Members: President Simmons, Provost Kertzer, Karen Davis, Margaret Klawunn, Marisa Quinn, Vince Tompkins, David Cutts, Chi-Ming Hai, Timothy Herbert, Marida Hollos, Lynne Joyrich, David Sheinberg, Brian Becker, Alison Cohen, Michael Glassman, Subha Subramanian, Clay Wertheimer, Lauren Buckel, Joseph Bush, James Doyle, Carin Algava, Gillian Bell, Yolanda Castillo-Appollonio, Nancy Fjeldheim, Kathleen Rossi, Sarah Sharpe, and Ken McDaniel were in attendance. Anthony Cokes, Suzanne de la Monte, Stephen Foley, Evelyn Hu-Dehart, Esther Dorzin, Kartik Venkatesh, Marlene Cutitar, Charlie Kroll, and Damon Rarick were unable to attend.

The minutes of the October 28, 2008 meeting were approved.

Chancellor Tom Tisch discussed the governance review process being undertaken by the Corporation. He began with an overview of the Corporation structure, its responsibilities and its members. He also spoke of the Corporation’s receptiveness to student input in the decisions made by the Corporation and provided examples of existing vehicles for such input, including the University Resource Committee (URC) and the Brown University Community Council (BUCC). President Simmons concluded the discussion by posing the question whether it would be useful to have a Corporation member serve on the BUCC.

Natalie Jablonski ’10, Andrea Gaines ’10, and Jonathan Leibovic ’12 presented a proposal for Real Food at Brown, an initiative aimed at increasing the procurement of real food.  (Real food is a term that refers to any food whose production system reflects certain values as reflected in these five categories: healthy, community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane.) The proposal builds on and expands the scope and scale of Community Harvest, a Dining Services local food purchasing program. It is proposed that the University: 1. Support a 20% (of the total food budget) increase in Real Food purchased over five years. 2. Employ an eight-person team of student Real Food employees. 3. Institute a University-wide Food Systems Working Group. A proposed budget to increase real food purchasing and to hire some students to work on the initiative is being submitted to the URC by the Division of Campus Life and Dining Services. 

James Doyle GS’, Graduate Student Council (GSC) President, reviewed who the GSC represents, how it is structured, and what it does. The GSC represents more than 1,800 graduate students. The majority are pursuing doctoral degrees, while approximately 400 are in master's programs. The GSC is made up of representatives from each department and officers elected from the graduate student population by the representatives. The responsibilities of the Council include representing and communicating the interests of the graduate community to the administration. The GSC recently passed a referendum to request greater support from the University for travel to conferences. A request for an increase in conference travel is 
included in the proposed budget being submitted by the Graduate School to the URC.

Due to time constraints, the presentation on the University’s Response to Financial Challenges to be given by Beppie Huidekoper was deferred.

The next meeting of the Brown University Community Council will be held on February 10, 2009 
from 4:00 – 5:30 pm in Leung Gallery, Faunce House.

Respectfully submitted,

Catherine Pincince
Secretary of the Brown University Community Council