Dean of College revises meeting plans

Ariel Schwartz Assistant News Editor

In response to the Town Meeting held on February 24, Dean of the College J.J. Jackson has planned a series of smaller town meetings that will be hosted by administrators of the College.

“Students hadn’t had an open forum before where they could have conversations with administrators, so they had old frustrations and confusions,” said Jackson. “The first opportunity to have a conversation opened up the floodgates to ask every question that was on their mind, and the agenda I sent out ended up being totally disregarded.”

Associate Dean of the College and head of Campus Life Ed Pittman did not attend the first meeting due to controversy surrounding the Campus Life office. However, Pittman was well-informed about the structure of the town meeting.

“There were all types of public conversation going on that shaped the outcome of the town meeting, and the conversation was structured so as to allow many different voices to come to the floor,” said Pittman.

The smaller town meetings will focus on specific issues and different members of the Dean of the College division will host the gatherings. Questions related to subjects outside the Dean of the College division will be taken to different officers.

Administrators will also get student input about how to keep a sensible dialogue going so that students understand they are taking suggestions seriously.

Though many people have high hopes for the meetings, some students have other suggestions for ways to students to make their voices heard.

“A specific meeting will only be attended if people are awakened by a poster campaign such as that for the Ed Pittman fiasco,” said Danny Morgan ’07. “I believe a better solution would be to have a web forum with specific questions from students, where administrators can log on and thoroughly answer the most important questions posed by the students. This way, people who are interested in getting answers can ask questions, and people who don’t know what to ask or who to ask will learn more about the school they attend.”

In order to create more focused dialogues in the smaller meetings, students are holding an informal forum on Thursday, March 31. They plan to create a list of concerns to present to administrators so that they can prepare responses for the town meetings. “So many questions came up at the last town meeting…there was just no way all of them could be answered in one meeting,” said Jackson. “We are trying to find effective ways to deal with all the issues.”