Deans' Council Instated
Student Council has successfully established Deans' Council, a committee of student leaders that meets with the deans periodically to discuss issues of student life on campus. StuCo’s other major accomplishment this winter, the food truck proposal, passed at the end of February, promises a fleet of local food trucks that will serve the campus every Friday night; food trucks will, weather permitting, begin coming to campus next Friday.
Student Council’s executive board chose the members of the Deans' Council, taking into consideration nominations from peers. According to Vice President and senior Ho Joon Kim, the executive board also considered the candidates’ extracurriculars and campus accomplishments. “[Leadership is] what we are looking for because we are asking them to represent a certain demographic that [he or she] can provide a voice for,” he said. The members of the council are seniors Kelvin Green II, Sally Ma, Bella Edo, Ahmad Rahman, Joel Lotzkar, Leena Hamad and Atticus Stonestrom; uppers Menat Bahnasy, Ian Johnson and Athena Stenor; and lowers Mark Blekherman and Grace Grey.
“It’s a committee of fifteen very talkative individuals, [and] we need a controlled setting where we can record ideas easily and make sure we can be productive in that period of time.”
The goal of the Deans' Council is to “create a body of discussion for the deans to be able to talk to significant leaders on campus,” Kim said. According to Kim, the format of the meetings resemble moderated discussions. Student Council Secretary Jackson Parell elaborated on Kim’s description of the the discussion style that will be used in the Deans' Council meetings. “The style of discussion is a bit different, the dynamic of power is more spread out across the entire committee.” he said. The Council decided to try a style of discussion different from harkness—the debate method. “It’s a committee of fifteen very talkative individuals, [and] we need a controlled setting where we can record ideas easily and make sure we can be productive in that period of time.” Parell continued.
In discussion, each member of the council will be allotted a specific time to speak. Like in a debate, the Vice President of Student Council will act as a judge, leading the discussion, while the Secretary will take minutes and notes of the “debate” to be referred to during the meeting and afterwards, to be shared online with the Student Council. The President will only be there to watch and take back information to the Student Council. The executive members of Student Council are in the Council but don’t contribute their own ideas.
The Council had its first meeting two weeks ago and and met again this week. In the prior meeting, the topics for discussion over the course of the term were drawn up. Among these was the heavily debated Visitations Policy proposed by the Deans. Parell was unable to share any more information regarding the upcoming agenda of the Council due to unforeseeable circumstances.
As for the food trucks, Student activities has recently finished signing all the legal documents necessary to approve the trucks. The service, intended to start the 24th of March, was instead postponed due to Saturday classes. As such, the long-awaited debut of the food trucks was pushed back a week to this Friday so that lowerclassmen “may enjoy the full benefits of the two hour session,” according to Parell. To further inform the community, an announcement will be given during this Friday's assembly, in combination with several flyers around campus,
President and senior Matthew Robbins commented that the Deans' Council and food trucks are great representatives of the progress made in Student Council this year. “Dean’s' council aims to resolve much of the problems that were happening in terms of student dean misunderstandings, which we saw greatly amplified during the sexual assault cases previously,” Robbins explained. As for the food trucks, Robbins adds, “It’ll attract more people to the quad. It'll make it a lot better of a social experience.”