A Change to the Way We Change

Whether in the classroom or in the dorm, faculty members make decisions that affect student life without any input from students. Take prep fall pass/fail, for example. This fundamental policy change was implemented seemingly overnight, without even a notification to Student Council (StuCo) to let the student body know what was going on. The reason for this is that decisions like these are made during faculty meetings, and no students are allowed to participate in or even know the events of these meetings. This lack of representation is unfortunate—even one student from each grade would allow for a diversity of opinions for the faculty to consider and could even generate new ideas for the faculty.Faculty members naturally have more to say and are more informed on the decisions being made, but students should have at least some input on important decisions. Informative decisions that accurately represent both faculty and student opinions can only be made if students are able to attend these meetings. The ability to pass or veto proposals belongs to the faculty, but students need to know what is going on and what changes may or may not be made for them. At least allowing students the opportunity to voice opinions will help decisions be made with some insight from students themselves.These representatives would only need to attend the meetings where a student’s opinion would be helpful. Certain decisions can easily be made without students, of course, but faculty should welcome student input in certain situations. Another example of a decision that was made without any student awareness was the creation of the Adviser Meeting. Maybe faculty believed that students needed more time with their advisers, but they did not ask students themselves if they believed the time was needed. StuCo was notified only after the policy had been cemented, and their lengthy plea for an adaptation of the format was ignored entirely. Perhaps if students were present during some faculty meetings, they could have told faculty the student opinion, which, for the most part, was against the Adviser Meetings block. Faculty may not have changed their decision, but they could at least have known that there were potential problems with the system and worked towards bettering it in the future. Another example, mentioned earlier, was pass/fail for this prep fall. Current students had no idea that incoming preps would have pass/fail grades and were not consulted on their opinions of the proposal. A large-scale poll of students who experienced prep fall first hand could have really helped determine whether or not pass/fail would be a good idea.Students should also be able to propose their own ideas at faculty meetings. Even putting these opinions out on the table for faculty to contemplate will help students get their ideas heard, and this will help strengthen the communication and relationship between the faculty and the student body. Currently, the only way for this to happen is through StuCo, which can often be a tedious and ineffective process.Allowing a few student representatives to attend faculty meetings will help the student body as well as the faculty. Students will not be caught unaware by large changes instituted into their daily lives. Although this could pose some problems—each individual representative would most likely be unable to represent the views of his or her entire grade—at least some form of student opinion will be heard.