In order to efficiently respond to requests from students, last spring, Choate’s Student Council created four subcommittees. One of these subcommittees focuses on communication and transparency between the Council and other students. Brendan Ferguson ’16, Mpilo Norris ’18, and Julian Yau ’18, the three members of the Communications Committee, are working to better convey Student Council’s activities and efforts to the rest of the student body.
Since the beginning of its existence, Choate’s Student Council has had an open-door policy, so anyone is welcome to attend Council meetings. Although the Student Council has promoted its open-door policy more this year, the Council does not get many visitors during its meetings. Curious about the Student Council’s open-door policy and its transparency, a few reporters from The Choate News sat in on Student Council meetings.
Lawal recounted that the three reporters who went to recent Student Council meetings were among the first guests to attend a Student Council meeting this year. Lawal added that he had later spoke with Ms. Katrina Homan, a former faculty adviser to the Student Council, who said that in her time as a faculty advisor to the Council, she had seen very few visitors. In response to the students sitting in on the meeting, the members of the Council were curious and a little uneasy, not, they say, because they were worried about outside people listening to their discussion, but because it was the first time they had multiple visitors at once. A week before this incident, a reporter for The Choate News had also attended a Student Council meeting on assignment, which was much different from the second incidence in which a group of reporters arrived.
Despite its open-door policy regarding visitors, the Council prefers that students either e-mail the Council or tell a member that they will be attending a meeting. According to Dr. Lauren Martini, one of the Council’s faculty advisers, this suggestion is mainly because students will find some meetings more interesting than others. She added, “Sometimes we’re just organizing who’s going to do Daily Grind and sometimes, we discuss the issues that the kids are bringing in from the class committee meetings. These meetings are the really interesting ones,” explained Dr. Martini.
Student Council President Tomi Lawal ’16 also clarified that visitors only need to e-mail him or a member of the Council if they will join the meeting as guests who want to work with the Council. For instance, club presidents looking to host events with the Council or suggest charities for the Daily Grind should e-mail a Student Council representative before they come to the meeting, so that event can be added to the meeting’s agenda. Lawal further explained that if one wants to listen to the Student Council meeting discussion and not actively participate in the meeting, then he or she does not have to e-mail.
With the goal of better informing the student body in mind, the Communications Committee recently created a Student Council website, which is available through the Choate Portal. This website includes weekly meeting notes, the constitution, and a discussion board for students to use.
Lawal described the site as “a venue for all Choate students to be able to use.” “I think it really helps us take initiative and focus on certain things that we hear from our classmates,” he added.
The Student Council website’s purpose is to solve a problem that has existed in the past, and even in the present: the problem is that not everyone at Choate is aware of what Student Council is working on. For example, fifth-former Naomi Chang ’17 mentioned that although she does not have a clear idea of what the Student Council is currently doing, she believes that the new website will make it easier for members of the Council to communicate with the rest of the student body.
“It’s good that they addressed the problem of transparency to try and fix it in the long run. I think it’s definitely better than it was my first two years at Choate. I don’t feel like there’s necessarily a strong connection between the students and Student Council, but at least an attempt is being made to try to lessen the gap,” explained Sofia Esquibies ’17.
