Freedman Leads Student Council in Fruitful Year

From bowling to s’mores, this year’s Student Council with President Max Freedman ‘13, Vice President Joon Yang ‘13 and Secretary Alice Ju ‘14 fulfilled the ultimate campaign promise for more student events.Under the leadership of the Executive Board, StuCo created more activities for students, especially during the weekends. Among many StuCo- hosted events this school year were Open Mic Night, Midnight Bowling, Summerpalooza, Speed Dating, Gingerbread Houses, Laser Tag, Movies on the Quad, March Madness and S'mores Night.“I believe that the events undoubtedly had a positive effect on student life and disposition, and I am proud StuCo was able to host all of them and more,” Freedman said.Yang noted that StuCo-hosted events helped make Council’s works more transparent for the rest of the student body. “Prior to the initiation of student activities, many students had questions about what StuCo actually did,” Yang said. “Focusing on student activities was able to really show the student body a snippet of what StuCo was doing to help students’ life at Exeter.”StuCo’s desire to plan more weekend events led to the creation of Student Activities Commission (SAC), which has worked with the Student Activities Office this past year, by providing student input and feedback.Secretary-elect Benj Cohen, lower, believes that the initiation of SAC is the key to making more activities possible. “It is nice to have students planning student events, because kids really know what other kids want,” Cohen said. “This addition of people involved in events has made all the events this year much stronger. It led to the birth of new events, such as laser tag, speed dating and late night bowling.”In addition to working for the improvement of Student Activities, Student Council has worked all year on the Post-Instructional Evaluation (PIE) proposal, which would require students to provide candid feedback of teachers and courses at the end of each term.“One of our goals to stay in close contact with the student body was reflected by PIE, for which we worked our way up from the bottom,” Yang said, describing the proposal as the most memorable part of his term as Vice President. “This year, we had students come up with the ideas and write the proposal in StuCo, and take it up to faculty to get it passed, whereas inother years, faculty and deans would suggest a proposal and then we would work on it.

This year’s Student Council also gov- erned the expansion of wireless Internet on campus and in dorms, planned a concert to thank staff, initiated conversations about female leadership on campus, and organized weekend shuttle buses to Boston.Council members praised the dynamic of this year’s Council and the Executive Board. “The dynamic of this year's council will be hard to beat,” upper TJ Hodges said. “Not only did we have excellent committee heads and executive board members, but the dorm reps, grade reps and select members were especially motivated and driven.”“StuCo's motto has been ‘Constituents First,’” Freedman said. “It is our motto, and it is our job to represent the diverse views of the student body in relation to other groups on campus to make sure they have more of what they value most.”Freedman added that he was grateful for the work of his fellow Executive Board members. “I am nothing shy of privileged to have worked with two such competent, hard-working, driven, and kind individuals,” he said. “We worked together incredibly well

and StuCo would not have had anywhere near as successful a year had we not worked together so well. I am grateful for the oppor- tunity to have served with Joon and Alice.”Many students hope that next year’s Executive Board, with Ju as President, lower Emily Lemmerman as Vice President, and Cohen as Secretary, will continue the good work that Council has done this past year.“Our Council can do an equally good job next year by remembering that the work of StuCo needs to be distributed,” Hodges said. “As important as the Executive Board and our committee heads are to the function- ing of Council, it is the body as a whole that sets our goals and accomplishes them. With the big policy changes that we are looking forward to next year, we need to make sure that all students are given a voice and a responsibility.”

Cohen expressed the new Executive Board’s desires to continue the successes of this year’s Council. “The three of us are really passionate about serving the student body, and it is extremely exciting to be part of such a dynamic team of people,” Cohen said. “We hope to accomplish everything that we promised during our campaigns, and to build on the successful run of this year’s Executive Board."