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Board of Directors and students engage in roundtable discussions
Students voice ideas for improving social life at Sweet Briar
By Emily Clifton ’08
STAFF WRITER

Last Friday the Board of Directors engaged in roundtable discussions with Sweet Briar students and administrative staff in the Josey Dining Room. The two main questions for the evening consisted of the following: 1) A large percentage of Sweet Briar students (72 percent) believe that tap clubs are an important part of the Sweet Briar tradition; 62 percent indicated they would like to be a member of a tap club, but at the time of responding to the survey, had yet to be invited. What can we do to involve more students? 2) Although 48 percent of the student respondents stated that the campus feels inviting to those who want to visit and socialize and 21% do not feel strongly one way or the other, a significant number of students, 31 percent, are not happy with Sweet Briar’s social climate. What needs to happen to meet the desires of all?

Much of the discussion centered around these two items. Each table had a spokesperson to represent the ideas for each question. Many repeating themes, such as the need for improved social atmosphere, especially after 10 p.m., were brought forth. Suggestions included everything from extending the Café hours to completely restoring one of the barns on campus to be fully equipped for bands, including a stage and technical capabilities that the current facilities cannot support. Such large-scale changes would take years to accomplish. Students seemed to be mainly concerned with working with the spaces we have, pointing out that the Vixen Den, Reid Pit, the Café and Le Bistro could all use a little revamping to make them more enjoyable places to spend downtime.

Some of these suggestions were met with much approval, some even eliciting spontaneous applause. There was a general consensus that more cooperative efforts between Sweet Briar and other campuses need to occur, including possibilities of promotion of events across campuses, providing transportation options, and even cooperative efforts to provide entertainment. Further exploration of things to do was a repeating theme. Caitlin Cashin ’07 commented that she’d like to see some sort of source of information that would include off-campus activities and places to go with directions on how to get there.

A lot of discussion hinged on changing the current policies in place. The boathouse policies, for example, could be reworked to allow students access even when boathouse parties are not in progress. The checkpoint at the entrance of Sweet Briar, it was noted, could be more of an information center, a place where incoming guests could obtain directions to where they are going. The policy of escorting guests was also discussed.
Intense discussion of student activities took place at the table with James McGhee. As the Director of Student Activities and Programming, McGhee handles all of the clubs, events and intramural sports that occur at Sweet Briar. Much of the discussion of how to meet the needs of students hinged on the fact that the resources for student activities is too limited to provide larger events that appeal to a wider audience. The Spring Fling last year, for example, brought 1100 people to a single event. However, because of budget constraints, it was cancelled for this year. The largest indoor space that can house a band has had difficulty supporting the power needs of performers; the Dell stage is only able to have sound set up if there has been no rain for several days.

Co-sponsorship of events by multiple colleges was discussed as well. One issue that smaller colleges such as ours face is the difficulty in attracting other students here on their own. If colleges provide transportation to events, they take on the liability for those students. Another issue is that Sweet Briar does not have enough staff for larger events; for Spring Fling, we had to hire help from Lynchburg College. At the orientation dell party in 2004, Hampden-Sydney College brought their incoming freshman class along with their RAs to Sweet Briar. As a result, there was a large amount of vandalism, alcohol consumption, and a general lack of respect for this campus. The co-sponsored events, while appealing to a larger group of students, require so much planning and money to hold that it is difficult for Sweet Briar to hold such events. But when such an event is held, it is usually successful in bringing students to our campus, such as the Winter Mixer, co-sponsored by Lynchburg College, which was held on Saturday, Feb. 11.

The key point of the roundtable discussions was to bring student ideas directly to the Board of Directors. At the end of the discussions, the ideas generated were reiterated out loud, recorded by each table, and handed over to the Board. The evening seemed to be a success, lasting for an entire hour longer than planned.