It's Almost Halloween! Minutes 10/24/07!

Minutes 10/24/07

Lang Cafeteria, then changed to Lang Basement

5PM

Attendance: Allan, Anthony, Al, Lucas, Harper, Josie, Kaleb, Megan, and Peter

Website: www.opennewschool.blogspot.com

First of all, we’d like to thank everyone who came to the screening of “But, I’m A Cheerleader.” About 30 people came and lots of people were happy walking away with free vibrators from Babeland!

Items Discussed

1) Recent Incident in the First Year Workshop

a. The first year workshop is a class requirement for first time incoming freshmen and involves presentations done by the professional staff at the New School.

b. One staff member had slanderous, homophobic remarks made about him in written, anonymous evaluations from various freshmen in the classes.

c. Student Rights and Responsibilities has gotten involved and Bertha Peralta, the First Year Advisor are doing their best to track the source of these remarks down.

d. People are always asking us why there is a GLBTQQ incident on campus if we’re such a liberal university. This is a prime example of why we need to continue to execute amazing events and programs to educate the New School community, because as much as we’d like to think that people are ok with the GLBTQQ community, there are some people who aren’t.

2) Movie screening for next month

a. We’re going to go for Thursday, Nov 15^th for our next movie screening.

b. At this meeting, the movie titles that were brought up include “Beautiful Boxer,” “Mysterious Skin,” and “Torchlight Trilogy.”

c. If anyone has any movie suggestions for next month email Lucas Brooks (brooL067@newschool.edu)

d. Remember, we’d want to have a serious theme this time around.

e. A movie will be decided at next week’s meeting….wait a second. It’s HALLOWEEN! Hmm, wait for next meeting’s time and date coming soon.

Items needing to be done

1) Still need to work on securing a space to hold meetings officially instead of just in the Lang Cafeteria

2) Need ideas to do a Trans focused event sometime soon.

3) Allan is in talks with the Housing office about working on gender-neutral housing. There is talk about a 600 person dorm in East Village so we might want to come up with a proposal to guarantee that this is a part of the University’s initiative to be progressive and to accommodate every matriculated student.

Events of interest

1) Next Friday, November 2^nd, Lucas will be performing at Sarah Lawrence’s “Cross Dress Cabaret.” Email him if you would like to attend or would like more information about the event.

2) Thursday, November 8th @ 7PM – Free
Reading: Eve Ensler (writer of the Vagina Monologues) & Alix Olson "Word Warriors"
"Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Revolution" is a collection of oral poetry and lithely muscled voices. Its contributors are women who think and act decisively to create their distinctive 21st century realities. The combination of the slam movement and bold underground feminism has created a unique pool of women who verbally challenge society on all fronts. Come hear them! Contributors include: Alix Olson, Patty Smith, Eileen Myles, Sarah Jones, Lynn Breedlove, and Suheir Hammad.

a. We may be going as a group to see this so we’ll keep posting more information about meeting up as the event comes closer.

Events for next semester

1) “Vagina Monologues”

a. Lucas and Richenda (Moxie) are arranging with several others fundraising for the Vagina Monologues in February.

2) “I’m a Survivor” Month – March

a. Lucas mentioned that Charnell Covert (Women of Color) wants to host a domestic violence series of events in March. Will be a great opportunity to talk about this taboo topic in the GLBTQQ community.

3) “Bear”

a. Lucas also mentioned that LJ (The Lang Theater Collective) is going to be act out the play “Bear” which follows the tragic story of two young gay boys in Catholic School.