziyong Lin, Laura Samuelsson and Amelia True are assisting Dr. Chung with the research. The study asks participants questions about their feelings on the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters in Japan. Some questions included in the survey ask when the subject found out about the disasters, what their emotional reaction was and who they felt caused the events. The Japan study concerns itself with the idea of the “flashbulb memory,” which, according
to a research group at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is comprised of “distinctly vivid, precise, concrete, long-lasting memories of a personal circumstance surrounding a person’s discovery of shocking events.” This is something that usually occurs with major disasters, but Dr. Chung is also seeing if there is a difference in the memories between man-made disasters, such as the San Bruno fire, and natural disasters such as the recent disaster in Japan. Lin, a Mills junior, said that she mainly helped with translations to her native Chinese. In China, the study has been completed by over 130 participants — in part due to Lin’s recruitment efforts. The survey was also translated into Japanese, but Dr. Chung said that it has been difficult to contact people in Japan. The team hypothesizes that
the disaster might have a greater emotional effect on people closer to the earthquake — so that there would be a difference between the response collected from the U.S., China and Japan. “We want to capture the initial memory and track it over time to see if the memory has changed,” said Dr. Chung. The survey is sent electronically to participants, and follow ups are conducted periodically over the next three to five years. She added that people are often convinced that their memories are accurate. “We are very confident we remember everything,” but that is often not the case. The study reflects other studies Dr. Chung has done in conjunction with the Mills Cognition Lab. For example, she studied the effects of the San Bruno fire on see Memory
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