Five students were arrested after the Living Wage Coalition staged a sit-in at the Brafferton Wednesday, in an attempt to gain what they deem to be living wages for College of William and Mary workers. The sit-in began at 9:00 a.m., and ended at approximately 1:00 a.m. the following morning.

“One of the biggest violations was disruption of business charges, and for me that is a really insulting violation to receive,” LWC member KB Brower ’11 said. “A disruption, I think, working at a poverty wage is a disruption in your every single day life.”

At approximately 12:50 a.m., Vice President for Student Affairs Ginger Ambler ’88 Ph.D ’06 addressed the five members of the LWC that remained inside the building. According to a press release, Ambler read a statement aloud to the students.

“Let me first say that the leadership of the College certainly understands that the issue of workers’ wages is very important,” Ambler said. “We also appreciate the passion you have for the issue and we support the rights of members of our community to express their views.”

The administration then gave the LWC members 10 minutes to vacate the Brafferton.

“As I told you Wednesday afternoon, your presence here is disrupting the business of the College, which is a violation of the Student Code of Conduct.” Ambler said. “You no longer have permission to remain in the Brafferton. You have 10 minutes in which to take your possessions and leave the building. If you remain in the Brafferton after 10 minutes, this will become a police matter. You will be arrested for trespassing, and this will become a matter for the legal system.”

After 10 minutes, the students had not left, and were cited for trespassing and issued a summons by William and Mary Police to appear in court.

“Arresting students is never the desired outcome — one we have attempted to avoid the entire day,” Ambler said. “If you do not leave, you will give us no other choice, because it is time for this disruption to come to an end.”

The LWC members were then escorted outside by police, but not taken into custody.

“I was really surprised that the administration would rather arrest five students than increase wages for our lowest paid workers,” LWC member Maggie Russolello ’12 said. “Reveley keeps telling us that there is no room in the budget, and that we don’t have enough support, and we have consistently proved these arguments wrong time and time again.”

Despite the outcome, the LWC did not appear deterred.

“Until you are ready to commit to including living wages in the budget, these conversations just keep going round and round in circles,” Russolello said. “We are going to keep working at this until they are ready to change their mind.”

College President Taylor Reveley then released a statement regarding the events.

“It is often admirable to care intensely about matters of policy and to be a strong advocate for a particular point of view,” Reveley said. “It is not admirable, however, to insist that your point of view is the only reasonable one and that, until you get your way, you will disrupt the work of the university. Occupying other people’s offices until you get your way is, of course, incompatible with the way we live together at William & Mary. This tears the fabric and can not be accepted.”

Flat Hat News Editor Vanessa Remmers contributed to this report.

Update: At approximately 12:50 a.m. April 21st, Vice President for Student Affairs Ginger Ambler ’88 Ph.D ’06 gave the LWC members 10 minutes to vacate the Brafferton. After 10 minutes, the students had not left, and were cited for trespassing and issued a summons by William and Mary Police to appear in court. The LWC members were then escorted outside by police, but not taken into custody.

“It is often admirable to care intensely about matters of policy and to be a strong advocate for a particular point of view. It is not admirable, however, to insist that your point of view is the only reasonable one and that, until you get your way, you will disrupt the work of the university,” College President Taylor Reveley said in a press release. “Occupying other people’s offices until you get your way is, of course, incompatible with the way we live together at William & Mary. This tears the fabric and can not be accepted.”

The Living Wage Coalition had been holding a sit-in since 9 a.m. April 20.

Check flathatnews.com for more as this ongoing story develops.

Members of the College of William and Mary’s 319th Student Assembly gathered together in the Sir Christopher Wren building Monday evening for the annual SA inauguration.

The ceremony featured speeches from former SA president Chrissy Scott ’11, current president Kaveh Sadeghian ’12 and former Chief-of-Staff Charles Crimmins J.D. ’10.

“It’s a nice opportunity for us all to start on the same page,” a freshly inaugurated Sadeghian said.

As per a requirement of the SA’s constitution, each new elected officer must be officially sworn in before commencing his or her duties. Those who cannot attend the ceremony must be sworn in later in private, former SA Vice President and Graduate Senator Ryan Ruzic J.D. ’11 said.

“[The ceremony] is a way of providing some sense of seriousness and formality,” Ruzic said.

In an opening address, Scott quoted former US presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and offered advice to next year’s assembly members.

“I cannot stress enough the importance of reaching out to students on every spending bill,” she said. “Please work together. Please.”

