Students will be able to give feedback to the student representatives on the Social and Residential Life Steering Committee at a community forum at 8 p.m. next Tuesday.
This is the first opportunity students will have to directly address their student representatives in a panel format.
The town meeting, organized by the Student Assembly, is currently scheduled to take place in either Alumni Hall or Collis Common Ground.
"We wouldn't have this additional forum if it wasn't going to have the potential to effect change," said Kyle Roderick '99, one of the representatives on the Steering Committee.
In the first community forum this year, which took place the day before classes began, Trustees Susan Dentzer '77 and Peter Fahey '68 said the Committee has not yet reached any final decisions.
According to Roderick, this is still the case, although the Committee is moving towards a decision-making phase.
"We hope students will not see us as opposition, but as people to relate information back to the committee," he said.
Jesse Fecker, the graduate student representative to the Committee said, "We're still far from the end of the process. Any new input that comes in certainly will go through."
He said he hopes the student panel will be able to share some new insights into the Steering Committee's progress and receive input from the community.
The original idea for this panel stemmed from a suggestion by former Student Assembly President Josh Green '00 during the first forum this year.
"We're being represented by four undergraduates," Green told The Dartmouth. "We should have the opportunity to talk to them if they are going to be passing on our views to the Steering Committee."
Green said he thinks this town meeting is an important opportunity for the students to express any new ideas or opinions they have.
"We don't have that much longer to influence the process," he said. "I hope that students take advantage of the opportunity. I'll be there."
According to Assembly President Dean Krishna '01, he is not positive yet whether or not the meeting will be closed to non-student members of the community.
He said it is important for faculty members of the Steering Committee to hear student opinions, but at the same time, he wants students to feel comfortable voicing their opinions.
In either case, he said, the town meeting will be student dominated.
"The fact that they're willing to do this indicates to me that they're open to suggestions," Krishna said.
Roderick said he and his fellow student representatives to the Steering Committee have already heard many ideas, but are definitely open to more student suggestions.
"If we hear any new ideas, they will impact our discussion," he said.
But he said at this point it is more likely that students will voice arguments for or against certain issues that have already been raised than bring up new ideas.
The panel will not be able to answer questions at the town meeting. They will only receive the input from the community and then bring it back to the whole committee.
"We can't say what ideas we're really discussing or who has said what," Roderick said. "We made a decision at the beginning of the committee process to keep what we say in confidence during the meetings so that committee members feel free to say what they think without having to worry about it becoming public knowledge."
He said this confidentiality is essential because it will make the Committee's debates more time effective and fair.
The Steering Committee will present its final proposal to the Board of Trustees at their next meeting, which will be during November.
"There's no way that we can come up with a proposal that everyone's going to love every part of," Roderick said.
But he said even the Committee's final proposal is not a final decision. After the proposal becomes public, students will have more time to voice their opinions to the Trustees.
