One year after its formation, the Coalition of Class Officers has achieved many of the goals it set out to achieve, according to Senior Class Vice President Hosea Harvey, who founded the group last spring.
Harvey said COCO has "really been able to make a difference in student life. I'm pleased with the progress we've made this year and I see the group really gelling next year."
COCO, made up of the presidents and vice presidents of each class, developed a list of eight projects last year that they hoped to complete last year, 1996 Class Vice President Tom Caputo said.
Caputo said COCO will continue to be a force on campus next year, even with the loss of Harvey, who founded the organization and was instrumental in setting this year's agenda. Caputo said he wanted "to emphasize that COCO is not Harvey."
Harvey said he created COCO to serve the College as a research group, advisory panel and cross-class programming board, and the group will remain intact after he graduates this June.
The group has worked on several projects including an improved Senior Scholars program, an alternative programming space to Webster Hall and a Scholastic Aptitude Test prep program in area schools.
The main strength of COCO is its ability to pool resources and "solicit ideas from all four class councils," Harvey said. "I see the group really gelling next year to provide collaborative support."
Sophomore class Vice President Matt Shafer said COCO is better suited to do research than class councils, which exist to provide class activities, or the Student Assembly, which is too large to be able to focus on in-depth research.
"We can't do as many projects as the Student Assembly," Shafer said. "But we can do them well."
In the Winter term, COCO achieved its biggest success when it presented a 50-page report, based on research it had conducted, about Webster Hall to the Board of Trustees, Harvey said.
At its meeting, the Trustees "decided they needed to find a replacement to Webster Hall. It was the first acknowledgment anyone had ever made that they would need to find alternative programming space," Harvey said.
Shafer said COCO will continue to work on implementing the SAT preparation program over the summer and is also working with Education Department Chair Robert Binswanger to pair Dartmouth students up with local high school students beginning in the fall.
Sophomore Class President Pam Saunders said COCO is unique in its ability to serve constituents across classes. Before the creation of COCO, class council officers rarely met together, Harvey said.