Crimmins echoed this encouragement of cooperation within the SA.

“The ability to prosper can only be determined by leadership,” he said. “Every second the SA spends fighting is a second that could be more wisely spent making students’ lives better.”

At the end of his speech, Crimmins led the gathered assembly members in a chant.

“319, 319, 319,” the SA said in unison, pumping their fists with each subsequent cheer.

Sadeghian, SA Vice President Molly Bulman ’12 and all new assembly members then stood, raised their right hands and took the oath of office in turn, making them official members of the College’s 319th SA.

Sadeghian offered some closing remarks to the newly inaugurated assembly members.

“I think it’s so cool that we get to be inaugurated in the Wren Chapel, it says something about the school and this assembly,” he said. “The Wren Chapel has been burned down two or three times and it’s still here. You’ll get burned too, but keep it up and you’ll be fine.”

The College of William and Mary’s Board of Visitors selected a new rector by a unanimous vote Friday.
Jeffrey Trammell ’73 was chosen as the College’s new rector, succeeding Henry Wolf ’64 J.D. ’66.

“I am greatly honored,” Trammell said. “I am really excited to lead the Board.”

The rector serves as the chairman of the BOV, presiding over all BOV meetings and working alongside the College President Taylor Reveley on the executive council.

“I’m impressed by [Trammell], and I think he’ll do a great job as rector. I believe he’s committed to working with the College,” Reveley said.

Trammell is the founder and current president of Trammell and Company, a public affairs consulting firm, and has worked in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives as counsel to a subcommittee chair on the Committee on Energy and Commerce. He also founded Almanac Publishing, which produces annual reference volumes on government organizations.

“I am very excited by Trammell … He is someone who can connect with students and really cares about the campus,” former Student Assembly President Chrissy Scott ’11 said.

Trammell came to the College in 1969 on a basketball scholarship and served as president of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.

“I spent four cumulative years on campus, meaning I spent enough time at the College to figure out how to build a better foundation,” Trammell said.

Trammell was appointed to the BOV in 2005 and 2009 and currently serves as chairman of the Committee on Strategic Initiatives, as vice chairman of the Richard Bland College Committee and as a member of the Executive Committee and the Committee on Administration.

“There is currently a much better student body, faculty and administration than when I was at the College,” Trammell said. “Students and faculty are not as aware as they should be of how valued they are by the BOV.”

The BOV also elected Charles A. Banks III vice rector, succeeding John W. Gerdelman ’75, and Dennis Liberson ’78 secretary, succeeding Janet Brashear ’82.

Flat Hat News Editor Vanessa Remmers contributed to this article

Starting next fall, it will become more expensive to be a student at the College of William and Mary.

The total cost for a College undergraduate will increase by 5.5 percent for in-state students to $22,024. Out-of-state students will shoulder a 5.7 percent total cost increase, totaling $44,854. Tuition and fees alone will increase by 7.7 percent for in-state undergraduate students, and 6.5 percent for out-of-state undergraduate students.

“Fiscal year 2012 is going to be a bear,” College of William and Mary President Taylor Reveley said. “If we had gotten more state budget cuts this year, we really would have been up a creek … It is a wise and appropriate budget.”

The Board of Visitors approved the budget for the next academic year Friday in the wake of the termination of nearly $7 million in federal stimulus aid. Though state funding has been reduced 30 percent since 1980 and decreased by 1.5 percent this past year, no new cuts were approved for 2011-2012.

“We are working under constrained circumstances,” Reveley said. “These are not new cuts, but past stimulus dollars have made it longer for the College to absorb these cuts.”

A financial aid increase of $1.8 million within the College’s 2011-2012 budget seeks to counteract the blow from state budget cuts. This increase continues a trend building over the past three years, during which time financial aid has been augmented by $9.1 million, or 117 percent.

Recent legislation with the objective of “re-investing” in higher education has also attempted to alleviate the effects of the budget cuts. 2012 is the first year since 2007 that there are no new cuts in state funding and $900,000 in additional state funds were allocated toward the STEM program for science, technology, engineering and math education, finanical aid and enrollment growth.

“We have experienced $17.1 million in cuts since 2008. And we are getting back $900,000. You can see, with that comparison, what state we are in,” Reveley said. “It has been hard to get philanthropic effort going with tax revenues as they are.”

Taxpayer support for higher education has decreased by 2 percent since last year.

Other funding obstacles loom large on the horizon for the College, including a recently passed state bill that would cut an additional 10 million dollars from higher education.

