Student Council Reflects on Progress at Fall Midterm

By MICHELLE CHOO, SEBASTIAN DUARTE, JOHANNA HILLMAN, JANIBEK SUBKHANBERDIN

Since becoming the President of the Student Council last spring, senior Cam Khater has focused his attention on planning events for the student body to enjoy. “Student Council hosted a food truck event last spring, which was a really big success,” Khater explained. “Looking forward, we are working on numerous events — Halloween festivities, EA, critically acclaimed boba events, all of which should be really fun.” 

Khater described how the council has been operating this year. “What we’re doing right now is we’re having a lot of the committees work independently, which we’ve found to be successful,” he said, highlighting some of the committees’ work. “Rec hosted that awesome glo dance, and JEDI is working on a culture night.”

Apart from events and activities, Khater also emphasized some of Student Council’s initiatives to create policy changes in the school. “Exec has focused on looking towards the future, such as reevaluating the winter schedule and free time,” he said.

Some Student Council committees have been reaching out to the greater community to help plan events. Hannah Peay, a member of JEDI, explained that, “the biggest thing we have done so far is helping to plan the Día De Los Muertos celebration on Nov. 1,” emphasizing JEDI’s collaboration with Latinx affinity groups on campus. “It’s so important to work with SOCAA, LAL, and ALES to truly celebrate their culture. We’re really happy to be a part of this.”

Peay also mentioned another initiative JEDI has taken on. “We’re trying to get language teachers in certain sectors of the learning center.” She described how this would help students whose first language is something other than English. “So, if you prefer a language other than English, say Spanish, the teachers could teach you math in Spanish.”

The Elections Committee has also enacted changes to ensure that every dorm on campus has representation in Student Council. Alex Trotman, a member of Elections, explained how previously flaws in the Election system had left some dorms without representation. “Last year, some dorms were not represented at all,” he explained. However this year, Student Council has made sure that even when students are switching in and out of dorms, every dorm still has the representation it deserves. “Dorms like Langdell and Merrill have all new students. So this year, we organized those dorm’s representatives. Now, every single dorm has representation in Student Council.”

The Policy Committee has been continuously working on revising the Academy’s dress code. Committee cohead Dylan B. Richardson highlighted their goal for the reform. “The core problem with the current dress code situation is that what’s in the E-Book isn’t reflective of what’s enforced on campus,” Richardson explained. To ensure that students feel represented in their interests, the Policy Committee has been advocating for the students and communicating student demands to the faculty. “We want the new dress code to be something that the students are happy with,” he added.

Co-Secretary Kyle Kennedy’s delved further into how the Policy Committee has been communicating with the Executive Board and the academy. “The dress code team, policy co-heads, and Dean Taylor have been meeting. They met just recently for a lunch and they talked a little bit on what the dress code could look like,” said Kennedy’s. “I think, what the students propose, the teachers are going to be in favor of. We’re having a lot of deliberations, so hopefully the first proposal we pass goes through, and if not, then we would just have to bring it back to Student Council and continue working until it does pass.”

In addition to their efforts in revamping the dress code, the Policy Committee will also be working with the Executive Board to help take on the role in reviewing the PIEs and METIC reforms. Richardson commended the high productivity and participation of the weekly Student Council meetings. “This is the engagement I really felt when I first started attending StuCo and I think it’s great that the new kids are getting to experience this too,” he explained. He describes the current environment of StuCo as “electric”, quoting alum and former StuCo Vice President Will Soh ‘24.

Kennedy’s expanded on the role of the Executive Board and his position as Co-Secretary. “As Co-Secretary, [my] main job is just to be taking meeting minutes, so taking notes of what’s happening during meetings, of any important events or important dates that we need to remember. So we take meeting minutes during the all council Student Council meetings on Tuesdays from 8:00 p.m., we take minutes of the advisor and executive meetings, which usually happen weekly.” Beyond meeting notes, the Co-Secretaries work in tandem with the rest of the Executive Board to plan Student Council initiatives. 

Looking to the rest of the year, Kennedy’s highlighted Pep Rally and student Halloween activities as being particularly exciting. Another initiative he detailed is the council’s work on reforming the CVP system: “We just decided to take a look at CVP and see if there’s any way we could go through some sort of CVP revamp or if we were able to, not necessarily get rid of, but substitute CVP for something that would be more beneficial to students,” said Kennedy’s. Among the ideas for that substitution, he mentioned implementing a free block.

Student Council advisors, Dean of Academic Affairs Laura Marshall and Instructor in Science Anne Rankin, cited the inspiration for CVP and dress code reform as following: “Their observation is that the disconnect between the policy in the EBook and the enforcement is not good for the community,” and that “their observation is that the CVP experience is very uneven.”

Marshall and Rankin explained that they are going into their seventh year of working together as advisors for the Student Council Given the job of supporting the Executive Board and maintaining adherence to the constitution, Marshall and Rankin expressed satisfaction with their experience this year. “We have really appreciated that the goals of Student Council leadership this year have been focused on the well-being of the community.”

The Tech Committee is currently working on installing sensors to the laundry rooms in all of the dorms, enabling students to check the availability of laundry machines remotely. Mitchell Carson, cohead of the Tech Committee, pointed out the committee’s upcoming plans. “[We are] hoping to make, either this year or perhaps next year, websites for the dorms where [students] can see [laundry room] information, as well as post information [such as] who’s on duty and dorm activities,” he explained. “[We are] hopefully going to have a prototype of the laundry detector system ready sometime this term. So that’s going to be exciting.” Starting its implementation in Wentworth, the Tech Committee is planning on expanding the system and syncing the information to dorm websites soon. 

Finally, the Student Council, under all of its members, is actively shaping a more vibrant and inclusive campus culture through its diverse events and initiatives. With ongoing projects focusing on cultural celebrations, representation, and practical improvements, the council is fostering a sense of community among students.

Newly-elected Prep Rep Emre Oklu said, “I’m truly grateful for my position in the club [..]  All members of the council have truly been an inspiration to me [...] they are the people who make Exeter fun.” 

Looking to the future, the influx of new students brings fresh perspectives and energy to the council. Many newcomers have expressed excitement about participating in the Student Council, eager to contribute their ideas and help shape events and policies. As they settle in, these new members are not only learning from established traditions but also bringing innovative ideas that could lead to even more engaging initiatives.