By Riley Dauber
Opinion Editor
Students gathered in William Smith Hall’s Norman James Theater on Feb. 21 because the Student Government Association was sharing news about a working proposal that would supposedly remove the desktop computers on campus and require all students to switch to digital textbooks.
It turns out that this proposal was incomplete.
Sophomore Felipe Tassara met with the Academic Resources and Services Committee after receiving an email from Chief Academic Technology Officer Shannon Sledge on Jan. 31. According to Tassara, Sledge detailed these plans in the email and said that the committee would need to discuss this decision further.
After the Committee met on Feb. 3, Tassara asked to present the information to the SGA.
According to SGA President senior Alex May, because she and the rest of the SGA executive board learned of the proposals on Feb. 20, there was little time to contact members of administration to attend the Senate meeting, so the meeting was designed to collect students’ feedback.
“[Tassara] came to a member of the executive board of the SGA with these notes and the emails we both received about the proposals and asked if he could come speak to the Senate,” Secretary of Academics junior Larissa Conte said. “I did not feel the need to double check any information since [he] had gone to this meeting and had taken charge of presenting it to the Senate.”
Following the presentation, students were able to voice their concerns and ask questions. However, many of the questions went unanswered because members of administration were not present.
“[I would have] most definitely [attended the Senate meeting] to try and avoid what happened. There was misinformation given…it seemed like the students were getting very frustrated because there wasn’t someone that could stand there and say, ‘No, this is what this is. This is how the program works,’” Director of the WC bookstore Shannon Wyble said. “I cannot promise I would have had all the answers, but the answer I would have given at that point is ‘Give me 48 hours to get you that answer.’”
Which is exactly what Wyble did. According to Tassara, Wyble emailed him, Conte, and May the following day to answer student questions and tell them that the information they had presented was false.
The spread of incorrect information not only led to mass concern amongst students for the future of the College, but could have been avoided if Wyble or another member of administration attended the initial Senate meeting to answer students’ questions.
“If an administrator had been there or there had been fact checking before the exec board decided to discuss this, it would have saved a lot of time and frustration,” senator senior Emma Macturk said.
While members of the executive board reiterated the fact that the meeting was meant to give students a platform to voice their concerns, this conversation was arguably unhelpful considering that much of the information was incorrect.
“These policies had been revealed to the SGA only one or two days before Senate, which is way too quick of a turnaround to determine the feasibility or veracity of such a policy or to have the exec board heard on those policies without bringing it before the SGA,” Macturk said. “[If] we had waited until the following week once more information was known by the Board, we might not have needed to have the discussion.”
The lack of communication and understanding of the proposal is a nuanced situation. Not only did the initial idea of the proposal spark conversation across campus, but the fact that it was mostly a lie has exposed issues with the way information is conveyed to students at WC.
Following the miscommunication, members of SGA’s executive board met with members of the administration on Feb. 28 to discuss the situation.
“My job as a volunteer on this committee…is to literally just come back and report what I have. And after hearing that, I think there was a general consensus from them…maybe we should have thought about this more,” Tassara said.
According to Conte, members of administration said that the proposals were in the “preliminary stage,” and that the information presented at the initial senate meeting was not factual.
“We were told that the proposal was not including the desktop computers in classrooms, but more talking about laptop computers with certain programs preloaded that are used for labs, in favor of students using their own personal laptops with those programs on their personal computers,” Conte said. “I was confused as to why this distinction wasn’t made earlier.”
In response to the situation, Dean and Provost Dr. Michael Harvey spoke at the Feb. 28 senate meeting to make this situation clearer. By inviting a member of the administration to the meeting, students were able to ask questions and receive correct information that helped them better understand the future of the proposals.
Harvey emphasized the fact that if the proposals were considered, they would operate as a pilot program, meaning the College would try the software on students’ personal laptops and the First Day Complete program for a short amount of time. Then they would ask for feedback from students and staff before making a decision that would impact the future of the College.
While it seems that administration is hoping to improve transparency and communication moving forward, it is disappointing to see that these issues were not solved before this outburst occurred.
The situation could have been prevented by either inviting administration members to the Feb. 21 meeting or by pushing back Tassara’s proposal. It does not seem the information was considered fully before it was presented to students, which only led to public panic and confusion.
Transparency is necessary on campus, especially when such pressing proposals are being discussed. Having all the information before relying it to students is necessary to prevent future issues.
“I always feel it’s good to be transparent,” Wyble said. “That way we can avoid what happened…As long as everybody knows exactly what’s on the table, then it’s very hard to misconstrue things or share wrong information.”
The situation also brings up the question of what information students should believe. Because students were hearing about this from peers, who had in turn learned about it from senior members of the administration, the proposals were more believable than just hearing about them through the campus’ rumor mill.
“I’m passionate about making sure students have reliable sources,” Tassara said. “But the issue that arises is when you don’t tell them the full story, and it’s coming from an administrator. You need to look at the power dynamics of that, because there’s no reason that we shouldn’t believe a senior administrator saying this stuff. We should be able to trust that.”
Arguably, this situation may create a lack of trust between administration and students. Students are supposed to depend on administration for important information; however, witholding or sharing incorrect information with committees will lead to miscommunication situations like this one.
A positive of this miscommunication is that administration is reconsidering both the desktop removal and First Day Complete programs, as well as how they communicate information to students.
They reiterated the importance of transparency in the past, but saying they are going to be transparent is different from actually taking action. One step they can take to improving transparency is building relationships between administration and students, as well as listening to students’ concerns.
If administration wants to focus on shared governance and students’ voices, they need to keep students in the loop and provide them with the accurate information.
“Keeping students updated throughout the process of making decisions, especially those that would directly impact students, is incredibly important in transparency between administration and students,” Conte said.
According to Conte, the Academic Resources and Services Committee also added four more students to the Committee to ensure that these instances of miscommunication do not occur in the future. May will also sit in on meetings to prevent future problems and display the importance of shared governance, as well as listen to students’ concerns.
“It’s a student-centered approach where students should be the ones speaking first,” May said. “After this blew up, [students] were very quick to respond. Students were emailing, and I was proud of how the student body reacted…this shows that people are willing to take a stand.”
Photo by Mia Snyder.
Photo Caption: An email from SGA on Feb. 23 revealed that the proposals regarding the First Day Complete program and the removal of the desktops were incomplete.