The Student Assembly will vote on a resolution to try to save Webster Hall and will elect a vice president at its first meeting of the term tomorrow night.
The resolution on Webster Hall, sponsored by Assembly President Rukmini Sichitiu '95, calls for the College to either find an alternate storage place for Special Collections or to provide $10 million to build another auditorium of comparable size.
Currently, Webster Hall is slated to undergo renovations and become the home of Special Collections.
The resolution also calls for an information campaign, sponsored by the Assembly, to let students know about the administration's plans for Webster Hall.
On Tuesday, the Assembly will also elect a vice president to replace Sichitiu, who became president when Danielle Moore '95 resigned.
Assembly spokesman Brandon del Pozo '96 said Webster Hall is unique because it is the only building on campus that can hold about 800 people. He said this size makes it particularly good for many non-alcoholic social and intellectual events.
"As it stands now, Dartmouth is not world renowned for its things to do on a Saturday night," he said. "A lot of performance groups fit perfectly in Webster Hall."
Sichitiu said Webster is a good place for non-alcoholic events.
"At times the alcohol intense social environment that is so common at Dartmouth very much hinders this growth and so many of my ideas are along the lines of creating social options that will allow other venues for meeting people."
Sichitiu said Webster's size was particularly good for speakers like Angela Davis and singers like Natalie Merchant and Wynton Marsalis.
"It combines a social space and intense intellectual events," she said. "There's an interrelationship between the two and it's one of the only places on campus where we can do this."
Both Sichitiu and del Pozo said they think the resolution will pass.
"I think its a completely non-partisan issue," Sichitiu said. "All of us enjoy going to the dances, parties, concerts and speakers and grow from that."
Sichitiu said she thinks the administration will respond favorably to student concerns about the future of Webster Hall.
"One of the reasons why the entire transferring of Webster Hall happened so quickly was because of lack of student initiative," she said. She said last year's Assembly failed to address the issue.
"I think that now [the Administration is] going to see the student reaction," Sichitiu continued. "I would hope it would change the way they see the current plans."
Del Pozo said he thinks it is contradictory of an administration that claims to support diverse social options on campus to close down a building that is used for that purpose.
At the same time, del Pozo was careful to point out that the Assembly is not against housing Special Collections.
He said he thinks the plans to make Webster into a Special Collections library will be implemented as soon as the College gets the funding for the transformation.
The College has already begun working on the conversion, but the construction is on hold because of a lack of funds.
