Senate Coordinates Communication
By Oriana Syed

Student Senate, it seems, has decided it has a public relations problem.
“Students aren’t sure exactly what it is that Senate does,” College junior and Senate Communications Coordinator Jesse Kanson Benanav said. “[They] don’t know how they can use senate to their benefit.”
Senate feels that the student body perceives them negatively, or, at best has, an indifferent view. Kanson Benanav further stated that the same thing applied to many other student groups on campus.
“Obviously every group on this campus has its own agenda for Oberlin College, but they don’t understand how they could use Senate as a resource to address the issues they are concerned with,” he added.
Two senators, sophomores Ary Amerikaner and Dazlynn Pinkston, are working with senior Joe Greaves, a former senator and current intern for Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman, to address this problem. They plan to arrange ongoing dialogue between the Senate and student groups through community forums in order to figure out how to be more responsive to the needs of student organizations.
In the past, lack of communication with administrators was also a concern of the Senate.
“Senate has had somewhat of a sour relationship with the administration: anyone who was here last year remembers the attempted ‘impeachment’ of Dean Goldsmith that was undertaken by a coalition of students with the consent of Student Senate,” Kanson Benanav said.
Though the impeachment was unsuccessful it perhaps opened the eyes of the administration to a central concern of Oberlin students: lack of two-way exchange of ideas. One such example of this was the decision made by the administration last year to eliminate intern positions without any consultation with the student body.
This year, the administration has been attempting to improve this relationship.
“We’ve been meeting with President Dye on a semi-regular basis, and Dean Goldsmith has made it a point to attend Senate meetings to convey important information to us about issues that arise within the Administration,” Kanson Benanav said.
Another instance of the administrators new attempts to more readily communicate with the Senate is seen through Dean Goldsmith’s attendance of their recent meetings, explaining the decisions made by the Board of Trustees.
“We’re really trying to engage the administration and are pleased with the efforts they have made in this realm,” Kanson Benanav said.
The Senate seeks to ensure that the information they receive in their active communication with the administration will be successfully disseminated to the rest of the student body.
“We as senators cannot be an elite group of students with access to privileged information,” Kanson Benanav stated.
Senate is planning to begin holding monthly forums for the student body following fall break. Kanson Benanav feels this will be a wonderful opportunity for the Senate to receive constructive criticism from students about its group’s functioning.