Claire Montgomery
Senior News Writer
On Oct. 25, members of dif- ferent student organizations met with the Student Develop- ment Committee of the Board of Trustees. Twelve organizations were represented, and different categories of issues were pre- sented, including issues with stu- dent life, diversity and visibility, sustainability and updates from student groups and student gov- ernment.
However, the time and location of the meeting became a con- tested issue and was not resolved until an hour and a half before the meeting, and the confusion of the correct location caused some students to be late. Emilee Mc- Cubbins, president of Student Government Association (SGA), commented on the lack of orga- nization with the meeting, begin- ning with the timing.
“At first, the meeting itself was set to be at 11:00 a.m. on Friday. I and a number of other students were immediately taken aback, as this meeting has been set in the evening at least as far as every semester I have been on campus,” McCubbins stated. After asking why the time had been changed from previous years, she was told that the “previous SGA Exec. Board had made the recommenda- tion for the time shift. This came as news to me, as the former SGA secretary, since it was certainly not a conversation we had had as a group. I reached out expressing my concerns, but I was told that it was going to have to be at 11:00 a.m. this semester and that the conversation was closed.”
McCubbins then took a poll of SGA and Campus Council (CC) members, as well as the students who were going to speak at the meeting and discovered that only four were available during this time frame. McCubbins solicited letters of concern to pass along to those planning the meeting. It was moved to 3:00 p.m., but even that was not the most appropriate decision.
“I myself had to miss class in order to be at the meeting. I have a ton of respect for the planning that goes into coordinating the Board of Trustees’ visit to cam- pus, and I do not want it to seem like I am trying to call out any one person or another. But we’re students first. We can’t expect people to choose between going to class and standing up for the passions or concerns they have as student leaders,” McCubbins said.
Moreover, McCubbins spoke to the traditional requirement of SGA senators to attend this meeting, saying, “I couldn’t mor- ally force those on the Senate to make the choice in favor of SGA when I knew class or work were at risk. We had nine people from SGA come to the meeting. Nine. There are twenty people on the Senate. That’s just not okay. We’re here to represent students and we can’t do that if these sorts of decisions are made without thoroughly thinking of the re- percussions it has on students.”
McCubbins also spoke of the confusion with many location changes of the meeting. She said, “[The location] changed five times total before being so- lidified. The final call was made an hour and a half before the meeting. We had to scramble to let student speakers and attend- ees know that yes, it had been changed again. Students came late [because of the confusion] causing the meeting to start lat- er than anticipated. McCubbins stated that Director of Lowry Center and Student Activities (LCSA) ultimately made the deci- sion to minimize set-up. The de- cision was made without consult- ing students or any forewarning — just that it had been done and we now had to make sure every- one knew … Several students spoke to me about how it felt to some degree that [the] student voice was being stifled with this many changes and updates and hoops, and while I do respect the faculty, staff and administration who work to put this on, a bit more communication would have been highly appreciated.”
At the meeting, the different groups aired their concerns. So- fia Abdirizak ’20 spoke on behalf of African Student Union (ASU about concerns with summer storage for international students, saying that the cost quickly accumulated and that the new company the College used was only subsidized for the first 285 students. Margie Sosa ’20 and Alberto Peralta ’20 spoke about Latinx students at Wooster, encouraging the College and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion to give Latinx groups more support.
Chemistry Club and Wooster Christian Fellowship (WCF) spoke about concerns with the lack of communication between students and LCSA. On behalf of Chemistry Club, Chloe Litts ’20 and Abbi Tarburton ’22 spoke on the issues with placing an order for lab coats and the eight month delay it took for the lab coats to be ordered. Tarburton stated, “It is extremely unreasonable that this took as long as it did. It is also unreasonable to ask students to be constantly pestering Student Activities — we love our clubs but carrying a course load tends to take priority and nothing gets done unless we are constantly in Student Activities.” Claire Miller ’20 spoke on behalf of the WCF, also about concerns with LCSA. She said that WCF has not re- ceived a budget for two years, and spoke about the frustrations of not having a budget and the lack of communication that led to missing important meetings.
Neva Derewetzky ’20 and An- drea Arts ’20, co-general man- agers of Woo91, attended the meeting and also spoke about communication issues with LCSA. “Woo91’s communication issues have been related to our charter,” Arts stated. “We met with Julia Zimmer in the spring to write our charter and got the go ahead from her to submit it, but this summer we found out that it was rejected. We are still in the process of trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with it and what needs to be done to fix it. Since we aren’t officially chartered we are operating with- out a budget and can’t apply for the funding we need to keep the studio running smoothly.”
Arts added that the Board “asked us if we had any suggestions on how they could improve communication with students. One trustee asked if Twitter would be a better way to receive updates, which isn’t really what the issue is. But we didn’t get any tangible confirmation of a way that things would improve.” However, Arts also stated, “Our interactions with the Board were positive and they were all very supportive of the work that student groups are do- ing. For the groups that brought up issues, including Woo91, we are still lacking tangible steps to- wards improvement. I think the best we can hope for is that the members of the Board who we spoke to will take our concerns into consideration when making larger decisions.”
In regard to the response of the Board about the presenta- tions, Derewetzky said, “For this entire semester, we’ve been work- ing with administration, work- ing with Student [Actvities], and they’re always telling us that they’re on our side, but then they don’t do anything. Talking to the Board of Trustees felt like that but just on a larger scale. And al- though they were very kind, and they said they could do as much as they could do, I think it’s just the same thing.”
Libbie Main ’20 and Will Mc- Cullough ’21, co-presidents of Inter-Greek Council, spoke about housing concerns for Greek Life, and presented evidence of the poor conditions of Bissman Hall. “The Board was generally recep- tive to our discussion, chuckling at photos of the interior of Bissman, and stating their support for our community’s issues,” they stated. “While the Trustees are unable to wave a magic wand and cure all of campus’ issues, they made it clear that they are concerned about the issues that groups brought to their attention, as was especially the case with discussion of Biss- man’s condition.”
“The Student Development Committee meeting was a great opportunity for us to voice our concerns to the Trustees. Coming out of the meeting, we feel hope- ful that they are taking them into account,” Main and McCullough said.