14 responses so far ↓

• 1 caravan70 (dpshupe92) // May 6, 2008 at 2:21 am

  Selena -

  I don’t honestly think Frost needs any work. (Of course, I don’t think they should have torn down Walker Hall in the first place.) It has its problems, but I don’t think they’re serious. And the administration has improved it considerably since I first arrived back in 1988 - I see that the reading room has been remodeled, and the newspapers have been moved upstairs, for example.

  I really do not understand the constant drive for campus physical plant improvement. Everything is fine, as far as I can see. They took my freshman dorm room, Morrow 112, out in favor of an elevator. Perhaps I simply don’t understand the nature of modern college life, but it used to be that you submitted to your circumstances and “sucked things up,” as the expression has it.

  As far as the Senate buying booze… as I recall, twenty years ago funds were funneled through the Student Activities Committee to pay for booze five nights a week. (Kicked off by George Bischof’s bathtub parties in Pond, and followed by Wednesday parties in various places, Thursday Tap in Chi Psi, Friday Tap in Psi U, Saturday wherever a band was playing, and Sunday once again in Psi U). I don’t understand why this presents a problem, honestly. It’s been a tradition that in my view essentially represents the College’s reparations for shutting the fraternaties down in 1985, and taking their freedom to act in the open.

  Cheers,

  Darren

• 2 Emily Moin (emoin09) // May 6, 2008 at 4:29 pm

  “They took my freshman dorm room, Morrow 112, out in favor of an elevator. Perhaps I simply don’t understand the nature of modern college life, but it used to be that you submitted to your circumstances and “sucked things up,” as the expression has it.”

  I’m pretty sure that disabled students can’t “suck it up” to reach parts of the building that aren’t on the ground floor. Accessibility is a fundamentally different question than that of whether we should renovate Frost (aside: we should… I’m typing this from Rao’s, the place where I go to study because I can’t stand the library).

• 3 caravan70 (dpshupe92) // May 6, 2008 at 4:38 pm

  Emily… I wasn’t saying that accessibility isn’t a good thing. I was simply saying that I think they could have renovated Morrow in a different fashion.

  Yes, I love Rao’s, too. (You can get H&H Bagels there.) But why do you hate the library so much? It’s been overhauled considerably since I was last here in 1991, and it has nice spaces in which to study.

• 4 Scott Smith (ssmith09) // May 6, 2008 at 8:38 pm

  Selena,

  I’m going to completely ignore the above comments and ask my own question. How much is the Senate involved in the Renovations Master Plan? Have you guys have any say beyond the library discussion?

• 5 Ryan Milov (rmilov10) // May 6, 2008 at 10:59 pm

  Selena–

  My only request: don’t let them make C level too(italics) safe.

• 6 Selena Xie (senate) // May 6, 2008 at 11:14 pm

  We do, but indirectly. Like I mentioned in my first post, senators are elected to different faculty committees. Particularly the Committee on Priorities and Resources (CPR) looks at “the long-term allocation of resources. … In the spring term, the CPR will also receive and respond to new large capital requests and review the ongoing list of capital priorities and deferred maintenance projects. ” While the committee has many other duties, all capital projects go through the CPR. FYI, students who are not senators can also run for this committee through the appointments board (2 senators and 1 at-large student sit on this committee). Since I’ve never been on this committee, I’m not totally sure how extensively they review the Renovations. I guess it also depends on how detailed you’re talking about. In many committees, senators meet with the trustees where we provide broader advice regarding renovations.

  Additionally, Jim Brassord, the Director of Facilities, also comes into the senate after the preliminary drafts of new dorms and we make comments which Jim takes into account.

  I hope that helps!

• 7 Selena Xie (senate) // May 7, 2008 at 1:37 am

  Ryan,

  Done. I will do my best to ensure that some underground creepiness still exists in the new library.

• 8 Max Suechting (msuechting11) // May 7, 2008 at 11:02 am

  My question is, what exactly is the concern with the Counseling Center? I hadn’t heard of the petition.

• 9 Selena Xie (senate) // May 7, 2008 at 12:19 pm

  Max,

  There have been many concerns. I think the one incident that sparked a sudden and massive call for the improvement of the Counseling Center was an op-ed in the Amherst Student a few weeks back. Eon Ho Song wrote that “the counseling center provided inadequate assistance for Jenny.” If you read the entire op-ed, the wording throughout the article is much stronger than this one sentence but implicating the Counseling Center as a contributor to Jenny’s death has brought out the opinions of those who have complaints against the Counseling Center. Eon has circled a petition regarding these concerns which will be presented to President Marx.

  The complaints that have been raised have to do with appointments and the quality of the counselors. People have had a hell of a time booking appointments and they’re often full. Around two weeks ago (I’m not sure when they filled up so don’t quote me on this) the counseling center had been booked through the end of the year. Part of this has to do with the fact that the counseling center is understaffed and only offers hours during class time. Additionally there is no emergency counseling so if you’re having a crisis, you can’t just walk in and seek immediate help. As for the quality of the counselors, these complaints are, of course, anecdotal. I’ve heard students complain that once the counselors diagnose the problem, they stop there and offer no recourse to actually help. Others say that the counselors push drugs on them without offering therapy. I have also heard that counselors try to end counseling before the student feels ready to end. Even if these are not true and the counseling center has its reasons, they are the common perceptions and the counseling center needs to communicate its policies better to the student body. I look forward to seeing the results of the Amherst Student’s survey on the student body about the counseling center. In the meanwhile, I think that having oversight and giving the Counseling Center another venue to express their needs is a good solution that the Senate has come up with.

