Student Attendance Nil at Trustee Events
by Jacob Kramer-Duffield

“Over 300 protestors demonstrated against Oberlin’s $25 million stock in corporations that do business with South Africa as the Board of Trustees met in Mudd Library yesterday afternoon.” So said the Saturday, December 1, 1984 issue of the Review. Last Saturday morning, the Oberlin College Board of Trustees held an open session at the Goodrich Room in Mudd, and one student — this Review reporter — attended. Among other things, attendees learned that Bon Appetit has been acquired by Chartwells (one of the other finalists for the original CDS bid); that total student fees will increase 5.25 percent, to $34,800, for the Fall; that access to Drag Ball will be further restricted this year for non-College individuals; that Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith is initiating a campus dialogue on restricting student dorm access; and that a search is beginning to find a replacement for the College’s current auditor, Arthur Andersen.
The open session — attended by nearly the full complement of trustees, in addition to Oberlin’s upper administration — came on the heels of an only slightly better attended Class Trustee Open Forum on Thursday, March 7 in Wilder 115. The Class Trustee forum — where class trustees Amie Ely (’99) and Maame Stephens (’01), and member of the Board George Bent attended — saw fewer than a dozen students, not even filling a corner of Wilder 115.
As to the low student turnout, Amy Levin-Epstein, co-vice president of the senior class said, “The low attendance numbers at the meeting could be a combination of both inadequate publicity by those in charge and low interest among students.” Other students placed the blame for the poor turnout at both events on the administration.
“The College releases information when it is in their interest,” junior and Muckraker co-editor in chief John Byrne said. “When it is not, they will not release information of their own accord. Were it not for student campus media a great deal of material relevant to students would never be made public,”
senior Jen Katz said. “It’s my opinion that Oberlin doesn’t really want us to know what all is going on, at least not until after it’s been decided.” Indeed, the announcements made at the Trustee Open Session were of decisions already made by the Board and Executive Committee in closed session.
“The endemic problem is that the College often makes decisions by fiat without discussion from students,” Byrne said. “When student voices are heard, often in the context of faculty committees (and they are faculty committees, for on none of them is there student/faculty equity numerically, and a large number of the committees do not even have their student seats filled) it often appears that the College’s administrators are using the committees as a way to say, ‘See, students agree,’ when students fail to constitute a significant voting bloc on these committees.” Katz agreed that committees are positive, but ultimately fall short in terms of actually incorporating student views into policy.
“Oberlin at least pretends that the input of students is important to them,” Katz said. “[But] it’s my opinion that, all politics to the contrary, the overwhelming majority of the Board lacks interest in the concerns of students. I think it’s problematic that the trustees are so thoroughly unaccountable to the student body. I recognize that the trustees exist not to fulfill the desires of the students, but rather to serve the inteests of the institution at large, a goal which often seems to be thoroughly removed from those which the students might otherwise support.
“From my experience at the last Board open session, and other experiences I have had with the Board, it is largely an organization of older white men controlled by wealthy heavy hitters,” Katz said.
Speaking at the open session about the dorm access issue, Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith said “[Students’] desire for safety necessarily carries a heightened level of inconvenience.” However, both Goldsmith and ResLife feel that a campus dialogue is necessary before policy changes occur. Further, both propose a policy that would limit dorm access only during hours of heightened risk. “I am committed to engaging the campus community in a dialogue about limiting access to halls during specific, though unspecified, hours, probably of the night,” Goldsmith said.
Limiting dorm access on campus is not a new suggestion. Security experts have long advised the school that giving dorm residents card access to only their own buildings would significantly increase safety on campus. “When we look at our peer institutions, this kind of broad access is relatively rare,” Goldsmith said.
A trial period of restricted dorm access of Winter Term this year was fraught with problems and did not show increases in safety. In a Feb. 15 article of the Review, Director of Safety and Security Robert Jones stated that he didn’t see any red flags or change in crime rates during the Winter Term trial period. Following this inconclusive trial period, many students thought that discussion of restricting dorm access was over.
“I am concerned because [Associate Director of Residential Life and Dining Services] Tracy Murry assured students that this kind of thing could not happen for several years and without experimental data to support it. I find it extremely concerning that Peter Goldsmith would make any comment that contradicts this. Especially considering that the experiment from Winter Term did not seem to support that the benefit would be worth the difficulties,” senior Alicia D’Addario said.
Research by Tobias Smith.