StuCo Presents New, Lenient Vs Policy

Policy Committee of the Academy’s Student Council (StuCo) announced during the council’s weekly meeting Tuesday that it has created a proposal to make a more lenient visitations policy. The committee had met with Principal Lisa Macfarlane, Dean of Residential Life AJ Cosgrove and Dean of Students Melissa Mischke to prepare the proposal, which includes the implementation of longer visitation hours, closed-door visitations between upperclassmen and extended visitation-granting rights to proctors.The committee also encouraged StuCo members to start discussions within their dorms and with their dorm faculty about the current visitations policy. This new proposal, according to the committee, will better represent what students actually want from visitations.Some members of StuCo were unsure of how much of a difference the new policy would make. StuCo member and upper Tyler Hou said that while the change could possibly help decrease the number of illegal visitations, students may still opt out of legal visitations when they want more privacy. He said the policy “sounds great,” but the  “closed door Vs won’t change anything because people use illegal Vs for things they don’t want faculty to know about.”

“Vs have been an issue for a long time, and we came close to changing it before but it didn’t happen.”

Hou added that in some dorms, visitations are already closed doors, because faculty are lenient on how far open the doors have to be.Upper Luis Ochoa, another member of StuCo, said that because the proposed visitations policy is more relaxed, the committee would have a hard time passing it through the faculty. “[The faculty] don’t want this to happen,” Ochoa said. “Vs have been an issue for a long time, and we came close to changing it before but it didn’t happen.”Ochoa added that the recent prep school sexual assault cases, along with the likely opposition from parents, will make the faculty even more hesitant to pass the proposal. “It’s better to say to parents that the doors will be open during Vs than closed.” he said.Other students anticipated a more positive reaction from the faculty. StuCo member and upper Nada Zohayr said that the council had proposed previously to extend Sunday visitations to the afternoon, but the faculty voted against it because the policy would mean they would have to extend their Sunday duty time. The new proposal might be more appealing to the faculty, as visitations will only occur when they are already on duty and they won’t have to forfeit any extra time.In addition, Zohayr said the extended hours will fix current issues with weekday visitations. “During the week, it takes a while to get visitations, and when you do, your friend has to leave early,” Zohayr said. “Often you are left with only half an hour to hang out.”“The one downside would be that having more people in the dorm may be disruptive for students whose check in is earlier,” Zohayr added.After Policy Committee announced the new proposal, Recreation (Rec) Committee announced that the Exeter/Andover (E/a) pep assembly and pep rally will be held on Friday. The rally will include the standard acts such as performances from dance groups. Although no varsity teams have yet to submit forms to speak or do skits like they usually do, the Rec Committee heads asked StuCo members to ask team captains to arrange performances.Rec Committee will also lead a snake dance at 6:30 p.m. on Friday night beginning at Main Street and Ewald Halls. The heads of the committee encouraged all StuCo members to participate in spirit week and help boost school spirit on campus in the coming days.StuCo members spent the rest of the meeting in Grainger Auditorium, putting together the E/a spirit packs, which include beads, fake tattoos and bandannas. All the items will be put in all students’ P.O. boxes by Friday.