“It is a brooding omnipresence,” Reveley said. “We don’t yet know when or if it will be imposed. One possibility might be that an increased state revenue might offset this.”

Reveley regarded the 4.75 percent spending rate of the College’s endowment fund as typical, but noted that more money was needed to maintain the balancing act of preserving funds for the future and using funds for the College’s current operations.

“It takes a hell of a lot of money to pull out an adequate amount of money for the College,” Reveley said. “We need $5 billion dollars for the endowment. We are pushing our annual giving and going to start up a fundraising campaign.”

Ten percent of the College’s operating funds come from private sources. Reveley noted that most of the College endowment funds are restricted funds.

“We need to change the relationship of our alumni from feeling proud, to taking ownership,” new Rector of the College Jeffrey Trammell ’73 said. “We want to be like a private university, and by 2013, increase our annual giving to 30 percent, where right now it is at 23 percent.”

In regard to potential applicants to the College, Reveley did not anticipate a change in numbers.

“They need to know that there is no free lunch,” Reveley said. “Tuition increases are not going to stop. They need to ask themselves if financial aid and campus life provide them with enough to go here.”

Trammell asked applicants to consider the College’s cost versus those of the College’s peer universities.

The University of Virginia’s total cost will increase by 8.9 percent. Georgetown University will experience an overall 2.8 increase in total cost for undergraduate students, and a 10 percent increase in financial aid. The total cost of Duke University for undergraduates will increase by 3.9 percent.

“They charge two to three times as much as we do,” Trammell said. “We offer a comparatively valuable education.”

“Obviously, as an out-of-state student, I am angry with the tuition increases,” former Student Assembly President Chrissy Scott ’11 said. “No one wants to see tuition increases: the students don’t want to see them, Reveley doesn’t want to see them, the Board of Visitors doesn’t want to see them … but the money that the state is cutting makes it necessary. We need students to help out with fundraising efforts. I want more students to care about the BOV.”

According to the State Council for Higher Education, the nationwide average college tuition is $22,979. Undergraduate tuition at the College for in-state students will be $955 below this average in the next academic year.

Reveley was not optimistic about future budgets.

“I’m doubtful that state support will increase when I think about big, unpredictable health care costs, transportation costs and retirement systems,” Reveley said. “The key issue is that the state will not have enough funds that would begin to offset recent budget cuts.”

College of William and Mary President Taylor Reveley announced the findings of the Business Process Innovation Project to the Board of Visitors Thursday. The project, developed in response to Reveley’s pledge last year to increase internal efficiency as a way to cope with state budget cuts, identified specific ways the College could cut expenditures while retaining a strong academic environment.

Despite the fact that the College is ranked 31st overall among all national universities by U.S. News and World Report, it is ranked 85th as far as available financial resources.

“Our challenge has been to provide support functions with very few resources, and that requires a hard-working staff that believes in our mission,” Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Jim Golden said.
The report sought to record gains in efficiency that have already been made, to develop new revenue initiatives and to start university-level projects to enhance business innovation despite state budget cuts in the College’s operational funds.

“Innovation leading to even greater efficiency is a key part of our plans to maintain taxpayer support, increase earned income and enhance philanthropy,” Reveley said in a press release. “To attract resources, we need to let everyone know that our people are already amazingly efficient, and that we are aggressively pursuing ways to become even more innovative and effective. This report shows that William and Mary is doing just that.”

It also identified 17 specific projects at the university level that could increase efficiency across campus. Reveley picked eight of these projects for immediate implementation.

“The simplest one will probably be to shift our computer leases from three years to four years,” Golden said. “That alone will save about $180,000 per year.”

Examples of these eight projects include streamlining the faculty and staff recruitment processes, expanding net revenues generated from summer programs and reducing the costs of computer leasing.

“All of the projects will take time and effort from people who are already fully committed,” Golden said. “We will be tracking progress and making periodic reports to President Reveley to make sure we stay on track. Many of the projects will require IT support, so we will have to set clear priorities for the use of IT resources, and we will have to make sure that support is coordinated.”

One of the most successful efficiency-enhancing projects was the creation of the Office of Creative Services in January 2010. Formed by a merger of the web team and the publications department, the office falls under the jurisdiction of the Office of Strategic Initiatives and handles design, multimedia, social media, photography, and visual identity projects for the College. It was responsible for the mascot search process that resulted in the selection of the Griffin.

