Community Council Update

During the Feb. 11 Community Council meeting, tensions ran high as members discussed attendance issues, faculty and staff representation on the council and the overall role of the Community Council on campus.

Student Government Association (SGA) President Charlie Arnowitz ’13 expressed his concern for continuing attendance issues.

“If we want to get anything done and be useful, we need to be here,” said Arnowitz.

Arnowitz followed up with an amendment that outlines general attendance expectations which reads, “If a council member cannot attend the meeting, he or she must designate a proxy, or be considered absent. A member missing three or more meetings, without proxy, shall be removed from the council.”

Faculty and staff members of the council agreed that the amendment is insensitive to the fact that most of them face challenging schedules and are generally overextended.

“I appreciate what is being said here, however I urge you to consider that there are reasons that faculty and staff cannot be at some meetings for other college obligations and the chance of us getting a proxy to fill in for us is slim to none,” explained Associate Professor of Psychology Kim Cronise.

Professor of Film and Media Culture Leger Grindon went on to suggest that the council reduce its faculty and staff representation to one or two people at most and have a pre-designated faculty proxy for when the permanent members cannot make a meeting.

“I would suggest that we reduce the number of faculty and staff members on Community Council, because a large amount of issues that we deal with are student and residential life,” explained Grindon.

Other faculty members echoed their concerns that the majority of the issues the council deals with are student and residential life issues.

“I am new to the campus and I think the idea of Community Council is great, but I have been disappointed that the majority of the issues we have dealt with are student and residential life and not so much broader community based,” expressed Senior Network Administrator Billy Sneed.

Tensions continued to run high as many faculty and staff members expressed their issues with the amendment dealing with attendance. At the same time, many students, including Arnowitz, felt that the dwindling attendance number was and continues to be “disrespectful” to the purpose of the council.

The discussion ended with the agreement to formally discuss and look into decreasing faculty and staff representation on the council.

The council also discussed the implementation of community standards that would be introduced to first-years and Febs during the orientation process. Students would sign the community standards, as they do the honor code, to ensure awareness of their existence.

“It is more a cultural shift,” said Kate Logan ’13. “If we have an honor code that we teach, why don’t we have a social code to go along with that? If we introduce these to incoming [first-year] classes, then we may see a cultural shift in the next five years.”

The College has had official community standards for three years, which are outlined as cultivating respect and responsibility for self, others and our shared environment; encouraging personal and intellectual courage and growth; manifesting integrity and honesty in all decisions and actions; promoting healthy, safe and balanced lifestyles and fostering a diverse and inclusive community committed to civility, open-mindedness and finding common ground.

The council is calling for a more specific “social honor code” that students would learn about and sign as a part of matriculation.

“This would go beyond the umbrella of the original community standards and be more specific,” said Associate Dean of Students Doug Adams. “It would cover the many aspects of student culture. It is not a list of things you can’t do, but an aspirational message: what do you want this community to look like?”