Political Drama in the SFA

I haven't had many funny or awkward stories to tell in the last few weeks, but many interesting things have been happening. I thought maybe I could write about interesting stories, even if they do not quite fit into the category of funny or awkward.

First of all, I am in the exciting period of my life in which I receive college acceptances and have them all trying to flatter me because they want me to choose them. I haven't yet decided where I will go, but fear not--I have good options, and I will be spending the April vacation visiting my top choices and spending the night (these may or may not be the subject of future blog stories; I have already attended something of a cocktail party for Boston-area students admitted to Yale, which was a little bit strange, I suppose).

My other interesting story is the big controversy over junior open campus restrictions in the SFA. As you might already know, a junior representative submitted a proposal on March 25 that would extend the current sophomore open campus rule to juniors (placing juniors with Ds, Fs, or Ns in study halls). I was opposed to this because it seemed unlikely to help the situation, as well as the fact that it does not recognize students' responsibility or the fact that different students are having trouble for different reasons. Anyway, it seemed as though the majority of the SFA supported the proposal, although a significant amount of people had qualms about it too.

During the next few days, the opposition movement began. I had been discussing the proposal with Sachi, and together we developed a stance on the issue. Sachi then wrote the Facebook note that you might have seen. Soon enough, a sophomore representative on the SFA created a Facebook group for people against the proposal, and soon a grand discussion and argument took place on the internet.

It soon became clear to me that if we wanted people to vote against the proposal, we would need our own alternative proposal. The reasoning for the proposal was to help students academically. I thought we needed some way to provide help for students without restricting open campus. That way, I hoped, people who would otherwise have voted for the restriction proposal would consider my alternative option, and maybe prefer it.

One night as I was pondering the problem, it came to me: students would meet individually with counselors to come up with plans and suggestions for receiving help on a case-by-case basis (case-by-case has since become one of my main phrases on this issue). That way the school could provide a way for students to receive help without infringing on their responsibility and (hopefully) providing a more effective way of achieving the same ends as the original proposal.

I talked to people, made agreements, convinced people of things, subtly sometimes. I almost scared myself about how much of a politician I was being. But never mind that. I wasn't too bad. Anyway, I wrote up a counter-proposal with help from Sachi and hoped to submit it at the next SFA meeting, April 8.

I showed up at the meeting, found that the library copier needed a password, so I quickly went downstairs to Graphic Arts to have thirty copies made. I rushed back up, just in time. As the discussion went on about the junior open campus restriction proposal, I found that some people seemed to want similar ideas to what was in my proposal. But unfortunately, the chair did not let me distribute my proposal. I made a few comments, but that was all. As it is, the majority of the SFA will probably vote for the restriction proposal, but if they see my paper, which is very relevant, I think I might be able to change just enough votes.

I hope.

I think I will be able to distribute my proposal at the next meeting before discussion resumes on the other proposal, because the student chair is going to be leading next week and I was talking to him. But it is not clear how this will turn out.

If you care, come to the next meeting, Wednesday April 15, at 7:00 AM in the library. If people see how much we care about this, maybe we can get their votes.

-Philip