More than 800 students have submitted answers to questions about their perceptions of the College today and goals for its future to the Student Assembly's Visions Committee -- 300 more than the Assembly had hoped, said Josh Green '00, co-chair of the Student Assembly's Visions Committee.
Many of the responses arrived shortly before the committee's submission deadline of Sunday at midnight, and 35 were received at exactly midnight, he said.
The Assembly is still accepting visions submissions and the number of student responses has not yet reached its peak, said Chair of the Assembly's Administration and Faculty Relations Committee Case Dorkey '99.
"I was very confident we'd break 500," he said. "As visions trickle in in the next couple of days and we contact people who were off this term, we'll definitely break 1000."
The responses received have ranged from a one-line comment -- "Room Three Sudikoff needs air-conditioning" -- to six- or seven-page "manifestos," Green said.
The Visions Committee, which was formed at the beginning of Winter term, will present the College's next president with the student responses as well as a summary that will include the committee's intentions and, possibly, some areas that received considerable student attention, he said.
"She's going to love this," Visions Committee co-Chair Janelle Ruley '00 said, emphasizing she believes President James Freedman's successor will be a woman.
The committee will most likely organize the student submissions by issue, but may divide them into categories appropriate for each specialized branch of the administration to make it "easier [for administrators] to digest," Green said.
He said the committee will correct spelling errors and capitalization, but will not change the content of the responses or delete obscenities.
"One way or another, we're here to tell the president what the students think," Green said. "Censoring any visions is a path toward censoring all visions."
The committee hopes to have its report written by mid-April, when the Presidential Search Committee plans to name the new president, Green said.
The committee visited organizations, sent numerous e-mail messages, posted fliers, went "door-to-door" visiting students, hosted a community dinner and set up a computer in the Collis Center to persuade students to write visions, Ruley said.
The committee also asked professors to distribute fliers to their classes, Green said.
Ruley said the method which enabled the Assembly to reach the most students was speaking directly to students and organizations.
This method brought in large numbers of submissions from Palaeopitus, the Korean-American Student Association and the group of students who run the Organic Farm, Green said.
Ruley said one of the Assembly's less-effective methods of reaching students was through a mailing placed in students' Hinman Boxes. She said many students may have simply thrown away the mailing.
Vice Chair of the Assembly's Academic Affairs Committee Jorge Miranda '01 said the success of the Visions Project comes despite criticism by students who may have not completely understood the project.
Miranda said he was upset by an editorial written by the staff of The Dartmouth because it misrepresented intentions of the project and did not give credit to the other student organizations involved.
