The Trustee Steering Committee for the Social and Residential Life Initiative will meet for the first time this term on July 10, and will begin discussing the more than 250 pages of proposals that were submitted by the Task Force last week.
The meeting will be the Steering Committee's first that will include a concrete set of possible implementation strategies for the goals laid out in the Trustees' Five Principles.
The proposals included in the appendix to the Task Force report will represent the student opinions that the Committee will most actively consider.
"[The Task Force report] will be the primary feedback we are going to be getting back from the student body," Trustee and Steering Committee co-chair Susan Dentzer '77 said.
According to Trustee and Steering Committee co-chair Peter Fahey '68, the committee has received copies of the Task Force report, and members have been asked to read through all of the material before the July 10 meeting, which will be in Hanover.
The Steering Committee will discuss conflicting opinions presented in the report on issues including first-year student housing, alcohol education, decentralized dining and the control of the College's social spaces.
Fahey said that while the appendix proposals will be the first source of input from the community, there will be other opportunities for student, faculty and administrative response.
The Steering Committee will ultimately create a report that will be presented to the Trustees for their November meeting. The report will include a recommendation for a course of action regarding the Initiative.
Just after the start of the Fall term, the Steering Committee will hold town meetings in order to announce what Fahey called "an array of alternatives that the committee finds most promising." The committee decided on the town meeting format so that it will be able to obtain feedback about the ideas.
The committee will then narrow down the alternatives and submit recommendations to the Board of Trustees, which will make the final decision on what course of action to take.
Dentzer said the values that the committee will emphasize will be parallel to those already presented in the Initiative, as well as the comments made by College President James Wright following the plan's announcement to include substantial long-term changes to the Greek system. She said those values were discussed during the committee's last meeting.
The Initiative "calls for the system to evolve and change," Dentzer said. "[It] should be substantially coeducational, and I emphasize 'substantially.'"
The Committee will also aim to effectively minimize the abuse of alcohol on campus.
"The social experience should be on par with the educational experience at Dartmouth," Dentzer said, highlighting the need for improvements on current residence halls and residential life as a whole. "Some of the dorms are less than terrific, some of the living situations are less than terrific."
The 14 Steering Committee members in addition to Dentzer and Fahey are Allen Collins '53, Thomas Csatari '74, graduate student Jesse Fecker, Susan Finegan '85, French professor Mary Jean Green, Equal Opportunity director Ozzie Harris '81, College Vice President and Treasurer Win Johnson '67, Dean of the College-designate James Larimore, Anthropology professor Deborah Nichols, Associate Professor of Engineering Ulf osterberg, and four undergraduates.
Meg Smoot '01 was elected by the student body to the Steering Committee and Matthew K. Nelson '00 was appointed by the Student Assembly. The Trustees selected two additional students to join the committee, Kyle Roderick '99 and Hillary Miller '02.
