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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

After A Good Start, It’s Up To Us

 

The relationship between students and the administration is like any other: it needs constant communication to be healthy. Last Sunday, in recognition of a general discontentment in the student body, President Liebowitz held an open forum about social life on campus. That Liebowitz opened this discussion to students shows that he wants to see the student-administration relationship mended. He sat on the stage at the front of the room and engaged with students face-to-face, equitably splitting the forum between airing student concerns and explaining administrative responses. We at the Campus commend Liebowitz and the administration for their willingness to engage and their openness to student input. This is a starting place for initiating substantial change.


Something about the subject matter, perhaps the all-encompassing nature of the term “social life,” drew a surprisingly diverse cross-section of students. People were there to discuss everything from diversity, identity and inclusion to party life and college alcohol policies.


The stark contrast in student views on the most pressing social life issues was evident during the forum. Embittered by the administrative decision to limit social spaces such as ADP, some students asked why spaces like ADP that are inclusive spaces where “everyone was welcome” are shut down. This is far from true. We at the Campus would like to caution the recurring misuse of inclusive language: using “everyone” to really describe  the “Middlebury majority.”


At one point, several students in attendance read a statement listing the other highly relevant concerns that go beyond alcohol and partying, such as preventing sexual assault and holding similar forums to discuss marginalized and intersecting identities on campus.  After the statement was read, nearly the whole audience stood up in solidarity and we count ourselves among them. These social issues deserve attention in forums or discussions in their own right and should not be forgotten with increased attention being paid to drinking or partying.


Occasionally, the cracks in the student-administration relationship showed through with visible frustration on both sides. For example, one student commented that she did not know how to throw parties and that there needed to be a go/link explaining the process of registering a party, to which Dean of Students Katy Smith Abbott and other administrators responded, “There is. It’s go/party.”


Evidently, the information gap goes both ways. The administration needs to include us in important policy discussions, but, in return we need to intentionally find information and use it. It is not the administration’s job to make sure we have enjoyable parties to go to every weekend. That is on us. We ought to communicate with administrators and they ought to help, but we cannot expect (and probably do not want) them to preemptively involve themselves in our social lives.


We need to proactively seek out concrete solutions for our ailing social lives. For example, one thing students can do is to get to know Public Safety, both personally and in terms of their role on campus. As the Editorial Board, we would like to reiterate the importance of this topic which was discussed at the forum.  It is easy to view them as the enemy — as the people who give citations, patrol hallways and knock ominously on closed doors. But the fact is, we are lucky to have them. At other schools, Public Safety is not patrolling — the police are; instead of getting citations, you get arrested. Students should take the extra couple of minutes to engage with our officers, learn their faces and realize that they are actual people. Maintaining a healthy relationship with Public Safety shows maturity on our part and benefits all parties.


At certain points during the meeting, it was suggested that there should be a working group of students to continue the discussion on the state of social life. We at the Campus would like to see this happen and for this group to be as effective as possible. Therefore, we call on SGA President Taylor Custer and Smith Abbott to bring together a diverse group of students from all walks of campus life to turn the words at Sunday’s forum into action with results that are visible by the end of the academic year. This task force needs to represent the many social spheres across campus and directly communicate with the community to detail the most pressing social issues  on campus.  The group will hopefully bridge this troubling information gap between the College and all its students.


Ensuring diverse perspectives on this task force is one of several key parts to this idea to make it effective. Additionally, the group should put forward six actionable ideas on improving social life. Three short-term items should be submitted to the SGA and Old Chapel by the end of Winter Term and three long-term items should be on the desks of administrators by the end of the academic year. As Sunday’s forum demonstrated, ideas on improving social life abound.  Making these changes happen is on the students, and a dedicated team of us on this nascent task force is a good place to start.


Finally, we at the Campus recommend a mandatory orientation day for all students at the beginning of the fall semester where all this information is told to students in person. It is easy to ignore the deluge of emails we get in the first few weeks of school. An in-person training on party hosting, as well as issues like sexual assault prevention, safe drinking and other student life issues would be a needed refresher for many students. After first-year orientation, we have very little organized interaction with administrators where we can simply ask how to do something. And during orientation we were so overwhelmed and overstimulated by making friends, finding our dorm and all of the other basics that we do not have any context for many of the trainings and do not retain a lot of the material. A reorientation day would allow upperclassmen to learn how to function and engage better with the Middlebury community. There could be specific sessions geared for the new year as well. The sophomore orientation could be more basic whereas junior and senior orientations could focus on party hosting, off-campus living and study abroad. This day would be a way to help students interact intentionally and knowledgeably with our community here.


We recognize that change is difficult. However, if there is a fraction of the energy and ideas from the forum on this student social life task force, there will be positive results.  Sunday’s forum was a good start, but for change to happen we need to turn words into action. Ultimately, we need to take responsibility and take the initiative, not just defer responsibility to the administration. A high academic workload will never be a valid excuse for ignorance or entitlement. It is not enough to sit back, throw your hands in the air and say that you do not know how to do something or that someone needs to do it for you. Though at the forum we repeatedly referred to ourselves as kids, that mindframe is toxic and it is time to change it. We are adults, and it is time to take responsibility for our own social scene.


 

Artwork by NOLAN ELLSWORTH


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