Though it was the first meeting of the term, the Student Assembly yesterday looked to how things will end -- plans to make reading period and finals go as smoothly as possible dominated the first meeting.
Members are trying to change the reading period to two consecutive days. Traditionally, Memorial Day causes the Spring term reading period to be divided into a Thursday and a Monday, but this year the Assembly wants reading period to be a large, continuous block of time, especially since many of the special collections are closed on Memorial Day.
Keeping Novack Caf open all night during the exam period will also be on the agenda for this term. Novack, which is usually closed for much of the weekend, may potentially be staffed by unpaid Assembly volunteers during exam period.
"If even half the assembly agreed, we could just do two hours a piece," said Student Body President Janos Marton '04.
Marton added that the details of this plan have not been completely fleshed out, and there are still potential problems in training Assembly members to work at Novack.
Other projects for the term will include the second phase of the Visions Project. When College President James Wright began his term at the College in 1998, the Assembly asked students to answer a series of questions about the direction of the College.
Now five years later, Assembly members hope to compare the responses of current Dartmouth students with those from five years ago. Assembly members are hoping for a 50 percent return on their questionnaires via BlitzMail.
As promised last term, the Berry newsroom is now showing all-day international news coverage of the war in Iraq. According to Marton, in the morning it will be showing the Arab-language network Al-Jazeera and in the afternoon it will be airing BBC News.
Beginning in mid-April, the trial program of the USA Today readership program will allow students to have free access to USA Today, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and The Manchester Union-Leader in various campus public spaces.
The Assembly had hoped for a trial of the Wall Street Journal instead of the Union-Leader, but the Journal is not available for the free trial.