• 10 Peter Tang (ptang10) // May 7, 2008 at 11:52 pm

  As a current (and soon, out-going) student member of the Committee on Priorities and Resources, I can tell you that I, along with the faculty, administrators, and students who serve on the committee, have met with Sheply Bulfinch on two occasions now to hear their progress. We’ve been advising their research into current building use (to then analyze and give options on what we should do in the coming years), as well as hearing from Jim Brassord.

  The students (Senators and at-large members) on the Library Committee have had more intimate discussions for almost two years now about what Frost should look like (there’s no particular reason to believe it will be torn down, nor is that ruled out). Also, the related committees have been informed that many smaller discussions with students (including a first-year student event with prizes for participating in the discussion) and faculty will continue into next year.

  There’s a lot of discussion going on, and with each one, more student input is being sought before any sort of a plan is drawn up and acted upon.

• 11 caravan70 (dpshupe92) // May 8, 2008 at 2:40 am

  Peter -

  Walker Hall was torn down, I believe, in 1963, with little input from alumni who had come to love it and its history. The Frost Library now stands on that spot. The residential buildings have been eviscerated enough (see the former Chi Psi house, now Mayo-Smith, which has been robbed of its classic ballroom, in which we used to see great concerts); we don’t need another renovation of the Library. What we need is maintenance of what we have.

  What is wrong with what we have now? Unless the administration is planning to expand the college’s size, we’re set. The library’s fine, even though it’s a little bit of a modernist monstrosity, and it has a nice selection of volumes. If you need more, you go over to that dreadfully-designed UMass library (which, by the way, is open 24-7 this time of year, and I don’t understand why our library, with our $1.7 billion endowment, can’t be open in the same way).

  I like this campus. I don’t see any need to change it. It seems to me that we should just leave it alone and maintain it.

• 12 Selena Xie (senate) // May 8, 2008 at 1:20 pm

  Darren,

  I know you addressed your question to Peter, but since I left your previous comment unanswered, I thought I might take a stab at a few issues you raise.

  First of all, I’d like to address the booze buying. It might not have been a problem 20 years ago to buy alcohol using student funds, but things have changed. Like laws. Twenty years ago is close to 1984 which is when the legal drinking age got raised to 21. Considering that roughly 3/4ths of our student body isn’t 21 and considering that the AAS Constitution says that all activities should be open to the entire student body, I completely disagree that there would be no problem in paying for booze five nights a week. There’s an argument to be made that activities could be open to everyone and only 21+ could drink, but regardless, the aggregate funds that would go to alcohol over the year would inherently be limited to a fourth of the student body.

  Secondly, about renovations. You ask what is wrong with what we have now. I think I gave you many reasons in my post for why the library is not maximizing its potential. I don’t think that people necessarily think Frost is terrible, but it could be so much better. The library could function as a place that fosters an environment of learning. I think right now, students are fighting the dinginess of the library and trying to make it a study-able place on campus. That’s just not good enough. Your comment, even, betray hints of resignation. We should “suck it up”, etc. But what you fail to recognize, is that there are real and very awesome possibilities for the library. Wouldn’t you like to have your H&H bagels in the library while you have a fascinating discussion with fellow students about Simone Weil’s Grace and Gravity or affine and projective space?

  Thirdly, it irritates me when people bring up the huge endowment when they are actually saying that money should be allocated toward whatever purpose they’re bringing up. In your case, 24/7 library hours. It’s just too easy of an argument and people don’t think about why we have this huge endowment before they invoke it. Why don’t we have a mini water park on that lawn outside of Keefe? I mean we have a 1.7 bill endowment, why don’t we use it for that? And I’m not saying that I fully understand the necessity of such a huge endowment either. And maybe we should be asking the trustees to be more open about our endowment and why we have to maintain such a colossus. But I don’t think randomly throwing around the size of our endowment is, in any way, productive. I know I made a big deal of this aspect of your comment which was actually only a parenthetical comment, but I react badly when people use on this argument to justify funding anything.

• 13 crjones09 (crjones09) // May 8, 2008 at 11:41 pm

  I’m with Darren on opposing excessive renovations. For me, it’s mainly an issue of waste––the administration can cite some impressive statistics on what they’re doing to save energy and resources, but you cut down a lot of trees, burn a lot of fossil fuel, and use a lot of labor to construct or renovate a building.

  The basic reason the College is so wasteful is because tuition is paid as a flat fee rather than on a service-by-service basis. Hence a spring concert that costs $60 per student but for which the market price of a ticket is $15. So here’s a way you can think about this situation: If you took the money it would cost to renovate the library (I’m guessing this would be at least in the tens of millions?) and divided it by the number of students who will be here before it gets redone again (let’s say 400 students * 30 years = 12,000 students total) this would put the average cost to you in the thousands. Would you pay that much to make the library preferable to working in Rao’s? If the average students says “no”, it doesn’t make much sense as an expenditure.

• 14 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // May 9, 2008 at 1:26 am

  Though I agree with Channing’s student-cost-bearing method for determining the worth of activities - the Spring Concert being a prime example - I think that using the same method for physical upkeep would be a mistake.

  Building don’t last forever - they are built, decline, and must go through renovations. In this sense, they are analogous to cars or people. You have to take care of your car and take care of yourself. At some point, the car stops working and the person dies.

  Thus, physical upkeep is critical for the long-term sustainability of the College. If we accept that as fact, the next step is deciding not if a building should be renovated, but when. Thus, the real argument you/Darren should be making is that the library is in fine shape and shouldn’t be touched for another 10 years, and that our immediate priorities should lie elsewhere. That’s a valid argument to have, and I am sure that AAS routinely puts in their opinion on immediate priorities in discussion with administration and the Board.

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