Omicron Delta Kappa, a co-ed honor leadership fraternity, granted the Office of Creative Services its annual Campus Improvement Award Wednesday. Creative Services Consultant Marilyn Carlin cited this as evidence of the department’s success.

“I think it’s been very successful,” she said. “I think we’ve done a lot since the merger. It seems as if it’s been well received, and when the presentation of the award was made there were some very kind things said about what the Office of Creative Services has done since it was established.”

Despite maintaining high rates of efficiency, Golden emphasized the College’s need for more funding.

“We are at a point now, however, that to sustain the high quality of our academic programs we do need additional resources,” Golden said. “Being as efficient as possible is important, and we work hard at that, but that alone is not enough to sustain the high quality that is the hallmark of a William and Mary education. We need to be efficient, but we also need additional resources.”

Scott Foster ’10 shook up Williamsburg city politics when he was elected to the Williamsburg City Council last spring, and a recently released survey of the student body offers insight into how he made it happen.

The 2010 student Body Survey, created by government professor Ron Rapoport, analyzed student attitudes before, during and after the Scott Foster campaign at the College of William and Mary. Rapoport worked in collaboration with Kira Allmann ’10, Daniel Maliniak ’06 and Patrick Miller ’02 to create, distribute and analyze the survey.

“We are seeing how a political campaign mobilized people in sort of a closed setting of the College,” Rapoport said. “This election provided a unique opportunity to look at a group that would comprise a very large percentage of Scott’s voters and to look at a closed community and sort of the social networks within that community.”

The 2010 survey analyzed trends in the Scott Foster City Council campaign election. Findings ranged from the importance of using social networking sites like Facebook to mobilize voters to the incentive for voting and the importance of certain issues.

“[The goal was] understanding William and Mary students, where they stand politically, what sorts of issues are important to them, where they stand on certain issues,” Rapoport said. “The other thing was understanding the makeup of social networks.”

One of the key findings of the survey was the importance of social networking sites in mobilizing voters, specifically Facebook. One of the top ways in which students demonstrated support of Foster was through “liking” his Facebook page and view in campaign activities online.

“By far the most significant Facebook activity was becoming a Facebook fan, giving you information about things going on,” Rapoport said. “There was a lot of contact in the campaign, and on election day, there was a huge amount of contact. 37 percent got emails and 35 percent of voters got messages on Facebook.”

The results emphasized Facebook’s importance in the political campaign and sparked Rapoport’s creation of a fourth survey, which will be released this week. This survey, available one year after the Foster campaign, will analyze the importance of social networking in politics on a smaller scale.

“We don’t know a lot about how social networking decides our views for politics. No one has taken social networking and politics seriously and tried to get some hard data about it,” Miller said. “Our main goal is to try and get an understanding of how much it is being used for politics.”

Miller began working on the project with Rapoport a year and a half ago, before the Foster campaign began.

“It was a great opportunity to be able to put together some data that really nobody was ever able to compile,” Miller said. “I realized that this was going to be a great opportunity to actually study our campaign in a relatively closed and clean environment.”

The Scott Foster campaign created a unique opportunity to analyze student attitudes and voting trends on a much smaller scale.

“It was a nice dynamic to study because there was a small electorate; the professor knew some of the students involved in the campaign,” Miller said. “As a result, he had the opportunity to get a lot of campaign records for the Scott Foster campaign. You almost never get contact records for campaigns, and even if you do, it is hard to survey voters.”

The survey also asked students to indicate their level of satisfaction with various campus and local groups, including the College faculty, the Student Assembly, the administration and the William and Mary Police Department.

“The fact that the faculty was rated higher by the students than the Student Assembly was interesting,” Rapoport said. “You really get a feel for the antipathy of the city council and the police. The Student Assembly is not rated that high compared to the administration.”

When it came to the importance of political issues for students voting in the Scott Foster campaign, most voters believed that having a student on city council was more significant than individual issues.

“It is certainly the case that having a student on the city council was more important than the noise ordinance, the four person rule, really than anything in stimulating the student vote,” Rapoport said.

Students were asked to participate in the survey via email, and a gift card lottery was held in order to encourage students to take it.

“I feel like if the survey can then reflect even the smallest amount of my opinion then that is great,” Frank Enriquez ’13 said. “I thought the questions were well-crafted, [but] not that they were targeted. He did a very good job phrasing the question.”

The results and trends of the survey may be applicable on a larger scale, according to Miller.

“[It’s] nothing as big or important as a presidential or congressional campaign, but it still tells us a lot about campaigns,” Miller said. “We are finding large effects of campaign contact.”