The Social and Residential Life Task Force set a deadline for proposal submissions and finalized plans for a series of student input sessions at its first meeting of the term yesterday.
The task force, headed by Acting Dean of the College Dan Nelson and charged with soliciting community ideas on the Board of Trustees' landmark social initiative, also discussed what its final report will look like and set a tentative schedule on when that report will be completed.
The task force has set May 24 as the final day for proposals on how to implement the Trustees' five guiding principles. It hopes to present the Board with their final report shortly after graduation or at the beginning of Summer term.
"We haven't set a concrete deadline for that," task force member Andy Louis '00 told The Dartmouth, but added, "I don't think it will be any later than the first day of classes" in the summer.
Louis said the group has also worked toward deciding how to present the submitted proposals in the report.
Proposals submitted by numerous students as a group or by a number of individual students echoing similar ideas will be denoted with these numbers.
A full appendix of all the proposals will be included at the end of the report.
Louis said the task force has not yet decided how to present negative comments on the principals themselves. The task force has requested only ideas on how the initiative should be implemented, not opinions on the principles themselves, but Louis said they undoubtedly will get some submissions simply expressing opposition to the plan.
"I'm sure we received a lot of comments and I think that will be noted too. I think we have to note that," Louis said. "I hope it's represented in a graphical form or with some statistics."
The task force will meet with students to solicit these ideas during eight sessions to be held in various residences, ranging from dormitories to affinity housing and Greek houses.
The meetings will take place Monday through Thursday next week and Sunday through Wednesday the following week. At least one member of the task force will be present at all the meetings and all ideas gathered at the meetings will be reported back to the task force.
The group is also working on organizing a meeting with the College's facilities planners as the Trustees' plan calls for increased residence hall and social space possibly necessitating new buildings. There is also a meeting in the planning stages for alumni.
Coed Fraternity Sorority Council President and task force member Jamie Paul '00 told The Dartmouth the group plans on making proposals, with authors' names deleted, available for public viewing in various places on campus as the submissions come in to the task force.
She also said a reminder letter will be sent to students within the week with the group's deadlines and sample proposals.
While Louis said the group is still discussing whether to add new members to the task force, it appears the focus has shifted from adding more Greek representation -- only two students of nine on the task force are Greek-affiliated -- to replacing Shauna Brown '99, who announced last term she was stepping down from the group because of other time commitments.
Brown was the only member of the Class of 1999 and Louis said the task force feels there should be at least one senior among them. He said the group is soliciting senior membership from groups such as the '99 Class Council.
College President James Wright said during a faculty meeting last term that he encouraged the Trustees to announce the initiative earlier than previously scheduled so seniors could partake in the decision making process.
