Deans Visit StuCo to Discuss V's

Following Principal Lisa MacFarlane’s visit to Student Council (StuCo) last week, four deans—Dean of Residential Life AJ Cosgrove, Dean of Students Melissa Mischke, Dean of Health and Wellness Gordon Coole and Dean of Academic Affairs Karen  Geary—sat in during the council’s meeting this past Tuesday. The four administrators initiated dialogue on Exeter’s hookup culture and listened to the council members discuss the characteristics and problems surrounding it.

The deans opened the meeting up to a range of topics, from legal and illegal visitations to the sexual climate on campus, expectations and communication in relationships. They interspersed questions between comments, but largely let students speak.

Senior and StuCo President Rebecca Ju said she was pleasantly surprised by the dialogue.

“I was happy the students and deans could have such a mature conversation,” she said. “I was worried [about that] when the deans came to me and asked to talk about hookup culture. I was worried there was going to be a little bit of immaturity.”

However, Ju was assuaged by the comments that students provided on Tuesday and felt that it was vital for the deans to hear directly from the students about their experiences and perspectives, so that any policy changes instituted are done with an understanding of the current climate, as well as the point of view of those who experience it most directly. “There wasn’t really much planning involved and it’s a really good thing that the deans are really just coming in and saying, ‘Come and tell us what you know, and what’s going on,’” Ju said.

Cosgrove said it can be hard for administrators to understand how the hookup culture and sexual climate operates among students, despite attempts to educate and inform them on how to begin and foster healthy relationships.

“We just don’t know much about the culture,” Cosgrove said at the beginning of the meeting. “We learn about [what goes on] through things that come through our office and things that we hear.”

Senior Lucy Weiler was impressed that the four deans showed up together as an engaged team; she said that having more than just Cosgrove and Mischke attend displayed the deans’ willingness and eagerness to hear the student perspective.

However, Weiler wished that the deans had directed the conversation more, and thought the discussion was not without flaws. “At times, it became a conversation between students,” she said. She differed from Cosgrove, saying that while it is effective to have the administration better understand student perspective, she wondered “if it was the most effective use of our time to just talk back and forth between each other.”

“We spent the majority of the meeting talking about the hookup culture, but we really should’ve been talking about things we want to see from the deans,” senior Chris Lee said, wishing conversely that the students had taken even more control of the conversation.

Despite this, health instructor and StuCo adviser Carol Cahalane saw great potential in StuCo to discuss and address issues of sexual safety and the culture that surrounds hooking up on campus. She said that StuCo’s “great size and breadth” enable it to “pick up” different pieces of addressing the hookup culture on campus in a way that could have a sustained positive impact.