One-third of Senate resigns in meeting

A third of Senate has now officially resigned.

Following former senator junior Sam Taylor's lead, senators juniors Aaron Slodounik, BJ Renteria, and first-year Jesse Bloom announced their intentions of leaving Senate. This mass move to resign, along with former senator sophomore Erica Dicker's resignation earlier this semester, has vacated five of the 15 seats in Senate.

"I have to keep my sanity," Renteria said, explaining his resignation. He, like Taylor, cited personal reasons for his departure. They both noted that their schoolwork had to take a priority.

Bloom concurred with the others. "I think it would be really unfair to do [the job] half-way," he said. The change on campus he wants to bring about, he further stated, cannot be done best in the venue of Senate. Bloom was unclear exactly what he wanted to change or how it would best be changed.

Slodounik would only say that he would submit a letter of resignation and his official resignation will be effective Dec. 12.

Renteria will remain on Senate until the election of five new senators is complete.

Despite the saddening news of its latest losses, Senate was able to get a fair amount of work accomplished at their weekly public meeting. One topic of discussion was the new "Science Village".

With construction beginning next fall, the Housing and Dining committee has been forced to deal with the problem of relocating the "freshman experience" of Barrows. Although no decision had been made, the committee looked to Senate for ideas.

A presentation by senator first-year Chris Anton showed that construction will force part of Barrows Hall to be shut down at a loss of 70 beds. The desire to preserve the "freshman experience," the lack of beds and the amount of noise the construction will cause the committee to decide to relocate the first-year dorm.

The top choice for relocation is Noah Hall. Dascomb Hall is a close second because of the number of Conservatory students who choose to live there rather than north campus.

The Housing and Dining Committee will also have to deal with the 70 beds left in Barrows. They have come up with several ideas which include a sophomore hall, a wellness hall, program house or houses, a hall of all super-single rooms, or very inexpensive housing.

Although they are still toying with ideas, the sophomore hall has great promise. Lack of community among sophomores seems to be related to retention and the creation of the sophomore hall may boost retention numbers.

There is also a strong pull for the wellness hall, a substance free hall. However, Housing and Dinning committee's main concern is that the noise will make it impossible to keep any residents in Barrows. Old Barrows is also scheduled to become a wellness hall next year, and senators questioned the demand for yet another wellness hall.

In conjunction with mentioning that loss of students occurs often in sophomores, Anton noted that past retention studies have shown that Jewish people not active in Hillel, non-active homosexuals, conservatives and Caucasian males were among the first to drop out of Oberlin.

"Sounds like a program house to me!" said Bloom, in response.

Most senators think, however, that the committee should reconsider making Dascomb the all first-year dorm. Dascomb, several senators said, was in a better location, in the middle of campus, and also has its own dining hall.

In another issue, Anton is trying to battle textbook prices. He was able to secure the Senate bulletin board for the month of February for student postings of books for sale. A larger books sale was also suggested. Final decisions concerning either option will be cemented during the first part of second semester.

Along with other senators, Anton hopes to address the textbook price issue from the source. The senators are hoping to devise a better way of getting professors to turn in their textbook orders in a more timely fashion, which will drive prices down.

Administration seems to have taken to another idea brought forth by Anton. Wondering about the breakdown of the approximately $30,000 each student pays, Anton thought he should investigate and perhaps present this to the first-year class, of which he is president. Apparently the administration took favorably to this idea and wants to present the statistics publicly.

Ideas for publishing the information were generated in Senate and will be sent back to the administration. The breakdown may be published in next year's phone directory.

Senator sophomore Erika Hansen came to the meeting with a box of course evaluations. She was positive about the course evaluation guidebook where the evaluations will be used. Evaluations were mailed on Monday.

The charter issue has still not been resolved; however, more were passed according to precedent. The Oberlin Korean Students Association, Oberlin Meditation Club, the Free Poetry Exchange and the Oberlin Interfaith Community charters were passed.

Senators also dealt with several internal issues. A stricter attendance proposal was passed as well as a guest policy. The guest policy will provide each guest and other observers with an outline of Senate procedure. This will enable them to better take part in the discussion.

Senators were also able to better define Associate Dean of Students Bill Stackman's role in Senate. Stackman, who is also the advisor to Senate, was concerned that senators had not defined his role to their own satisfaction.

Stackman also brought up the issue of the recurring discord among senators. It was decided that they would confront the issue with his help in a private meeting.