As our term comes closer to an end, we are making a final push to round out a very busy year. The Community Relations Committee will be hosting a Community Open House, a new program where area landlords will open up their properties for interested students. This event, on March 21 and 22 from 1–3 pm, will bring students into the community, allowing them greater opportunity to understand and interact with the off-campus residents. If you are still looking for an apartment, this event is a must.
Beyond the committee work still being completed, the Student Senate has created an ad hoc committee to address the recent student concerns surrounding administrative communication and transparency. At the Spring Town Meeting, the community gathered to listen to President Shirley Ann Jackson’s campus updates and ask questions. I asked about the meaning of transparency to the administration—does it mean the ability to provide feedback at the early stages of a decision that affects student life? Or does it mean a campus-wide notice and question-and-answer sessions after decisions are all but finalized?
The response from Jackson was frank and she explained many details surrounding the current administrative decisions and transparency. A full video of the Town Hall Meeting can be found on http://mms.rpi.edu/, if you wish to view the entire event. In short, Jackson explained how communication can break down in the delegation process as information is transmitted on the administrative level. Additional breakdown is seen when the groups assigned to be delegates similarly do not understand the information transmitted. When those breakdowns act in concert, we arrive at a “clash.” In order to clear up the most recent incident of miscommunication, Jackson has asked Chief of Staff Laban Coblentz to bring together Vice President for Student Life Eddie Ade Knowles and Vice President for Enrollment James Nondorf to meet with the students. While the administration feels that it did communicate things clearly, Jackson asked for us to “turn the page” and consider how all of us can communicate better.
Each year, we advertise the cross-cutting Student Life Performance Plan Review through posters, The Poly, and e-mails to club officers. Even for the students who attend this session, there is limited chance that their comments will cause the programs to be reconsidered. While this is a great place for students to voice their consent or ask clarifying questions, the review does not afford opportunity for real involvement in the development process. In order to encourage this degree of involvement in the future, the Student Senate is working with the administration to create Pizza with the Cabinet, a gathering that we hope will be a great place for students to work directly with the administrators working to implement new programs.
There are many ways that students can affect change in campus policies and procedures. Sometimes those changes come from within—from the labor of students, faculty, and staff working together. But as we proceed to foster those channels of communication, we will also continue to intelligently dissent to administrative policies that are not in the Institute’s best interest. While there are some policies in which student involvement is not strictly necessary (such as budgetary deliberations), there are other policies, such as the Clustered Learning Advocacy and Support for Students initiative, that are not valid without adequately incorporating the input and consent of the entire community—not just administrators, and not just students, but everyone. If a policy is to change and affect the whole community, the community needs to be involved in that decision-making. The value of student input and their ability to be engaged in decision-making processes is key to moving forward.
