Community Council governs student ife

The Community Council, with its representative membership of students, faculty and staff, is an encompassing forum through which every member of the College community is represented on non-academic issues and aspects of the College and its community.

“The Community Council is the only organization on campus that combines student voice with faculty, staff, and administration voice,” said Raymond Queliz ’11, the co-chair of the Council.

This diversity of its membership assures that the views of the different sections of the College are expressed and understood. As one of the most representative bodies, the Council addresses policies and issues in every aspect of the non-academic life of the College in which students, faculty and/or staff share mutual concerns.

Queliz explained the importance of the Community Council.

“I believe that the role of Community Council is crucial to student life because the concerns each year brings change and having a [truly] representative group of the Middlebury community as a whole helps move the College forward in a better direction.”

The Community Council can directly implement decisions for which it can be held accountable, but it can only make valid and valued recommendations to President Liebowitz in order to address other issues for which they cannot be liable — either financially or legally — but hold significance for those who the members of the Council represent.

The varied and numerous responsibilities of the Council range from the Honor System to academic and social interest houses. Of the latter, the Subcommittee on Social Academic Interest Houses assesses and evaluates academic and social interest houses; this year, the delegations in the subcommittee are SGA delegate Riley O’Rourke ’12, Commons Coordinator Linda Schiffer and Assistant Professor of Italian Andrei Barashkov. As the members of this subcommittee, they report to the rest of the Council members the performance of the individual houses in terms of adhering to implemented policies and make recommendations regarding any issues.

Additionally, the Academic Judicial Board, Community Judicial Board and the Judicial Appeals Board — all three of which review alleged violations of either the Honor Code or the College’s community standards — are all accountable to the Community Council. Also, the Council convenes the Honor System Review Committee at least every fourth year to make changes on the system based on recommendations from the committee.

By no means are changing policies in the handbook, determining the statuses of interest houses, and upholding the Honor system of the College the limits of the Council’s authority. The Community Council can execute decisions or make effective recommendations to the President on all areas pertaining to the non-academic life of the College community. The Council, in addition to the issues determined by its members, also hears any proposal brought forth by members of the College concerning non-academic issues that affect the community.

As for this year’s planned actions of the Council, Dean of the College and Chief Diversity Officer Shirley M. Collado, the Co-Chair, outlined, “Some of our agenda items […] include the consideration of gender neutral housing, approving a revised hazing policy, exploring a revised sexual misconduct policy and improving dining issues.”

One of the first changes the Community Council implemented was an internal one; as is tradition, voting members of the Council do not include the alternate student, faculty and staff delegates. However, in order to engage the whole of the College community and give greater flexibility in policy making, the Council motioned for and granted every member of the Council voting power.

“We look forward to engaging [every] Middlebury community member as we aim to improve the overall experience of faculty, staff and students,” said Collado.

On the previous meetings, the Community Council voted in favor of reinstatement of KDR social house and focused heavily on the new version of the hazing policy on campus, although it has yet to be finalized.

During the Oct. 11 meeting, O’Rourke ’12 updated the Council on the SGA’s Grille resolution and the Council responded positively, sending a recommendation to President Liebowitz that supported opening the Grille on Sundays and Mondays, Grille Delivery and Vice President for Administration Tim Spears’ student-run Juice Bar initiative about which Spears recently sent out an e-mail to all students.

The key issue addressed during the Oct. 25 meeting was introduced by Director of Dining Services Matthew Biette, who participated in the Aunt Des video campaign to raise awareness of the cost problems of the lost dishes from the dining halls. The Council discussed the loss of dishes as being pertinent to environmental and health concerns as well as the problem being indicative of social climate of the student body at the College.

The Community Council elected to create an ad-hoc committee that would organize a student-run system with other bodies and organizations to educate other students of the financial, environmental and health aspects of this issue — contrasting the indifference and carelessness with responsibility and formality. This committee will comprise of Assistant Director of Custodial Services Linda Ross, Janet Rodrigues ’12, Addie Cunniff ’13, Rachel Sider ’14 and Dan Prior ’14.

For the upcoming meeting on Nov. 2, the Council will host Associate Dean of Students Doug Adams to further discuss the hazing policy and also to discuss Gender Neutral Housing Initiative in depth.