On Jan. 12, 2015, Community Council met to discuss the idea of students returning early to campus. Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbott often reviews requests from students traveling from great distances to arrive on campus earlier than the Sunday before classes start, but students are not allowed to enter residential halls without prior approval.
According to Abbott, it is often very difficult for students to arrive on Sunday for various reasons including flight delays, weather, and transportation issues from Burlington airport.
The Council discussed the possibility of a policy that would open the campus early, either to specific groups of students or everyone.
Associate Dean of Students for Residential and Student Life Doug Adams presented data from this year to the council, using it as a point of reference to outline what potentially allowing some students to arrive on Saturday would entail. According to the form, up to 825 domestic students living in the 14 states west of the Mississippi river and international students could arrive early.
“Opening residence halls a day early…automatically services are then impacted,” Adams said.
These services include opening dining halls and asking the facilities staff and residential life staff to arrive a day early.
“I’m not crazy about the idea because we are very short staffed now and it is a hard time of year to be short staffed. It is a lot of work, expensive work,” Horticulturalist Tim Parsons said. “All facilities that deal with snow would have to come in…potentially 150 people coming, which would be expensive.”
Adams also shared some research indicating that many states such as North Dakota, South Dakota and Idaho often don’t have any flights available during the day on Sunday and have to instead take a red eye and arrive Monday morning before classes start.
Katherine Brown ’18 arrived early this term in order to be on time for her job at the Snow Bowl. “I have a car and was called multiple times from people who didn’t know that there wasn’t public transportation on Sunday. People just don’t know… I don’t want to drive 6 times to and from Burlington.”
Adams spoke about how many students attempt to book their flight days before and just don’t have legitimate excuses for arriving late or not finding transportation.
“The reality of personal responsibility has to kick in. Most people do it,” Adams said.
Co-chair Ben Bogin ’15 is from California and shared his experience, noting that changing the policy would “do a lot in terms of flexibility” because he often has to take a red eye which leaves him very tired for the first day of classes.
SGA President Taylor Custer ’15 requested that Adams find out a rough estimate of how much opening school a day earlier would cost.
The second topic the council discussed, recycling on campus. The topic was brought to Abott’s attention last year when a fellow staff member described a scene at the recycling center that “made her skin crawl,” Abbott said. The “grossest trash we can imagine…staff members have to dive into a bag and sort it.”
Maria Farnsworth, who used to be involved in Facilities, said that those working there often find money, checks and even passports among peoples trash and it is their responsibility to return these items.
“If you don’t take the cap off your water bottle or don’t clean your yogurt container, they have to do it,” Farnsworth said.
One plan, a tag sale, was discussed last year and is being implemented this year. Students would stay and be paid from the income from the sale and the rest would be given to charity. The goal of this would to be to allow far less to go the recycling facilities to be sorted at the end of the year.
