The Board of Visitors and Student Council held an open forum meeting Monday for 20 University students to discuss academic and student affairs with Board of Visitors member Barbara Fried.
Sustained Dialogue moderated the event.
The Board of Visitors has initiated many efforts to interact with students in the past, but never in a small-group setting, said Daniel Judge, the Board’s student member.
At the Board meeting last June, two students presented during a student comment period, but the structure received mixed feedback.
“In the past, there's been similar programs,” said Judge, a fourth-year College student. “That’s something that kind of always happens, that members reach out to different people in the community, and the student members often facilitate that.”
By creating a more open and discussion-like format, the Board can hear directly from students rather than through Judge as the student member.
The student member position has certain limitations, Judge said.
“What this does is it helps remove the bias and limitations of my own ability of getting out into the community and to hopefully encourage and enable anybody to share their own opinions, their thoughts, the issues that they care about,” Judge said.
The open forum saw the discussion of issues such as interdisciplinary studies, second-year housing, sustainability and socioeconomic diversity on Grounds. The most valuable discussion students brought was of their own experiences on Grounds, Judge said.
“Just hearing individual stories about the issues surprised me,” Judge said. “Overall, it was great context for some issues we talk about on a frequent basis.”
The format of a small, focus group-like discussion worked well because it gave the student participants a place for the Board to hear them and the autonomy to let conversation flow freely.
“We were able to get perspectives from people we otherwise wouldn’t have heard from,” Judge said. “One of the best things is that it allowed students to go in the direction that they wanted to with conversation.”
Third-year College student Catalina Pinto, a participant advocating for an on-Grounds multicultural center, said the meeting gave opportunities to students who would otherwise not have access to the Board of Visitors.
“The idea of interacting with one or two BOV members and being able to exchange thoughts in a focus-style group like this is beneficial,” Pinto said. “I would do it again.”
Judge plans on hosting another meeting in the same format Nov. 17, following the Nov. 12 and Nov. 13 Board meetings, with member John Macfarlane. The meeting format may change when student feedback comes in, Judge said.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Judge said. “It seems like we got a lot of positive feedback right off the bat, but I’m going to wait and see what people think afterwards.”
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