Accountability?

For the Oberlin College administration, last week’s Class Trustee Forum and Board of Trustees Open Session — both poorly attended by students — were rousing successes. The Class Trustee Forum — which featured two Class Trustees and one member of the Board of Trustees — gives the College the appearance of having its trustees open to student concerns. And the Open Session gives the College the appearance of being accountable for major decisions made during the quarterly trustee meetings. Appearances can be deceiving.
Whether or not the Board of Trustees is open to student concerns — and there is bountiful evidence to support the view that many Trustees are not — the College is not about to find out the hard way. Other than experienced student leaders and a select few students who are “in the loop,” the vast majority of the student body was unaware of the Class Trustee Forum’s existence, and the College did little in the way of advertising to change that fact. The same is true of the Open Session, perhaps even more so.
Nor is the Review — along with the rest of Oberlin’s media — without blame for the student body’s ignorance of these dialogue and informational opportunities. Quite simply, we blew it, and this week’s coverage of the announcements at the Open Session do little to make up for the Review’s dropping the ball last week.
That being said, there were doubtless no tears shed in Oberlin’s administration that the halls of Mudd’s fourth floor weren’t swarming with students, as in years past, or that the atmosphere of the Class Trustee forum was one of personal conversation rather than tense drama.
The Oberlin administration is in a double bind — on the one hand, Oberlin’s history of political activism is one of the school’s major selling points (emphasis on selling). On the other hand, having attracted those politically-motivated students, the College is loath to let the student body’s ire turn on the upper administration (including trustees) — which it often ought to.
The only solution to this problem lies with the Oberlin student body, and with both its legitimate political representations — Student Senate and student members of committees — and the non-College-affilitated organizations that make up most of Oberlin’s political organization. Only by demanding — loudly — that the administration become more public in its processes and more open to student input — positive and negative alike — will students gain the access and influence they deserve, and only then will the administration gain the student body’s trust and respect.

Restricted Access

The College administration has declared its interest in moving toward a policy of restricted access to dorms via card swipers.
One point often mentioned in defense of this policy is that other colleges have restricted access to their dorms. Oberlin College is not other colleges, and many students came here just for that reason. So why try to emulate “peer institutions” in a way that could destroy valuable aspects of the Oberlin experience?
Furthermore, this point doesn’t take into account all the factors in Oberlin’s security situation. Many “peer institutions” have further measures to ensure safety, such as check points where security officials can verify proper identification. Without such secondary measures in place at Oberlin, restricting dorm access will lead to an increase of students letting other students — and possibly non-students — into dorms more freely, and threatens to be both ineffective and potentially dangerous.
Moreover, restricted card access would be very detrimental to the Oberlin community’s social patterns. From times before dorms were co-ed, dorms lounges were central to basic social functions. Many other colleges have places for social interactions that Oberlin does not, like extensive student union buildings. Wilder Hall is completely insufficient in this respect, and the administration would have to renovate or add to other spaces on campus to better facilitate parts of student life that would be disrupted by restricted card access — renovations and additions that are already long overdue. But that is an aside.
Most important are student concerns on this issue. There was a meeting for student issues late in January, but right before the meeting members of ResLife announced that they did not to plan to implement this plan full time. This may have led some students to assume that there wasn’t a need to attend the meeting and voice their concerns. Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith has said, “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” (see article page 1). We know what the administration thinks, but in order that any policy change in this area be seen as legitimate, there must be extensive student involvement in the policy-formulation process.