LGBT theme sparks process examination

LGBT theme hall proposal is in limbo, but brings up questions of process

The Student Life Committee may not have convened for its first meeting of the year yet, but members still need to address questions being raised about the mysterious disappearance of a student proposal dating back to the first semester of last year.

It is still unclear where the proposal for a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Ally theme hall was left off and if it will resurface in the upcoming SLC meeting.

The proposal, which was passed unanimously by the Housing and Dining Committee on March 1 of last year, was brought up and then tabled in the last SLC meeting.

"It's my understanding that it went to Residential Life's committee on Housing and Dining. It was largely approved. It was then to have gone to the committee on Student Life, and I believe that it was taken off the table in order to give the new dean, then unnamed, an opportunity to think about the process of creating new program houses all together," said Peter Goldsmith, dean of students.

Goldsmith also said he was not under the impression that all of the existing program houses were to be reviewed, but rather that an examination into how program houses were to be approved would be conducted.

"I think there is some wisdom in taking the time to think self-consciously about that process. But I wouldn't want to do that at the expense of a proposal that has been on the table a very long time and deserves some attention now," said Goldsmith.

Goldsmith had praise for the proposal. "I read the proposal and I thought it was written with great care and a lot of good sense. I particularly like the fact that this space was construed as being non-exclusionary."

This praise still does not say exactly where the proposal disappeared. It does, however, foreshadow a possible change in the way program houses will be approved and possibly how they will be evaluated.

"I don't think that there should be a process which puts the power to say 'yeah' or 'nay' in the hands of a single individual, most particularly not the dean. I hope there is a process that will enable the community more collectively to make a decision about the merit of this proposal. But I also want the opportunity to think about the process so we can rationalize and regularize the approval of program houses; that is, the use of residential spaces for combined residential programmatic purposes," Goldsmith said.

While restructuring the program house approval system may be valuable, the question still remains where the proposal disappeared and if it will make its way back on the table in the next SLC meeting.