Senate revises College overnight guest policy

At its weekly meeting Sunday, the Student Senate approved a revision to the Overnight Guest Policy in the College's handbook of Rules and Regulations. A proposal, authored by both senators and students serving on the Student Life Committee (SLC), was brought before Senate explaining why certain amendments to the Guest Policy were necessary.

SLC member sophomore Sarah Fineberg attended the Senate meeting to explain the proposal she helped create.

"The main things to know are that we no longer require a sign-in for guests and that we've extended the amount of days you can have a guest," Fineberg said.

The current Guest Policy in the Rules and Regulations handbook requires that students' overnight guests sign in with a Commons Coordinator. This position, however, has not existed for several years.

In addition, the current policy stipulates that students may not host overnight guests for more than three consecutive nights. Under the proposed amendment students would be allowed to have guests for seven nights, provided that the guest does not interfere with roommates or residential hall life.

Senator senior Joshua Kaye, who co-authored the proposal, said initially he had wanted to eliminate the time period restricting the length of a guests' stay because the rule most likely would not be enforced.

Fineberg said she agreed with that idea until she talked to staff members in the department of Residential Life and Services.

"I think it's a problem for us to be writing rules we intend not to be living under," Fineberg said. "But when I spoke to people in ResLife, they said most rules are not intended to be enforced and that it's actually contrary to the job of an Area Coordinator to actively enforce them. We're making rules to protect ourselves when we need them."

The proposed amendments passed with 13 senators in favor, one abstention and one absence.

The College is proposing the elimination of quickmail, as well as such functions as phone and finger. In their place would be a new system called Mulberry, which would be universal to students, faculty and staff.

"The Computing Center is proposing drastic changes to the e-mail system on campus," Persky said. "Sarah and I compiled a list of concerns we came up with, some of which we found in conversations on the alta vista forum concerning e-mails. They're proposing eliminating a large portion of what's available now."

Among Persky's concerns was that under the new changes, e-mail and internet access for off-campus students would be limited even more than it is now.

"The Computing Center staff members are saying that the functions being eliminated can be accessed in some way on the world wide web. The problem is that most students living off-campus really don't have much access to the web," Persky said.

Persky also cited potential problems which might arise if the faculty and staff's quickmail program were eliminated. "My hypothesis is that with quickmail eliminated, there would be a lot of problems maintaining Alpha because there would be a big influx of users," he said.

Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman said the technical committee providing oversight on the upcoming changes is examining a new program which will come out this summer.

"They've said many times to us as administrators that this program is not going to make our lives easier, and in some ways it may make things more difficult. It's not ideal, but they do believe there will be some pluses to benefit the College," Stackman said.

Senator senior Chapin Benninghoff said he was wary about the new changes. "I think some of these changes are inevitable whether we like them or not," he said.

Persky said he will take a list of all the concerns he's gathered from students to an upcoming meeting with Computing Center staff members.

According to the proposal, the forum would provide interested students with both a means of finding out what was discussed at Senate's weekly Sunday meeting and a chance to voice their opinions.

Lopez-Young said the proposal would benefit both the general student body and Student Senate.

A Student Forum would "create a centralized vehicle of structured outreach and education about what Senate does and how students can involve themselves," according to Lopez-Young's proposal. Thus, the proposal stated, the student body would gain "a public forum to be involved with campus-relevant and student-relevant issues on a regular basis."

Lopez-Young said the forum would meet Monday evenings so students could be briefed on what occurred at Senate's meeting and choose one large issue to discuss each week.

Residential Coordinators (RC) from various dorms and program houses would be encouraged to attend the forum in order to bring issues from the meeting to their hall council. They could then return to the forum with input for senators.

A forum agenda would also be posted in every residential hall and program house for students who could not attend the meeting.

Senator first-year Micah Thorner, who co-chairs the Senate-affiliated Housing and Dining advisory council, said she was unsure how Housing staff members would react to the proposal.

"When I first tried to get a representative from each dorm to come to the Housing and Dining advisory council meetings, I was met with negative words from each dorm. If residents didn't want to come themselves I encouraged them to send an RC, but they said they had no time," Thorner said.

Lopez-Young said she had worked with staff members in the department of Residential Life and Services to alleviate that problem.

"I realize this is not enforceable in any way. That's an underlying concern," Lopez-Young said. "But the people I talked to said this will be part of the job description of a Program Assistant." The position of Program Assistant (PA) was created by Residential Life and Services several weeks ago to replace Community Resident Organizers (CRO) beginning next fall.

Kaye recommended passing the proposal despite any of its minor drawbacks. "This is designed to be as simultaneously detailed and as flexible as possible, and that's part of what I like about it," he said. "We can talk with whoever's running this about our concerns and because it's so flexible, we can work it out."

The proposal passed with 12 senators in favor, two abstentions and one absence.